Today, a friend and I stood in line for few hours at Best Buy in Ottawa to get an iPad 2. We had checked the Apple Store in Rideau Center and at 2 PM, there was a crowd of around 300 people. The line looped around and then exited the door. It’s a nippy day in Ottawa with temperature around -3° celsius and a strong breeze making it feel like -10°. We weren’t willing to wait in that cold for long.

So we drove to Best Buy and found a short line of about 12 people. We stood in line and when the nice young lady came out and we asked, she told us that they’ll give us vouchers at 4 pm which will guarantee an iPad. By the way, the limit was one iPad 2 per customer.

So we stood in line for an hour and a half in the cold. The line was outside the store!

At around 3:55 pm, a UPS truck rolled to the Best Buy and the guy shouted at us “I have a hundred of them”. Of course nobody really believed him, but it turned out to be true.

At 4pm even, the nice young woman came out again and started asking each person what they wanted and handed each of us a voucher with the specifications that we asked for. By that time the line had swelled to about 50 people.

We were too cold and hungry, so we left to get something to eat and get warm somewhere. We came back around 5:45 and the line of people outside was around 70 or so, so we stood at the end of the line again and had to wait till about 6:30 to get in. Damn Cold again!

Anyway, after we were let in, we headed to the special area handling the iPads and soon we each got our iPads.

Overall, an interesting experience as it’s the first time that I stood in line to purchase a piece of electronics.

It’s definitely a nice piece of hardware worth the sort wait in line.