Svanesøen

An American, a Russian, a Dane, and her Japanese grandmother share a cab on the way to the ballet…
This would be a terrible joke, but I’m the American in this scenario and the story ends with me seeing Swan Lake by the Royal Danish Ballet at the Copenhagen Opera House.
The Royal Danish Ballet is important to ballet history & I studied them in my Dance History class at uni. Before we went to Copenhagen I got excited and bought myself a ticket. My unexpected cab ride with a few strangers occurred when trying to get to the performance. I purchased my ticket from the Royal Danish Theatre (a different venue from the Opera House) website. My ticket said “Det Kongelige Teater” on it multiple times which translates to the Royal Danish Theatre. The ballet company is based at the Royal Danish Theatre. I picked up my ticket from an electronic print-your-ticket-here/billeter at the Royal Theatre. There was even a huge poster for Svanesøen (Swan Lake) on the side of the Royal Theatre. 

Mormons Who Blog

Mormons Who Blog is highlighting my blog today! Check it out here.
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First Family Vacation

We just got home from Ireland! This was our first vacation as a family of three. We’ve done weekend and day trips, and we visited family last Christmas, but we’ve never really taken our little girl with us on a sightseeing/non-holiday/new part of the world trip.  We learned a lot, but I’d call it a successful trip!

I asked you where you thought we should go, and for our first two trips we went with the top 2 votes in the “First Choice” poll: Ireland and Italy.  Thanks for your feedback! I was surprised by how many of you said we should see Greece. Don’t think we’re ignoring you! We just decided to put that one on hold until maybe next Spring? We’ll see!

It may be a little while before I write much about Ireland, so I hope these two photos suffice for a bit.  The top picture was taken from the Cliffs of Moher and the bottom picture is from  Blarney Castle (Little L is cozy on Derek’s back, in case you’re wondering).

Where Would You Go?

Hey guys!
We have a few weeks set aside for travel in the upcoming months. We’ve been talking about our destination possibilities and I thought it would be fun to get your input. Maybe you can travel vicariously through us?
Since we have at least two [separate] weeks blocked off, you get to have input for two separate trips. Hence two separate polls! Let me know what you think we absolutely must see in the first poll and your second suggestion in the… you got it, second poll.

We’re not quite this adventurous (yet!) but I love this blogger’s way of exploring NYC. Such a fun idea!

Thanks for your decision-making help!

Happy Friday!

Today I went and saw a few more apartments, this time ones with gardens. Isn’t this one lovely? I even saw a fox run through it when the relator was showing it! It seemed so British. Ha!

When Derek got home from work this evening he asked what our plans were for tomorrow, then suggested we take a train out to Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace. Because, after all, why not?
So our adventures begin!

And with that, a few pinterest images that seem applicable to our current situation:

Two Drifters source, Adventure source, Get Lost source.

On Moving

Holy crap we own so much junk! And it’s not even nice junk!

That’s my recurring thought when I try to wrap my head around packing stuff up to store (for the most part) or take with us for the next 15 months. But then, if we can live without it for 15 months, do we really need it? I’ve read a couple articles like this or this about how to decorate (something I’m not good at) while living in a small apartment (something that I’ve done). All of them preach a common goal: DE-JUNK! Welp, it is time for us to follow that advice. We’ve lived in Chicago for 3 years and have collected too much in that time.

So…want to buy an enormous TV? Need any random books?

Realistic Shantal

Sometimes when I go on a walk and leave behind mittens or something that should have been so obviously necessary Derek will get a text from “Realistic Shantal.” These texts typically look something like this:

Dear Shantal,
I know you think March means Spring and therefore warmer temperatures, but you live in Chicago. It’s still below freezing. Wear socks and gloves.
Sincerely,
Realistic Shantal

[Photo taken from the top of the Aon Center]

Realistic Shantal doesn’t often help me out when I’m still in the apartment when it comes to things like wearing my heavy coat. However, I’m hoping she’ll rear her know-it-all-ish head when it comes to this move. I need her whispering in my ear things like, you never wear that shirt, get rid of it, or that apartment will be in a questionable neighborhood, don’t rent it. For once, I think she’s already appeared when it comes to me considering keeping a journal of this big ol’ adventure. I won’t. [Unrealistic] Shantal may buy a new journal with the intention of writing in it every day, or at least every week, and have a separate one for L that she plans on writing in every time L does something new. But I know that won’t happen. I’ll get behind and overwhelmed with how much I’d like to write about the previous month(s), but it will seem like too much and I won’t write anything.  So that’s why I decided to keep a blog. Maybe it’ll help me become a better writer. Ha. Or maybe the fact that other people can see how often I post will help me post more often. Enh, possible.  Or maybe this will be just as much as a failure as a traditional journal, but with a cooler, less personal, more tech-savvy format.

Recently after a discussion about our future and how to make our lives a little happier and brighter I realized we needed to summarize and wrap-up the conversation with a take-away list of goals. My way of segue-ing into the wrap-up was, “Okay, time for some Realistic Shantal.” To which Derek responded, “Awesome, I love Realistic Shantal.” I love Realistic Shantal too. Sometimes.

Dear Realistic Shantal
I need you around the next few months, okay? Like in-my-head and around-the-corner around, not I-already-made-a-poor-choice-and-now-have-to-live-with-the-concequences around.
Thanks for your help,
Shantal

With that, Realistic Shantal just pointed out it is time to move on to accomplishing real things on my ever-growing, pre-moving to-do list…

It’s Just Unforeseeable

I have so many questions about living in a new country. Ones that wouldn’t really apply if we were just visiting. I thought about one today while I was in the diaper aisle in Target: Where and what kind of diapers will I buy? Will cloth diapers start to make more sense? What’s the norm in the UK? I’m sure we’ll figure it all out without too much difficulty, but I for one have never looked for diapers when in a foreign grocery store. To try to answer this question I just googled “UK diapers.” Nappies! They’re called nappies! I knew that. Mum! I’ll be a mum over there!  Also one of the first sites that pulls up is amazon.co.uk.  Whew – I can use Amazon still.

Derek asked me the other day if he should stock up on Old Spice deodorant in case he doesn’t like the smell of any of the deodorants over there. I told him he was being silly, that it was impractical to bring extra deodorant and that he should go British for the year.  I saw that one as an easy answer, but I know others won’t be so simple.

Then there are also big questions like what are L and I going to do all day? Are we going to make any friends? Or what about her first birthday? Is it normal to have parties for 1-year-olds? Will we have made enough friends by the end of July to even have a party? I hope so.

I realize I should, for now, worry more about all the issues that are presenting themselves as we plan the logistics of actually moving ourselves over there. Perhaps this is a lesson about living in “the now” rather than concerning myself with the unforeseeable. 

 

P.S. On making new friends. (Thank goodness for the sense of community we find and friends we make at church).