Kitchen Ikea

Today was Ikea day. After another 13 hour night of sleeping, we treked out to the car to try our hand at driving with the French for the first time. Luckily it's out in the suburbs so I didn't have to deal with city center traffic, and after a few wrong turns due to the nav system (and learning that when it says "turn right now" it actually means in like 10 meters, and not actually right that very second at the street you are right at) we made it.

And we were happy... until we realized it's just a kitchen Ikea, not a normal Ikea. Meaning it just has the kitchen section, and not everything else. The internet lied to me, as everyone on forums said all the Ikeas were the same. But it ain't so!

 So that was disappointing, since most of the things on our list (like hangers, which we can't find for the life of us in the stores around us) have to wait. That is definitely one of those culture shock moments where you just want to go "WHY CAN'T BUYING A CLOTHES HANGER BE SIMPLE?!?!!"

But we did pick up a few things, so all in all not a bad trip. And I got to show Kara were I worked, which truly is WAAAY outside of Paris. Like there is corn and crops being grown on the other side of the street from the office.

On the brighter side we discovered there's now apparently an Ikea bus that takes you from a main train station and drops you off at a real Ikea, so we'll take that next weekend instead. No need to have a car anymore to get to an Ikea in Paris.

We also got our photos taken at a metro photobooth so we can get our Navigo metro passes tomorrow. Looking forward to not having to stop at a ticket machine every single trip.

We also finally found where all the street food is at (next to the Saint-Michel metro stop on Rue de la Huchette) so we got some kabobs and ate them on the steps of the Seine, looking out towards Notre Dame. It'd been the first time it really felt like we were really in Paris, and things were starting to feel semi-normal. It's nice.