The Lost Notebook

I’m not sure the exact term to be used is “Geeking”, but I can’t find anything else.

On our way to Firenze we saw some ads for IKEA. Pia wanted to visit an Ikea store for a long time, so it was on our schedule to go there. Googling for Ikea Firenze turned out an address and the directions to follow (2 buses from our house). I decided to bring along the GPS and the internet key USB sticks. I put both in the netbook and was walking with two blinking lights on. That was very nerdy indeed. I’m sure many people were looking at me and thinking “what a nerd!”.

Turns out the address we got was bogus, and after getting down at the designated station and walking for about a kilometer we ended up near … nothing. We asked a guy on the street (I had put the geeky toys away), and he told us that Ikea is way out of the city near the airport, and that we needed a special shuttle that leaves out of the Firenze S.M.N. train station every 1/2 hour. Now, whoever said that Italians are not helpful obviously met up with some non-Italian living here. I have yet to meet an Italian who went out of his/her way to help out!

We decided to go back to the center and have some Gelati instead.

The next day, we did some more research and saw on the Ikea website that there is indeed a shuttle that leaves from the station. But when we reached the station, the helpful guy in the ticketing booth told me that it’s off and we will have to take bus no. 29 or 30 instead.

No. 29 was 2 minutes away, so we took that. I fired up the Acer Aspire One and the internet connection and started my shift (1/2 an hour late!) on the bus. 15 minutes later we were at Ikea. I found a place at the restaurant where I could plug my charger (the battery was almost empty because I forgot to charge it the previous day!).

I sat at the same table for a few hours, working, while Pia went and explored the place. We also had lunch, which was pretty good. And then went home, with me still working all the way back. We actually stopped again at the COOP supermarket near home to get some groceries. I worked through that as well (Pia did the shopping).

I’m enjoying this trip very much. Hopefully the next step would be starting to work at Piazzas (Micheal-Angelo, Republica, etc.) as soon as the weather gets a bit better. We also got the “Amici degli Uffizi” tickets yesterday, allowing us to visit all the museums and galleries in Firenze for free as long as we’re here (valid until the end of the year). I’m looking forward to that, and maybe I can also get some work done while Pia enjoys the works of art further as well 🙂

It’s good to be a geek!

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