the importance of being resourceful

When I moved into my new apartment, the living room was a big empty room. See, the girl I replaced owned everything that had previously been in there, so when she went, it all went with her. 

After a few weeks (or so) of patiently waiting for the ordered couch to arrive, matching furniture at stores, and finding out just how expensive tables are (I mean, seriously, it's 4 legs and a slab), it was time to get serious putting the rest of the living room together. 

Enter: Ikea and Roller. Roller is like the German version of Ikea, perhaps a little cheaper, but same concept - buy the pieces and put it together yourself. So after the back breaking task of carrying the many heavy boxes of pieces of living room up 4 flights of stairs, we set to work building every piece of our living room. 

We built chairs, we built a coffee table, we rebuilt chairs. And as we were completing the final step of putting together the table we realized we were lacking the necessary tool to finish the drill. A wrench (spanner if your British). But we refused to let this stop us! We had come so far and had an entire toolbox of every random tool at our disposal (except a wrench, of course).

We tried a custom tool that came with another piece that was too large, we tried a nail remover. Eventually we found it - a wrench. But not just any old wrench. A giant plumber wrench.

The process was slow, but ultimately effective. At least, our table hasn't broken yet. And I have to say, even though we're still need to add the finishing touches of some plants and pictures, the result of our building is one of the nicest living rooms I've ever had! 

The happiest place on Earth

For this week and next week I am enjoying my first school holiday (that's Brit speak for vacation). My big endeavor for fall break is to head down to Forchheim next week for a few days. But until then I have a whole week of no commitments and a Semesterticket at my disposal (basically giving me free-reign to travel anywhere in Nordrhein-Westfalen for free). A winning combination, if I say so myself. 

After a lazy Monday, I decided to take advantage of my free time + free travel by spending my Tuesday at the happiest place I could think of. 

Oh internet people, how I wish I could explain my Ikea love to you. Perhaps it has to do with my love all things Swedish (Ikea, H&M, ABBA, Shahida, Ace of Base, that guy who wrote pretty much every hit pop song of the late 90's, meatballs, and the list goes on!). Maybe it's their unwavering trust in mankind to assemble any home furnishing in existence. Whatever it is, it makes me light up like a kid at Christmas when I see those giant yellow letters posted high on the bright blue building. 

So I spent a very delightful afternoon mentally furnishing my future home. And to top it all off, I had lunch for 1€. 

Tomorrow the plan is to go to Aachen, a city on the Belgian/Dutch/German border. We'll see how it compares to today's excitement.