let's rant about Ikea

miei cari, as you might have noticed, I haven't written, or ranted, it's the same, for some time. Well, the new job is interesting, I like my flat, I am meeting new people so there is not too much I can write, or rant, about. But today, eventually, I found something: I HATE IKEA!!!!!!! So, you wonder, or perhaps not, what happened? Let me tell you. As you know, I had these PAX wardrobes when I was living in Frankfurt. When I moved I decided to leave them in the flat and take with me only the doors and the drawers, since I feared that if I dismantled the structure and tried to build it up again it would fall into pieces on me while I was sleeping. Because you all know, I assume, how good the quality of Ikea "wood" actually is. So I arrive here, go to Ikea, order my wardrobes and wait 2 weeks for them to carry them to my place. And here the trouble starts: comes the day in which the idiots were supposed to take the wardrobes home. I wake up at 8 (on a Saturday, ladies and gentlemen), wait until they arrive, they ring the bell and then they tell me that they refuse to bring them upstairs because I had not booked a parking spot in front of my house. Reasonable, you may think, and I would agree, if they had to carry the things for 2 kms. Reality is that they parked at no more than 10 m from my door, so actually there was no need at all for a parking space. So I tell the guy to call his boss, I spend 15 minutes quarreling on the phone until she tells me that I am not the only client that morning. To which I reply that if instead of wasting our time on the phone she had told the guys to bring the wardrobes upstairs by now they would be done. So, after some more quarrelling, we agree that they would take the wardrobes into the house but not carry them upstairs. So, fine, I have to call poor Daniele and Raffaele to carry them up for me. Ok. Fine. Then the next day Vincenzo helps me building them and I put all the new drawers in. The problem starts when I decide to put the old drawers in. Because, ladies and gentlemen, they simply DO NOT FIT. Basically I found out that Ikea Europe does not sell these drawers any longer, and apparently they have also changed the distance between the holes on the sides of the structure where you are supposed to screw in the support for the drawers themselves. So I call Antonio, the guy I left my old wardrobes to, and ask him to check. He comes back telling me at which distance I should screw the stuff, I try and there is no chance on heart that these bloody things fit. Some leave 2 cm distance one to the other, some don't even close. I re-check everything and there is no hope. So today I get completely pissed off, take my drilling machine and put them on. Unfortunately the last drawer does not fit, for the simple reason that they have changed also the part on the very bottom, so the overall height of the wardrobe is the same but the effective height on which I can screw things is decreased by 1 cm. I do all sort of tricks but am still missing 5mm. So next weekend I will have to unscrew the door again, take out some plastic thingies and hope that this gives me the remaining 5mm (and hope that the door doesn't slam down on me because I remove the plastic thingies). So, overall, great service. And the best thing is that I still have my underwear, socks, jumpers in boxes in the middle of the living room because of this. I HATE IKEA.
OK, enough said. Now I go to bed. Still in the middle of boxes. Arghhhhhhhhh.

bliss

miei cari, I need to say it: I really like this place. This town is pretty nice, there are things to do, places to go to, a lot of things to see. And I am starting to get in love with my flat: it still looks like a complete mess, but this weekend I had Naka+Peter visiting on Saturday and then Ana on Sunday and not only I can chat with the people while I am cooking (instead of being stuck in a small kitchen) but I also can host people and don't have to sleep in the living room. And now that I got the money from the company I will get a tv, a sofa, the bookshelves and I assume in 1-2 months my flat will really look nice. Sweet. Well, and another nice thing is that this place is pretty well connected to the rest of Europe, so for instance next weekend I will go to London with Gaborno, Ana and Betty - i can get there by train in less than 2 hours. And Paris is at 1.5 hours, Amsterdam the same, Frankfurt less than 4, .... Cool. This on top of liking my job much more than what I used to, it's good to feel like I am learning new things every day.
So all for now - and don't forget to come visit:)