ready. set. go.

We are three weeks into our stay here in Reykjavik, which equals halfway, and Boston already seems like a bit of a blur, because everything is so different here (we layer kids in clothes, we eat differently,  we are busy exploring because we are not staying long, and we don't have our usual backdrop of nearby friends and toys and stuff to rely on in the same way.) I want to get to all that, but I need to finish Boston, so here goes.

A huge blue container arrived Tuesday morning with a driver, who was swearing over all the winding and one-way streets in our neighborhood. This is the first time for us to move with this much stuff. When we moved to Vienna, we were able to get 10 boxes into the container Bjarni's boss was already shipping. I think the most common thing when you ship this much stuff is to have movers come and pack and load everything for you, but we were able to get a much better deal if we packed everything ourselves, so in order to save money we decided to do that. The container was standing in our parking lot for three days, which gave us time to load everything and make the important inventory lists that are necessary to pass Danish customs. During those three days Silja went to preschool and Bjarni and packed and packed. Somehow it's always surprising how long it all takes. The last night some of Bjarni's colleagues came to load all the heavy furniture and helpful friends came afterwards for pizza and helped with the last boxes. I'm so thankful for all the help we had in the end.
The only real mishap was the sweet fresh-out of college girl, who came to pick up our couch and broke her rear window in her car, when she slammed the trunk lid down on the frame of the couch. It wasn't our fault, but we felt soo extremely bad for her.
When we saw the container off three days later, it was most of all hoping we'd done everything right: Making the lists according to the regulations, packing everything rightly so it wouldn't get thrown around or break. It's not because what we own is very valuable (and then actually you realize it kind of is, when you make those lists and add everything together..), but it's our home and it felt both bizarre and comforting we could pack "home" in a container and sent it off on it's own travel and wait for it to arrive in our new city. When the driver had loaded the container on the truck I wanted to run down with Jonas to Silja and Bjarni who was already on the parking lot, and get a picture with all four of us in front of it, but the driver was in a hurry and probably already annoyed by our neighborhood as previous driver, so he quickly took off and Bjarni and I looked at each other and were like "Yikes, that was that!"
We'd said goodbye and "see you" to all our sweet friends. I was a little bit of a mess a Silja's preschool, but they have been so amazing and I (and she obviously) will really miss them. We went to a hotel the last two nights and cleaned the apartment, enjoyed the sun and the pool and Mexican food (which by the way is also how we started..). We managed to get to the airport with 5 suitcases, a car seat, a double stroller and return our rental car, and very excited about Iceland.
.....
When our plane touched ground a little more than two years ago in Logan International Airport in Boston Bjarni and I were squeezing each others hands, so excited to see what this place had in store for us. I'm not sure what I and we will remember most from this time -- it will probably settle over time. But I do know that I will always be cheering a loud and clear GO! if others I know ever consider moving to Boston or the US for that matter, whether for a long or a short time.

(Last waving goodbye to Silja at her Boston preschool with her favorite teacher Mimi)

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