Preparation

(Written mostly last week)

Today I am sitting on a new bed that I have been working on assembling for the past three days. The frame itself was rather heavy and it turned out that I hadn't purchased the reinforcement bar that goes down the center of the bed. I had quite an adventure on the hottest day we've had yet getting to Ikea via a long U-bahn ride and a bus. Then I tried very hard to seem that I didn't think it was odd for carry and meter long five cm sq piece of greasy metal through the public system. Actually, no one seemed to care but me. I mean, the Ell's transported my leather bench from Caritas (charity used store in town) to my apartment the same way. Clearly, the system is used to people who don't have cars needing to move things from the store to their homes. My little American brain is just not used to it.

Then, I discovered that the wooden slates that Ikea uses rather than boxsprings was a big, difficult puzzle that took the amount of time to listen to three chick flicks from the other room - on my newly functioning DVD player! By the time Audrey Hepburn was falling in love in Paris When is Sizzles, I was confident that I had done a good enough job to try out for the night. Just a little bit of adjustments and it's the most comfortable bed I've ever had - and I've had some good beds.

This is all in preparation for my parents coming to see me next weekend. I'm so excited about our plans to see the sights of Zurich, Vienna, and Prague. I'm sure there will be a post about this soon. :)