Meatballs

Our Adventures on Wednesday (Disclaimer/note from Brice…Julie has promised not to blog everyday.)

Will and I both slept in past 10:00 am, which was quite necessary since we were awake until 3:00 am! It was nice to have a leisurely morning in our new home. After “breakfast” (it was more like brunch), we had a Skype call with Julie’s parents and made plans to head to IKEA. (I’m laughing right now at the fact that I thought I could wait an entire week before going to IKEA … wait ’til you have enough clothes to fill two closets and only ten hangers!)

I was nervous about Brice’s first drive on the Autobahn, but I really wanted hangers. So, he made sure he knew where he was going (we are so thankful for wireless internet in this apartment), we got dressed and ready to go, then set off for a German/Swedish adventure.

Have I mentioned that we are driving a black, two door, hatchback BMW? Will helped me name it Darth. It’s awesome. (Well, getting Will into his mammoth car seat in a two-door coupe is not awesome, but it will be awesome when he’s in a sleek little booster seat. We are planning to fatten him up with weinerschnitzel.) So, we piled into Darth and were at IKEA in less than ten minutes with no traffic violations or wrong turns. This IKEA is rather glorious, let me tell you. It’s a two story building (blue, of course) with huge glass windows on the top floor. We figured out how to get to the main entrance from the parking garage, couldn’t figure out how to get a shopping cart upstairs, and decided not to put Will in the kids’ play area until we feel a bit more comfortable with him in German-speaking situations. They have interesting things in IKEA anyway, so we knew he’d be fine.

I know I don’t have to go into detail about a trip to IKEA – most of you have been there and done that – but it was an important part of our assimilation process. So, we enjoyed a delicious lunch of meatballs and mashed potatoes (Will loved it) and enjoyed the beautiful view out of the huge glass windows. The eating area in this IKEA is pretty fancy! Parts of it look like a swanky club … and then there are little play areas for the kids. Will was especially impressed with the conveyor belts that took our trays away.

This shopping trip will go down in history for many reasons, one of which was the eager, relaxed demeanor displayed by my husband, who is usually anti-IKEA. (Psst … wives, take your husband to IKEA on a Wednesday around 1:00 pm. Hardly anyone else will be there.) We strolled leisurely through the place, picking up necessities such as a step stool (Will couldn’t reach our sink faucet), hand towels for the bathroom, plastic plates & bowls for Will (almost all of ours are glass, and the floors are tile/laminate – yikes), a hand broom/dustpan set, a tall broom & dustpan set, a candle, and six sets of hangers. (Home décor will come much later … if ever.) We also bought Will a stuffed puppy, which he eventually used as a pillow. He named the dog “boy,” and it’s now the son of his most-loved stuffed animal, “Puppy.” Maybe someday he will get into his mom’s habit of naming things with silly names (ie. Mr. Boom-Boom, Dirty Jennifer, Ninja, and Miss Jackson), but it’s just “Puppy” and “Boy” for now.

We didn’t get on the Autobahn correctly on the way home from IKEA, so we got a bit lost. We ran into some closed roads (although the signs showed that they usually take you to Oberursel), figured out that we were lost in Bad Hamburg, and Brice was able to get us back home by looking on his phone at the last screen he loaded from Google Maps at the apartment. Will was asleep in his car seat by the time we got lost, so it wasn’t very stressful. Whew!

The rest of the night was spent sweeping, organizing the closets, Skyping with Brice’s parents, and eating an easy dinner. (Brice made ravioli from a can, which we ate with our yummy loaf of bread from the grocery store.) I’d say that our second day in Germany was a great one, even though it was also quite Swedish. 😉