IKEA

By the time I realized that the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice I rented yesterday was a 6-part miniseries, I was too invested in it, to so I ended up staying up til 2 am last night watching the whole thing.  It's not like I didn't know how it was going to end, but, well...  if you're a Jane Austen (or Colin Firth) fan, you'll understand.


The pizza was pretty good, but I only ate half of it to save room for the cheesecake.  That turned out to be disappointing.  It came in a little plastic cup, like pudding, and didn't taste like cheesecake at all.  I had bought an actual blackcurrant cheesecake at Tesco last week that was really good, but this was nothing like it.  Bummer.  I'm sure Josh will be happy to eat the other 2 cheesecake cups.

I wasn't quite as productive as I had planned to be this morning, since I was up so late last night, but I did take another field trip this afternoon.  This time, I tried a new mode of transportation: the tram:

This tram line runs right behind our apartment -- just like all the trains, and we are halfway between two stops, one of which is at the end of our block.   It's a little odd because there are no fare gates, and no one takes your ticket on the tram, but you are expected to either buy a ticket from the machine on the platform or swipe your Oyster card.  I wonder how many people ride the tram without paying?

I took the tram towards Croydon to see how easy it was to get to the nearest IKEA.  Piece of cake!  There's a tram stop right across the street.  This IKEA looks pretty much like every other IKEA, except it has two enormous brick chimneys in front of it.  No idea why.

Inside, the store was also pretty much like every other IKEA store, which is what is so great about IKEA.  I followed the winding path through the store, picked up a few small odds and ends (including IKEA brand ziploc bags!), and had a late lunch of Swedish meatballs.  I was happy to see that they offered free refills on soft drinks in the cafe, until I discovered they did not have any ice.  Well, it's better for me to drink water, anyway.

There was a huge shopping center across from IKEA, so I wandered around a couple of the shops before heading back to the tram stop.  On the way, I passed a McDonald's, and this poster caught my eye:

I don't go to McDonald's very often -- maybe once a year -- but I'm pretty sure they don't offer a Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry or a Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramel milkshake in the US.  They do play the Monopoly game here, though!

Josh returned from his Oxford trip with lots of photos and stories. I'll see if I can get him to write up a blog post about it.  If not, I'm sure he'll post something on his Facebook page about it.

Time for bed.  Looking forward to doing more fun stuff this weekend.