Halfway down the Danube

Summer errands

In Germany, nothing summer-related gets done before the so-called "Eisheiligen", the ice saints. In Northern Germany, those are the days of the saints Mamertius, Pankratius, and Servatius on May 11-13. In Southern Germany, it's saints Pankratius, Servatius, Bonifatius on May 12-14. The final mark is "Cold Sophie" on May 15. No delicate flowers are put outside, in case a late frost might harm them. After the ice saints, it's considered safe. Until the ice saints, no one is really surprised by frosts or even the occasional bout of snow.

We are daring and trust the nice weather here in Bucharest. Our orange tree has moved into the courtyard yesterday, and today we got our car tires exchanged -- the winter ones for the summer ones.

I should have done this earlier, I know. But the last switch was such a pain that I kept procrastinating the spring switch. Last fall, I went to a Mitsubishi dealer, the one across from the Selgros. It took them 2 hours (rather, a rather clumsy apprentice took two hours), and they took over 150 Euros from me. Granted, there was an oil change included. Still. An oil change is something I could do in half an hour, provided I have the right equipment and a ditch and the price of the oil itself wasn't so high. It was a very frustrating experience and I couldn't help but think that I got ripped off.

So today, we went to a little "vulcanizer" next to the McDonald's on Buzesti which had been recommended to me by our landlord.

They took 15 minutes, repaired one of the tires which I managed to pierce by driving rather vigorously through some construction, checked the air and the balance (both of which the Mitsubishi garage hadn't bothered with until I asked them to do it), were very friendly, and Alan could stare with open mouth and glazed over eyes to his heart's delight as they worked on the car.

I paid all of 9 Dollars.

Lesson learnt.

Posted by claudia at April 23, 2004 12:04 PM