Life without a car

We don't have a car here in France, and in some ways it's great...no repairs!  But in other ways, it's tough.  Life is a little less convenient without a car.  For example, let me tell you about my day.  I decided yesterday that I would go to IKEA today with a friend because our mattress is really hard.  We decided to get a mattress pad so that I wouldn't have to sleep in the living room on our spare bed.  I looked online and found what we want and they said online that they came rolled, so I thought "No problem!".  Well, Elise and I hopped on the bus this morning with our little cart and headed off to IKEA.  Well, first of all you should know that IKEA is about 15 minutes away by car, but by bus it takes 45 minutest to an hour.  Well, we were not deterred and even found a way to cut 10 minutes off the trip by walking a bit and making a different connection.  We would have made in less than 45 minutes if the bus we first got on went the whole route instead of going out of service 6 stops into our trip. So we hopped off and waited for the next bus (about a 10 minute wait).  We finally got to IKEA after about 50 minutes.  I found what I wanted, asked the IKEA lady in my best French how much it cost (it still took us a while to communicate even with my best French) and she printed off the receipt for us to pick up our item.  Here's the catch, you don't pick it up downstairs, but 1 km away at the IKEA pick up location.  I almost said "Are you kidding?" but I don't know how to say that in French.  I told her that we took the bus and she sort of gave me a "good luck" smile and we headed off to check out.  I told the check out lady the same thing "I took the bus and walked here" (in my best French) and she drew me a little map and told me how to get to the place.  I recognized enough words that I thought I knew how to get there.  Well, we made it to the other IKEA building, and picked up my mattress pad.  It was rolled into about a foot and a half diameter and was about 5 feet tall.  They put it on a cart I think to take it out to my car, but I just smiled and pointed at my little cart.  I tried to use my best French with the man there too, but as soon as I opened my mouth, he started talking in English to me.  So, we loaded it onto our little pull car and secured it with some packing tape and back out on the street to the bus stop we go.  I'm not quite sure what people thought as we rolled it onto the bus, so I tried not to look at them.  We made a quick stop at ToysRUs on the way home too.  I got some really funny looks as I wheeled my cart and pad and all into the store and asked if I could leave it at the counter.  One man was nice enough to try and understand what I was saying and then even joke with me about the nice gift I brought him.

Soooo...4 hours later, we made it home with my new bed.  I guess Wayne should just be glad that he didn't have to go buy me a whole new mattress, that would have made an even better story.  But the strange thing about the whole morning is that it wasn't even that stressful.  We had a great time chatting, the 45 minute bus ride didn't even seem that long, and I wasn't even that bothered that I had to lug a mattress pad home on the bus.  It's amazing what you get used to!  So while life with a car would be more convenient, God has given us the grace to adjust to life as it is without.