obstacles

oh ikea.  your blue and yellow in the land of red and white is a welcome sight for us as we go about furnishing a house from scratch.  even the sky seems to agree with you.  not to mention the bus stop.  

hiding behind the trees... this was after a successful shopping trip...

but it's about the journey, not the destination, right? 

i was early for the train, but this timeliness did not dictate the rest of the day's schedule.  

i was going one stop over to meet katie, who'd kindly agreed to go to ikea with me for round two of procurements.  our trains were to get to the station at the same time, which they probably did.  

for some reason we're unable to connect on our phones, so we have to do things the old-fashioned way... just sort of poke our heads through crowds until we spot one another.  but today we were on completely different tracks.  she went over. i went up. and we missed each other, and our bus by one minute.  no problem.  we found each other, and after determining there wasn't necessarily a better bus to take us there, we waited the twenty minutes for the next.  

i had spent some portion of yesterday figuring out trains and buses, so i had everything mapped out nicely on a piece of paper.  but we got on the bus talking and we passed our stop talking, then katie mentioned something that made me realize i was supposed to be paying attention and that we had surely missed the stop.  we got off the bus at the next train station and began looking around for that station's bus station.  we surely looked lost because a man asked if he could help us.  we explained we were trying to get to ikea and he told us take a train (back) to the train station we'd just come from and pick up a bus we'd already determined would not get us there.  but we went along with it, took a train back to the other station, attempted to determine if this bus he'd suggested really could get us there, were unable to do so with any degree of certainty, and went back to wait for the original bus, as katie put it, 'for round two'-- 1 hour after the first.  

but this time we paid attention and it worked.  we got off the bus at hveen boulevard as originally planned and circumnavigated the great expanse of land that is devoted to maintaining gigantic chain stores and the cars they welcome, until we found a (pedestrian indifferent) opening.  then up to ask a question about delivery, then down to ask a question about delivery, then up to get a cart, then down to get a cart.  until finally shopping ensued.  perhaps it was while helping me not knock people in the head with the rugs sticking out of the cart that katie realized the importance of maintaining a "furnished apartment" during her own three years in denmark.   

at the home delivery counter, the woman told us, "now i want you to put one of these stickers on each and every item."  all 61.  all thrown haphazardly in two carts.  okay!  peel, stick, peel, stick.  'is there already a sticker on this one?'  etc.  

but it should all be at the new house sometime right around the time (i realized later) that i should be sitting in my danish class after our six week break.  oops.  

and the rest of the family?  greg picked up the guys while i was still picking out mattresses.  they were locked out of the house so they went to the obstacle course park and tackled obstacles...