Today we went to Ikea. It was like a little taste of home. A little Swedish taste of home. Ikeas are the same the world over so it was kind of nice wandering around in there. We could have been in Sweden, or Minneapolis, or Chicago or London. All the stores seem to have the same layout, the same signage, and the same blue and yellow color scheme. And of course, the same great stuff. I love Ikea.
It all started when M called last night as I was watching Project Runway on youtube to suggest the expedition. Of course, I accepted immediately and we made arrangements to meet at 10am to begin our adventure.
We had to take a tram and two busses to get there. First the tram up to the Cats, then one bus to Termini and another from Termini to Ikea. That was a long bus ride. Ikea is at the Porta di Roma shopping mall, and it is WAY out there. I am not even sure exactly where we were in relation to the city center, but we were very far away from it. We were also surrounded by some of the most pig-ugly apartment buildings I have ever seen. And judging from the number of tower cranes I saw, there are more on the way. I know I shouldn’t criticize. There are pig-ugly apartment buildings everywhere in the world.
I do think this mall must be relatively new though. The walk from the bus stop to the mall and Ikea isn’t especially nice. You would think the bus would stop right in front of the mall, but instead it stops about a block away, so you have to cross a big intersection that has no crosswalks, and fortunately also not much traffic. It’s a temporary bus stop, adding more evidence to support my theory that this is a relatively new mall.
So anyway, we arrived at Ikea just in time for lunch. Swedish meatballs. Yay! The children had French fries, bread and fruit salad. Not the most balanced lunch but not that bad either. We also had cinnamon rolls and I had a coffee. Then it was time for a good look around. Our first stop was the kid’s section where I picked up some of those plastic drinking cups like the ones we have at home. They will come in handy for picnics because we can use them for wine too. At dinner tonight Princess O said “oh it is so nice to drink milk out of an Ikea cup again”. How funny is that? I didn’t buy much because we didn’t really need anything, and I didn’t want to carry a bunch of stuff home on two busses and a tram. Besides, this shopping trip was really just recreational.
We went to the Port di Roma mall while we were out there. That was kind of odd too. We could have been in a nice American mall so many of the stores were the same. We didn’t stay long because the children were getting tired and unhappy. I told M we should get the men-folk to watch the kids some Saturday and go back out there ourselves senza bambini. Maybe after spring break.
Posted by goitaly 
