Miss Kolka

So it turns out this country isn't perfect. Although I might have praised the ultimate "motherland of maternity" as my friend calls it, the number of babies here is not always a good thing. As Pan experienced at 5. am this morning. This is why my man got up at this ungodly hour:

We live 100 meters from a very nice pool. Mr. F has shown with some impressive acrobatic moves for a 3 month old (at the time) that he likes going to the swimmingpool. So the parents thought that they could make this a weekly activity for the little one. One catch: there aren't so many classes in this swimmingpool and in the particular timeframe we were interrested in there were only 4 spots available. And they would "go on sale" this morning when the pool opened at 6 am. I did not believe Pan when he said he was going to get there a bit early, he even laughed at himself and thought he could propably joke with the other 3-4 loony toons about how crazy they were to turn up so early. At 5.10 sharp, imagine his disappointment when at least 60, perhaps 100 people were lying there all around, on the floor waiting for the sale to begin. Men, women and children, yes small children because some people turned up MANY hours earlier, to wait in queue, in the middle of the night, WITH THEIR BABIES!

Ok, we love our child, but so desperate for babyswimming we are not! We will just have to train Mr. F ourselves (and you'll see, he'll be a swimming olympic champion)

So we are settled in our Mansion here in Copenhagen city. Queen Margrethe would be envious, well that is if she had lived in the 30 squaremeters in Paris before- on second thought, she has probably never lived in anything smaller that 1000 squaremeters if you dont count "lousy" hotel suites abroad. Our appartment is actually so big that it makes sense to have 2 telephones in it. Our appartment is so big that I can ignore the little man's cries if I want to (but who says I do?). Our appartment is so big that sometimes I just decide to take a walk, inside. Ok, I'll stop here.

Have to say that I have been very pleasently surprised by the Danes. Sometimes just plain surprised by their easy-going-ness. LIke the time we went to register at city hall. It was warm and alot of people waiting. The men working there were wearing shorts (!) but, why not? I noticed many mums with their young children but also many dads. Just before us, a woman with her child has her number coming up. At the same time her child is hungry. No problem. She just wips out her boob, latches the baby on and goes to the man at the desk to get her business done. Where else in the world would you see that? Certainly not in France!

Actually there are babies EVERYWHERE. A friend we met the other day who is working here for a few months actually said it, he said he didnt feel right somehow with ONLY a backpack, the baby was missing. To fit in you actually have to have a pram or a babybjorn (bags where you hang the baby on you). And Mr. F fits right in, with his new special bicycle unit!

In comparison with the sometimes (who am I kidding? all-the-time I shoud say) heavy beaurocratical world of France, basic registration seems pretty easy. Here are a few examples:

° I ordered my new cell number online and got it sent in the mail. If I run out of credit, they automatically charge the phone and let me know with a text.

° When asked if we had recieved any childcare benefits from France, we said no because our income had been too high. They asked if we had any papers about that, but we didnt. So they decided to trust us and actually went out of their way to make sure we got an earlier payment because a mistake had been made in the paperwork. We hadn't even asked for the correction, but how nice are they???

° When making a doctor's appointment they kindly ask you to do so on their website (of a private practice) and if you have any question, send an email and they will quickly reply to you. I was amazed when we took Mr. F to his first appointment and Pan laughed hard when we came out and I said we had forgotten to pay, or well at least sign some papers. Nono, everything was taken care of, directly with the health insurance card.

So my first impressions are good. It has even been sunny. We have met people in the park, drinking beer listening to some chillout music on a sunday afternoon. Its working out and somewhere in the back of my mind I remember the shouting and the stress vaguely, how very far the crazy world of France 24 seems right now..

or sort of....

and its nice to be here.

Miss Kolka has found the internet again after some crazy days - moving to the city of the happy people, then flying with Pan and Mr.F to the Homeland for some well-deserved vacation. Who would have thought we would get SO nice weather the first days of our trip? That's Iceland for you, always surprising. As is Mr. F actually. Mister crying-it-aloud when its time to go to bed. OUff it has been tough these last few days, but hey who can blame him? The little man has gone through alot: the stress of his parent when they moved away from a clean appartamant (not appreciated enough by the landlord though I must say) to a dirty one (but HUGE) in Copenhagen, so two days went into some late "spring" cleaning of the new flat. Thankfully the couple from New Monte Carlo were there to help us. We also had some blissful moments of buying new things followed by the less-blissful ones, the ones when you calculate all the bills TOGETHER.

Still need a new TV. Thats a very important buy so we have to think real good about it.And I have alot to say about my first impressions of the happy city, but that will have to wait.

Now its vacation time, enjoying the sunshine, friends and family and welcoming Pan's parents, coming all the way from New Monte Carlo tomorrow.
Its going to be, wait for it, Legendary!

He must have read my blog before making that speech! What was the likelyhood of that happening?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8112821.stm

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