I feel I must report to you about our weekend trip to Ikea. Everything here is such an ordeal- popping to the shops simply doesn't exist, and that's how a visit to Ikea ended up taking six whole hours. I kid you not, we set off at 4pm and finally arrived back home at 10. A combination of factors contributed to the length of time it took: the roads are so massive here that when we missed the exit it took fifteen minutes to get back on track; there were two prayer times while we inside, during which there was no one to ask for assistance and no way of paying; and we had to wait over an hour for our driver who kept lying in his almost non existent English about how long he was going to be.
But anyway, the silver lining is that during this almost whole day stuck in Ikea we got to see some hilarious sights. Saudis can be pretty entertaining when they want to be.
Let's do a countdown.
5. Children were rollerblading round the shop- it's sad but true that shopping centres are their playgrounds.
4. A woman got her abaya trapped in the wheels of her trolley.
3. A showroom set of shelves just wasn't quite right.
2. There was a full on scrap (primary school kids eat your heart out) in the car park between two groups of Saudis. We're not sure what they were fighting about-possibly parking spaces-but it got so heated that a woman in one group actually took off her sandals and threw them at a blokes head!
1. A man next to us tried for more than thirty minutes to get a package into his car that just was not going to fit. First he tried the boot, then the back seat. We were lucky enough to catch some of it on camera:
Eventually, after some guidance from an Ikea employee, the man had the genius idea of opening the package and putting the really quite small pieces of sofa comfortably into his car.
Despite its moments of hilarity, I won't be rushing back to Ikea in a hurry. It's fair to say that every time I go out it ends in me having a mini internal crisis along the lines of "what the hell am I doing here?" and having to spend a good few days in the house, pretending I'm somewhere else. Sigh.
But anyway, the silver lining is that during this almost whole day stuck in Ikea we got to see some hilarious sights. Saudis can be pretty entertaining when they want to be.
Let's do a countdown.
5. Children were rollerblading round the shop- it's sad but true that shopping centres are their playgrounds.
4. A woman got her abaya trapped in the wheels of her trolley.
3. A showroom set of shelves just wasn't quite right.
2. There was a full on scrap (primary school kids eat your heart out) in the car park between two groups of Saudis. We're not sure what they were fighting about-possibly parking spaces-but it got so heated that a woman in one group actually took off her sandals and threw them at a blokes head!
1. A man next to us tried for more than thirty minutes to get a package into his car that just was not going to fit. First he tried the boot, then the back seat. We were lucky enough to catch some of it on camera:
Eventually, after some guidance from an Ikea employee, the man had the genius idea of opening the package and putting the really quite small pieces of sofa comfortably into his car.
Despite its moments of hilarity, I won't be rushing back to Ikea in a hurry. It's fair to say that every time I go out it ends in me having a mini internal crisis along the lines of "what the hell am I doing here?" and having to spend a good few days in the house, pretending I'm somewhere else. Sigh.
I like how on the video you attempt an explanation of why this man came to be in this situation! xx
ReplyDeleteI love hearing you laughing at him. Classic.
ReplyDelete