Ikea - the international experience

Last... Saturday maybe? Me and Jaimie and Louise, Janne, Jill, Heidi and Sarah (most of the current Ignite team) went on a road trip to Ikea! Me because I needed house stuff and the Igniters cos they were bored :)

Seeing as it was dinnertime we crashed the restaurant first to eat. Such a good choice.

We all have Ikea in our respective home countries. And we'd all been there before. And as we walked through the line at the restaurant, grabbing our plates of Swedish meatballs and making our way to sit at a table, Jaimie (from the UK) summed up what we were all thinking.

"It's funny - how we all come from all over the world, and yet we come to Ikea and feel like we're coming home."

And it's true. If I shut my eyes, maybe for a while I was back down in Slack's Creek; a stone's throw from the Salvos Lifeworks Centre, eating Swedish meatballs and wishing I had an empty house and a lot of money to decorate. I think the last time was that time with some of my friends (in Oz) - Kate and Laney - where we found this cool table where the chairs fit into the corners, not along the sides...

And the only thing that brought me back to reality was the distinct absence of Solo from my soft drink options - not cool. But it was sweet to walk around somewhere familiar buying cool quilt covers and pillows, and enjoying the sense of commonality with a Norwegian, a Dane, a Brit, 2 Germans and a Canadian - however briefly it may have lasted.