What did we learn during the London Ikea adventure? (See Blog 1) First, it is a whole day thing. We don’t live in Towson anymore. We don’t have a car anymore. Second, know your public transportation options and stops. We got soaked in the rain in London because we had no idea where to catch the bus and kept running from one stop to the next – in the rain. Third, be ready to commit. Know what you need, know that you are not coming back next weekend; take detailed pictures and notes. And, lastly, know it all turns out fine in the end; we found a very good restaurant very close to our initial London apartment because we (me) were too wiped out to walk very far for dinner after the trip to Ikea; this part could happen again, be ready.
The previous paragraph was written on Friday before our Ikea trip on Saturday. We thought we were so much smarter now; turns out, we may be a little smarter, but we are far from being ‘homies’. We scoped out the tram and metro options, which are nothing compared to London, more comparable to Baltimore. There are a few tram lines and two metros. We decided on a combination of tram and metro to keep ourselves above ground. No worries; we have our cards, we have our required masks for public transportation, we have our iPhones for maps. We caught the tram not far from our apartment at Dam Square, easy enough. But, after a while we saw that the tram itself was not staying on the map line – we learned it can be confusing if you don’t speak or read the local language; omleiding in Dutch means detour in English. Luckily, the detour ended before our stop at the intersection with the metro; the trip taking over an hour instead of about 20 minutes.
So, it took longer to get there, but we had time and no rain. The Ikea is huge. Because of Covid, they are set up to limit the number of folks inside at one time, but no need; it was not crowded. We made our way finding a couple chairs for tv watching, a side table for our entry way, a desk for me in the dining room, and a butcher block for a soon-to-be-purchased microwave in the kitchen. Before we got too tired, we made sure we were on the route to the Ikea café. We knew a sit down with coffee and a snack would be helpful in maintaining our sense of humor. We found the café – oops, I forgot to check the website for all Covid required changes the store has in place; café is now take away only for smoothies, bottle drinks, and muffins, no meatballs, no seating. Taking one of each we made our way on to the next section. Luck intervened, and we found a bench next to what used to be a children’s play area which is also closed for Covid. Our Ikea shopping crankies were averted.
We finished our trip without incident and returned via the metro without a problem. Yes, we were empty-handed. We can’t begin to take Ikea items back to our apartment. With the delivery costs the same, its actually easier to order online than wait in person to arrange delivery. The items are in the online ‘winklewagen’ (shopping cart) almost ready to be brought in to the apartment; (waiting on a Netherlands phone number to complete the online ordering requirements) leaving only the problem of putting it all together, but everyone who reads this already knows how that part going to go. And dinner? We stretched out the trip, so it was almost dinner time as we walked back from Centraal Station. As we walked down the Harlemerstraat we settled into an outdoor seat at a restaurant we’ve had our eye on anyway and had some wine as we waited to order our food – on the whole, a successful trip.
Not a big adventure. A lesson about language for sure; and generally, not worth writing too much about. There aren’t even any pictures, but it feels like a circle is complete; so there’s that.