Was the Shuster a shyster?

Um, no. 

Better yet,  at least he wasn’t from Shrewsbury or Worcestershire. 

 

The first order of business this morning though was to head off to the airport to pick up Travelling Companion.  She called at one point from Cluj,  right around the time that she was supposed to be boarding to just mention that the plane wasn’t quite there yet,  but then in the next breath she could see it taxiing up to the gate.   It’s a bit of a small airport apparently,  where the runway is also the taxi way,  even though it’s supposedly an “international” airport. 

That may also be the reason why they use somewhat smaller aircraft as well.   At least Tarom.

 

It’s an ATR 42-500,  which seems to be a common work horse commuter plane used by several airlines here in Europe.  

Figured you needed to know that.

 

Information about the flight was somewhat sparse though. 

So I just head for the airport and hope for the best.   She didn’t get in until almost 10:30,  which meant muggins here stood around for awhile.

You may recall that they’ve made some changes at the airport,  as they’ve now opened a whole new terminal.

Of course,  I headed off in the direction that I’m used to,  but quickly discovered that that wasn’t going to work.  Kind of blocked off. 

New entrance.

This is where we came out when we came back from Birmingham a few weeks back,  although we were so pooched that I really wasn’t sure where the heck we were.  We were supposed to be met by a driver,  and I sure didn’t see anyone,  so we just came out and took one of the cabs lined up there.  It was just one of those times when I just wanted to get home to my own bed,  and neither of us had the patience to go wandering off trying to find their little cubby hole.   I found it this morning, but there was no point going over and giving them a blast about dropping the ball.  I just won’t use them again. 

 

So once you get inside,  it’s the same only different.  Flights are listed.   People are hanging around.

The most noticeable difference that became annoyingly obvious in fairly short order was,  there was no bloody place to sit down!

 

At least in the other terminal,  you could grab one of the very few places to sit.   I mentioned to T.C. when she came through that I’d be sitting at one of the cafes for future pick-ups.   Methinks she has to head off to Serbia in a couple weeks.  I’ll be doing another airport run,  and subsequent pick-up.   It’s my job.

 

*sigh*

 

Of course,  as soon as we got in the door,  there was a call that she had to join,  which is then a good time for me to get the heck out of here,  since these conference calls are enough to drive me right around the bend.  It wouldn’t be so bad maybe if I could hear what was going on at the other end?  Or maybe it would,  I’m not sure. 

 

So it was off to fetch the shoes.

I plopped down the remainder of the monies owing and the young lad went to retrieve them.  Before he did that though,  he gave them a little buffing.

 

I should explain the “monies owing”  thing.  I mentioned that it was €13,  and in a similar fashion to dry cleaning here in Europe,  you PAY UP FRONT.   Kind of makes sense I suppose,  since then if you don’t come back for your shoes,  it’s not going to really matter to the shop.   The ever so slight wrinkle yesterday was,  he couldn’t quite come up with my change,  so a compromise was reached whereby I’d just bring in three Euros when I got the shoes. 

The buffing only did so much.  They’re still rather old shoes,  but at least now they have new heels.   Good for another few years.  One hopes they will be put up for storage in the not too distant future,  but that future isn’t exactly all that easy to predict at this point.

 

 

I’m sure you really needed to see the bottoms of a random pair of shoes.  Good thing I put that water mark on there!   Wouldn’t want anyone ripping off my wonderful pictures!

Right.

 

Oh, I almost forgot.   I was going to pass on the little story about the pricey shoes.

A few years back,  and this would have been some time before we moved to Europe,  Travelling Companion was out shopping with two of her nieces,   whose Mom (T.C.’s younger sister)  is somewhat,  shall we say,  frugal?   It seems that it’s rubbed off on her two girls.  So,  just keep that in mind.

Anyway,  they had picked up whatever it was they had intended to get,  and T.C. wanted to stop by a shoe store to look around.   The younger of the two nieces,  who was probably about 9 or 10 at the time,  picks up one pair and says,  “Oh,  these aren’t too bad.   Look,  they’re only $13.50”.    Her older sister looks over and sees the price and says,  “*Pfft* Um NO,  they’re $135.00!” 

She might have called her younger sister a name at that point,  but we’ll leave that up to your imagination.

Horrified, the younger of the two puts down the shoes as if they were radioactive and says to T.C. “You can’t spend $135 on shoes!”.

 

At which point T.C. very calmly explained to her that,  as an adult,  there was no worries about one’s feet getting bigger,  and there was a very good chance that the shoes in question would last maybe a couple decades.   So,  good value really.

The younger niece was still having problems with that line of thinking,  and T.C. couldn’t find anything she really liked that day either,  so no shoes were purchased.  Probably for the best.

Later on,  as this story was being related to me,  T.C. said,  “It’s a darned good thing I didn’t show her the ones that I actually kind of liked,  since they were $300!  I think she would have fainted.”

I’m not sure,  but I don’t think T.C. has gone shoe shopping with those two nieces for a while.

 

Well,  I’ve used up my quota of letters.

I’ll therefore bid you a fine weekend.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

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