IKEA = Evil Genius

And we’ve arrived safe and sound in Portland, OR! It was a long drive, and we had to push it a little to get in at the right time for checking in, but we’re alive and we’re starting to settle into our apartment.

Yesterday we drove into Portland at about 9:00am (after getting up at 5). After checking in, we drove down to the local Walmart to use our gift card from Andy’s old bandmates. It’s always so shocking how much random stuff you need when you first move into a place (like toilet paper, and soap). Plus, we had the compounded issue of not having any toiletry stuff, since we figured it would save us space to leave it behind and buy it here (which it probably did). We ended up buying a little more than we probably needed, but now our bathroom has a lovely pale green decor (based off the melon hand soap we bought XD!) At home, we started unpacking and putting things in their places. Realize, though, that we have no furniture, so we basically just put away dishes. The TV is conveniently stacked on top of an empty box full of packing trash. We have no internet/phone/or cable TV yet, so we watched a Futurama DVD while reclining on our floor (because we have no chairs). The apartment is pretty barren right now, but it’s large and beautiful. Andy took some pictures:

We called it an early night, after having frozen pizza (on the pizza stone! YAY! First use!) and red sangria (yum! ^_^). Note, we still have no official bed, so we slept on the air mattress my parents gave us. We also have no sheets/pillows/etc., so I used a sweatshirt for a pillow, and Andy used his house robe for a blanket. Lol. It was interesting, even if we didn’t sleep like rocks.

This morning, we woke up pretty early, so we had breakfast and then decided (after getting directions from HQ (my mother)) to head to Ikea to get the bed set we’d been eying for a while. Let me just say that Ikea must be run by the most evil geniuses in the world. The way they make you walk through all their beautiful, chic display rooms just to get to what you actually came in for: brilliant! It was like walking through an enchanted forest with fruit trees you’ve been warned not to approach, but darn it all, once you get near them, you just can’t help yourself! Let’s just say we spent a little more than we originally planned. (Parental units: don’t worry–it wasn’t that much more than we planned.) We did get the bed set/mattress that we’d been eying, and that was in total a little cheaper than we’d anticipated, but we also got a dining room table (small) with four chairs for uber cheap ($129 for the whole set). Since we have no other seating in our apartment, we figured that might be a good investment, plus it was on our “top priorities” list. (Does it sound like I’m justifying? ^_^)

So now we have a lot of assembly work to do at home, but at least we feel like we’re moving in the right direction. I’ll be glad when the rooms aren’t totally empty.

Then after that, we grabbed lunch and headed to downtown Portland to walk around, which is where we are currently (public wifi is a beautiful thing). Don’t know exactly when we’ll be getting internet access at the apartment (hopefully ASAP), but I’ll keep you updated even if I have to come all the way downtown again. (Bummer, right? ^_^)

So tata for now!