I really wasn't sure that this blog-entry would see the light of day. After having nearly finished the entry my blogger account crashed last night, and took the whole essay into cyberspace, untraceable despite continuous intermittent savings.
But, today I decided that this anecdote in my little life should be told especially as it's about a certain Swedish furniture manifacturer that often gets slated and ridiculed. I had a very positive experience and am of the opinion that it needs to be told. So here I go again...
What does any Westerner usually do on a Friday? Under normal circumstances one would got to work, wrap up the week, finalise any weekend plans and possibly go out in the evening. Right? Not so much in the Arabic world where Friday is the holy day and first day of the weekend (the work week here runs from Sunday to Thursday).
So, this was my second Friday in Abu Dhabi, and also my second Friday morning I made a trip to IKEA. Abu Dhabi's IKEA offers a shuttle service from Marina Mall (Abu Dhabi's biggest and most swanky shopping mall) out to its store on Yas Island. The shuttle bus departs once an hour and takes approximately 40 minutes, even on the empty highway. The lunch-hour varies between Fridays and all other days and also during Ramadan, so you might want to confirm with the driver the return-shuttle departure times before getting off the bus.
Little geek fact, by the by: IKEA has its most stores in Germany (46), that's even more than in the USA (38) or even Sweden (16). Us Germans seem to love a bit of self-assembly furniture.
So, here we are at IKEA on a Friday morning, 15 minutes after store opening. The 4 people, inluding me, (all expats) of the shuttle bus most likely being the only customers in the whole store. Bliss!
I, being ever so German sometimes, had a shopping-/wish-list compiled on IKEA's website with and printed it off for an easy shopping trip.
First stop: Living room furniture, or to be more precise: sleeper-sofa. Unfortunately my sofa-bed of choice was not in stock. However, the helpful staff member checked the system again and then took my mobile number and promised to call once my wanted sofa-bed is back in stock.
Next stop: Dining furniture for table and chairs. Here I was met by a super-nice Kenyan who remembered me from my previous Friday visit. We got chatting as I noticed the German flag on his name tag in addition to the British one, I asked him about his German skills and where he had acquired them, he told me that his parents live in Friedrichshafen am Bodensee (Lake Constance) which is very near my mom and dad's holiday home and that he is in fact trying to move to Germany to be closer to his family. He then went through my whole list and checked and confirmed availabilities and locations in the self-serve area, not only for the dining furniture but also the bed, plus he investigated a tad further as to when the Moheda sleeper-sofa might be delivered. He found out that there are currently about 10 of these sofas in some container on their way to the UAE and should be in store within a week. He suggested that I should call the store this week and if the sofa is in the warehouse to make a booking which means the item will then be held back from further sale until the end of business (10pm at the Abu Dhabi store) that day. How good was that? A one-stop-super-accommodating IKEA staff member whom I would love to recommend to Mr. Ingvar Kamprad personally.
Anyway, onwards and upwards on my swift IKEA visit, quickly going through the lights- and bathroom-textiles-sections where I knew what I wanted and readily found. I arrived at the self-serve warehouse where I was greeted by more friendly staff who were happy to assist me in gathering all the different flat-pack-boxes and load them onto the trolley(s).
The girl at the registers was the only fly in the ointment. My credit-card was declined. Twice. I knew for sure that I was still far from reaching my limit despite having made quite a few larger purchases with my card recently. So I called the Amex customer service number in the UK and after hearing various announcements and pressing many a numbers I finally managed to speak to a representative who assured me that it wasn't Amex declining the transaction but in fact the store's system itself cancelling the charge immediately after authorisation. The check-out-girl then tried a different terminal and guess what... it worked a treat. All the while I was getting rather impatient as this (unnecessary) delaying episode left me with only 5 minutes until the departure of the return shuttle bus and I hadn't even seen anyone for the home-delivery. I should mention here that due to the lunch break the next shuttle after that would've been 2 hours later.
The check-out-helper and I rushed over with our fully laden trolleys to the home-delivery counter and I anxiously asked this customer service guy whether he thought I'd make the shuttle bus. He restored my good experience of before the check-out-incident by phoning down to the bus-driver and asking him to wait for me and then very efficiently noted all the required information for the home-delivery.
Having done that, leaving behind all big items to be delivered to the new flat next Saturday, I took my blue tarpaulin bag with all smaller purchases and rushed down to the shuttle bus, actually making it only about 3 minutes late for departure. Incidentally the 3 other customers from the shuttle to IKEA were on the same return shuttle with me again.
From Marina Mall I took a taxi back to the hotel, deposited my Swedish purchases in the room and went straight back out to Lulu Hypermarket where I bought £50-worth of cleaning products, mop, cloths, bucket etc.
Hopping into another taxi with all this cleaning stuff and IKEA items I was off to the new apartment (for which I had collected the keys a week before the rental contract actually starts) for a spring-clean in autumn. Since I will be the first occupancy in the flat there is still so much builder's dust you could "catch" asthma.
The only down-side of having access to the flat before official move-in date is that the utilities aren't fully connected yet and I didn't have any hot water. Nevertheless, cleaning with cold water only is still preferable to moving into a dirty, dusty apartment.
3 hours later and I was quite pleased with my cleaning efforts though rather sore and tired.
Bring on the 1st of September and the deliveries of bed, table, chairs, washing machine and TV. Hopefully by then I will also have decided on a good (affordable) mattress to make sleeping more comfortable than lying on the slats ;-)
Oh, I forgot to mention that I will get a gas-cooker in a little while as well, buying it 2nd hand from another German expat who I was put in contact with through my lovely estate agent Anne.
The only big purchases left on my list (apart from the sofa) that I still need to decide on are the fridge-freezer and a car. Big purchases indeed. I'll keep you posted.
Thanks for reading my little happy story about the often ridiculed flat-pack-furniture-heroes of IKEA. Tack så mycket!
But, today I decided that this anecdote in my little life should be told especially as it's about a certain Swedish furniture manifacturer that often gets slated and ridiculed. I had a very positive experience and am of the opinion that it needs to be told. So here I go again...
What does any Westerner usually do on a Friday? Under normal circumstances one would got to work, wrap up the week, finalise any weekend plans and possibly go out in the evening. Right? Not so much in the Arabic world where Friday is the holy day and first day of the weekend (the work week here runs from Sunday to Thursday).
So, this was my second Friday in Abu Dhabi, and also my second Friday morning I made a trip to IKEA. Abu Dhabi's IKEA offers a shuttle service from Marina Mall (Abu Dhabi's biggest and most swanky shopping mall) out to its store on Yas Island. The shuttle bus departs once an hour and takes approximately 40 minutes, even on the empty highway. The lunch-hour varies between Fridays and all other days and also during Ramadan, so you might want to confirm with the driver the return-shuttle departure times before getting off the bus.
Little geek fact, by the by: IKEA has its most stores in Germany (46), that's even more than in the USA (38) or even Sweden (16). Us Germans seem to love a bit of self-assembly furniture.
So, here we are at IKEA on a Friday morning, 15 minutes after store opening. The 4 people, inluding me, (all expats) of the shuttle bus most likely being the only customers in the whole store. Bliss!
I, being ever so German sometimes, had a shopping-/wish-list compiled on IKEA's website with and printed it off for an easy shopping trip.
First stop: Living room furniture, or to be more precise: sleeper-sofa. Unfortunately my sofa-bed of choice was not in stock. However, the helpful staff member checked the system again and then took my mobile number and promised to call once my wanted sofa-bed is back in stock.
Next stop: Dining furniture for table and chairs. Here I was met by a super-nice Kenyan who remembered me from my previous Friday visit. We got chatting as I noticed the German flag on his name tag in addition to the British one, I asked him about his German skills and where he had acquired them, he told me that his parents live in Friedrichshafen am Bodensee (Lake Constance) which is very near my mom and dad's holiday home and that he is in fact trying to move to Germany to be closer to his family. He then went through my whole list and checked and confirmed availabilities and locations in the self-serve area, not only for the dining furniture but also the bed, plus he investigated a tad further as to when the Moheda sleeper-sofa might be delivered. He found out that there are currently about 10 of these sofas in some container on their way to the UAE and should be in store within a week. He suggested that I should call the store this week and if the sofa is in the warehouse to make a booking which means the item will then be held back from further sale until the end of business (10pm at the Abu Dhabi store) that day. How good was that? A one-stop-super-accommodating IKEA staff member whom I would love to recommend to Mr. Ingvar Kamprad personally.
Anyway, onwards and upwards on my swift IKEA visit, quickly going through the lights- and bathroom-textiles-sections where I knew what I wanted and readily found. I arrived at the self-serve warehouse where I was greeted by more friendly staff who were happy to assist me in gathering all the different flat-pack-boxes and load them onto the trolley(s).
The girl at the registers was the only fly in the ointment. My credit-card was declined. Twice. I knew for sure that I was still far from reaching my limit despite having made quite a few larger purchases with my card recently. So I called the Amex customer service number in the UK and after hearing various announcements and pressing many a numbers I finally managed to speak to a representative who assured me that it wasn't Amex declining the transaction but in fact the store's system itself cancelling the charge immediately after authorisation. The check-out-girl then tried a different terminal and guess what... it worked a treat. All the while I was getting rather impatient as this (unnecessary) delaying episode left me with only 5 minutes until the departure of the return shuttle bus and I hadn't even seen anyone for the home-delivery. I should mention here that due to the lunch break the next shuttle after that would've been 2 hours later.
The check-out-helper and I rushed over with our fully laden trolleys to the home-delivery counter and I anxiously asked this customer service guy whether he thought I'd make the shuttle bus. He restored my good experience of before the check-out-incident by phoning down to the bus-driver and asking him to wait for me and then very efficiently noted all the required information for the home-delivery.
Having done that, leaving behind all big items to be delivered to the new flat next Saturday, I took my blue tarpaulin bag with all smaller purchases and rushed down to the shuttle bus, actually making it only about 3 minutes late for departure. Incidentally the 3 other customers from the shuttle to IKEA were on the same return shuttle with me again.
From Marina Mall I took a taxi back to the hotel, deposited my Swedish purchases in the room and went straight back out to Lulu Hypermarket where I bought £50-worth of cleaning products, mop, cloths, bucket etc.
Hopping into another taxi with all this cleaning stuff and IKEA items I was off to the new apartment (for which I had collected the keys a week before the rental contract actually starts) for a spring-clean in autumn. Since I will be the first occupancy in the flat there is still so much builder's dust you could "catch" asthma.
The only down-side of having access to the flat before official move-in date is that the utilities aren't fully connected yet and I didn't have any hot water. Nevertheless, cleaning with cold water only is still preferable to moving into a dirty, dusty apartment.
3 hours later and I was quite pleased with my cleaning efforts though rather sore and tired.
Bring on the 1st of September and the deliveries of bed, table, chairs, washing machine and TV. Hopefully by then I will also have decided on a good (affordable) mattress to make sleeping more comfortable than lying on the slats ;-)
Oh, I forgot to mention that I will get a gas-cooker in a little while as well, buying it 2nd hand from another German expat who I was put in contact with through my lovely estate agent Anne.
The only big purchases left on my list (apart from the sofa) that I still need to decide on are the fridge-freezer and a car. Big purchases indeed. I'll keep you posted.
Thanks for reading my little happy story about the often ridiculed flat-pack-furniture-heroes of IKEA. Tack så mycket!
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