IKEA Dinner Tour!

Yesterday in the late afternoon J., L. and I went to IKEA to have dinner! We had planned to do something together again for some time, but we all the time had postponed it. Now L. had to move her car to recharge the battery, since it is standing around all the time here in Oslo, and so we decided to go to IKEA.

In the late afternoon we met up at J's place. I walked there since I needed some fresh air and some "exercise" in order to cure my hangover from the night before. I picked up J. from her flat and we went to the point where L. was supposed to pick us up. We waited there a bit and talked until L. came, we got in the car and went straight to IKEA.

I was so hungry, that when we arrived in the shop, I made it clear, that I wanted to eat straight away. The girls didn't have a problem with that and in the end it was good, that we ate before shopping. We stayed so long in the shop, that we would not have gotten food afterwards, since the restaurant was closed by that time.

Anyways, we went to the restaurant and ordered waited to order our food. J. took the compulsory Köttbullar and L. and I took both the 3-course (meaning including a salad and a dessert) menu with reindeer patties and steamed vegetables as main course. It was super tasty and we all really enjoyed the food. We were sitting long after being finished and talked about everything and anything.

After some time we got up and made our way through the exhibition part of the IKEA. Soon after we got up the food started to settle and we, well at least I, had to sit down for a while. Luckily we were in the living room section at that moment and we found a nice couch in front of a big flat screen TV, which was switched on TravelChannel. So we sat and lay down and relaxed a bit from the 2 minutes walking through the exhibition.

 

After a while we went on. It was funny, the whole shop was already decorated with all Christmas stuff and weirdly enough this actually created some kind of Christmas feeling for me. We walked around the shop and found a lot of cool, funny and sometimes, as we thought, totally mis-designed things. This is often the problem with IKEA, the design is more important than the functionality; Things might look good, but they are totally useless.

Nevermind! Soon we were through the exhibition and then the real part of the IKEA-shopping began. The girls didn't just wanted to go to IKEA to eat or to recharge the battery of the car, they actually, and I didn't know that before, wanted to buy stuff there. I didn't really mind, so I walked along with them, having a good time to see what and how they were shopping and was taking pictures.

 

After some time we were through with the sopping and went to check out counter. The girls payed all their stuff and after a short stop in the food section after the check out counter we went down to the car to put all the stuff in and go back to Oslo.

When we arrived, we were going around and around to find a parking spot. In the area, where L. lives it is very hard to get a free of charge parking spot and eventually, L. decided to leave J. and me at J's place and to continue her search alone. We didn't wanted to split up after IKEA and so we decided to watch a movie at J's place. After some time also L. arrived, she had found a parking spot and came by bike.

We then watched a movie with Hape Kerkeling, a German comedian and actor. It was funny, because the movie was about a roadtrip from Germany to and then through Norway. Especially J. & L. had visited a lot of the places shown in the movie and even I recognized some of them. After the movie I went home, had a shower and went to bed!

Now I am feeling great, I had a nice morning coffee and talked to A. for a while. I am sitting here in my room and just enjoy a lazy Sunday morning, what I will do today I dont know yet!

~M~

IKEA-Tour!

Today it was a slow day at work, I was basically just waiting for suppliers to send confirmations and for something to happen. Of course, I had all the time work and something to do, but it was not at all as busy as yesterday, when it was better and more fun to work!

Anyways, it didn't matter, the time went by somehow and after work I took the free IKEA-bus to one of the IKEAs close by. There are two here in Oslo and I dont actually know to which one I went in the end (which somehow reminded me of Finland). I went there, since I needed linen and some other stuff. I used all the time since I moved in the linen, I borrowed from T, my flat mate!When I came to IKEA after a quick bus ride, I ran into the shop, since I knew I had only one hour until the bus would go back to Oslo center. I also knew, that IKEAs are normally pretty crowded and you take normally at least half an hour at the cashier. Especially after the office hours, when everybody, "just quickly" goes to buy 200.000 tonnes of new furniture!So I went to the second info-desk I saw - I went to the second, because the first had a huge line-up, as I expected it - and asked, where I would find all the stuff that I had written down from the website. The guy was very helpful and told me basically the exact position of each item. When I came downstairs I found everything pretty quick and went basically straight through the shop, just stopping to put the items into my bag, to the cashier.

I saw the line-ups and was scared I would miss the bus. All the people had each one or two, sometimes even three shopping carts full of stuff and the lines were not moving at all. Suddenly I saw at the end of the line of cashiers the self-cashier terminals. You scan your own stuff and pay it by card. There is just one employee per four terminals standing to check that nobody steals things.When I had everything scanned, paid and packed I realized that I spent barely 20 minutes in the IKEA, which I never managed to do before! Normally I spent at least 45 minutes, even if I just bought a towel or a cutlery basket. I was so amazed by myself, that I needed some air. So I went outside and was happy, that it stopped raining. I was standing a couple of minutes outside the bus, just getting some fresh air, but got in, when more and more people came.Then, when I got back to Oslo center I walked home with all my stuff and was happy to be finally back in the flat. I cooked some dinner and was talking to A. I made my bed with the new linen and will now watch a movie, go to shower and then to sleep; I am deadly tired!

~M~