So, the weekend is coming to a close and I have agreed to write a blog entry – lucky you. 🙂
I really enjoyed this weekend (though we still have the evening to go before it is time for bed). Jen and I didn’t overcommit to costumes or parties or walking or cleaning or laundry. Okay, I didn’t over commit to those things, but Jen has been on a cleaning kick for the past few days and I bless her for it!
The one thing we did want to do this weekend was make our way to IKEA. We (read “I”) had the brilliant idea earlier in the week of heading there to find an organizer for our recycling, with the misguided notion that we could manage to do it after work. After actually going there I can see now how truly BAD an idea it was to think that would have worked out, especially seeing as we would have been heading there after work and a couple hours at the pub with workmates. Yeah, I am a genius sometimes.
So, yesterday morning Jen and I set out on our pilmigrage pimla… pilgrimage to the wonderful land of Ikea – a magical place of fairies and elves which was given to us from a greater land than our own, Sweden. Apparently in this Swee-den they design things of great beauty but commission its creation in a land called China where labor is cheap and costs are low which allows the Sweeds to pass along these savings like Wal-Mart of yore (we interrupt this silly joke to reiterate our belief Wal-Mart is truly the 9th circle of Hell which is spreading like a plague across the planet and do not wish to draw any undue comparisons to Ikea).
So Ikea. I was excited. I had heard nothing but great things about their retail outlets and the furniture I have seen on their website looks so gorgeous. We even had friends in Nashville who would make special treks to Atlanta JUST to visit the closest retail shop. So we were both really looking forward to the visit.
Our journey started with a brief walk to the Barbican tube station. From there it was a couple of tube rides to Tottenham Hale where we caught a bus to Ikea. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the sheer size of this place took me by surprise.
Not sure it is entirely clear, but if you take a look at the size of the hotdog stand in the picture, you should start to get some sense of scale – this place is big. It is actually two floors of massiveness with a gigantic parking garage underneath. Thankfully they have designed the shop in such a way that makes finding your way through it easier than you might expect when first stepping inside the doors.
Upon making our way to the top of the two escalators at the entrance to the top of the shop, Jen and I made our way first to the cafe where we had lunch and some fantastic desserts (and one NOT so awesome coffee flavored piece of sick).
As we finished lunch we made an agreement – no pointing out everything we saw. We knew this was going to be a challenge and that telling each other to look at everything we came across would only make it worse. Thankfully we prevailed, and long story short, we emerged from Ikea THREE HOURS later with the ONE item we intended to buy and only five we did not.
Things we bought:
- rolling cabinet with drawers (to sort recycling)
- freestanding makeup mirror
- door hooks
- colander
- oven mitt
- three way plug splitter
The really amazing thing is not that we didn’t buy more, but rather, given the things we DID buy, we only spent £20. That is right my friends, we spent a whopping £20 and bought all of the above. I had prepared myself for the cabinet alone to cost more than that, but wow, those Chinese must work for CHEEEEAP.
After making it home we decided to rest for a bit as our feet were aching quite a bit, but we still had an entire evening to plan. So, we decided to head to Tortilla for burritos and the Vue to see Watchmen. The only problem with this plan was the popularity of the film – it was sold out.
As plan B, Jen and I headed into HMV to see if we might find a DVD to entertain us for the evening instead. After ten minutes of parusing the TV section we decided on season one of House, a show my cousin Jeffery turned us onto while he was staying with us. So we spent the night watching some great TV and headed to bed at a reasonable hour.
Today was another nice and relaxing day. We spent most of the morning lounging around the flat (okay I did anyway, Jen was on her cleaning kick), but had bought tickets for an early afternoon showing of Watchmen last night when our other showing was sold out so we headed back to the Vue at noon for a movie.
Now it is almost 6pm here and we have the night to go. I plan on working on the site a bit (changes are coming) and I think Jen has a few more things she wants to clean. We need to find something to eat at some point but will probably default to leftover veggie sloppy joes. After that I am hoping for some more House.
And Honey, looks like I can write a long blog post too. Sorry everyone.
Cheers!