IKEA

Last week I went to Ikea with a friend of mine. Even that is a unique experience in the city! We traveled to downtown Manhattan and then caught a ferry to take us over to Brooklyn, to the Ikea. It made me feel like Christopher Columbus when he set sail and discovered the first Ikea. Thank you Christopher Columbus!

I love Ikea. Nearly everything about it, except putting the furniture together. I knew right away that I've spent too much time in the city because when I arrived I felt like I had to pay admission to get in the store. Ah, life's simple pleasures.
We quite enjoyed going through the store, pretending that we lived there, and imagined the ginormous kitchens we would one day have. And this of course made us hungry so we went to the Ikea Restaurant. For a New Yorker, this is a dream; You can get pasta for $2, chicken fingers and fries for $4, salmon for $6 or something, and they even had some buy one get one free dessert special. You could basically order everything on the menu for the price of one meal at a Manhattan restaurant. 

Once refueled, we went to the most amazing part of the store...the accessories area. This is also the most dangerous part of the store, because everything inside of you will try to convince you that you absolutely need these obscure items that, truthfully, you'll probably never use. Kitchen gadgets, candles, tea towels, picture frames, fake plants, real plants, so on and so forth. My brain quickly converts to Christmas gift mode. "This mug is only 29 cents!! What can I do with this?!" "I know! I'll get a pack of straws and give some out with each mug...with some tea light candles. And a napkin." Now, the lesson here is: Just because its cheap, it doesn't make it a good Christmas gift. Bad gifts are the worst.

Overall I didn't do too bad...I got a cork board, a lamp and some file holder things. Practical, I think. And I didn't have to lug anything too huge on the boat/subway. 
I look forward to my next visit to Ikea. I think next time I'll bring a book and just hang out for a while.