First Park Astoria Västerås

... the manager, had lunch in the cafe, and really found that IKEA is a cool place to work. We followed up with a tour of their museum. The began selling furniture in the 1950's and have been growing since. They have some typical furniture from each decade. Did you know... IKEA has one owner, they have about 22 billion in annual revenue, and they sell their same products in every store regardless of the culture. CARL ...

... drive, but long. We drove as far as Kristianstad and found a hotel there. This city was founded by the king of Denmark, Kristian the something.

Carrie:

Accord ing to my guidebook Kristianstad contains much of the political machinery of Skane, and it did look as if there were several large government buildings here...perhaps that's why it seemed a bit more drab than other places we ...

... our first transfer to the new city of Älmhult, the home of the famous biologist Carl von Linne (responsible for the plant taxonomy system in use today) and IKEA headquarters (visiting on Thursday). Now we are at home with our new host families and are getting to know the new rural setting of this beautiful region. We look forward to uploading more pics and news to share with you soon! God natt for now, Beth

Hej! First stop, Almult, Sweden! Where? Almhult...you know, where IKEA was born and is still headquartered. Sara's college friend, Lewis, his wife, Ginny, and 7 month old daughter, Sophie, live in this small Swedish town where all of your beloved, put-it-together-yourself furniture comes from. Well, from there and other global manufacturing locales. Sara and I flew into Copenhagen directly from Newark and took the train ...

Mats asked Staffan and I if we could take some measurements at the DUX factory in order for them to be able to have a better floorplan for their move to the South of Sweden. Also because Staffan was on vacation he had the time to head up to Sösdala which is about an hour away from Lomma in the middle of nowhere. We have actually been to this particular part of Sweden because of this embroidery place we have gone to before for our Team YXI apparel, that ...

... heard of it. Anyone empathizing? For those of you who also elected to take Nap time 101 over Current World Affairs here's a little "refresher" nipped and tucked mostly from Wikipedia: Before Schengen, citizens of western European countries could travel to neighbouring countries by showing their national ID card or passport at the border. Nationals of some countries were required to have separate visas for every country in Europe they wished to visit. A ...

Today was our last day of work. The first half was spent repairing some wiring for the remote control to one of the tractor winches. Repairing tractors is a big part of this job. These things go over some pretty crazy terrain and each of them has all kinds of hydraulic hoses and cables hanging off the back, so inevitably, when driving over stumps and rocks, cables are ...

We spotted some moose today. A cow and her calf. I guess it's pretty rare to see them, although we see hoof prints and droppings all over the place in the forest. If you walk in a straight line for more than 50 feet, you will have passed a few piles of moose droppings, which happen to look like little chocolate easter eggs. These moose just stood there and looked at us. We also saw a ...

... to experience this maze of bike lanes and how indeed it all merges with other traffic and pedestrians. I was impressed with the integration. I am so impressed with this set up. Culture Night is a large event here held on the 2nd Friday in October and there was literally thousands of people in town. Many appeared to be walking around looking at the endless display of artists displaying their talents. I must admit some were a little bit of a ...

... They do odd things like dress up in weird costumes and then strip in 40degree ewather and jump in a huge fountain. Their behavior surprised me, esp. because they are so passive in person. The party the last night was the best part of the carnival. It was huge--there must have been over 1,000 people alone in the room we stayed in most of the time-- and there were 5 other rooms. A rap group that I quickly learned to like because ...