Hey guys! Sorry for yet another delay in posting.  We are currently in our first week adjusting to our new life together.  Thorsten has his new job in Switzerland and I am back at work in Ravensburg.  We both have our 45 minute commutes but his is on the Autobahn while I am zipping through country roads.

I actually enjoy my current commute to work.  It’s quite fun.  My car takes the curved roads at high speeds quite nicely :-).  I also have been spending the last few days listening to the audiobook of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy read by Stephen Fry.  It’s quite delightful and a great way to start and end my day 🙂

Anyway, I had promised to talk about what it is like to buy furniture in Germany.  Well, at first glance, everything requires assembly.  You also have to pick it up yourself.  The only way you get delivery is by paying extra.  This also includes items like Refrigerators and Washer/Dryers.  We take for granted in the States that when we buy an appliance, delivery and installation are part of the package.  Here in Germany, you are on your own.

I am not looking forward to when we buy a Washer 😦

But with furniture, it is quite fun.  For a lot of you, you have been to Ikea so you have a taste of what it is like to buy furniture in Europe.  But when Thorsten and I went….it was quite overwhelming:

As you can see by the photos….there were soooooooooooooo many people there.  We aren’t necessarily excited to go back (especially if we have a repeat experience).  But we will because we have at least two or so more items we wanted to pick up (for the guest room).

Oh! When we were buying our million little parts for our epic closet, we were still missing three pieces.  These had to be picked up around the back at the Warenausgabe – it’s a place for picking up things.  We waited almost another hour just for those damn pieces.  There was not a good organized system but there were a lot of unhappy customers.

But given a choice, we have more faith in our products from xxxLutz.

We found our couch and tv stand of epicness to be better quality in comparison to what we saw during our time at Ikea.  The two stores are not much different, but we just liked the variety we found there.

Oh and did I mention that if you throw in an extra 20 Euros after purchase, they throw in a free truck (or van) (oh and free gas!) in order to transport your new toy home? Awesome.

There is also a third store in the mix: Bohn.  We got our silverware and pots at an outrageously awesome price and we will probably get our coffee table and bookshelves there (it’s also where Thorsten’s desk and dining table came from).  They have a great range of products based on price range and I am quite excited to go back (one time we went on a Saturday and it was literally a ghost town.  w00t!)

Anyway, it has been less than a week but so far everything has been terrific!

Until Friday!

or as we say in German:

Bis Freitag!