Thursday, September 21, 2006

Ikea - I wish I had a picture of us

Wow. Today was a long day. I decided we needed some furniture for our apartment so I took both kids to Ikea for the day. This might sound like a nice fun outing but it was more like a really, really long trek.


I knew I was in for quite a day after getting into the taxi and asking the driver to take me to Ikea in Alcorcon. He looked at me totally confused and said "?Como?" I forgot they call Ikea, Eekaya. Once we cleared that up we were on our way.

Two hours later, after touring the top level, and writing down exactly where to find everything. I finally let Isaac go to the playland. He was really excited about this. I was too. I thought this was going to be a great way to quickly load everything up, go pay and then pick Isaac up promptly at my one hour time limit. But I forgot that at Ikea you still have a second level to manuever through before getting to the loading zone. So needless to say I was a little late picking Isaac up and still had to load a few thing and pay. This sounds like the easy part but another thing about Ikea is they don't always have everything in stock that you want. So I had to change my plans a few times and settle for what they had. I also forgot to mention - I still speak only "un poquito" of spanish. So trying to ask for help was a little hard.

Finally with everything loaded, all 4 carts, one stroller with a very mad Stella and a wandering Isaac all I had to do was pay. After 5 minutes of standing in line Isaac looks over and tells me he needs to go potty and couldn't hold it. So we took a little potty break and then back in line. I was doing ok until about now and both kids are tired and hungry (it was 2:30pm and we hadn't had anything to eat since 9am) and I had to try and explain to the lady that I needed everything delivered and assembled. (Fortunatly, this is a service they have for some extra $$ in Spain) It all worked out after 20 minutes of torture. The poor girl. She kept asking for directions and I kept trying to give her directions when all she wanted was my address.

We quickly left and made a few more stops. Toys'R'Us for a friend's birthday present, McDonald's for some food and then a few appliance stores. That was another fun adventure. But for all I put the kids through they were great and we survived and tomorrow I'll have some furniture. Even if it's only Ikea. (They have some nice stuff)

I hope everyone had a great day! Tomorrow's Drew's birthday!! Good night.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Eryka and Family.

Wow what an adventure. Have you gotten your apartment yet? I know you like IKEA, they do have some neat things. Your so lucky to have IKEA in Madrid, I'm sure you will be there ofter. It's great your trying your Spanish. Practice, practice, practice and you will be speaking in no time. When do you start your classes? And HAPPY BIRTHDAY DREW. We didn't have an address to send you a card, so I will have to email you one. Keep up the good blogs.

Love Ya,

Mom (Karen)

Anonymous said...

Wow. That trip made my stomach hurt - I bet you were a thousand times more patient than I would be. Isn't amazing what we will do, as mothers? You totally rock!!