A little more than 4 months into employment, I was finally able to take part in the English version of the IKEA tour called Älmhultsdagarna. After 2 days of visiting every department in IKEA and seeing vintage IKEA furniture, I remembered why I am such an IKEA freak. This company is awesome, and I feel really lucky to work here. The highlights for me were visiting the IKEA museum, where you could see how IKEA's style changed through the decades, and IKEA of Sweden, where one of the actual designers showed us how she came up with 3-4 different product designs. For one of them, she was shown the box that the floor lamp had to fit into, then told to design something creative. The engineers had already calculated transportation costs based on that size flat-pack box. And the product she had to design was a floor lamp with an uplight as well as a reading light. Really two different lamps in one. I've always heard about how IKEA designs the price tag first. Now I actually got to see it in action. For other products, she had more freedom, but of course it still had to have a low price.
Other places we visited included Swedwood, where they make many of the kitchen cabinet doors, wardrobe doors, etc., MODUL, where they bag up all the screws and wood dowels you need to assemble your furniture. It's all completely automated with robots, and each bag is weighed twice to make sure the right pieces are inside. So, if you buy IKEA furniture and are missing a screw, it's rare.
Oh yeah, we also got a tour of the distribution center in Älmhult. It's where all the flat-packs get shipped out to your nearest store. Actually, they don't get shipped to the U.S. from here, but throughout Scandinavia, Iceland and Greece. It was MASSIVE. And, again, everything is automated. I have some pictures of the distribution center (didn't bring my camera Day 1, so I don't have pics of the museum.) There are two pictures [pic 1][pic 2] of the huge yellow robotic cranes that place and retrieve pallets in a huge warehouse. It's ALL automated. No humans. A little creepy, like what if the robots from MODUL and the distribution center team up and turn on us? Anyway, it's hard to explain what's happening in those photos, but they basically fly down this track (with no lights because they don't have eyes. Really, they don't!) and put/retrieve flat-packs from the right spot.
OK, so what else have we been up to?
1. We got our Swedish license plate and passed Bilprovningen (Swedish inspection). It was quite a relief. As we sat there watching all their tests, Lewis said he doubted 50% of U.S. cars would pass. The other thing was that our Volvo was made for the U.S. market and has MPH on the speedometer and possibly different turn signals. I had been told to get my MPH blacked out and change out the lights. I didn't do anything and was fine. I did fail one thing, though. Everyone in Sweden has to have an orange road triangle in their car in case they break down. I totally forgot. We were let off with a warning and bought the triangle right away.
2. We made an offer on a house here in Älmhult!!!!! And they accepted. (Pictured here) The only thing 
that needs to be worked out is our move-in date. They want until July 1. We want May 1. So we'll see. All of our belongings, including spring clothes, bikes, etc, are sitting in Jönköping waiting for us to find a place to move into. And Lewis is just anxious to redo the kitchens and bathrooms. I think he visits IKEA every day. :)
3. Just to tie this whole entry back to the "box" theme. We found some boxed wine at the systembolaget (Swedish liquor store) in a nearby town. They had all sorts of varieties from France. I decided drinking red wine from a box just didn't feel right, so I picked a white wine to test. I love the idea of hauling cardboard boxes instead of glass bottles in my bike basket.
OK, that's all for now. We are really psyched about the house. More details on that soon ...
Hej då!