We wanted to go to an IKEA store, and I knew there was bound to be a lot of them in Germany. In fact I looked it up and there are 53 IKEA stores in Germany. For comparison, there are 52 in the United States, and 12 in Canada.
But surprisingly, there isn't one really close by to where we are. There were three that were all about the same distance, so we chose one.
It was about a 40 minute drive.
Arrived at the big IKEA store.
We haven't been in an IKEA store for probably 30 years. So you go in to this massive store, and follow the arrows that lead you through a variety of rooms made up as bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, etc that are all examples of how you can use all the various products. But we were getting frustrated, not realizing that you would eventually end up in the shopping area itself.
Our grandkids love their stuffed animals.
I took this photo of a stuffed T-Rex for them!
Lots of variety.
We were in the store for two and a half hours! But, we got a lot of things that we needed. We spent €114 ($168 CAD, $135 USD).
Then we headed to a big Kaufmann grocery store where they have a lot of gluten free products and we did some more grocery shopping.
We also stopped in at a cell store. We need a German SIM card, and cellular data is quite expensive here. Especially compared to Poland where they pretty much give it away. Hindsight is great, but I should have checked out the rates for using the Polish SIM in Germany. It likely would have been much cheaper, but it's too late now.
Anyhow, the one store we went to was sold out of the package I wanted, and on Saturday it looked like most cell stores close by midafternoon and don't open again until Monday morning at 10:00am. So I was stuck adding a very expensive data package to our emergency Keepgo Hotspot.
Back at Max, we needed to figure out where to put all of this stuff.
I found a German beer that I really like.
Ziploc bags.
We bought a roll of ziploc style food bags. Ruth noticed that there is a number on each bag, and it turns out that you are supposed to download an app and then enter the number and details into the app to keep track of what is in the bag and the date. Neat idea for people who keep a lot of stuff in their freezer.
We had a huge thunderstorm go through overnight. Really heavy rain, with lots of thunder and lightning. Of course Max is well sealed and has a ten year watertight warranty.
Today is sunny with cloudy breaks, but very windy. The heat wave seems to be over, and they're calling for a comfortable high of 25C (76F).
Tomorrow, we deal with registration and insurance. Should be interesting!
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And in Canada...
Check Vodafone Spain and Voxy UK - they have special roaming packages for EU. Huge amount of gb and reasonable price. Safe travels!
ReplyDeleteIt is not as easy as it sounds, normally you need to be in that country in order to buy the SIM card although we think it is possible to order one online and have it shipped here but that takes time and we need a SIM card now. Also Kevin said that the one from UK will most likely stop working soon or cost more for roaming because of BREXIT. We will be asking about specific plans for Europe when we go and buy a SIM card today though.
DeleteWe found travelling around Europe that most cafes etc would let you have their password for the Wifi - except Germany! Something to do with them being responsible for whatever customers were viewing. Happy travelling - Germany is such a great country to tour around, we always thought we would just transit through it but went back many times. www.moho-dream.co.uk
ReplyDeleteThat is good to know and we will keep it in mind but Kevin likes to have access to the internet while we are on the move, plus every time you go to a cafe you have to buy something, so technically you are still paying for the internet and we rarely do cafes.
DeleteWe look forward to touring around Germany, although we might not see much of it at the moment but I know that we will continually be back here so we will see lots of Germany over the next few years. :-)
Real wine glasses?! You are braver than me. I always used plastic ones in Pearl, our motorhome. I'm bad about breaking glasses anyway, and in a motorhome, I didn't trust myself. I did have some ceramic items (coffee mugs, etc.), but not thin glass items. Would you believe I have never shopped in an Ikea? Hope to one day! Glad you're having fun getting Max outfitted. I love doing things like that.
ReplyDeleteBack when we first hit the road in October 2007 we had plastic wine glasses and we hated them, so we went with the real deal and over the years we have had a few break but not because of traveling down the road with them but just simple everyday use, just like what would happen when we lived in a house. We have learned how to store them well so they don't move around or clink as we motor down the road. I really have to say I enjoy my wine from a real glass.
DeleteYou definitely need to go and check out an IKEA store one day, they are pretty neat but not somewhere that we would want to drop into every week, lol!
LOL. We switched to real glass dollar store glasses half way trough our first RV trip! If they break, they break, but in the meantime they are real wineglasses!
DeleteSo nice to see you finally in Max. I probably should know this does but do you have air conditioning and a generator?
I think that is probably about the same time we did too! I remember being down in the Baja looking in small shops for real wine glasses, lol! We like drinking out of real glass and as you said if they break, they break and we will just buy more.
DeleteMax does not have a generator or a house AC, he does have a dash AC though. These European models are well built but many are not built on a dually chassis to take on the extra weight. As it is with Max we only have a 700 kg (just over 1500 lb) carrying capacity, many units are even less than that, so you don't want to add those features on because then it takes away from what you can store for your own living needs in the van and we all know it doesn't take long for the weight to add up!
A 10 year watertight warranty. Wow. You would never see that in the states
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a little discrepancy over that. We will know for sure once all the paperwork is done and the warranty package is given to us. Kevin thought he had read that it was 10 years somewhere, the guy we are dealing with thought it was 5 and a co-worker of his thought it was 7 but still even if it is 5 years, it is still an amazing water tight warranty!
DeleteSIMs in EU countries roam at no extra cost, so you would have been able to use the Polish one in Germany. The law allows the provider to limit you to 62 days outside the country of origin though, and many restrict the GB you can use while roaming. The best UK SIM at the moment is Superdrug Mobile, unlimited data and no roaming limits for £20 a month, but hard for you guys to get. Cheers, Jay
ReplyDeleteThat's what we thought but the one we had in Poland ran out almost exactly 24 hours after entering into Germany and we know that we hadn't used up the time or the GB's, so not quite sure what happened if that is the case. Plus the guy at the Orange store told us that it would be cheaper to buy one in Germany than to buy a special roaming package from them. Kevin said from the research that he has done, the roaming in other EU countries isn't always the case any more, and yeah it would be hard for us to get a UK SIM here in Germany, plus that is going to change with the whole BREXIT thing too!
DeleteRadeberger Pilsner really is one the best German beers, albeit not heralded as much as some others. It's made right outside Dresden and offer brewery tours, which I think are free.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that tidbit of info on the beer. Kevin has now tried several different beers and the Radeberger is the one that he likes best. We will certainly keep the brewery tour in mind when we are in the Dresden area. Thank you! :-)
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