Paris du Jour: Ikea to the Rescue!

Once we had our coffee on Saturday morning and took stock of our digs, we quickly realized that our "fully equipped" kitchen wasn't necessarily so. Yes, it has a sink, an oven, a cook top, a microwave, a refrigerator/freezer, a washer/dryer, plates, bowls, glasses, cups, martini glasses, white wine glasses, red wine glasses, a shaken-not-stirred drink mixer, flatware, two hot pads and two dish towels, and a set of pans. It also has two knives, two baking dishes (one of which is cracked so I'm afraid to use it!), a wooden spatula thingy, a plastic turner, a carving fork and two wine bottle openers (one of which was broken). Notice anything missing here? A garlic press maybe??? An ice cream scoop? How about a can opener? A VARIETY of cooking utensils?

I can go along with some of those items not being included, but really, a garlic press? A kitchen is NOT fully equipped without a garlic press. So Sunday was our go-to-the-street market and look for inexpensive kitchen items for the apartment day.

After appeasing the French Laundry gods, we headed out to the street market. The street market was amazing - Boucheries, Poisonneries, Fromageries, and vendors of all sorts line both sides of Rue de la Convention for several blocks. It was crazy crowded with Parisian shoppers of all ages, sizes, shapes and colors. It was an amazing spectacle and we were somewhat overwhelmed and just looked as we wandered the west side of the market first. There were a few vendors selling pots and pans and knives, but nothing that really fell into the category of inexpensive kitchen items. We crossed the street and saw a lot more stuff - clothes, rugs, tablecloths and duvets, shoes and boots, socks and underwear. We finally stopped at a vendor selling fresh fruit and vegetables and we purchased some lettuce, bananas, onions (red and yellow), apples and pears. Our next stop was the dried fruit and nut merchant where we stocked up on walnuts and dried cranberries. Finally, we have all the fixings for a salad! But alas, no inexpensive kitchen items.

We took our purchases back to the apartment and started working on Plan B. Ikea.

There are lots of Ikeas in the Paris metro area. There are NO Ikeas within walking or metro distance. So first - we had to figure out how to get to Ikea. There is one by Charles de Gaulle Airport. It isn't the closest Ikea, but we sorta kinda knew where it was and how to get there, so we chose that one.

Our route:

Metro Line 12 to Porte de Versailles- change to T3

T3 to Cite Universitaire - change to RER B

RER B to Parc des Expositions

Bus 640 to Ikea

This was a 1 1/2 hour trip and it was not without stress! Once you know how to do things, it's a piece of cake, but not knowing where to catch the bus and not knowing if it was taking us to the right place causes us concern. In retrospect it's kind of silly to be stressed about it, but at the time, we're fearful of ending up in Istanbul.

Fear of ending up in Istanbul aside, there's also this big question - How much can we buy and how will we get it home? ?? ??? ???? ?????

Ikea was a madhouse! The French love Ikea as much as we do, and for the most part they have all the same products. It was difficult getting through the housewares section without knocking things off shelves, bumping into people and their carts, and not getting run over by families with strollers, carts and trolleys. But we were in housewares hog heaven and we quickly added essential items to our cart - cooking utensils, a garlic press, an ice cream scoop, dish towels, utensil holder, can opener, vegetable peeler, a timer, plastic storage containers, a portable (and collapsible!) file box, and a trolley!

It was tempting to buy more stuff and it's hard to pass up a good deal, but even with the purchase of a brand new trolley, we were not confident in our ability to lug our heart's content across Paris via public transportation.

So we made our purchase, loaded up the trolley and headed back to the bus stop. Fears of Istanbul crept into our hearts once again, but we did recognize the bus stop and we were somewhat sure this was the RIGHT bus stop and when the bus pulled up we were almost certain it was the right bus. Ten minutes later we were safely deposited at the train station and we were positive Istanbul wasn't in our near future.

We boarded the train, but this time we were smarter and armed with the knowledge that with a lime green polka dot trolley we could lug our purchases through bus stops, train stations and the metro. Instead of taking RER B to Cite Universitaire, we hopped off at Chatelet Les Halles, switched to Metro Line 4, hopped off at Montparnasse and switched to Metro Line 12 and then hopped off at Convention. Easy peasy and we knocked a half hour off the commute time. We lugged our loot up the stairs and reveled in our mastery of collecting culinary components.

Here's the booty: