Tuesday 11 September 2007

IKEA

Last weekend we decided it was time we gave in to temptation and visit the IKEA store in Allamon. To get there you catch a special train that terminates in Allamon, and from the station the giant blue and yellow signage of the IKEA store beckons, along with those of several other warehouse-sized shopping centres.


When we arrived we were giddy with excitement, since for so long we had been abstaining from buying up on homey goods that we would have previously had to throw out or haul with us when we moved from place to place. We were encouraged by our move from Lausanne to Nyon, for which we hired a nice, comfy, VW van which managed to fit all our belongings.

The initial excitement ebbed away pretty quickly after entering, however, since the store is enormous and the number of similarly-hyped shoppers was a little overwhelming. We did our best to not buy anything we didn’t need, but still ended up spending nearly 500chf on bedding and kitchenware (this for our already fully furnished apartment!).

By the end of our little shopping trip we had definitely reached consumerist saturation point and practically ran through the last few showrooms to reach the cashier. We piled our goods onto the conveyor belt and struggled to fit everything into three of those huge blue IKEA bags for the trip home on the train.

We puffed our way home with our bags, and spent the next several hours recovering, ripping off plastic wrapping, and dealing with post-purchase guilt. I think it will take some time for us to get out of the spend-no-money frame of mind we have built up over the last few months of traveling, and get used to the idea of settling somewhere.

Also, next time we move house I think it will require two loads in the VW van.



1 comment:

rainbow said...

Mmm...Ikea catalogue arrived at our house yesterday...mmm...so much storage!