IKEA !!

Yes, we had fun making our pilgrimage to this Swedish marvel.  American’s love Ikea.  I have several friends who have traveled three hours to browse and shop in a neighboring city.  That love of all things IKEA is even truer in Sweden.  And for good reason.  Swedish homes are smaller than homes in the U.S. and  the IKEA designers are masters at efficient use of space.  IKEA is also fashionable, reasonably priced, and practical.  Granted, the quality of the furniture is not great, but it definitely fills a niche.  Here, it seems like IKEA is part of the household.  No less than half of our small furnished apartment was out fitted there.  And now that we have gone, the apartment holds a few more items with the IKEA stamp on the bottom!

 The Malmö store is much like that in the States, in that is huge and labyrinthine.  Too overwhelming to browse, you really need to approach the store with an idea of what you want or need.  We had a small list which we easily filled.  The only item that we bought which might look odd to American’s is the kitchen dish rack.

For those of you who have not visited the store, they have a café which serves real food.  So – for our first dinner out in our newly adopted country – John ordered fish, kaffe (coffee) which is strong and on-tap (which is as it should be!!) and a great pastry.   I had a Swedish meatball sandwich, which has some sort of sweet pink beet dressing and a strawberry/ apple juice.
Some beverage options which I would not have seen in the states are lingberry juice and, of course (?!) beer and wine.  – Yup, in the department store.  Yup.