Gekås – Swedish Superstore!

As I said in my blog post yesterday, I finally got to go to the legendary superstore in Sweden – Gekas! Here is small snippet explaining what Gekas is all about.

Gekås Ullared superstore is situated to the north-east of the town of Falkenberg, not far from Sweden’s west coast. The superstore was founded in 1963 and since then has grown year on year. The store currently has a surface area of 35,000 m² and sells most things you need for your home.

Last year, Gekås Ullared was visited by 4.6 million people and, as such, is Sweden’s biggest tourist attraction. The record for the number of customers on a single day was made on Tuesday 30 July 2013, when 27,500 customers shopped in the store. On average, customers drive 230 km one way to visit the store.

So as you can see Gekas is a big deal around here. I went with Mor Mor and her friend, it is only about a 30 minute drive from where I live. Once we pulled up to Gekas I realized they were not kidding when they said this place was big, it was absolutely huge! The parking lot was comparable to that of Disneylands or Six Flags to give you an idea of just how ridiculous this place was.

With map in hand and cart in tow, I set out to try and conquer this monster of a place. Unfortunately, there were SO many people and SO much stuff, I quickly became agitated and overwhelmed. For example, one item I wanted to buy here was shampoo because it would be very cheap. However, I was not prepared to have about 50 different types to choose from. There were so many people everywhere, everyone kept bumping into each other I felt like I had about 5 seconds to make up which kind I wanted before someone ran me over.

I did a full lap around the entire first floor which took about an hour and half. Once I finally arrived back at the entrance, I looked in my cart to see that I had shampoo, pencil sharpener, dried figs, and makeup remover. I had been prepared to shop till I dropped and that was all I came up with! Gekas had a space the size of a football field designated for super cheap clothes, yet I did not find a single thing. No headphones, no phone case, no books, no water bottle, nothing caught my eye.

To sum up my thoughts of Gekas I would say that I was impressed by the size, but found the crowds and clutter to be overwhelming to the point where I did not want to buy anything at all – even if it was super cheap. It would be a good place to go if you knew exactly what you needed and where it was, but going just to look around and window shop is an extremely stressful experience. While I am happy I went, I do not see myself returning to Gekas anytime soon.

In Hannah news: Today we played futbol (soccer) in gym for the first time today. It was boys against girls 4v4 – expect the boys only got 2 touches on the ball and had to use only their left foot. However, even with this extra help I hate to admit it, but the girls team still got slaughtered. It was not our fault though because literally ALL of the guys play soccer, whereas none of the girls did. I was the only one with past experience, none of my classmates knew that though – it was really fun to see the look on their faces when I came out swinging with a hat trick (3 goals). Regardless of the loss, the girls still did really good in my opinion and it was a lot of fun! I know we can get them next time.

School ended at 11 for me today. I had a quick lunch with my friend Sandra, then set off to go and see the doggie daycare that I will be helping out at! The weather was lovely so I decided to take my bike. It was a 5 mile bike ride there and I was exhausted by the end of it, but I am so happy I went and met them. Everyone was so nice, there was even one girl who was from Canada. They said I am more then welcome to come and help out whenever, so I plan to be spending a lot of my afternoons there helping walk the dogs, play with them, brush them, things like that. I really feel as though it is the perfect way to get some volunteer hours while over here! Especially because it is so difficult to find volunteer places in Sweden – they basically do not exist.

After biking another 5 miles home, I am now thoroughly exhausted and plan to spend the rest of my evening on the couch with book in hand. Here are some pics for you all to enjoy – hope everyone has a “bra dag!” (good day)

Me standing outside Gekas with my purchases looking like the biggest tourist ever.

Supersized candy wall! I tell you they literally are EVERYWHERE in Sweden.

Picture of the inside. it was hard to show just exactly how big it was.

There were about 5 more completely full shelves just like this. they literally had every movie, game, book you could imagine.

Of course there were a few places to stop for a mandatory fika break.

Me with a soccer jersey, while taking a fika break with Mor Mor.

Check out lines were absolutely insane! (That is all gum in the middle)

I just had to throw in a picture of my dinner from last night as well. This is a very typical Swedish dish called a “Räckor Smörgås” Aka Shrimp sandwich in English. It has bread on the bottom, topped with lots of lettuce, a egg-mayo-dill-lemon mix, pepper, cucumber, avocado, and of course shrimp. Normally they eat this for lunch, or more in the summer tie, but last night Bea and I thought this would really hit the spot.

I am not kidding when I say you can literally bike anywhere in Sweden. When I was going to the doggie daycare I never once left a bike path, even right next to the highway! The walking and bike paths will never cease to amaze me here and is something I really wish America would start to incorporate more into cities.

Swedish Phrase of the Day: “Jag är ful” – When I first arrived I used to say this all the time when I was done eating. I thought I was just saying “I am full” so many words in Swedish are similar to English, I just assumed that this was one too. Bea was quick to correct me on this thankfully because what I was actually saying was “I am drunk”. One of my many “American mistakes” the family had a good laugh about it though and I learned my lesson. I cannot always just assume words will be the same because who knows just how different of a meaning they could actually have!