The Good Life

Last week was very busy for us. But today is Sunday and no stores are open, the sun is shining, and we are relaxing on our patio with INTERNET ACCESS!!!!

Join us...



It has taken a lot to get to this point. Our bed arrived on Wednesday. We spent that night assembling it (until 11:30pm). There are some engineers at IKEA that design the packaging of furniture that could fit all the parts to a car inside a package the size of a coke can. They should win an award. "Some assembly required" is an understatement... we put in every screw, brace, bracket, and nail in all of our furniture so far. But on the good side, it all fit in our tiny elevator to bring it down to our room, so we never had to use the stairs. So Wednesday night we had the bed and could finally sleep in our new apartment.

We had already been planning all week for me to take off work on Thursday. We planned to go to IKEA with a list of all the other major things we needed to get us started at the apartment. As we have mentioned before, Malinda had already meticulously planned out our exact furniture and placement. This was crucial. Earlier in the week I asked a coworker to call IKEA and reserve a moving van for us for Thursday from 1:30pm to 4:30pm. The plan was to go there in the morning, kidnap anyone who spoke English and get them to sit with us while we went through a laundry list of all the furniture we needed. When Thursday arrived we woke up at 7:00am and had a quick breakfast. We then had to catch the bus to our old hotel and pack up all our bags and check out. We were planning on riding the bus back, but the lady at the front desk laughed at us and said we should think about getting a cab, which we did. That was the greatest idea ever. It saved us a lot of time which was crucial because we had to get to IKEA to order our stuff before our van rental time ran out!

So we rode the buses to IKEA, the whole time we were taking notes on when to turn, what landmarks we saw, etc. because we were about to have to drive back to our apartment on our own. I may have mentioned this before, but there aren't street signs on every corner like you are used to. The names of the streets are on the corners of some of the buildings and every once in a while you'll see a sign, but that's if your lucky. So, we made it to IKEA and confirmed our van would be ready for us.

We found a guy named Flavio who spoke English well and we busted out Malinda's notebook with everything we wanted. I wish I could scan the pageS of Malinda's notebook that had what we needed. No detail was not included (size, color, price, etc.). Again, this was all crucial because we were able to just sit at a computer with this guy and get everything. We did have a couple of problems.... We wanted two sofas, one would be a foldout sofa for people to sleep on when we have visitors, the other is just a three person couch. Neither of these were in stock, and the guy told us it would be 4 to 6 weeks to get them. That really sucked, because those were probably the most important things on our list. We do not like sitting on the hardwood floors and don't want to have to do it for another month and a half. But then, later, when we were finishing up, I asked Flavio if he could see if there were any other similar sofas in stock and EUREKA, one of ours was in stock! It just didn't have the cover. We decided that was no problem and we would just sit on it with no cover and put the cover on when it came in (in six weeks). At this point we are feeling pretty good, some high fives were flying; and it looked like we would have plenty of time to get the van, load it up and return it before the 4:30pm cut off. We even decided that once we dropped off the van we would treat ourselves to a TV. We would just have to bring the TV back with us on the bus.

We continued shopping for other things in the meantime and got some other smaller necessities. We ate at the store, and got the van. I was a little intimidated about what it was going to be (i.e. moving van vs. a Dodge caravan size). It was something in between, basically a conversion van size (or maybe slightly larger) with plenty of room in the back for all our stuff that was in stock. It was also a Mercedes and it drove great. We had a great time driving to the apartment and back. We felt a little bit of freedom by not being stuck to a bus schedule and route. Once we returned the van, we went to the little nearby electronics store and bought the cheapest 32" TV they had, which was really pretty nice (a Samsung LCD). We felt like rock stars and we were very proud to have pulled off what could have been a day riddled with disappointment and misunderstandings.

We decided the first thing we would do when we got home would be to put together the couch!!! That way we could take a break and rest when we got tired of putting together all the other great stuff we got. YEAH! So, I open the couch box. It's a big box and I don't see the instructions, so I take everything out and look underneath it etc. There's another box of cushions that came with the couch box, so I open that looking for the instructions, and instead I find one sheet of paper. It says something like "Since the sofa cover must be put on before the couch is assembled, please follow the instructions that came with your sofa cover." Hmm. Well, we don't have the sofa cover, so we don't have the instructions to assemble the couch. So that was a little disappointing. But we put our noggins together and decided to just make a sofa in the corner of the apartment using our cushions. Then we got to building. So far, we have a coffee table, dining room table, floor lamp, two dining room chairs, a dresser, two nightstands, and a shelf rack thing. On the agenda for tonight is the base of the TV stand, the rest of the dining room chairs, and a bookshelf. Take a look at it so far...


The reason you can see the video and larger photos is because we finally got the internet up and running in the apartment! This allows us to get online anytime we want to which is new for us. It is amazing how much we rely on the inter-tubes that Al Gore invented for all of us. Think about how much time you spend on the internet and what all it provides for you. If you want to find a particular kind of shop, you can just google it, and then if you don't know where it's located you can get directions online. If you want to figure out the bus routes in your city, what would you do? I would look it up online. If you want to shop for something, wouldn't you feel better about buying once you've checked out a few options online? Me too! In a new city, where we don't really know anyone personally, it's nice to be able to at least try to get some info online. Most of the times the websites are in Italian or German, but we have found a really cool tool (translate.google.com) that translates websites from one language to another (the whole website). It doesn't work flawlessly, but it at least helps you get the point.

Having the internet also allows us to watch TV through the Slingbox (mentioned in a previous post), download music on iTunes, and video chat with our parents. We have been doing this most of the time since we got it fired up a few days ago. We can video chat with you too if you'd like, just let us know. We have Skype, iChat, Google Video, and Logitech Vid. Plus we can probably download anything else that would work for you. Just remember we are 7 hours ahead, so if you wait to late in the day, we will probably be asleep.

Having the internet at the apartment also allows us to post to the blog whenever we want (and add videos) instead of us being forced to walk to the park for the free wi-fi which was not very fast and never had a very consistent connection. So, you get this super long post today. I hope you like it, and I hope you're not reading it at work on Monday and getting behind.

This week has been very good for us. I got a haircut yesterday which was hilarious... Next time you go to get your haircut, go somewhere completely new. Listen to headphones so you can't hear what the people there are saying. You can just understand gestures and pointing. And the only things you are allowed to say are: "hello," "good," "yes," "no," "thanks," and you can count from 1 to 10, but that probably won't be useful or impress them that much. If you are with nice people, this will be a funny good experience. I take no responsibility though, if you come out with a purple mohawk and a black eye.

We also went to the English speaking church this morning and it was really good. I typically don't love going to church. I think most people could probably get behind me on that one. If you knew me in high school, I was very involved in my church and I really loved it. But even then, I didn't really like the Sunday morning church part. I liked my Youth Ministers and all my friends and the things we did involving church like camps and retreats. I think it comes down to getting something from the message and thinking the speaker is someone who is wise and kind. I think we may have found a guy like that here which I have not had for a long time. It was definitely recharging and left us with some positive vibes this afternoon. We are really enjoying these sunny Sundays. It's nice that nothing is open, so you can't really do anything besides go for a walk and sit and look at a beautiful lake and mountains. It's very quiet and relaxing. I hope your Sunday goes well (or went well). The world would definitely be a better place if everyone's Sunday was like ours here today.