Dan

Spring time in Bucharest. :)

View from our apartment at midnight.

Here are some pictures from the Christmas vacation at the in-laws':



Adi is a big DIY-man in the kitchen, also making his own sausages and other meats. Smoking it, drying it and so on as needed. He is quite good at it too. And he makes the best Salata de beuf. (image 5+6 above) :)

Christmas is here again. This year we are spending it with my wife's family in her mom's house in a village outside of Buzău. We will drive there tomorrow after work; hopefully we can get away a bit earlier than normal. During the evening we will have some food (vegetarian, no dairy, because they are fasting) and exchange presents. Thursday morning we go to church and attend the morning sermon. After that the feast begins with everything your heart desires of meats, salads, sweets and other goodies. We are staying until the 28th, so that includes the celebration of my birthday on the 27th, including also my mother in law in the celebration since she has her birthday on the 29th.

We don't have any fixed plans for new year's eve. Most likely we will spend it at home and enjoy a great dinner and a bottle of wine an the fireworks at midnight. We have a pretty good view over a lot of houses and apartment blocks.

Work has been pretty boring these days. The people I normally work with in the organization are located in other countries, where they have mandatory vacation this week and next. But I shouldn't complain. I guess boring is better than crazy busy for some days. :)

OMG! It's been more than a year since I last updated my English blog. I do keep a Danish blog also, and tend to favor that one with updates for my family. I really need to get better at also writing here for all my non-Danish speaking friends. I do read all of your livejournals, and keep updated on what goes on in your lives. Thanks for not removing me from your friend lists. :)

So, what happened over the last year....?

Well, chronologically it would be something like this:

We became godparents of a little boy born to a couple that is a friend of the family. His name is Tudor Eric and rather unusually he has blond hair and blue eyes. I swear I wasn't involved! We recently went to his first birthday where this picture was made:

We went to Denmark last year for Christmas, celebrating it with my family. We take turns with our families every other year. This year we will be in Romania.

In March I got to go to Vienna with work to participate in a business meeting with some colleagues.

In June my wife and I went on a week's vacation to Malta. Great weather, hotel and conditions in general, but boring island. We had a wonderful and relaxing time.

In August my parents came to Bucharest and paid us a visit. We took then around the city and had a good time.

In September we went to Denmark for our 1 year wedding anniversary and hung out with family and did a bit of touristing too. Here we are at the very top of Denmark, where the two seas Kattegat and Skagerak meet:

That's my year in a nutshell. Let me know if you'd like me to elaborat on any of the topics. :)

During the year we also moved to a new apartment. It's  a 3-room apartment, close to the place we lived before. People keep referring to the 3rd room as the "baby-room", I don't know why... No baby on the way - not yet anyway.

I also got to meet a lot of new cool people. I am slowly getting a bit involved in the expat community here in Bucharest. It's something I hope will bring a wider group of friends and acquaintances.

Yesterday I forgot to post the royalty bit that I advertised in the headline...

So here it is:



Being a registered ex-pat with the Danish embassy in Bucharest is pretty cool. :)

Say hi to Mr. and Mrs. Dan Larsen:





We had a wonderful wedding on September 8th. Many from my family visited from Denmark and all our guests enjoyed themselves and all said that it was very elegant and well-planned. Thanks to mother-in-law for all the great help!

For our honeymoon we went to Rome for a week. We enjoyed a wonderful week with great weather and lots of sightseeing and relaxation.

40 C / 104 F in the shade is very hot.

Nivea, thanks for the postcard. :)

Today is a lazy Sunday. It was sunny and scorching outside, but now it's raining with lightning and thunder. Quite cosy, actually. :) It's still 30 degrees C, so I'm feeling pretty hot.

Life's good in Romania. Sure, sometimes I feel like I don't get anything, but I think that's a normal thing. Mostly I am happy and content with my life here - plus I have the most wonderful woman at my side. The whole reason I moved here in the first place. Our wedding is only 3.5 months away now. :)

In a couple of weeks we are flying to Denmark to visit family and attend my sister's wedding. That will give us a little pre-taste of what it will be like when we tie the knot. :)

Still alive. In Romania. All well. Job ok. No snow yet. I'm a bad blogger.




;)

Here is Cookie - the newest member of our family. :)

It's a lazy Sunday afternoon in Bucharest. The weather is really lovely. It is just right for going to the park and playing cards, so that is what we are going to do in a little while.

Life is going well. This week seems to have passed so fast. It is like it was just yesterday that it was Monday morning and we were going to work. It is really good to be working in the same company because you get to go to and from work together. It is also a good feeling to know that your love is right nearby all the time. Even if we don't get to see eachother so much it is nice to know that Dani is close.

Speaking of work, I think it is going well. I am starting to know my colleagues and feel that I have been received in good spirit.Regardig the work itself, I can still feel a bit lost sometimes, but generally I think that I am starting to grasp the content better. And after all I have only had 1.5 months of active work time even though I started July 1st, because of vacations in August. Next weekend there is a big company wide picnic, where all 600+ employees are invited to a club in a park. There will be sports activities and games and entertainment all day and food and prizes etc. It's from 11 to 11 so a rather long day, but we will go there and see how it is.

I have a picture of the apartment that I just made with the old digital camera we have. The quality is not optimal, but you get the idea. The picture shows our newly installed kitchen, that we are both very happy with.

The normal days have started here now, with both me and Dani starting work this week. As much as I loved the vacation and not having any obligations, I think it is good to have some structure in the days again. Sure, I prefer to relax some more, but that won't bring bread on the table. :)

My colleagues have been nice to me. It's a bit difficult in the beginning, when I don't know them and they don't know me, but I felt today already that it was a bit better than yesterday. Of course it is also a matter of me taking contact, as I am the new "kid on the block", plus I am in fact their boss with authority to take action against them, should it come to extremes. But it is going well, I think.

I'd like to post pictures, but I can't. My digital camera is broken, and I need to get it fixed somewhere. We took pictures with disposable cameras in Greece and also around the house and other places, so I just need to wait until we get them developed before I can put anything here.

Weather has been good the last days with sun and around 25 degrees. Last week we had some colder weather with only around 20 and down to 13 at night and some rain.

Yes, I'm still alive. :)

I am now living in Romania. If you want my new address, please let me know by email, so I can send it to you. I also have a new mobile phone number.

The long drive to get here wasn't that bad. I am very glad that I divided it into 4 parts. It gave me time to rest and recharge between stints. The hotels I stayed in along the way (booked in advance) were very nice and centrally located in the cities. That made it easy to find places to eat (McDonald's in Dortmund and a local cafe in Salzburg). The trip across the Alps made me a bit sick - at least I am guessing that altitude was the cause of my nausea. I experienced it again when driving in mountains in Romania. Getting into Romania posed no problem at all. All the paperwork that had preceded my departure was to no avail, as the officer at the border just looked at my passport, glanced at the car and then stamped the passport and waved me through... In Romania I met up with Dani, and we went together the last bit across Romania to Bucharest. It took two days because I wasn't feeling well, and we got a bit off course on the second day... :)

The first week of living here was basically just a matter of getting settled in. We also went to visit Dani's mum and step dad. They are very nice people, and I like them a lot - and I hear that they like me too, so that is all good. :)

Last week we went to Olympic Beach in Greece for a week of relaxation and sunbathing. Of course I overdid it and got a nasty burn that is now peeling like a bad case of dandruff... But the trip was great and now that we are back in Bucharest we can start looking forward to starting work next week. Dani has also been hired by HP, which is very cool. It means we will have the same hours and can go to work together on the tram. She will be in a completely different department though, so we won't be dealing with each other directly at work. Which is probably good, in a way... Could be cool, tho.

Today I opened a bank account here, so I am starting to feel more and more integrated... well, at least more and more like this is home. Speaking of home, I like our apartment. It needs a bit of work (paint, floors) but the location and layout of the place is great. We have ordered a new kitchen to be fitted in the next weeks. A guy will come tomorrow and measure the room and make a sketch of the possible layout. This is the kitchen we have ordered (click the image to enlarge). We will have to paint the walls before they come to fit it, so that is planned for this week. Today, tomorrow I guess... :)

Okay, time to wrap this up. If you are curious and have questions, just post away. :D

So, just one day left till I leave Denmark and head for Romania Monday morning.

I had invited the family out to dinner tonight. It was very nice. We went to a place called Bone's, which is very American inspired and serving ribs and big steaks and burgers. Afterwards we all came back here to my parents for coffee on the porch. Weather has been great today. Well, not only today, but for a month+. Lovely.

Tomorrow I will hand over the apartment keys to the new owners at noon. In the afternoon dad will help me pack the car and make it ready for me to leave Monday morning. I can't wait to get going.

First stop is Dortmund, Monday night.

Tuesday I drive to Salzburg, Austria and stay over night.

Wednesday crossing Austria and Hungary and arriving in Oradea, Romania, where I will meet Dani.

Thursday we drive the last stretch to Bucharest.

I hope I won't get stuck in customs at the borders.. especially the last one into Romania. HP as supplied me with a lot of papers, that should help, but you never know if the border patrol guy is in a bad mood. :) I'll bring a nice bunch of Euros too...

The apartment is emtying out.

My family has just been here to take what they wanted, so that cleared a bit of the stuff away. Most of the other stuff I want to bring, I already packed in boxes, so that is more or less out of the way as well.

And I just sold my bed 10 minutes ago through an online ad. Bedroom looks very empty now. And it kinda echoes when I type. lol :)

Gotta borrow mom and dad's foldout guest bed to sleep on the last week before I move to their place.

Workwise I think things are going okay. I'll be in Copenhagen Thursday and Friday, leaving here Wednesday afternoon. I'll be on vacation from work from Aug 07 and the rest of the month. Aug 07 is also the day I'll say goodbye to Denmark and head South.

Dani and I are going on a week vacation to Greece when I get there. Just to relax and think about absolutely nothing but eachother. I'm looking very much forward to that!

I have decided to leave Denmark August 7th. I'll make the trip in 4 legs. First to Dortmund, Germany. Then to Salzburg, Austria. Then to Arad, Romania where I will meet up with Dani, and after a night we will drive to Bucharest together. Each leg will be around 8 hours drive. You might say that it sounds like very little, but I think it is better, both for my health and the traffic safety. :)

I'm keeping myself busy with packing, sorting and tossing out these days. 4 moving boxes inside the car with my things and the tvs, computers etc. next to those. On the roof I will have a roofbox, where I plan to keep my clothes and other small things that will fit.

Work is going well, although it sometimes seems like I have so much training to do - online, self-paced courses, that if I do those, I won't have time for the normal work tasks I get. Good news is that I will now be able to work from home. I got the remote access set up today, so I will work from home the rest of this week. That will save me about 2.5 hours of driving each day.

All is good with the little nephew. :)

I have sold my apartment! Yay! I was contacted by the real estate agent Friday with the news that the people that had been to look at it the day before, wanted to buy it. I had left a note on the table for them, that if they were interested my furniture was for sale as well. And they want to have some of that as well... and if they got it as part of the deal, they would pay the full price I had demanded for the apartment. I of course agreed, as my furniture isn't that valuable anyway. :) The date for take-over is August 15th, which suits me perfectly.

My nephew is getting better day by day. He is now eating normally and is much more alert. My sister will probably get to take him home tomorrow. His initial weight was 3150 grammes, not 3450, and he was 52 centimeters.