4 posts tagged “moving”
woohoo, internet was restored!
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.....and chaos was restored!
Much happened in the meantime, some of it was reported over here on Panemma's blog.. (photos are here).
The short version is:
- packed my home into boxes,
- new job, too many things happening at the same time, meetings and meetings and clunky old computer programs that can't be changed because they're on a national level decided by some politician so they can measure the productivity of universities..
- Panemma came to visit on her birthday... and then left on my birthday... during the week she was here, we visited:
- Denmarks highest point (all of 170.98 m above sea level - that's 560.96 feet to you foot fetishists)
- Den gamle by = the old town (open air museum of old houses)
- J & H, some of my bestest friends,
- a newborn foal who was put out on grass for the first time (the grass wasn't for him, but he had to go outside with
his mom)
- the iron age market with falconers... and three sp. of birds! (cool), some armoured fighters, lots of craftmanship,
iron age food and schtuff!
- one of the worlds longest bridges across the baltic sea from Funen to Zealand.
- Viking ship museum
- Copenhagen in general,
- Tivoli in particular
- oh, and we saw the new Indiana Jones movie on opening night
- Waved goodbye to Panemma, packed the cats and went back to my old apartment
- took down the lamps and curtains and packed the last bits.
- MOVED
- screwed the bed together and a closet before I conked out.
..... and got back to work for the next row of meetings in the homepage committee.
The cats are staying with my mum this week, so tomorrow I go back, clean the flat hand in keys on monday and drive the cats back here....
I will get around to getting up to date with everybody's blogs eventually.... but there are a few things that need screws screwed in and boxes that need emptying etc... so have patience for a bit longer.
That's the view from my new office. My department is in an old hospital. The old brick buildings are used for the university now, but it's protected as heritage, so they can't change even the colors on the walls - the class rooms still go by "the 16-bed room". Our department actually lies in the Dr's residences... so there are old bathtubs in the bathrooms!! and a kitchen on each floor - and a little garden out back with magnolia trees.
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Me and the cats are busy packing AGAIN... I get a bit depressed thinking about how much time I spent painting, hanging up curtains and lamps, figuring out the best way to fit my life into this space... and now I have to do it all over again... and just for a year. My job is a one year contract (somebody else's maternity leave). If all works out and they get more money, they might want to keep me... but so far I only know that I'll stay for one year... The new place is painted and comes with curtains, so it isn't really that bad...
Just packing and moving is a drag.
The cat's help me though:
After a bit of frenetic searching I have a home on the outskirts of Copenhagen... about twice the price of my old home, but available immediately.. It's the bottom half of a house and the landlady lives upstairs. I get the garden... which is right down to the beach... Looks fantastic... my aunt started talking about flooding immediately.. I kinda hadn't thought of that. But who cares, it's for one year. Hopefully it won't flood this year.
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So, still haven't moved my stuff over... haven't even packed it all up yet... but working on it. There's no internet yet... and I sleep on an inflated mattress, but I don't have to commute 3-4 hours each way.
The cats were NOT amused with their first encounter with new home. Kitty stayed in the transport crate until next morning.. I guess she finally gave up on waiting in there for me to take her back home.
Urracá was a bit nervous the first day, but after that he's been running all over the empty house, even trying to run UP the brick walls...
Kitty managed to get herself into the fireplace... white cat.. black ashes... footprints all over... fantastic!
She is self cleaning fortunately... and I have to think of some way of blocking that because she seemed to have enjoyed it way too much..
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Now back to packing boxes again!
Oh, but while I am too busy, please visit two of my bestest friends from Panama who have both recently started blogging. They are both biologists and take fantastic pictures of wildlife. One is Panemma, and the other is Lyra.
Hi everybody, sorry about the long silence, I had things to do.
We made it to Denmark, the cats and me. It was really sad to say goodbye to everybody in Panama. The cats are nervous little buggers, so I was not very happy to hand them in to the airline people, but that's the only way to do it and at least they had each other's company down in the luggage compartment. I hate that they are considered luggage and get tagged like any other suitcase...
I had 5 hours in transit in Atlanta, where they gave me the cats. I had been told that there was a pet-room where you could sit with them, let them out give them food and water, clean the crates etc... I should just ask for it... so I went over to the pet check-in desk and asked and they said no there was no such room, I should just check the cats in with them, would I please remove them from the cages so the homeland security guy could swab the insides for bomb-substances? (!!???) This was in a huge hall with passengers lugging luggage around in all directions, and any number of weird exits.... I refused. I said I'd do it if he provided a closed room. Mr. homeland security got pissed off... I offered to hold the cats down inside the box while he swabbed aound them... no that wouldn't do, cats had to be removed from crates so that he could swab.... question of national security... level orange alert.. resistance is useless! I told him I wasn't going to check the cats in just yet since I had five hours and he told me I couldn't sneak out of the swabbing thing... so we went and sat in a corner where I changed their doggie training pads... they were not a pretty sight after the first flight.I tried to cheer the kitties up a bit and offered them food and water. They would have nothing of it. Luckily... the homeland security guys changed and the next one was a sweetie who was chatting with all the cats and dogs that got checked in.. and he only swabbed the outside of the crates... so I checked them in with him and there was no problem.
In copenhagen, I waited an hour for the cats at the luggage claim... I asked the guys on the little electric cars that drive all the funny luggage around if it was normal to wait that long. They said to go and talk to the airport service about lost luggage (MY CATS!) take a number, stand in line... then the girl at the counter phoned around and quickly found out that they had been sent over to the cargo terminal and I got them back 10 minutes later... Kitty yelled a loud MIAO when she saw me. They both looked better than after the first flight, they were alert and active. So happy to see me.
We went through customs, where we had another minor panic, when I couldn't find the chip on Urracá - The Panamanian vets don't have chip readers, so all the paperwork was done with me telling them what the chip number was, but the chip hasn't actually been read since it was put in... so I started imagining that it had disappeared somehow. In the end I found it sitting behind his front leg... It was injected between his shoulderblades, so it must have wandered a bit....
Finally we got out and my best friend Jannie, my uncle Rasmus and cousin Bue were all waiting for me and we drove off home. The cats immediately liked the new apartment. They got out of the crates and checked out the whole place and decided they liked it. They've needed loads of petting though and sleep glued to me so I can barely move with one cat on either side, but that may also be because it is really cold for them.
Anyway, just letting you know... It's a bit weird to be back... strange things happened to fashion around here while I was away... I'll try to take pictures. I LOVE my new home, lads of windows and light, garden, nature trail around... fantastic.
