International Shoppers' Paradise

IKEA, pronounced eye-keeeya in the US and ee - kah - ay - ah in the Netherlands. A shopping experience rivaling none in your mother tongue and a true shoppers paradise in a foreign language. Fortunately the Swedes deliver the same blue-box exterior and the same mid price, mid quality and tasty meatballs on the interior. Daringly flaunting Calvanist tradition, IKEA opens its doors two Sundays a month and today was one of those lucky Sundays. Off at 10:00 on the trusty Gazelles (only 30 minutes late which is no mean feat with sleepy-head-Sewall who is channeling here Aunt Joanna's sleeping habits) we spotted the big blue box a scant 15 minutes later. Four fun-filled hours (some fries, meatballs, a cupcake and several boxes of "berries") later we emerged, hopefully victorious though we will know for sure when our things get delivered on Tuesday. The jury is also out as to whether cardboard boxes that go together with nuts and screws and have instructions detailing the use of a screwdriver and a crescent wrench are really a victory on our part or a sick joke the Swedes are playing on the rest of the world. But Elena should have a space to play, our cunning storage system of piles on the floor should be replaced with orderly shelves and boxes and life should take on a more civilized flair and have less the flavor of a Gypsy squatter camp. All in all a successful Sunday of shopping and enough for one weekend (Elena says "shopping _Finished!_").