The Elizabeth Center

Ikea is a great place to shop for odd and ends.

IKEA is my goto place here

Went to Ikeia to buy a few items. Had lunch there.

It was good. Alot to see. Very expansive place.

I had been to Elizabeth a long, long, time ago. That was in the middle of 1986, and also sometime in 1987, I don't exactly remember , a few times I just passed through the town on my way either to New York or to Boston.
This was the first time in the Elizabeth center for me, though. I went there to pick a speaker that I had purchased online, from a very kind and decent person, for a very low amount for the gem I got, quite a while ago and had never picked it up, and he had tolerated that and had promised me to keep the speaker until I would pick it up and that he did.
My first memory of this town was overshadowed by the fact that first time I was there,I was lost on the way and a kind Colombian person had helped me, took me to his home, treated me like a member of his family, except that neither I nor my distant relative who came to fetch me from his house felt comfortable by the fact this person was possibly involved in narcotics trade as I saw several handguns being flashed around in the house but I was blissfully unaware of that danger, nothing ever happened to me except that I spilled the drinks they had offered, after seeing the guns, and that my relatives kept yelling at me for the duration of my stay.
Going there was a trip back in the memory lane, following Route 1 straight up to Parkway and then veering off from it to go towards the place, only enlivened by the fact we missed a crucial turn. As a result, we were diverted and had to approach the center from east through harborside, not from the front. Long live Google maps!
We picked up the item, walked around, got to Ikea to relieve ourselves, and hoping to get something to take some food out from their restaurant, we were out of luck, they did not have any carryout containers left. As we did not have the time, we just gassed up and was on our way back, and I remembered that I had been on that route long ago, with the host family, on our way to Sesame place, with their daughter.
The center was very clean, with humongous parking lot, the streets had flashing lights on the stop signs, a feature that was appreciated,
I would love to go back and possibly visit my old friends as the man is in his eighties, the family had been very gracious and generous to me.
Elizabeth was the first town that I lived in over a month, other than Waltham MA, where I had been living, after arriving in the US, in the mid 1985.

It was okay I go there all the time and I've been coming here for years

Several good Mega Stores here, including IKEA.

So I have not visited this place in sooo long. Once the new IKEA was built in Paramus we never traveled this again. But it was nice being here again although I love Paramus alot.