How to buy all your furniture in a few hours...

We finally got the internet. FINALLY! I am somewhat embarrassed to say it, but our family is pretty cranky without the internet. Sometimes Andrew and I feel a little pride in not having cable and almost never using a TV. But we are deceiving ourselves! I have never seen my kids as happy as when the internet man left and I turned on netflix. The first looks of sheer joy I have seen on their faces since we arrived in London.

I feel like I need to go back and document some of our experiences here. We have definitely had some funny/crazy/instructive experiences here that are worth recording.

Back when we first arrived, we were fortunate enough to be able to stay at Andrew's co-fellow's flat. He was on holiday with his family and offered it for a week. I don't know what we would have done without this incredibly kind gesture. Not only did we save a fortune, but it was fully stocked with what we needed and made the transition a little bit easier. They even had bunk beds! It was a very modern-styled flat in an incredibly central location. I remember waking up the morning after I arrived and looking out the window at all the very nice, very English-style homes on a cobblestone street. I felt like I was in a movie.

I'm glad that we had the experience of living in that part of London. It was fairly close to Andrew's work and we had actually considered renting something in that area for a time. But after a few days I realized it was not a great fit for us. It was a little too central. Every time I left the flat with the kids my heart rate accelerated ten-fold. It was very busy, noisy and definitely not kid-friendly. In fact, I never saw anyone with kids walking around. I only time I saw other kids was when we went to the city park. They must have all lived at that park :). In short, it wasn't a place I would enjoy living very much with kids. I was relieved that Andrew had found a flat in a different area and it would be ready to move into at the end of the week.

I think a separate post should be dedicated to how LONG and FRUSTRATING it is to get anything done in this country. It should be noted that getting into our flat was a lot more complicated than we thought it would be. Luckily, our landlord let us move in before everything was finalized. Otherwise we would have had to move to a hotel for a few days. The Saturday after I arrived, we got the keys to our flat. It was completely empty. One of the reasons we considered not renting this flat in the beginning was because of the fact that it came unfurnished. Furnishing a flat seemed like an expensive headache. Especially without a car. But in the end, this flat was a great deal and offered us a lot more space than the others Andrew had looked at.

We realized the day we got the keys (Saturday) that we needed to go and get furniture right away. Otherwise we would have to wait a week until Andrew had a day off. There was no way I could manage such a big job alone with 3 kids. If we waited a week, we would have nothing to sleep on or eat on or sit on. So we rushed to Ikea.

Getting to Ikea was a bit difficult. We got off our bus too early and had to walk over a mile with the kids. They were not very good sports about this. And it was hot. Probably the only hot day I've experienced in London. We got there around 5pm and quickly realized that even though we had several hours, it might not be enough time to get everything we needed.

I can't tell you how many times I have almost had a breakdown in Ikea. I feel like I have been in the situation more than once where the store is about to close, and I'm trying to find what I need in the giant warehouse. I'm tired. I'm frustrated. I'm stressed. I vow never to shop at Ikea again. But this experience was hopefully the worst Ikea experience I will ever have. It can never be this bad again. At least that is what I kept telling myself as I was going through it.

We went through the store, grabbing things that we needed and making notes of larger things we were thinking of buying. Ikea is always a sensory overload for me. I'm not great at making decisions in the first place and having to decide on everything in one go was a little too much for me. Around 8:30 Andrew decided to leave with the kids to go home. It was going to take him over an hour to get home and we knew they were tired (as it turned out they didn't make it back until midnight).

So I had a cart overflowing with things and a handwritten (somewhat unorganized) list of bigger ticket items that we were thinking of buying. The idea was to buy it all at once so we would only have to pay for delivery once. But I was a little unclear about how the process actually worked. I thought I could put in my order and they would pull things off the shelves and deliver. But actually I needed to go through the wearhouse, pick everything out myself, take it through checkout and then take it over to an area where they would arrange delivery. I honestly did not have enough time to do this. But the people at Ikea were very helpful and patient with me. First they helped me make a printout of everything I needed to pull from the shelves. This was helpful because I'm sure I would have forgotten things like "bed slats". It wouldn't be so bad if everything needed came in one box. But instead something you like in the showroom could actually come in 3 separate boxes and you may not be aware of what other components you need. Anyway, when I got to the warehouse, I got everything I could personally pick up and then I had to divide up the list among 3 big guys who helped me get everything else. I'll admit it, I begged. I'm sure I looked incredibly desperate. But they probably decided to help me because the store was closed and they wanted to go home :).

In the end I had 6 push-carts full of boxes plus my overflowing shopping cart. The damage came to just under 1500 pounds (not bad for furnishing a whole flat). I didn't get done until 11:30. I'm sure the store employees were more than happy to see me leave.

After I unloaded everything to be delivered the next day, I went out to find the bus stop. My phone battery didn't have much life left and I wasn't sure exactly where I was going. I also knew that I only had a little bit of money left on my travel card and I was really worried that I wouldn't have enough for the bus. Luckily, when the bus arrived 30 minutes later, I did in fact have enough. I discovered a whole different side of London on the bus that night. The weird side.

I wasn't sure if I should feel uneasy or not. Should I be worried about getting mugged? Ikea is on the outskirts of London. I wouldn't say it is a bad area, but I wouldn't want to walk around after dark. My nerves were completely shot at that point so I hardly had the energy to think about it. London was lively on a Saturday night. But a drunk sort of lively. This one weird guy sitting in front of me kept singing. He had to be high. Then a woman came in and sat down next to him (even though there were plenty of other seats). He kept running his hands through her hair and hitting on her. She kept talking to him but when he would try to get her to come home with him she would say, "I can't, I just met you". Then about every 5 minutes he would ask her what her name was again because he kept forgetting (he was so wasted). And she would just repeat her name for him like it was totally normal to ask someone what their name was 4 times in a row. I could not figure out why this woman (who did not appear drunk) was sitting by this completely weird, gross guy who kept running his hands through her hair! The best I could come up with was that she really needed attention.

Anyway, it took me about an hour to get back to our new flat (the unfurnished one). But we had decided to sleep one more night at the co-worker's flat since they weren't back yet and sleeping in beds sounded better than sleeping on the floor. So I picked up an empty suitcase that I would need the next day to transport the last of our belongings and caught another bus to central London where the other apartment was (I tried to take a subway but our subway line was closed after midnight). At this point it was 1:00 am and the people just kept getting weirder and weirder. It took about 40 minutes to get to where I was going, but a few stops before I was supposed to get off, the bus driver just stopped the bus and said he was done and everyone had to get off. I'm still not sure why. I was really nervous since I still didn't know my way around very well and my phone was almost dead. But when I got off I recognized where I was (luckily) and I knew I could get to the flat in about a 15 minute walk. Not many things freak me out. But I'll admit, walking past homeless guys sleeping on the sidewalk at 2am, while pulling a big empty suitcase behind me, made me a little nervous. I kept swinging it around a little so it would be obvious that it was empty.

But in the end, all was well. I slept for a few hours and then woke up to get everyone ready for church. Our things were delivered on Sunday and we spent the next several days building a lot of stuff. We never want to see an allen wrench again.