An American in Provence

Saturday morning, while Alain was preparing the small bedroom for painting, I decided to make a quick trip to IKEA to pick up some more baskets to arrange things in. Now that we are (finally! knock on wood!) getting towards the end of our Odyssey, we will need to start actually arranging things. While it was fun stepping over piles of stuff on the floor for a year, now we are going to start putting the junk away. Too bad we don't actually have a storage space in the basement...

But that's another story, and one I don't particularly want to think about right now. Or ever.

So we decided to buy 4 more of a medium-sized basket that we had previously bought to put next to our couch to hold my sewing items, magazines, blanket, etc.

I left for IKEA at little after 9, planning on getting there early in order to get in and out as quickly as possible before the hordes descend. I got there, went through the mandatory route through the top of the store (living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, etc), went downstairs and went through the self-service section (cooking supplies, linens, bathroom items, lights, paintings, kid's toys) all the way to the end where they store the decorative items (plants, candles, baskets). Got to the basket section, and all that was left was one large basket. I asked a worker what had happened to the others, and he said that they had been put on sale and that there were no more left. What a bummer! I left and returned to Marseille. I decided to call the other store right near Marseille (there are two in this area, we live about in the middle between them but usually prefer to go to the first one as it is easier to get on/off the autoroute and it doesn't have the Parking Garage from Hell). Except that I forgot that many national chains are no longer posting the individual telephone numbers of their stores- you have to call a central (toll) number for information. While I was at the store, I should have asked the guy to call the other store and find out for me.

I called and waited for about 15 minutes before finally getting through to someone. I just wanted to ask if the other store, La Valentine, had any more of these baskets in stock. After much hemming and hawing and several euros added to my phone bill, I got a firm "Je ne sais pas". So I got back in the car and headed off. By this time it was getting towards noon, so I knew it would be much more difficult to get in and out of the store. However, this time I was able to slip in to the bottom part, without having to go through the entire store. There were tons of baskets left! I picked out four medium ones, paid (39€ each), stuffed them into the backseat (just barely) and headed back towards Marseille, getting completely lost and finally taking an entirely new route back home.

We painted them white, using the spray gun, after Alain finished painting the bedroom white. Now they are drying and don't look too bad. Going to fill them up and put them on top of the armoire in our medium bedroom.