Dave and William have arrived!
Dave’s been bravely trying to stay awake during the day, while Will sleeps all day, and then stays up and eats all the food in the house throughout the night.
They didn’t have the most convenient connection and arrival time in Copenhagen, because they brought our cat, Bixby, with them. The animal transport regulations are tricky (with Icelandair you cannot have a layover longer than 3 hours in Iceland and then the arrival time in Denmark has to be during regular business hours). So, they arrived early in the day and staying up that first day until the evening was nearly impossible.
But only a day after their arrival we had a ton of business to take care of!
With the help of our relocation agent, Rikke, we ran a bunch of bureaucratic errands that day. We all were awarded our visas (yay!) and had to register to get our CPR numbers first.
CPR is basically like a social security number. It is the access to everything socialized in Denmark. Some obvious institutions, such as jobs, schools, libraries and healthcare; and some not so obvious, such as bank accounts, phone plans, free language courses, clubs and associations, require a CPR number.
Once we had our CPR numbers, we were asked to choose a doctor. What were our specifications? Did we want a male or a female doctor? A General Practitioner or should we go straight for a specialist? Since we don’t have little children (no need for a pediatrician) and have no ongoing serious health conditions, we went with a GP. And while no one else voiced a preference, I made sure to request a female doctor.
If we wanted to get Danish driver’s licenses, we were advised to do it quickly. If we wait, we will need to pass the “difficult to pass” driver’s test. If we do it right away, all we need to do is go to see our doctor, get certified that we’re physically and psychologically fit to drive and then go down to the municipality with two passport photos (they don’t take pictures for you at the driver’s license office, hooray!). (This does not, of course, apply to our 15 and 16 year olds, who are too young to drive according to Danish authorities. LOL)
Setting up a bank account was next. More of less the usual, with extra precautions taken to prevent money laundering. We got a proper bank account and our Danish bank cards will soon arrive in the mail.
Later, we were set up with a NemID and something called e-Boks. Once I start using this I will have a better idea if I love it or hate it. Basically, everything in Denmark is centralized and digitized. Every functional full-time resident, and citizen, of Denmark has a NemID, an online ID that logs you into e-Boks. This e-Boks is a high security (with many levels of verification) inbox, through which you can communicate with the authorities and they can communicate with you. Need to do your taxes? Send a message to your representative? Or pay your water bill? It’s all in here, including online banking. It does take a few days to be fully set-up, so I haven’t really used it yet.
NOTE: The featured image attached to this article has nothing to do with the text, really. The picture is of the local palace, which is still an actual residence for some of the members of the Danish royal family. I took it on a walk with my dogs yesterday.
Post-Amerikan 