i confess: deep down i have no culture and i like IKEA.
harsh words, but i fear they are true. having spent my life passing through 55 different countries on 5 continents (and having spent over a year in 7 of those countries) even i sometimes seek consistency. some people travel and refuse, for example, to eat in a french restaurant in tokyo because they want to "experience" the local culture. then there are people who travel and dont want to "experience" the local culture at all. like the family of my old korean boss, they go to paris and only eat in korean restaurants, because they just assume the local offerings must be disgusting. (i know several french people who do the same when travelling abroad....i have distinct memories of croissant hunting in venezuela and other unlikely spots)
but personnally i feel too disoriented for either approach. one of the best italian restaurants i have ever been to was in bangkok, and i have been to plenty of good thai places in london.
furthermore, i find i shop generally in the same 5 shops all over the world. when i go somewhere and i see them, i am relieved. if they are not there, i feel nervous. i really sometimes like the generic and the globalised. this brings me IKEA, which is conviently located about 20 mintues from my present house. i like being able to walk into the same shop in any country and get the same things. it is comforting somehow. i have bought the same IKEA bedsheets in montreal, budapest (they are now masyambas, she inherited them), moscow, paris and london. this gives me the feeling of continuity, even as i change location. it is somehow comforting to be in the same bedsheets, even if you are in a different place. but then that is just my opinion.
10 commentaires:
oh, God
it's really comforting to have the same bookcases and pans both in Moscow and London (we're renting a semi-furnished flat here in london, so buying bed linen was not enough)
but i've been to IKEA Wembley 4 times last week (!!!!!), so now i can barely stand the name...
4 times? that is rather alot...i have been twice, but then i was thinking of going again tomarrow....
well, the last time was 2-in-1 because we didn't manage to pay at the till (my first friend's card was mysteriously declined, my second friend's card was declined, retained and destroyed, and i didn't have a card with me, so we went back to central london for a currency exchange and then went back to IKEA).
koshmar!
don't know why i was classified as a blogger user in the previous comment
that is really embarassing when a card is declined. it has happened to me several times, normally because the bank messed up.
but 2 trips out to IKEA on the same day is really kashmar...i hope they at least agreed to put everything aside for you so you didnt have to go and look for everything again!
so now imagine how ridiculous it all was when 2 cards have been declined in one transaction :))))
fortunately, the girl on the till was kind enough to put aside everything (btw, those were three desks, two chairs, three side-tables, a couple of drawers and some light stuff...) :))))
that is lucky, sometimes they can be real asses, especially if the situation looks suspicious, and i mean having too cards declined is pretty wierd....or perhaps they had a problem with their machine in the shop?
no, it turned to be us (not us really, but our banks).. well, we worked hard to keep a touch innocence on our faces
i believe it. i have spent the past 3 weeks trying to open a bloody bank account. i gave them zillions of pieces of paper from my university....and then yesterday i got a letter saying that the central office of the bank lacked proof that i am a student and was going to close my account...grr....so today i spent another hour queuing at the bank to drop off the same collection of papers that i ALREADY GAVE THEM 3 weeks ago.......
which is your bank?
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