As Opposed to Akeelah & the Bee

Yesterday was a very busy day.  After our workout and breakfast, we headed to the electronics market to buy power converters.  Once inside, it took us forever to find them and since nobody speaks very good English, it was a lot of writing 220 -> 110 on small pieces of paper.  We finally found some and then bartered on the price.  Since we could never figure out if the Apple would adapt to 220 on its own, we had to get a big power converter to do the conversion.  As you can see, the iMAC survived checked baggage and the 220 to 110 converter and is now functional again.  Horray!  I cannot tell you how pleased I am.

Next was our trip to IKEA.  Wow, that place is incredible.  I had never been in one before and wished that I had because navigating the IKEA system with only spotty English directions led us to walk around the entire store twice.  Before you respond to me to quit whining, let me explain the store.  It is probably the size of Boise’s Costco, but two stories.  And it is set up so you wind through almost the entire square footage (I guess I should say square meterage, how do you say that?) following the path they have set up.  At the beginning, you are walking through all of these configured rooms, like in a furniture display room.  As you find things you like, you are supposed to write them down on a piece of paper.  But all of the words but the Swedish name of the room were in Chinese so I had no idea if I was even doing it right or would be able to find my desired item later on in the store.

After walking through the entire top-level of the store, stopping in at the IKEA Cafe for a brief lunch, we continued down to the bottom-level of the store where we quickly ascertained was where all of the items to be purchased actually lived.  We found a few of the things on the list and a couple other things we needed but hadn’t seen upstairs.  Then, we made it to an area that was more like Home Depot and had all of the large furniture items.  At this point, we were tired, and were walking up and down aisles looking for the word VASTERN on tags on the Home Depot-like shelves.  We finally found everything but the VASTERN bathroom shelf that we were looking for.  After consulting with a couple of IKEA employees, walking away because they didn’t know where it was and then having another manager-type employee run after us and tell us that we had to order it upstairs, we checked out.  Again, did I mention that we were exhausted.  Those types of stores, however cool they are, completely wear me out.  And Andy was, how should I say this, not thrilled but still patient.

I went back upstairs to look for someone to help me order VASTERN.  I stopped by the room that had it and the guy told me I had to go to the bathroom.  I hesitated and then headed to the bathroom area (the furthest away).  Once there, the bathroom guy helped me order VASTERN and then told me to go back downstairs and pay.  Sigh.  To make my trip worthwhile, I grabbed a couple of other “necessities” like decorative pillows for the couch on my way to the check out counter.  I paid and long story a little shorter,   we ended up in a tiny delivery van with our stuff and a driver.  Andy’s left leg was jammed into the stick shift so we had to be careful not to shift too much to the left or the driver could not shift or too much to the right and I would be out the window.  Um, ya… it was a long drive home.  The only things that made it all worth while and bearable were the fact that we now have all that we need for the apartment (except the stuff coming in our air shipment) AND the < $10 hour long foot massage later that day.  Better than sliced bread, I am telling you!!

Two other accomplishments to add to the list are the fact that we have cell phones and a bank account.  I would explain what it took to accomplish those too feats, but this is already too long.

Cheers!  or as they say in Mandarin, “Gan Bei!”