A Year of Moves

We have had an exciting year - confusing to everybody including ourselves.
We moved geographically, made serious career moves and moved into the long line of "mortgage owers".
- this was Rob and Hild's 2001 -

Already before we moved into the new millennium Rob made the move from Perth to Copenhagen. It took him two years to follow Hild. While we celebrated Christmas and New Year 2000/01 our boxes were making their way from Australia to Denmark. It still isn't clear what happened but our saving on moving costs did end in quite a few borken pieces (thank goodness we don't own anything of value).

We were more careful and spending-happy when shipping our boxes from Copenhagen to Ithaca. Professional packers made sure that nothing at all broke across the Atlantic. There was serious danger of things breaking as we were trying to open the crate on the docks in Newark to retrieve our boxes, load our truck and drive north to Ithaca. Still nothing broken we passed through IKEA and loaded up a couple of trolleys of stuff for the flat (thank goodness for multinationals). (Read more about that trip here)

Halfway through the year we decided to move 500 meters from our rented flat over to a townhouse - on the hottest day of the summer (35°C). We even bought the house. Not that we own it or anything. Hild is still trying to decide which brick it is we actually own. Meanwhile, Rob is nursing his newly acquired bald spot, putting it down to obtaining a mortgage at the ripe old age of 38.

Without any planning ahead Rob and Hild both took a career-step to the left - or right depending on which way you look at it.

Rob left the lab bench at Murdoch University to become an intellectual property specialist at Cornell University. While he searches the patent databases of the world, we are trying to decide whether he is an Intellectual property-specialist or an Intellectual-Property specialist.

Hild decided to give agricultural policy and research a rest and live off Rob for a while. Rob had, after all, planned to live off her in Copenhagen - until the US called. Hild couldn't stand baking cookies and painting white picket fences for too long. She picked up database and web page design in the same office as Rob. So from being on opposite ends of the world we were nearly sharing desks. While Hild juggles her databases, we are trying to decide whether she is a Web Master or a Web Mistress - a title completely inappropriate in this country.

Moving countries nearly always means learning a new bureaucracy, insurance systems, visa system, tax system, banking system, health care system or lack of such. This time we have added the complications by learning-by-trying the home-owning and mortgage systems. To us it is more a fun research experiment than an attempt at the "S-word" (settling down)\.

To most people moving money between countries is a lucrative business - if you pay attention to exchange rates. We claim we were rushed and didn't have a chance to play the arbitration game ("If you want that mortgage, you'll need a deposit the size of Texas!"). As it happens, we sold Australian dollars to buy Danish kroner just as the Aussie went down the drains. Then we sold our last few Aussies to buy US dollars the day before the Yank dollar went for a tumble. Typical.

Now there is no uncertainty anymore - all our money is collected in the largest economy in the world, an economy now officially in recession (it wasn't our fault - really it wasn't!).

After an extended Thanksgiving holiday with Kristin, Alvaro, Erik and Sigbjørn (see more here) and pre-holiday celebrations in Boston with Erik, Ithaca will host us for Christmas and New Year. After that Hild will hit the job market, while Rob returns ot the swiftt office - searching those patents...

Rob and Hild's "bit of the web"

A Year of Moves