Blogging
From Abroad

No extended trip to any developed country is complete without a trip to the mecca of contemporary home furnishings. Earlier tonight, Doris, Hannes and myself made the journey there, it was quite an interesting one indeed. We went by bus from campus, to the U6 (subway), crossed the Danube and Doris picked us up in her VW Golf (very nice and basic, but I like VWs in particular). It was short ride to the massive IKEA store. The bulk looked no different than it’s US counterparts, aside from language differences.

We initiated out IKEA adventure with a trip to the Swedish cafe. It was delightful to see all my familiar favorites, including Swedish meatballs with gravy, Lignonberry and potatoes! As we were chatting over our meal, Hannes said there is a “phenomenon” that seems to occur at IKEAs around here. By this time in the meal, we had filled up our drinking glasses 2 or 3 times. He said it was common for old people to hang out there ALL day on a saturday or something. I thought that was pretty funny because we were surrounded by old people with only drinks reading the paper!

Hunger satisfied, we snaked our way around the store, playing with the merchandise and gawking at the displays. I don’t care what anyone says, walking around IKEA is quite entertaining! (those who frequent IKEA can vouch for me, it IS a cool store!) I had a list, and we ran through it over the course of a few hours I believe. Another side note, you cannot go to IKEA and run through it, there is just too much to see :-)

Until next time IKEA!

The essentials were purchased, loaded into the Golf and we embarked onto the motorway. Passing though a tunnel, I was told we were in a “section control”. This was really neat, the license plates of cars is photographed when they enter the tunnel and then photographed when they leave the tunnel- then the time is known inside the tunnel and they can figure out your speed. We actually saw people passing us, Doris remarked they would be paying fees, what a good idea I mean not good for speeders, but I am sure when this was enacted, revenues from it skyrocketed! Well, gotta go for now, I need to earn my beers tonight by running up to the campus park,

Bye!