So - talk about an adventure tonight. With our shipment and airfreight arriving soon, we realized we needed somewhere to put all of our clothes. For those of you familiar with German apartments, we don't have any closets in the entire place (correction, there is a small closet in the bathroom for linens). We also don't have any lights - they take these with them when they leave. Not the lightbulb, but the whole light fixture right off the ceilings, walls, bathrooms, etc. Just wires hanging out from all over.
So ikea it was to buy a Kleiderschrank (clothes closet) to put in our bedroom, 7 lights for the house, and an island for our kitchen, plus two stools. Sidenote on the kitchen - like other things in German housing, we were lucky to find a kitchen that comes with the rental apartment. Usually they take these too which includes the counters, sink, appliances, cabinets, you name it. Just pipes and wires dudes is what you get, plus some walls.
We were IKEA rock stars. We left at 5:30 with me on a conference call to California that latest halfway through the store. As the stores close at 8, and I mean you must be checked out and gone by then, we didn't have much time to waste! In this time, we successfully designed the kitchen island, designed our Kleiderschrank (using a German website configurator none the less), and purchased all our lights; all in about 1 and a half hours. We also managed to interact with the employees to figure out how to order our stuff and get it set up to be transported to our house this weekend (the cabinets were even too big for our X3).
We are slowly learning that advance planning and getting out of work is necessary just to survive with the early closing times of all stores 8pm max, open half day Saturday and then closed on Sundays. Can't wait to enjoy those days with no shopping . . . .
