Dipo Diving

Hello there!

Well, that was embarrasing!

NINE DAYS without blogging?

Well, it happens.

SO, in the last post, I described to you the niceties and problems of our apartment. A very large problem was the sparcity of furnishings.

Well, in Slovenia, where 8% of your monthly income is spent on cafe drinks, shopping seems to be a fad. Boy, is it ever.

There are two major shopping centers; one called BTC city (it really is a city, this shopping center probably is the size of downtown Asheville.) The other main shopping center is called Rudnik (said Rude-neek). It's not quite as big as BTC city, but it's the hotspot for furniture and furnishings.

Driving out there, we were confronted with large warehouse-like buildings the size of the average walmart, with all sorts of Slovenian names on them, like "Obi" and "Merkur" and "Hipermarket"

The main furniture stores were named Rutar. and Dipo! (puncuation marks part of name). Excuse me, did I say store? I meant indoor football field. Where the linebackers are rugs and quarterbacks are desks. We wandered rather dazedly through a field of stacked Rutar. rugs, trying to find something for under fifty euros. Really, if 8% of income is spent on coffee, 80% must be spent on rugs.

Dipo! wasn't much better. The store was an odd mix of plush multicolored sofas, desks made of (as dad put it) "glued together fake stuff" and other furnishings. In contrast were rows upon rows of yellow posters hanging from the ceiling sporting the creepy Dipo! mascot; a strange, elfish creature with a mohawk.

The path through the forest of "glued together fake stuff" was marked clearly by yellow tape. Arriving at the desks, Dipo! followed the trend set by Rutar.; there were two desks in affordable rage - 25 and 30 euros. For comparison, the next cheapest one was fifty euros (about sixty-five dollars).

BUT - several Slovenians had been price-comparing in the same way we had. Proof? The good desk was out of stock.

After making some other purchases, we were fated to return to Rudnik and Dipo! again and again trying to find something worth buying. Now, after a week of Dipo! diving and Rutar. rummaging, we may finally be done. But let me warn you - if a Dipo! appears in Asheville, DON'T GO! The exclamation mark after Dipo! is not about excitement.

It's a hidden warning.