moving to Copenhagen,Any advice?
 

I am moving to Copenhagen on december 28th with my reluctant 14 tear old son and unhappy 11 year old daughter.We live in a suburb if N.Y. were both my husband and I have lived all our lives as do all 4 grandpartents etc. Anybody have wonderful travel stories about our new Home?Thanks

Lesley,<BR>Welcome to the Ex-Pat lifestyle. It is great! I am sure that Copenhagen has a large expat community. Get plugged in fast. It will make a world of difference! I am assuming your kids will go to one of the international school. They will have an adjustment to make but will look to you for a lead...ie excited, stressed, happy. Put a good face on (even if you don't feel like it), stress the positives and they will come around.<BR>Good luck...sorry I don't have any specifics on Copenhagen!<BR>Jan

Hi<BR><BR>I've been an ex pat in 3 countries including one in Scandinavia.<BR><BR>I suggest :<BR><BR>Research Denmark, its customs, traditions etc.<BR>Make friends with other ex pats who can help you<BR>Get to know your neighbours<BR>Make friends with some Danes (easy to do)<BR>Join some Danish social events, sailing or jazz club maybe<BR>Learn some Danish<BR>Take a summer vacation in Denmark visiting Skagen, Aarhus, etc<BR>Behave conservatively, and try to &quot;blend in&quot;<BR>Don't criticise the &quot;Danish&quot; ways !<BR>Take the opportunity to visit Norway and Sweden while you are close<BR><BR><BR>Good luck<BR>Peter<BR>http://tlp.netfirms.com<BR>

Great advice from Peter! One more thing to add...Don't compare everything to the US. It gets very tiring to hear even for the other 'more seasoned' US expats. (Sometimes it is hard not to do!!)

Chin up, lesley! It will be hard and intense sometimes, but life will be all the richer for it. Tell the kids to just take one day at a time. Peter has great advice. Try to start learning Danish as soon as possible and join some clubs (especially the kids) right away. Invite neighbors and new friends over for coffee, wine, or dessert quickly and they will probably reciprocate. Don't be reluctant to ask for advice or help. Here are some websites that might help, if you don't know them already:<BR><BR>www.home8.inet.tele.dk/bonnie/awcaa/pages/links.htm<BR><BR>www.abroad.dk/Cop/KBH%20main.Kbh%20clubs%20main.htm<BR><BR>If you contact some of the contact people by e-mail now, they'll be expecting you when you arrive and you might even be able to join some activities or meet some people during the holidays.<BR><BR>Good luck!<BR>

lesley,<BR><BR>I lived there briefly and loved it. Of course my family stayed in the US and I made 4 day trips home every 6 weeks, so my situation was a little different from yours.<BR><BR>It can be a delightful country and for the most part you won't be hampered initially be not being able to speak Danish. One of the first declarations I made to my Danish work mates was that I intended to learn Danish and they said &quot;Why? There's only about 5 million of us and we speak English.&quot; Nonetheless, I tried to learn as much as I could over the 8 month period that I was there. Television makes learning Danish easier because there are several stations that broadcast in English with Danish subtitles.<BR><BR>Where will you be working? Where will you be living?

Don't worry! I absolutely LOVE Copenhagen!! Low key city, but lots to see and do. I'm not fond of sea food, but if you are the cuisine will be a joy for you. Very clean. And, like someone else said, I asked someone if they spoke English and they were offended!!! You are to EXPECT that someone speaks English and just start talking. It seems so rude and so typically America to just ASSUME, but they really all do speak english. <BR><BR>What else...dress warm!!!!

Conversational English has been required in school for many years now . . . <BR><BR>One of my favorite restaurants is the Mongolian BBQ not far off of H C Anderson Blvd at 35 Stormgade. I also like Hereford Beefstouw - near Tivoli, Jensen's B&oslash;fhus - Gr&aring;br&oslash;dre Torv, Peder Oxe - also in Gr&aring;br&oslash;dre Torv, Abelone on<BR>Magstr&aelig;de, and Nyhavns Hereford House in Nyhavn. All great steak houses. There are certainly others, but these were my favorites.<BR><BR>You don't have to like sea food to like Copenhagen. <BR>

<BR>Lesley,<BR><BR>Copenhagen is one of the best cities in Europe for Americans. Your children, and you, will love Tivoli Garden. It's an amusement park across the street from the train station, about 100 years old, after which some of Disneyland was apparently modeled. <BR><BR>As other posters mentioned everyone speaks American and loves Americans in Copenhagen, but you should really try to get some of the Danish in your mouth. IMO you should send your kids to local schools, not the international ones. Make sure to take advantage of your nordic experience by traveling through Jutland (especially), Sweden, and Norway (awesome).<BR><BR>I've lived in Holland and Germany for about 2 years each, plus shorter stints in Paris and Geneva. My web page at <BR>www.enjoy-europe.com/hte/chap22/living.htm can give you some insight into the experience you are about to embark on. <BR><BR>I would suggest that you phone the American consulate/embassy in Copenhagen ASAP, tell them what you are planning, and ask for a contact at the local American Women's Club. Then call the contact and tell her about your concerns and ask for guidance. My page at www.enjoy-europe.com/cds/denmark.htm has some details on Denmark to help you get started.<BR><BR>This will be the time of your life. It may be the wrong time to embark, but the spring and summer will be a delight.<BR><BR>John Bermont

Lesley - just consider yourself extremely fortunate. Many years ago my family (4 kids 10 - 1) spent 4 months in a small town outside of Ulm Germany. Only I spoke any German and the kids were adamant that they did not want to go! The first day as we were unpacking I watched my kids outside the window gesticulating wildly with some neighbor kids. Shortly there after my oldest came in and said &quot;Hagen has invited us to go to the circus at 2pm after he finishes his violin lessons.&quot; Needless to say, after 4 months the kids did not want to return to the US. It is still a joy to me that my youngest's first word was &quot;Danke&quot; as she accepted small tidbits from the local baker whom we visited almost daily. Your kids will do fine and you will have the experience of a liftime. How I envy you!

Winter will be a hard time to move to Denmark. There is not much daylight, but they will love the 11PM sunsets in June. They will LOVE Tivoli. The oldest working roller coaster in the world is there, so if your boy is a coaster nut, he will have something to brag about to his friends back home. Something else kids 11 and 14 will like is climbing the spiral stairs around the steeple at Our Savior's Church. One thing you might consider doing this summer after you get all settled in is to take an overnight ferry to England. The Dana Anglia sails from Esbjerg, Denmark (a 4-hour train ride from Copenhagen) to Harwich, England, which is just a short train ride to London. My kids, who were 14, 11, and 9 at the time, rated it one of the highlights of our trip to Europe in 1998. Your 11-year-old daughter will probably love seeing real castles. Rosenborg Palace in Copenhagen, Fredricksborg palace in Hillerod, and Kronborg in Helsingor are all good ones to see. In Odense you will find Hans Christian Andersen's home and a church with a real live (actually dead) saint (St. Knud) in the basement.<BR>Public transportation in and around Copenhagen is very easy to use and very safe. Bring your bicycles. Everyone there rides bicycles.

Hi Lesley<BR> How lucky you all are. Reading the other postings has brought back wonderful memories.<BR> No one has mentioned smorrebrod - Danish open-faced snadwiches.<BR> Also, I believe Tivoli has fireworks each week during the season.<BR> Roskilde, about 1/2 hr outside Copenhagen, has the Viking Ship Museum and the Cathedral.<BR> The Castle at Helsingor is the site of Shakespeare's Hamlet.<BR> During the Summer you can easily take a trip to Finland or Sweden above the Arctic Circle and watch the sun *not* go down.<BR> You will learn to pronounce &quot;rodbud med flod&quot;.<BR> Your children will be exposed to one of the most civilized societies in the world.<BR> I envy you.

OK, OK, before the coaster maniacs jump all over my case, my son (the coaster maniac) has pointed out to me that the Rutschebanen at Tivoli is not the oldest operating roller coaster in the world. It is the oldest CONTINUOUSLY operating roller coaster in the world. There is an older one in the US but it was shut down for several years in the 80's. (go to rcdb.com for all the useless roller coaster trivia you will ever want to read). Also, the Dana Anglia, the overnight ferry to England, is operated by DFDS Scandinavian Seaways (scansea.com)

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade and I certainly enjoy the expat lifestyle, but it has its drawbacks. For one thing, investigate *thoroughly* the company's financial solvency. We had friends who came over to Brussels for a company in early 2000--a company that seemed to be very successful. They have four children. In his employment contract, the company agreed to pay for all moving expenses, provide a car for business and personal use (common in Belgium for tax reasons), housing allowance, tuition at private schools for the children (about $12,000 each), and full relocation expenses back home if the man left his position after he'd been there at least a year. Everything straightforward.<BR>Well, the company folded in late 2001 and it turned out the great financial picture was no more grounded in reality than Enron's. When the man's position was terminated, he received no severance pay, the car was taken back that day (actually, it turned out the company had stopped paying insurance on the car three months earlier, even tho they continued to deduct a portion of the insurance cost from his paycheck), tuition was stopped at his kids' school, and the family (which had moved over all their household goods as they had planned in good faith to stay for several years) was left with no income. As a non-EU citizen, he was not eligible for unemployment assistance. And since he no longer had a job, the entire family's residency status became threatened. They stayed in Belgium several months trying to find another job, living off their savings, but the job market had dried up and no one was willing to go through the work permit hurdle. They used the last of their savings to pay for their belongings to be shipped home and are now living with his wife's parents. <BR>BTilke (Brussels)

Would love to hear from Lesley. How is it going?