The Journey Begins

We are an American family that has the opportunity to spend one year working and living in Kristianstad, Sweden.  Everyone at home said, "You have to start a blog so we can see your adventures!" so here it goes.

Our family has moved several times within the United States but this is our first International move.  In the few months we had to get ready, we worked hard to learn a little Swedish and to get things finished up at the house we were leaving behind. 

Packing was interesting-- what to bring in the suitcases, what to air ship, what to send by slow boat.  We wanted to bring a lot of suitcases, but then realized we'd have to #1) get those suitcases to the airport in the US and #2) Get them from the airport in Copenhagen, Denmark to Kristianstad. We wound up bringing 3 very large suitcases, 2 large suitcases and 8 carry-on items-- all bulging with stuff.  Problem #1 was taken care of by a kind friend with a minivan dropping us at the airport.  For problem #2, we decided the luggage would fit on the train better than in a rental car.



Our flights were surprisingly incident free-- no delays, no lost luggage.  The transatlantic flight was long and none of us slept very well.  The kids liked the cool touch screens and picking their own movies and games-- for the first few hours anyway.  Once we landed, we managed to get all our luggage down to the train station and catch the train out of the Copenhagen airport quite easily.  Luckily, our hotel is very close to the train station in Kristianstad so dragging the luggage over to it was not bad.  





We left our home in Virginia at noon on Wednesday and officially arrived in Sweden at 9 am in the morning on Thursday.  We wandered around just a little and then pulled the fortunately dark curtains in the hotel room and all went to sleep!