it was really pissing me off that there was no mirror in the room because it was impossible to do my hair. anyone who has known me for more than a day knows that i've never been a "hair-doer" type of person. i had finally decided that i was going to become one, and now look what happens! no mirror. to be fair, i do straighten it a lot, so i suppose i would have needed one regardless, but still, it was like bad karma or something.
in the states, we have outlets in the bathroom that "trip" if any water gets into them. they're perfectly safe, because you test them on a regular basis and make sure that the power will cut off properly, etc. apparently in europe, that's not the case. an outlet in the bathroom is completely unheard of & is sooooooooo dangerous, so none of my hair tools can be used in the bathroom, where the only mirror in the apartment was located.
i also found out that somehow i hadn't realized that my appliances needed an adaptor in order to work here because the plugs are all funny looking and don't work with the US ones. we picked one up earlier, and i tried to straighten my hair and noticed that my straightener was smelling funny. apparently i needed not only a plug adaptor, but also a wattage adapter if i didn't want to set the place on fire, because the power comes through stronger in europe than it does in the states. different money, different languages, and now different plugs? really couldn't make things easy for me, could they?
we head out to ikea about three hours after we had intended to leave, which anyone who has known ben for more than a day can see how that happened. maybe it was more like one hour late, but three makes my story sound better. we get in the car with a photo of the google mapped route to get there that we took on his ipod, and decide that it will suffice to get us where we need to be. luckily, this part actually went right! we get to ikea, park, & go in.
first of all, can i just say i am a complete & total ikea junky. i know the stuff isn't exactly top-of-the-line, but honestly i couldn't give two shits... i love it. and the size of the building?! i could spend four days in there, and not even stop to eat. again, if you know me, that is really saying something. we get to walking around, and in no time i'm lugging about the equivalent of my body weight in sheets, duvet, pillows - the works. okay, fine, ben's lugging it. people who see him coming literally just move.. it's like seeing shrek & buddy the elf morphed into one, performing a balancing act and running over small children in the process. i would have moved too.
we've made it about halfway through the store when some guy comes up to us to tell us they're closing in 5 minutes. i'm sorry, what?? it's 3pm. evidently they "close early on wednesdays." little do we know this will soon become the story of our lives. we hurry to finish finding what we need, find a carpet that looks fuzzy and comfy and are on our way, but not before i ruined the display by taking the one that was hanging up, caused a scene, and was reprimanded by someone in greek. apparently ruining a display is frowned upon.. who knew. in my defense, i didn't see the pile where you're supposed to take them from and thought that was what i was supposed to do. we leave before realizing that we don't have a mirror.
on the way home, we pass an electric store & decide to pop in to see if they have the wattage adaptor i need for my hair dryer/straightener. the front door is open and there are guys working on the steps outside, so we kind of make our way around them & head inside. we're greeted by a really sweet little girl who tells us that they're closed because it's after 3, but kind of still asks us what we need. this very large, mean-looking, greek man then comes over & proceeds to tell us again that they're "closed, but you, uhh, need something?" ben starts to explain the situation & what we're looking for. side note, you should see him talking to people that don't speak english very well! he's, for some reason, under the impression that if you use your hands a lot and flail them around, all of a sudden VOILA the person understands the language. it's really great for a laugh if you ever need one. this guy winds up writing down the name of another store for us to go to that will be able to give us the adaptor thing we need. why thank you sir! still finding it weird how most people here look absolutely terrifying and miserable, but wind up being the most friendly, helpful people ever.
when we get home, i'm so excited about these sheets & my desire to burn the other ones, that i don't even stop to wash them before putting them on the bed (sorry, mom). we go to unroll the carpet and put it down to find that it's only a meter squared & looks like a joke on the floor. room looks great, though, and much more homey!
xox k
Fun story. I almost feel like I'm there.
ReplyDeleteI think you should learn the language.
ReplyDelete