builiding ikea furniture, something I hope to never have to do again

Sorry we have been missing in action for over a week now. The computer glitch just decided to work itself out, so hopefully the computer continues to turn on. All our Ikea furniture is finally built, (it takes Forfreakingever!, plus, I had round two of Ikea when a buddy of ours, Lachie & I helped/got paid to help a girl from my German class with her Ikea move, so I am officially d-u-n done with ikea)! The couch gets delivered on Friday, and after that we are just waiting for our overseas shipment. Which we could use real bad, I have worn through the two pairs of shoes that made it on the plane with me (literally one pair leaves shoe insides all over my feet when I wear them) & am in desperate need of some shoes (I cannot even remember which ones I shipped after all this, it’ll be like Goodwill Christmas!)

Although I cook dinner virtually every night at home, we have only one sad Ikea fry pan that must do everything, when I want tea, the trusy Ikea fry pan heats my wasser. Oh and the delightful plastic wear we eat every meal on is also quite classy. So, needless to say, we are quite excited to get the pans & dishes from the shipment, not to mention our bed (and coats, we each one have one winter coat with us which is starting to get a bit tiresome at this point). Joe & I really cannot decide what we are most excited to see again!!

We are finally beginning to feel like we ACTUALLY LIVE HERE. Which has made for an odd, simultaneously frightening onslaught of emotions….

If you have not already noted from the photos, we had a fabulous time in Munich two weekends ago. Saturday pretty much everything worked out perfectly. We arrived around noon, got the key & tickets to the tent from reception & then headed over to the party. The lines that form to enter the tent are hysterical, such disorderly crazy line formation (if you can even call it formation) would never ever occur like that in Switzerland. So for a few minutes we stood in this “line” to enter the Shottenhamel tent, but then I was like, this is ridiculous, we have tickets, there must be another entrance. So, we walked along the side of the tent & low & behold, another entrance with an intimidating African American man (the only one we saw all day) manning the entrance. Showed him our tickets & just walked right in! It was a beautiful thing. The scope of this “tent” (it is actually a huge wooden structure) was enormous. We were literally two of about 30 people out of 10,000 in there not wearing lederhosen and dirndl (mark my words, if we go next year, we will in proper attire)! We easily located the reserved tables & Nate (who kindly let us crash with him in his hotel Saturday night), and not a minute later, had our grosse bier. Met some great people from all over the world who work for e&y, hopefully we’ll be able to do some apt. trading or staying with a few of them throughout our travels as well. We cashed it in around 9 pm, joe didn’t feel well ;(. Yet, were awoken by Nate who insisted we go back out with him around 12:30. Never wanting to be party poopers, we got out of bed & went out again (note: glasses pictures/end of the slideshow).

The next day we walked around Munich & the fairgrounds again. It is a massive affair, stretching an excessive amount of city blocks. There are children, strollers, food, carnies, etc. packed in everywhere. It is a family affair as well as a beer drinking festival, and there is little to no separation of the two (ie. children in the tents, some drinking beer, some not)….We were fairly to completely overwhelmed by its’ scope (one more note: the foods were delicious there, spaetzel, candied nuts, wursts for joe, a regular heart attack waiting to happen). So, if anyone feels the need to plan a trip around Oktoberfest time, rest assured, you will most likely have some partners in crime.