Evelyn fortunately warned me that a thorough IKEA shopping experience is miserable. So, my expectations were low. The 7:30 p.m. aisle traffic at the IKEA in Barcelona is almost impossible to describe, but I am guessing frequent IKEA customers can relate. We still had our rental car for another day, after returning from our roadtrip, so we decided to make good use of it. Leaving three children in the apartment (safe on the 6th floor, right?) and promising to be home in 2 hours, we had plenty of time to buy a bed, desk, dressers, hangers, lamps, etc. We actually moved fairly quickly through the maze, but for one reversal (picture hundreds of spawning salmon moving toward you) to find cloth napkins (for naught, only paper). Then we entered the checkout line, which I am told can be a nightmare; yet only 10 minutes later, we were done…or were we? Our misfortune awaited us, the delivery line. We needed the bed and wardrobe delivered–take a number and wait, and wait, and wait. The IKEA lesson is to stop by the delivery line before checking out, grab a number, go to the checkout line, pay your euros, and then join the delivery waiting crowd while the inexperienced wait longer. This extra hour that we could have avoided had us home by 11, almost 4 hours door to door. And with no working cell phones yet, we had to ask a kind stranger to borrow a phone to call home. Still on U.S. time, more than a week into the European experience, the kids were wide awake, and hungry, when we returned.
