One day trip to Sweden

Last weekend, I went to Cairo with my Swedish colleague to visit the one and only Ikea shop in Egypt. We took the special "Ikea bus" at 4am and arrived around 9.30 to have breakfast in the Ikea restaurant before the shop opened. Ikea has always been one of my favorite shops ever and I remember we used to go there on rainy days in Belgium just to pass the time and get inspired as it was only 10 minuts away from my home. 

 I found it cool to see how they adapted the showroom to Egypt: balcony with a view on the city of Cairo :)

 The package came with typical Ikea weather: grey and rain, I felt so at home!

 At 1pm we could put our purchases into the bus and continued shopping in the next-door shopping mall. We hoped to buy some things at Zara and H&M but not all the shops were open yet. We did enjoy the "window shopping" at Zara Home, Marks & Spencer, Pull & Bear. I bought sandals for A. and some beautystuff at the hypermarket of Carrefour. 

It was so nice to have almost all of the shops for ourselves as the Egyptian families only started to arrive around 4 pm (everything is open until 11pm). Just in time for the mass to enter, we headed back home to Hurghada where we arrived around 10.30pm. The way back took longer than expected due to the bad weather conditions and the lack of benzine in all the tank stations on the way. We made it in the end, tired but very happy.

Below some photos of my Ikea booty (not everything is shown):

 It is silly how these little items can make such a difference! 

Because I want to take care that A. still feels at home too ("it is starting to look a lot like a Belgian flat, no?"), I tried to incorporate some Egyptian touches too:

  

 "sparkling flower lights", (a gift from A.) together with Ikea vases and tea light holders

 Family photos of A. (left: he (right) and his father in Alexandria, right: his sisters and their children in Sohag)

Conclusion: perfect day! I only regret I didn't buy below trolley for the kitchen (but hey, that's another reason to go back!)