Sunday, August 29, 2004

Ikea

http://www.ikea.com

Today, Dad and I made a trip to the new Ikea that opened on Columbus Boulevard in Philadelphia. It was a madhouse! You would think people had never before been to a discount Swedish retailer! There is an Ikea in Plymouth Meeting, but this one is the first in an urban area.

First of all, I took the wrong turn coming off the bridge and wound up going back OVER the Walt Whitman Bridge. Then I got stuck in a line of traffic going into the Ikea parking lot. There were so many people, they had police directing traffic.

Once inside, a band was playing WAY too loud for Dad's ears. We went upstairs. It was PACKED. It was worse than the Boardwalk in July or South Street at 9 p.m. on a Friday.

Since he is a guy, Dad is not much of a shopper. He is very purpose-driven, wheras I like to sit on all the chairs and touch everything. We had a nifty lunch in the cafeteria. The Swedish meatballs were on sale for $1.99! YUMMMMMMM.

I looked at a wall unit but basically did not have the energy to haul the thing to my car, tie it to my car, drag it up three flights to my apartment and then put it together. Instead, I bought two pillows for $3.99 each, two wooden cutting boards and an impulse buy at the register of 10 wooden hangars.

The BEST part of the new Ikea is that it sits directly across the street from the aging cruise ship, the S.S. United States. In its heyday, the ship was a glamorous passenger vessel. Now it sits rusting at the dock, awaiting someone to refurbish it. But it is darned cool to look at its red smokestacks and deck, even if they have seen better days.

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