has to be some kind of profound statement. ;) Today I would like to mention that Meg wrote a great Beginners Guide to StumbleUpon which is worth a read, and ya’all should seriously think about getting on the StumbleUpon train. It’s a lot of fun.
And, I have a couple of photos for you.
This is the mirror I got from Ikea, which we finally got the courage to hang.. ;)
I’m taking some time to work on art today, and I might have some pictures of that for you tomorrow. In the meantime, be good! ;)
I’ve been meaning to post these pics since Sunday, but other blogging got in the way. So finally here they are. ;)
This next pic shows one of my most prized items from the trip – the Rabalder.
See the little suction cups on the end of the dishwashers so you can stand them up on their end? I love these things, they’re brilliant.
The batteries, we found out, are made by Varta, which explains why they are so good. So we bought a lot of them. Shoot me, it’s environmentally unfriendly, but rechargeables have never worked out too well for me, and my mouse is cordless and I use it. A lot! The little alarm clocks in the pic, cost $1AUS and mine sits here on my desk, I love it.
The most expensive thing I bought was this mirror. It was $49. I love it!
One great thing about Ikea is there’s always something for the other half to build. These are fantastic laundry solutions for us. I wheel them down to the laundry when it’s time to wash.
These are the books I got from Borders.
And finally, the view on waking up on Saturday Morning.
I was so excited about the blue and yellow building, I didn’t even spot this part of the view until the other half pointed it out. ;) Yes, I am an Ikea addict.
I’d like to do a bit of a review of one of the hotels we stayed at – the Sydney Harbour Marriott which is a true 5 star hotel. After staying there, I can really say I had never stayed anywhere which was 5 star before.
We booked through wotif.com.au which we have been using for some years now. The package was this – $309 *Revive Package* Revive yourself by sleeping in the Marriott Bed! Deluxe room with 1 King size bed, includes Bvlgari bath pack and wine take away, Buffet Breakfast for 2, Valet parking, access to health club with indoor heated pool and late checkout of 2pm.
On arrival at the hotel, we were greeted by the Valet. We’d never used valet parking before and yes, I am terribly possessive of my vehicle so this was a bit scary for me. However, the staff member who greeted us instantly made me feel at ease, asking about our luggage and what we wanted to take out of the car and saying he would have it sent up to our room. We entered the hotel lobby and just walking in there put a big smile on my face. It was beautiful. I did not take photos because nobody wants to look like such a tourist in the hotel lobby, but it was *worthy* of a photography session.
We were quickly checked in, given a room on the 27th floor, and whisked away by the elevator – which, I might add, was also stunningly beautiful. I can’t describe it. I wish I could. We did not realise at the time just how lucky we were, because we’d been given a room that was fairly unusual. Once we got inside and I shut the door, I was able to see how unusual it was.
As you can see, there are only two rooms on each floor shaped like this. Excellent Feng Shui, in my opinion. I’m sorry the pics aren’t the best, we took them with the camera phone and please note we took them in the morning after sleeping in the bed, it looked much neater than this when we arrived!. Here’s a view looking towards the desk where The Other Half set himself up (with broadband internet I might add) for the stay.
And here’s a view towards where I set up my laptop in this amazingly comfortable wing chair.
My pictures don’t really do it justice, ya’all. And to not have curtains, to have shutters! What a BRILLIANT idea.
So, after a walk around Sydney we returned to the room pretty tired and thought we’d have room service instead of go out to eat. The menu was not cheap, but there were many excellent choices there. I ordered a chicken salad sandwich and they had mashed potato on the menu as a side dish you could order with any meal, which I really felt like. So odd, but delicious. The other half chose pasta. It arrived fast, and was really delicious with big serves. We thought about dessert, but chose not.
While we were waiting for dinner, I took a shower because even though it was cold and raining Sydney was still quite humid, and then we got on the subway, which is fantastic but makes one feel quite not clean, especially a germophobe like me. The toiletries supplied by the hotel were scented with lemongrass, and absolutely heavenly. I’ll admit I am a shower snob. I like good water pressure, and I like a shower where the designer has actually thought about what happens when you shower. I hate it when water goes all over the bathroom floor. This shower was very well designed, the water stayed in the shower. As it should! The towels were a little on the small side, but there were plenty of them.
The other half took some long exposure shots of the Sydney Harbour Bridge from the window of the room. Click for a bigger view. I thought dinner was good, but I had no idea of the breakfast delights that awaited me.
Knowing you have a late checkout really takes the pressure off when it comes to morning. We didn’t wake up till 9am, and then I lazed around for a bit while the other half showered. After another scented shower from heaven and a quick hair drying session (the wall dryer was 1500 watts, not 1200 like every other hotel, makes the job a lot faster) we wandered out to catch the lift to breakfast, which was buffet style in the Icons Brasserie. When we got there, quite a queue of people were forming to be seated – looks like we caught the rush, we thought.
I should first mention, I don’t really do breakfast. If at home, I’m lucky to have a bowl of cereal once a week. A hot breakfast is out of the question, except for the occasional Sunday. My parents like hot breakfasts on the weekends but I never got into the habit. I’d rather a cup of coffee. Maybe a croissant.
Buffets can be nightmares. People vying for the best food. People who won’t get out of your way. Some places I have been, you are reminded of pigs at a trough. Not so at the Marriott. There was plenty of room, and the buffet was divided into sort of sections, to make it easier.
On the bar, there were all the fruit juices. I’m a big pineapple juice fan but there were 5 flavors to choose from. I went and got us both a glass of juice, and then a staff member asked us if we wanted coffee, of course the answer was yes. ;) The Other Half said lets eat, so we wandered off to look at the buffet. The choice was incredible. I can’t even remember it all, because I was so stunned by the fact that at the end of the buffet, they had a little section with an egg cook and a pancake cook. I wasn’t really sure what the deal was with that, so I got some scrambled eggs and bacon from the buffet and returned to my seat somewhat amazed. I finished my plate and before you could blink a staff member appeared and asked if they could take it away.
Intent on investigating the egg cook situation, I asked the other half if he wanted pancakes, so I could stand there and watch what was going on. On closer inspection, it appeared you could go there and order what you wanted, they would make it on the spot for you. Fried eggs? Poached Eggs? Boiled Eggs? Omelette? With stuff in it? They had every filling you could imagine there. Pancakes – plain, with blueberries, with fruit in them, crepes..
The urge for an omelette took over, and I forgot all about the other half’s pancakes (a good thing too because he’d gone back to the buffet and filled his plate a second time) and ordered myself an omelette with capsicum, mushroom, shallots, and cheese. That’s what the guy in front of me had, and it sounded so good I ordered it too, and then the person behind me chose the same as well! You just stand there and wait for them to make it, when they’re done you hand them your plate, they put your freshly cooked request onto it and you walk away.
As I’m going back to the table, I realise I had not even noticed a lot of what was on offer because I was so shocked by the egg and pancake situation. I spot what can only be described as an alcove of sweet things. It was like a large bookshelf, filled with continental breakfast bakery delights. Danishes. Doughnuts. Croissants. Friands. Muffins. Next to that was the cereal station. On the other side of the buffet was the toast station, with many toasters and an alcove full of Beerenberg Jams. My favorite!
When I got back to the table I was offered the juice of the day, which was Guava and Pineapple, and that was lovely too. My omelette was delicious beyond my wildest imaginings. Can you tell I really enjoyed my breakfast? :) We both did, actually. We stayed down there for an hour, sampling many treats from the various sections and stuffing ourselves to the gills, I won’t lie to you. ;) I didn’t want to leave, and neither did the other half, but we were so full we couldn’t just sit there watching everyone else eat. Though, I considered the option because the people were fascinating to me. A real cross section of tourists from all over the world. Accents from every corner of the globe were coming to me as a surprise and as we sat there so many people were enjoying themselves as much as we were.
I was also enjoying watching the staff. They seemed to work together very well, and they all seemed very happy, which I found unbelievable. Hotel service jobs must be no fun, in my opinion. People can be really nasty, I know that from retail and I imagine they have customers who are quite troublesome. Yet they all seemed as if they were enjoying doing their jobs and having fun doing it. I had to give up the staff-watch after I found just to look in their direction meant they kept coming over and asking if I needed anything. :)
We wandered back to our rooms and as we got off the elevator we noticed the aroma of lemongrass from everyone’s morning showers had filtered out into the hallway. It was aromatherapy heaven. Then we relaxed for about an hour before making the decision to get packed up and on our way. I collected the remainder of the heavenly toiletries to take home with me, wishing I could buy them ;) We took the quick pics you see above and headed down to check out.
Our car was returned to us exactly as we left it and I thanked the valet who drove it up so heartily I think he was surprised and gave me a beautiful smile. In fact all the staff gave us beautiful smiles, the whole time we were there. It’s not till they’re missing that you notice the absence of smiles.
Now I know why my sister doesn’t do less than 5 star. :) I’d certainly like to do it again, and most hotels won’t meet up to the wonderful standard set by the Sydney Harbour Marriott. The one down side to our stay was, we think the springs in our bed were broken. Hotel beds must get an absolute thrashing and I reckon some kids must have been jumping on this one. I’m not one to complain, it was just a little noisy when turning over, and I liked everything else so much I don’t really care, but I did write a note on the comments form to let them know. I’m sure the hotel will fix it, they probably already have. :)
Just in the interests of disclosure and to prevent confusion, this was NOT a paid review in any way. We paid to stay there ourselves. But if any hotel wants me to come and stay and review them, here is my contact page, I’m happy to oblige ;) As long as you know I’m going to tell people what I really thought of my stay there.
Have you ever wondered why they bother to have a safety demonstration on the plane at all? A lot of people think ok, if the plane is going to crash what is the point of knowing any of these things. They’d rather skip the safety demonstration all together – for two reasons, one being the “It will never happen to me” attitude and one being that they find it annoying, repetitive and intrusive.
If you knew what I knew, you’d know watching that safety demonstration very closely might actually save your life. Not every incident on a plane is fatal. Incidents on a plane can *become* fatal if people haven’t been paying attention to the safety demo. Here’s a few things I think you should know. They may not be things you *want* to know, they may scare you a little. However being scared might make you a survivor instead of a statistic.
First of all, you need to know about hypoxia. At sea level there’s plenty of oxygen in the air. As you go up into the atmosphere, two things happen – it becomes a LOT colder, and there is less oxygen. Where commercial planes generally fly is between 30,000-40,000 feet and they do this for a lot of technical reasons which I won’t bore you with here. They are able to do this because the cabin you are travelling in is pressurized.
The moment the plane doors shut, air is pumped into the cabin to increase the air pressure within the plane. That means you can safely breathe, and the air is kept warm, and the plane can safely fly at high altitude without killing you. You may notice you have to swallow in order to make your ears pop.
However in air travel, things can and do go wrong. If they did happen to go wrong, you need to know this – at 30,000 feet, you have approximately 45-75 seconds to get on oxygen before you lose consciousness and will be unable to put your mask on. At 40,000 feet, you have between 10-30 seconds to put your mask on.
The safety demonstrations try oh so gently to not scare you, but in effect what they do is take away any urgency you should feel. There have been times when the masks have fallen from the ceilings in commercial jets and the passengers just sat there looking at them. Nobody made an effort to put their mask on. Lucky them, because in those cases there wasn’t anything wrong with the plane, but they *could* have died if there had been. So, that makes safety lesson number one –
It’s better to look a little silly than to be very dead, would we all agree?
So why would the masks drop down, I hear you ask? What’s going to be wrong with the plane? Best case scenario is that something is wrong with the planes cabin pressurization system. Worst case scenario is that there has been an explosive decompression of some kind. That could be anything from a small hole in the plane to the plane missing an entire section.
If there has been an explosive decompression, there will be a fine mist in the air for a short time, things will be flying around in the cabin. You may experience intense pain in your ears especially if you have a bad cold or flu the pain caused by this cannot be described, it will make it impossible to think. Anything or anyone not tied down is going to fly around and might even get pushed out through the hole. So that makes safety lesson number two –
It’s just good sense to do that and not just because of the possibility of explosive decompression, there could be turbulence, anything can happen. I’ve seen people thrown out of their seats during *taxi* from the runway to the terminal because the plane had to brake suddenly. That could end in tears – or even a broken neck. Have you been on a plane and heard all that seatbelt un-doing right after the plane lands? So that makes safety lesson number three –
You’re not going anywhere until the plane stops anyway, having your seatbelt undone won’t make you get off the plane any faster, so why take the risk?
If something did happen, the amount of time you’d be in shock because you were in “it won’t happen to me mode” could be the amount of time it takes to kill you. Many passengers die because they sat in stunned silence while the plane filled with smoke. It’s almost like they gave up – they thought well, the plane is crashing, that’s it, I’m dead, there’s no way I can survive this. People can and do survive. Safety rule number four is important and simple.
There are a lot of good aviation safety books out there. However there is one book which I believe should be on your bookshelf. It is called “Black Box” by Nicholas Faith. There are many excellent lessons to be learned from this book, even by non-aviation fans.
I know a fair bit about flying. I have absolutely no fear of it. What I fear is that the people around me aren’t going to have paid attention to the safety demonstrations, and they’re going to slow me down to the point I can’t get off the aircraft. Passengers have been known to try and collect their hand luggage in the event of an evacuation.
You know something? If you’re in front of me, and you’re trying to get your hand luggage out of the overhead locker, and we’ve been told to evacuate, I’m going to punch you, push you or KICK you, hard. I’m going to get you the F*CK out of my way, and I don’t care who you are or how important your stuff seems to you. You may be more interested in your laptop than saving your life, but I want to live, so get out of my way, get out of everyone else’s way, have some respect for the lives of others. Safety rule five therefore is –
And PS – even if you don’t have travel insurance that covers everything you have on the plane, if your stuff is destroyed the airline will usually compensate you. And if you’re dead, you can’t use your stuff, so leave it where it is and get out of the aircraft. NOW.
I will leave you with this final thought and a few videos. On August the 22nd, 1985, a British Airtours Boeing 737-200 lined up for take off at Manchester airport. 130 passengers were on board. As the plane gained speed, there was a loud thump heard. The pilot thought a tyre had burst, so he aborted the take off, slowed the aircraft, and turned off the runway. He did not know the plane was actually on fire because parts of the engine had disintegrated and been thrown through the wing fuel tank. The evacuation was more difficult because most of the exits on the side of the plane that was on fire could not be used. 55 people died.
What surprised most people about this incident was that the plane never crashed. It never got off the ground at all. It was at an airport with an excellent fire fighting team who trained constantly and who arrived at the aircraft within moments, literally, of the fire being reported. This incident was one of the major factors in changing many things in aviation, from the materials used in building planes becoming less flammable to aisles and exits being made wider.
What does an evacuation of a big plane look like? Chaos really. This video shows the new Airbus A380 being evacuated. 873 people in 77 seconds. Can you imagine how much slower it would be if people were trying to get their stuff?
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gqWeJGwV_U]
Chuck Yeager talking about another pilot experiencing hypoxia and how he helped save the pilot’s life.
Air Force Pilot undergoing hypoxia training
Further reading on plane crashes and how to prepare for them and potentially survive them – (all are PDF, so be patient while your browser loads them)
Am I Alive? One flight attendant’s heart breaking story of what happened when the plane crashed. I recommend you read it but beware, it pulls no punches and is disturbing in some ways. Tissues may come in handy, it sure brought tears to my eyes.
Training Saves LivesAnother flight attendant’s story.
United Flight 11 Explosive decompression and quite a lot of missing plane as well as 9 missing passengers.
United Flight 232 A long read but well worth it. Captain Al Haynes is one person I greatly admire, and you’ll see why if you read that.
You should also check out my previous post – what not to wear on a plane.
The Sydney Harbor Bridge – view from my hotel room.
Hi ya’all! Sitting in my rather luxurious hotel room just having eaten a lovely dinner. :) :)
I woke up this morning in a different hotel – we chose to stay at two different places – at Olympic Park to a beautiful view from the window of the big blue and yellow building we all love. While the other half showered I looked out the window dreaming of Ikea shopping. When he got out of the shower he pointed out that also in the view was the city of Sydney, and the Harbor Bridge. I hadn’t even spotted it.
Let me tell you about Ikea shopping on a Saturday. We’d only ever been during the week before. Apparently on a Saturday every man, woman and child in need of *something* turns up at Ikea. It was packed. And we discovered that people in the city in general (not counting any of you reading this who are in a city because obviously you’re much better behaved!) are rude, pushy, and even happy to walk smack bang into you if you don’t get out of their way. They’ll push their trolley into you, and it’s not because they didn’t see you. They did see you, they just don’t give a shit. They’re hoping to hit you and they hope it hurts because you shouldn’t be in their way, though they *might* say sorry if you catch them in the act. They drive just like that, too. It’s scary.
At one point I was looking for this little ufo shaped power board called something like a rabalder – it’s not on the website. I couldn’t see any but I really wanted it. I have a thing about plugs and Ikea were using these all through their lighting section, they are beautiful, I can’t really describe it. So I was walking around, calling its name, hoping I would find it somewhere. Then, like it was dropped out of the sky, I found one sitting in a basket. It was the only one available to buy. It must have been meant to be! And no, it didn’t seem weird to the city people that I was walking around calling an inanimate object.
I’d forgotten how crazy city people dress, too. There was a guy in Adelaide who used to get around town in just a black leotard. He was pretty tall and quite noticeable. It was raining a lot here today so I didn’t spot any leotards but I did see a few outfits worthy of an arrest by the Fashion Police.
So after Ikea and Lone Star, we drove down Parramatta Road into town. This is because we had heard rumours of many car yards on this road, and we want to get a look at the new model Corolla. However when we did find Toyota it wasn’t possible to park there, so we kept going. Into the city where we handed the car to Valet Parking and entered 5 star heaven. This place is so gorgeous it puts a smile on your face just to walk into it. I’ve stayed in a lot of hotels but this must be the most pretty. No wonder my sister won’t stay in anything less than 5 star.. :)
At one point during the drive here, a 747 just appeared above us. It was nice to see something bigger than a pelican in the sky. :) Maybe some plane spotting and Krispy Kremes on the way home tomorrow.
This afternoon we remembered it was ages since we’d been to a proper bookstore so we went in search of Borders, and I got me a few nice books. One by Gene Kranz from Nasa during the early years, I’m looking forward to reading that. I’ve seen him interviewed many times and he’s such a lovely guy.
Late checkout tomorrow so we’re going to lounge around before heading home. No aquarium, it was too rainy and a bit far to walk after we’d already walked around half the city – we thought we’d eat room service and chill out a bit.
There were Americans in the lift – the first time I’ve seen friendly people since we got here. :) Other than the Hotel Staff.. lol slightly but I am actually serious. Sad but true.
I’m counting down the minutes until this weekend because we’re going to Sydney for a little bit of a shopping spree at IKEA and a couple of days break. ;)
If you have never been to IKEA I am terribly sorry to hear that. My condolences. I don’t get to go very often but the memories keep me going until the next time I can get there.
What is it that I love about IKEA?
The Swedish names for things. None of which I can pronounce but it is so much fun to mis-pronounce them.
The temporal vortex created by so much mind blowing stuff all in one place at once.
The fact that a little money goes a long way there.
The beauty they put into in every day objects.
What’s on the shopping list for this trip?
A vegetable strainer (this one probably)
A candle snuffer (I have always wanted one and the other half says no but this time he can’t! I think this one might do the trick)
A new mixing bowl (I have my eye on this one but I might get these as well, they were out of stock last time.)
But IKEA is not the only thing we are doing. We’re still not sure exactly what we are doing yet but probably a visit to the Lone Star steakhouse will be on the list of things to do. If the weather is bad Sydney Aquarium will probably be one of the stops – they’re open till 10pm, wow! From my last trip to Darling Harbor, comfort is the number one important thing when it comes to shoes, this I have learned. ;) We might visit Chinatown or the busy city shopping mall. We might end up at the Imax theatre. The forecast is for showers, so inside is looking like the go.
Whatever we end up doing, I’m not going to leave you guys in the dark. With the help of Sephy photographs from my mobile phone will be coming to you as a surprise. :)
The next couple of days will be pretty busy with getting ready, so apologies if I’m not dropping by places. I am still reading you with google reader though. ;)
Other IKEA related posts –
Wow, it’s been a busy week here. Just a few bits of housekeeping and an art update.
As far as the commenting goes, I’ve decided to take my time with it because after going through just 25 blogs, I’ve added 5 excellent ones to my google reader. These will be linked in the weekly wrap up.
So you might be wondering what makes me add a blog to my google reader? 95% of the time it is because the blogger has “it” – it being a mysterious thing that makes me want to know more about them and read more about them.
What are some of the annoying trends in the blogging world that I have picked up after just 25 blogs? There seems to be a new plug in where you hover over a link and it pops up a preview box. This sounds nice in theory but it makes everything go very slow here on my system, and to be honest is just really annoying. If I want to click on a link, I’m going to click, I don’t need a preview. :) It also seemed to make those blogs very slow in loading, to the tune of anywhere between 2-5 minutes. I think it’s called snap or snapshots. Say no to it, bloggers. It seems to be evil.
In other blogging trends, you may have noticed a trend towards “monetize your blog”. I’ve been to some blogs with more ads than blog content. That’s not going to happen here, however.. That money has gone toward an important new project which I can’t announce yet. ;) Believe me I am hanging out to launch it, so as soon as I can say anything I’ll let you know.
WordPress blogs look fantastic. Sephy and I have been considering setting one up for some time now to try it out and play with it, so we did. On closer inspection it seems to be some kind of elaborate scam to get people to pay money for things blogger does for free. I could be wrong about that and WordPress people don’t line up to hit me over the head with things, but it seems like everything costs money, even down to how much space you get for your blog unless you want to host a wordpress on your own space – which you also have to pay for. Blogger does this for free :) we’ve got it good blogger people. If you’re using WordPress can you take a moment to comment on how it all works?
I’m seriously considering a blog template change. I’m not in love with what I have now however it is functional and it works. If I can get a larger picture up there that might be enough to make me happy. I don’t like that the images have to be so thin.
While in keeping you up to date mode, I currently have many art works in progress. You can click on any of the photos for a bigger view. In this picture you can count 9 paintings in progress.
You can see 5 stacked on top of each other – the pink one completes the set of 5 which I am doing as cardboard dragging. I’m going to take some pics of how that’s done so that I can write a post about it. You guys out there might be inspired to do some works of your own. It is so simple. ;) Here’s a close up of the pink one, which I am seriously crazy about already and this is just the base coat.
The painting below is the final completed version of the painting for my nephew, which had just been freshly sealed when I took the shot so the flash reflected a little. There’s nothing white on the painting. I asked you guys for opinions on this 69 days ago, wow, how time flies!
So what am I up to for the rest of the day? I have to cook dinner, I am going to watch some West Wing, comment on a few blogs, and most important of all, look at some hotel packages in Sydney. This month is my Birthday month and Mum is going to pay for us to visit Sydney for a weekend (or midweek might be better value, because I am not my sister) and also IKEA. YAY! I’m seriously writing a huge list of things I want to get there. Laundry Baskets are number one on the list right now, followed closely by AA batteries. They had packs of 10 AA’s for $2 and they last for ages, and my cordless mouse chews up batteries and spits them out. Yes, I mouse too much.
I saw a hotel package which includes 30 minutes in a flotation tank. I’d love to try that. It’ll probably be somewhere in the CBD and I’ll take my camera and take heaps of pictures. We might get to the zoo but I’d like to hang out at Darling Harbor and go back to Sydney Aquarium myself – looking at fish without a snorkel. I don’t know if we’d have time for both. For those of you who have never been to Sydney, Darling Harbor is just incredible. There’s no describing it.
Last night some work related people were down from Sydney and they took my parents and the other half and I out to dinner. My mother made a comment that I was obsessed with Ikea. I was somewhat surprised. I offer to you now the conversation.
Me – So where do you live in Sydney?
Visitor – Dee Why
Me – Is that close to Ikea?
Visitor – No, it’s close to Manly.
Me – How far away is Manly from Ikea?
Visitor – It’s a bit of a drive.
Me – I’m sorry to hear that. You could always move closer?
Visitor – We’ve lived in the same house for 32 years.
Me – They have fantastic waterfront apartments at Rhodes (this is the suburb Ikea is in)
Visitor – I don’t really like putting things together, you know, like furniture?
Me – You could get someone to do it for you. And they sell lots of stuff that doesn’t need assembling.
The other half then mentions that he loves putting things together, and that he loves Ikea.
Me – Mum, when we go down to Sydney to drop off the rellies in a couple of weeks, can we go to Ikea?
Mum – She’s obsessed with Ikea.
Well let us take a look at the facts.
1. I pine for Ikea.
2. I dream of blonde Swedish Vikings naked in hottubs outside in the snow. Oh hang on.. that’s not relevant. ;) Or is it? ;)
3. When we are driving to Ikea, I have a big happy smile on my face.
4. When I spot Ikea looming in the distance, I clap, and make happy sounds.
5. The last time we went to Ikea, when we walked in a little girl was running around and making happy screaming sounds, and I said to the other half – that’s what I feel like doing. And truly, I did feel like doing that.
6. I do speak of Ikea reasonably often.
7. I dream of going to Ikea from time to time.
8. I love the things we got from Ikea a little too much, if that’s possible.
9. I love the names of things at Ikea. I have no idea how to pronounce them, but I like to try.
10. How can anyone not love Swedish things? Abba? Viking men with enormous.. horns on their helmets? And next door, Norway, with A-ha and also more Vikings. Let’s face it, if you were a band in Finland, you might want to make sure your band name has an A, it might increase your chances of world stardom.
On the other hand..
If I were obsessed with Ikea, a search for the word Ikea on this blog would surely return more than 3 results.
So, I will let you decide. Am I obsessed with Ikea, people?
Or will you? ;)
And to the victor go the spoils..
The other half did not miss out, he got to have Lone Star for lunch.
It was a lovely outing.