GA takes on the Bus!

Since moving in together we have wanted a fish and our desire to be fish owners has only grown stronger as the quarter goes by. I had assumed that purchasing a fish would be easy! We could just hop on the Market-Frankford Septa Line or even take a short walk to the local pet store. WRONG! I guess Center City Philadelphian's strongly dislike fish, dog stores are plentiful and even a few cat stores, but no fish. Ah, no biggie I'll look for a pet store near where the trolleys run. Success!! Monster Pet store was a short 24 minute trolley ride away! It seemed perfect, until Abby decided that she also wanted to go to Ikea and who was I to say no to Ikea. So back to Google maps I went. Success struck again as I found another Monster Pet store near Ikea.

The real fun occurred when I started looking for cheap transportation to get to the opposite side of Philly. I was given several options all which involved several buses and confused me way too much. After recruiting Abby to help decode my mess of Google maps we came up with a game plan! Walk to 23rd and Chestnut and take bus 7, 57 stops. I don't remember the name of the stop we disembarked at, as it was right in front of Ikea, so we had a pretty good idea that we were in the right place.

We are at 3200 Chestnut Street and traveled to Ikea in South Philadelphia. *This is not the route we took*

I've gotten a little ahead of myself, so let me back up. Christine only had to work until 3:30 this past Friday, so Abby met her in the city to get their nails done. Both of their nails look fab by the way! I was then going to meet Abby at the bus stop, while Christine carried on home to meet Maxwell, who came for the weekend. Abby and I had also invited our dear friend, Josh, to go Ikea exploring and fish shopping with us. It was decided that Josh was supposed to hangout with me beforehand, so I could quickly usher him out the door, so poor Abby wouldn't be chilling at the bus stop by herself.  Josh, decided to ditch me for virtual golfing (which by the way is pretty nifty), which caused us to be a little late. Thankfully, Abby is a good sport and understood that Josh can be slow at times.

 Josh and I arrived in the nick of time to catch bus 7. It all went so smoothly that we were confident that we were going to be bus experts and could easily figure out how to get back, but more on that later. After a lovely 40 minute bus ride we had finally arrived to the land of blue and yellow, Ikea. I personally love Ikea and I think Josh and Abby share similar feelings. Just because I don't think I said this enough to Josh and Abby, I used to be able to get a full meal at Ikea in Shanghai, for the equivalent of $1.00. You were given a hot dog, soft drink and ice cream cone, although I may add the ice cream cones were a lot smaller than the ones I spotted on our trip. I also told them how the Chinese would just chill on the couches and take naps in the bed. Occasionally they would even eat in the mock kitchens, strange I know...

They wanted to see what it was all about.

Having wandered through the store for quite a while and filling up our yellow shopping bag, we decided to stop and have a snack (what can I say, we love food). Abby and I had both heard great things about the Swedish meatballs, and decided to share 5 for a $1.00. A pretty good deal, but not as good as my China deal. We both agreed that they were very yummy, but simply tasted like a meatball. Josh, decided to be uber American and ordered a side of fries. He said they were also yummy. We resumed our shopping and wandered around a little longer picking up our last minute necessities, because everything at Ikea is a necessity.

Our Ikea purchases were a bronze star shaped light(which Christine was not overly thrilled about), a white lantern with accompanying LED candle, cake decorating set, grey blanket(it was speaking to me), cooling rack, straws, and finally a surprise gift for Christine, a lunch box set with mini fork and knife. All in all a very successful shopping trip in my mind.

We spent the longest time in the kids sections. 

With Josh carrying our newly purchased Ikea bag, we eagerly made our way across the parking lot to Monster Pets. Once entering the store, Abby and I were eager to see the fish section. Obviously we wanted cute fish, so we were very picky in our final decision. Abby and I had fallen in love with "fancy goldfish." They were so cute with their bulging eyes and round bodies just swimming away. We decided that we needed the assistance of a fish specialist and soon all of our dreams were shattered. For our fancy goldfish they would need a 10-20 gallon tank, okay no problem, which would take 24 hours for the water to be safe for the fish to survive in, okay so problem. Abby and I did not have have 24 hours. He kindly suggested we buy the tank and come back the next day for the fish, we were not about that. So we decided to take a lap around the store and come up with a new plan.

After much thought and consideration, we decided on two goldfish who would have a very nice home in a fish bowl with some pretty rocks and a plant. After picking out our fish and all of the goodies that came along with them, we decided it was time to make the trek home. Now, keep in mind our two goldfish are currently in a plastic bag and only have enough oxygen for one hour. We left the store and all looked at each other and asked, "So, where do you think we catch the bus..." We quickly found a bus stop that would take us in the right direction, good enough we decided. We could figure it out once we were back in the city. 5 minutes, 10 minutes passed and we saw no signs of a bus coming, we were getting nervous because we really did not want to kill our fish. After a quick powwow we decided to hail a cab to take us to Oregon Station on the Broad Street Line and we would then switch to the Market Frankford Line and be home! Easy enough, but we were racing the clock. Abby and I sat tensely on the train constantly checking the time, to make sure our fish were still alive. We were also starving at this time, so I ordered Chinese food for us. Exciting times, I know!

We arrived home in plenty of time and Christine and Max were happy to see that both us and our fishes had made it. We set up their fishbowl and let the water sit for an hour before placing them into their new home. Now, the hard part started, naming them. We went back and forth on a plethora of names, before settling on....

PENNY (the all gold one) AND SACAJAWEA (the front spotted one)

They have both settled in nice and have become apart of the family.

The rest of our weekend was pretty uneventful compared to fish shopping. Oh, but Max did make us some delicious chocolate chip cookies.

xoxo,
Grace