Last night Joel and I had an Ikea date! I loved walking around the displays of Ikea, so was looking forward to our trip all week. We discovered in addition to the normal Thursday late night shopping, they are also open till nine on Fridays! Australia is moving forward. It's up near Brisbane, in Logan, which is about a forty-five minute drive on the motorway. Logan is called Bogan Logan and we saw many a bogan!
When we first arrived I saw this humorous sign that I needed to share with my Canadian friends. "Think ahead and add extra warmth to the long winter months." Long winter months in Australia? Bit of an oxymoron if you ask me.
Ikea here is HUGE- three stories! Top floor is the showroom and restaurant, middle is the market place, bottom is all the furniture and cashiers. We had dinner at the restaurant, then perused the showroom. Sometimes I wish I could live in Ikea. Or just take some of their rooms home. Most things here are similar to home, but there are some differences. For example, the cabinets we bought at home when we redid our kitchen don't exist here. And they sell outdoor furniture! (Maybe we do have this at home, but I've never noticed any.)
We bought a much needed set of dishes and bowls (our apartment only came with four of each, which we've been washing by hand. I decided we needed to buy more and make use of the luxury of the dishwasher!) and a few other kitchen things. Prices are about 20% higher here. I saw lots of other things I want, but Joel and my wallet stopped me.
Today we woke up to grey skies and pouring rain. It hasn't stopped all day. It's coming down so hard that driving visibility is very low. The rain makes Brutis' windows fog up badly, so driving was even worse. Lucky I had some tissue in the car to constantly wipe the windows down so I could see! PS- I HATE YOU BRUTUS! Wolfie would never behave like this.
I had to run a few errand after work, and after walking through giant puddles and getting wet feet I picked up some new rainboots from Target. I think I'll be needing a heavier raincoat soon too, as my water-resistant jacket doesn't seem to stand up to a Queensland rainstorm. The weatherman has predicted rain all week. Joel is super bummed, as this means no golf. I said maybe nature thinks he should be saving his money!
Tonight we decided we needed a good pick-me-up, so headed over to our local Max Brenner's for some chocolate. There are three on the Gold Coast. We went to the Broadbeach location, which is tinier and only serves dessert. I was sad they don't have my favorite chocolate chip, marshmallow pizza, but I survived on a chocolate lava cake and hot chocolate. Joel has never been to Max Brenner's before and fell in love with his brownie sundae. We're still so full from all that chocolate that we haven't had dinner!
I got an interesting compliment at work today. A client asked where I'm from because I "have the most beautiful accent". I also had a client yesterday who told me he and his friends talk in Canadian accents to each other. Not sure if that is an insult or compliment towards Canada! He wouldn't do his accent for me.
Everyone thinks that since we're Canadian we speak French. (I've had a couple people ask if I'm from the part that wants to separate). Joel told me today that when someone asked him this at work, his answer was yes! He's been making up things with the few basic words he remembers from high school French class lol. I'm going to do this next time someone asks- don't know why I hadn't thought of doing this myself!
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