vivi torontali

Over the past six months, my family has worked tirelessly to pack 25 years of life in America into nine checked bags and 43 moving boxes. Throughout the years, my parents built a tight-knit family and a home in the outskirts of Boston. My personal history starts before I was born, when my parents decided to leave their life in Budapest behind. They immigrated to the US in 2000 and were never able to obtain any sort of legality. When Trump won his second term in November 2024, my mom, dad, sister and I knew we would never be safe in America. We feared our own government— my parents carried their non-deportation order papers around everywhere they went, and we worried about losing our much-needed access to healthcare. So, we decided to take advantage of our Hungarian citizenship and move to Denmark, where we’d be able to establish a peaceful and healthy life with a bit of time and a lot of effort. For me, Trump winning was a blessing in disguise, and I never thought I’d say that. 

Since we started planning and packing, we’ve been seeing signs from above every day. We grew more and more optimistic about our future, and more resentful of America. That being said, there’s a lot of grief for those we left behind. Our family dog, Coco, passed away in February of 2024. We buried him in our backyard with colorful painted rocks and some fake flowers we knew would never wilt. And yes, it was very difficult to dig a grave in February. Coco was not cut out to re-establish himself in a new country since he was very attached to his home, environment, and routines. Not long after he died, we adopted a black mini-mini dachshund named Nudli. Nudli is much more adaptable– all he needs is his family around him and access to his prescription food. When we left our house for the last time, we said a tearful goodbye to Coco. We knew we had to let him go. 

Moving to Denmark is easier for me than for the rest of my family. I’m a recent college graduate with plenty of experience learning new languages and living in different places. I studied in Burlington, Vermont for four years, I lived in Ireland for a semester and then New Zealand the next semester. I’ve always wanted to move to Europe, but I always worried that it would mean I’d leave my family behind in the States. After a 170 day streak on Duolingo, I’d like to think I’m pretty good at Danish. Though, I bet if any Danish person were to talk to me, I’d be humbled immediately. 

For the rest of my family, it’s a little harder. My father, Zsolt, was a plasterer, pulling off long and physically demanding construction projects and getting up at five in the morning every day, sometimes seven days a week. He had a carpel tunnel surgery, a rotator cuff surgery, and most recently, an open heart surgery. We knew this kind of job wasn’t sustainable for his health, but he was the one that actually had to suffer through it all. My mother, Katalin, had even more surgeries, not that it’s a contest. Three rotator cuff surgeries and the gnarliest foot injury you’ve ever seen, among other debilitating health conditions. She broke her foot the long way after trying to stop her electric bike on the edge of a curb. After 2 foot surgeries, it’s worse than ever. The only pain medication that worked for her in the hospital was morphine, which was only determined after trying 17 other medications that did absolutely nothing. She was a housekeeper. If you’ve ever tried scrubbing, dusting and mopping your own living space, you would know how much of a workout it can be. Now try cleaning a whole house from floor to ceiling every day with a torn rotator cuff, a broken foot, asthma and zero sleep, all simultaneously. My mother has cleaned some atrocious spaces, and it has taken a huge toll on her. I’m very proud to say that both my parents are now officially unemployed.

My sister, Lilla, would have a relatively easy time in Denmark if she weren’t staying in Massachusetts for another year. She is coming with us for two weeks, using all of her paid vacation days to do so. She’s an admissions counselor at her alma mater, where she’s also doing her Master’s degree for free. Once she graduates in May of 2026, she’s coming back to Denmark permanently. She’s the one that did most of the logistical research and reading of the fine-print. It’s more reading than any of the rest of us can do without getting really confused or straight up falling asleep. She has to live in a dinky little dorm room with a barely accessible kitchen and no meal plan for the summer. I know well what it’s like to live in such harsh conditions– I did my time suffering in dorm rooms in the past four years. Lilla got out of it for the most part during undergrad: she got lucky with her roommates when she had them and got fed by our extended family when she studied abroad in Budapest.

It took us from December 2024 to May 2025 to plan and execute everything to make sure the transition went smoothly. We hired a relocation company to help us with applications, apartment hunting, and answering questions. It was expensive, but it made our lives so much easier during this process. We would not have been able to do all of this ourselves. We needed to prove to the Danish government that we have sufficient funds to be able to support ourselves for a year without a job, so that we’re not burdens on the country. We scraped by with the right amount of money because my mom sold most of what we owned on Facebook Marketplace, we had some help from our friends, and my sister was able to allocate some of her funds to us since she isn’t applying for residency for another year.

Everything we did was leading up to May 26th, when our plane would depart from Boston’s Logan International Airport. We woke up pretty early in the morning and started packing our last items. We’d pack into a suitcase and then weigh it to make sure it was below the 23kg/50lb weight limit, then when it was too much we’d unpack some things and try again. We sent 43 moving boxes on a cargo ship on April 22nd, when I was still in college. Luckily, I had finished my Capstone by then (I made an album, stream it here), so I didn’t need any of my guitars or recording equipment. However, there were a lot of items left over in my dorm that I needed to keep with me for the time being, and it caused a bit of overflow in my weight and space capacity. We ended up with 9 checked bags, 4 carry-ons, 3 personal items, and the dog in a carrier. 

After we said our tearful goodbye to Coco, we drove to our friend Dave’s house where we had some lunch, and then he took us out to the airport. Dave bought both of my parents’ cars. My mom had a white hybrid Honda CRV, and my dad had a Honda Ridgeline truck. They were both about four years old, and when Dave bought them, he lent us his two old cars for the rest of our time in the US. One was a 25 year old Toyota Camry that made all kinds of noises, and the other was a 19 year old, very musty Toyota Sienna minivan with over 200,000 miles on it. When I was in Vermont, my parents would come get me every two weekends. It’s a three hour drive one way, and we knew these old cars would not make it up and down the Green Mountains in one piece. We would borrow my sister’s brand new Toyota Corolla and put thousands of miles on it for her as a thank-you. 

Our plane took off at 6:40pm, and by then Nudli’s sleeping medication kicked in and he was snoozing peacefully. As the plane took off the ground, my entire family was in tears, myself included. In that moment, we grieved for all we left behind. My mom grieved for her friends, her favorite parks and coastal towns. My dad grieved for his friends as well, whom he’d talk to for hours whenever they’d call. My sister grieved for her childhood, and for the fact that she’ll be coming back alone. I grieved for my hometown, my independence in Burlington, and my best friends. We all grieved for those we love who couldn’t come with us. So many people, routines and moments of beauty, part of a life we built that we will never come back to.

We had a two hour layover in Amsterdam and then another hour long flight from there to Copenhagen. When we finally landed, we celebrated in our seats. At that point, my mom had stayed up for about 48 hours. Nudli was the one that got the most sleep out of all of us. I wonder if he knows how lucky he is. When we got to our hotel, I started to notice things that made it less than ideal. The rooms were incredibly small, the bathroom floor floods completely when we shower, hair dryers are only sold to those who booked more expensive rooms, and a single load of laundry takes 4 hours to wash and dry.

We slept for twelve hours that first night, from 7pm to 7am. Early the next morning, we had an appointment in which we’d get registered as EU residents. By noon on day one, we were all legally living in Denmark. By day two, so was the dog. If only that were the case in America all those years ago, so much more would have gone right. A couple of days have passed since we arrived in Copenhagen, and there’s so much we have done since then. We’ve spent most of our time being tourists and getting to know the place, which is something I’m not going to spend hours writing about. I would love to share every little detail of my new life, but I would much rather focus on what I make of it all and how Denmark accepts me both as a European and an American. Stay tuned, let me know what you think of this blog, and if you’re in America, stay safe.