Ikea!

This weekend we took our first adventure out of Leiden. We were supposed to go with a couple from church to Ikea but they were unable to go at the last minute so we decided to chance public transportation and take the trip to Delft(which is another city). Before we left, we walked to a secondhand shop to look and see if we could find anything there (we do not want to buy everything new since we will be gone in a few years). This included us getting lost a bit and walking all over. We then had to walk to Centraal station to catch our train and by this time, my feet were already hurting. Dan doesn't like it when I wear my tennis shoes because he thinks they look dorky, no matter that my feet hurt! So we had been walking for probably an hour and a half that morning by the time we reached the train station. When I was on the platform waiting for our train to arrive, all the hurt in my feet went away because I was so excited!

So we hopped on the train and made it to Delft. We then had to find out which bus would take us to Ikea. Traveling, or doing much of anything really, can be difficult because we don't speak Dutch. Most people will speak English to you if you ask but it's still hard to be dependent on someone else! Anyways, after asking a bus driver and looking at the bus maps, we noticed the large sign that said "IKEA" at one of the stations. Smart Americans.

Finally we made it to Ikea. Has anyone ever been to an Ikea before? We do have them in the States. It is a massive, warehouse looking building that spans several acres, with thousands (well it seemed like thousands) of people milling around in it. It is smartly arranged so that you have to basically walk through every section to get to where you want to go. By this time, our feet are hurting worse and we're tired. But we want a bed frame and some furniture so we plug on.

After 3 HOURS at Ikea, we were about done. Did you know that you have to pull out your own items? Yes, you write down the article number and then at the end of the winding maze(remember, you have to go through each section) there is a giant warehouse where you find the section your items are in and go pull the boxes off the shelf! Come on people! A little customer service please! We did not get everything we needed as we were both so tired and spent that we just wanted to go home. We did get an amazing bed frame, a bookshelf, and most of the lighting for our house.

And for those wondering, we did not attempt to drag it all home on the train. They delivered. For a mere 80euro...the extra 30 because they had to bring it up one flight up steps.Ikea jerks.