Champagne and Swedish Meatballs

Today was a lot of fun.

Although, if you asked me how I thought the day was going to be when I got up, I would have grumbled to you that I was tired and just wanted to stay home.  Good thing I didn't!

Work was a regular Saturday.  People randomly showed up whenever and left whenever.  O and I were both wearing navy polo shirts which was kind of funny.  No one asked us what band we were in though.*  I had more issues with my work laptop this morning - it took about 45 min until I actually got it to boot up.

After work, I walked over to the MC House to meet Paula and to go to IKEA with her, Andreea and Orlando.  I figured we would be taking a taxi there, since it's pretty far away.  We started walking, and I asked, "are we just walking to Lincoln?"  Andreea replied, "yes."  I just figured perhaps we would catch a taxi there.  However, we kept walking down Lincoln and finally I said, "are we walking to IKEA?"  Andreea just laughed.  I said, "had I known we were walking, I wouldn't have come!"  Now this is not because I'm opposed to walking - I'm all for walking.  But I was breaking in a new pair of sandals today... so I didn't really want to do a lot of walking.  But it was all worth it, even with the currently sore feet.  I also got to see the park that I had read about recently in the news.  It is filled with giant dinosaurs and such and is getting a lot of bad reviews as people think the land could have been better used.  I don't necessarily disagree as it is an odd place to put a "family oriented" park...

IKEA here is awesome.  Not for any real reason other than its IKEA.  It is almost an exact replica of the one in Edmonton (and assumedly most other recent IKEA buildings) which made it very easy to get around.  I made a few small purchases: a rug for my room, a new tea towel and a regular towel that is now my "beach towel."

One thing that was different about IKEA here is that in the restaurant your beverage choices also include beer, wine and champagne (well not real champagne champagne, but the champagne not from champagne...).  I don't know how I feel about uncorking a small bottle of champagne at IKEA...  It just doesn't seem right. 

I had my usual pasta to eat at the IKEA restaurant.  It was yummy.  I sent this picture of me to Bart shortly after it was taken and he said, "it looks like you are in Edmonton."

It was also great to have some time to get to know Paula.  We ended up chatting quite a bit when we got back to the MC House.  I'm looking forward to having her around!  I headed home just before 5 and chilled a bit before heading to Nacional to pick up a few things with Pavol and Maria.  We decided to have ice cream first and we also ran into Ozumy and Andreea while we were there.

Pavol was going to make mojitos so we were getting ingredients for that.  He wanted ginger ale and I said, you need to get Canada Dry - it is the best type!  And because I was in a goofy mood (and because no one has a clue where Edmonton/Alberta is) I pointed to the little map of Canada on the Canada Dry logo and said, "see this, I live behind the A."  This garnered a lot of laughs from the two of them.   In case you're wondering, the mojito that Pavol made was amazing.  I will have to get him to teach me in more detail.  I also found out that getting pedicures and manicures here is ridiculously cheap!  This excited me because it is actually feasible to include a monthly pedicure into my budget.  In fact, where Maria goes, the pedicure costs less than I usually spend on lunch!

Tomorrow, we are hoping to go to the beach, as long as it isn't raining.  This also means I should probably get some sleep.  I will leave you with a few more pictures that I took from the MC House balcony.  This is the area around where I work as well.

*Maria and I both like these dresses at a shop in the Colonial Zone.  We plan on getting each other the dress that each other likes for our birthday (we share a birthday).  I jokingly told her that we should both wear them on our birthday too.  She told me that here, when two people are dressed similar you ask what band they are in.  I like this a lot.