Attention, Ikea Shoppers

While there is always a feeling of otherness and being an outsider that clings to us foreigners like the odor of a camembert that you had in the fridge 5 days ago, today France was very literal about this figurative outsider status when parisian crowds prevented me from finding a parking place and thus entering the shrine to home nesting that is Ikea.

Perhaps I shouldn't read too much into it, but I'm sure the Montreal Ikea ALWAYS has available parking. I'm also slowly starting to realise that Paris may not be where I will ultimately nest. This is not a decision I made based on the Ikea parking situation, but it makes a neat parallel, doesn't it?

Not only was Ikea crowded, but people were out in droves today for a ridiculous little suburban yardsale (I occasionally visit suburbs, especially since the only people I know with cars tend to live in them, as this the only way to ensure available parking) and they parked in every apartment complex driveway, available patch of roadside space, along the side of the highway and even in some little used lanes. Since apparently we don't really need to use all of them. Not when there's a YARDSALE going on, for heaven's sake. Why not stationner le citroen on the autoroute? Maybe we'll find an inexpensive coffee table. Or some used power tools.

This shows the desperate lack of social activities in the suburbs, I think, that a yardsale had the whole place more parked up today than the city of Berkeley, CA during a Cal game.

All of Ile-de-France seemed bafflingly devoted to going to extreme lengths in the pursuit of home decoration this afternoon. True to my fighting can-do spirit, I gave up and went home.

Ah, well, another thread in life's rich tapestry. Which is probably for sale at the Troc et Puce Yardsale or Ikea as the perfect home accessory.