May 9th “There and back again” a hobbits (IKEA) tale

So it’s a bright sunny Saturday morning and we are going to brave the traffic and go to IKEA.

Now given there are 11 IKEA’s servicing Moscow I think as long as we can find the outer ring we should be able to find one even if we were not actually trying. Anyway we know the one we are aiming for and on the map it should not be too much of a problem. The difficulty with new places is small things like being in the right lane, navigating traffic lights and knowing “exactly” where to turn.

All of this is driven by experience and mostly by learning the hard way. I vividly remember spending 40 minutes trying to get to see a friend in Rome and knowing it was a 10 minute journey knowing something was not quite right. I “thought” the sign post said “Rome this way” what it actually said was “If you want to get to Rome do NOT take this road“.  So I was stuck on the Auto route and had to wait for the first toll booth to turn around (and pay twice for the privilege).

I also remember trying to find Dusseldorf airport and taking “one” wrong turn the unfortunate this was it took me in the opposite direction and it took me a while and some high speed Autobanhe driving to get that planeon time I can tell you.

So back to the IKEA run well it all turned out ok. Judi driving and me pretending to navigate but not being able to read the signs yet it was more like rallying bear 40 degrees left in 120 meters, sharp right in 5 seconds, over railway bridge at next intersection.
We got there ok and it was much quieter than expected. It was May 9th which is the big parade day in Russia to commemorate the ending of the second world war so all the locals were preoccupied. 

Now there is one great bonus regarding Global Branding and that is where ever you are in the world the store is exactly the same. It is somewhat comforting to wander through IKEA in the same way we would in England, America, Belgium or any ware else for that matter. So we note down the items we would like for the flat (assuming all goes well that is) and then wander around the rest of the Mall. There is a huge French supermarket which again has that familiar feel to it and is so big with 50 checkouts all manned that we are confident that whatever items we need can be found there.
We also come across the largest Media Mart I have ever seen so should be no problem fo electrical items. We find an English speaking guy who help me identify I can get an SD card for my Garmin navigator but not there so he kindly prints out the location where I need to go and then we discuss how to get my iPhone switched over to a Russian service provider. All good to know for when we do eventually get settled. 

Whilst Moscow is not short of shops Judi and I conclude that we could probably survive by just going back and forth to this particular Mall for most things we will need. Good to know and another comforting point in the “how to survive in a foreign land” service pack. 

So back home the way we came with only one minor deviation which actually turned out to be a shortcut so another good run.
A lazy saturday afternoon then out for a Thai dinner before preparing for travel tomorrow.
Judi is off at 11 am to England and I plan to leave around 5pm for Brussels.

Tomorrows blog is “What is it about Airports”