Baby's First Trip to Ikea

Today was a big first for the Midwest Princess....my first trip to the Swedish superstore Ikea! Nick and I had talked about making the pilgrammage out to Schaumburg for months now, and this morning we decided we were finally up to the daunting task. (And we didn't have anything more exciting going on). Only one word can describe the place: overwhelming. It was difficult to contain my excitement.



Visiting the store on a Saturday may not have been our best move. We had to park about two miles away from the store (it seemed), and on my way into the building I heard several crying children. But we battled our way in and took the store by storm--immediately taking the escalator up to the third floor and working our way down ("The only way to DO Ikea", according to Nick). We sat in funky chairs called Malung and Tullsta. I really liked Tullsta.



When our legs got tired and our bellies got hungry, we went to the Ikea cafeteria for some discount Swedish food. (After I typed that I threw up a little in my mouth). We ate Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam and some oddly flavored cake that tasted like booze. I really enjoyed the experience, especially the escalators for carts that make schlepping your prospective purchases around amazinglly simple. For a grand total of $i shouldn't be spending any money in the first place, I got the following fairly useless but aesthetically pleasing items:



I was inspired by a photography exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art to arrange it in this lovely still life for you: one (1) package of delicious Swedish hazelnut cookies, six (6) champagne flutes, one (1) cute lamp, and one (1) glass vase with blue pebbles. Not one of the items was over ten dollars, in fact, most were under five. Which leads me to believe that I will return to this brilliant store.

In other news, Nick and I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art last night for "First Fridays", which is basically a giant singles event where they charge you $15 to get in to the museum, play some really loud music, and have free Wolfgang Puck appetizers and a cash bar. It's a very cool concept, and as Nick stated after we'd gotten there "You know why they do this--people need to have some drinks in them to appreciate this kind of art". The main attraction was a photography exhibit by a German that featured scenes such as: dirty laundry piled on the floor, an uncircumcised man peeing on a desk chair (full frontal nudity), and a post-operative transexual's genitalia. When Nick proclaimed that he was going to "go home, take a shit, smear it on the wall, and call it art", I thought that maybe it was time to find the bar. While some of the exhibits were interesting, I have to say that on the whole I don't "get" modern art. I consider myself a fairly artistic person, but I just don't understand how someone deems a canvas with a red smear on it "art".

And for the most exciting news (drum roll please), I am writing this post to you from my brand spanking new MacBook! Yes, that's right, I'm now the proud owner of a laptop. My 2000 Dell desktop served me well for six long years, but it was time to upgrade. I've been playing with my new toy for the past several hours, and I have to say, it's pretty freaking awesome. Welcome the Midwest Princess to the 21st century!!!!