August 4: A theme that I didn’t include in the following post for the sake of brevity was the role strangers have played in helping me solve many of my problems. The woman at Lufthansa who gave me the name of a competing private operator; the woman selling the SIM card for my phone who spent a half hour trying to reassure me that the card would work in other countries; the guys who stopped when I crashed and, of course, friends and family at home who have been uniformly thoughtful and supportive as I stagger from one “adventure” to another, Many people pitched in with help or answers that got me on my way even though they could have chosen not to do so. This is something I’m going to try to remember next time I see someone in Toronto staring at a map and trying to figure out where the hell they are.
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The mirror mentioned below is now installed. It did indeed take more than two hours because I waited almost that long for the work to begin. Although I had an appointment for 2:00, work didn’t actually start until closer to 4:00. I left the dealership around 5:00 about 250 Euro lighter, and started looking for a room. When one did turn up I unpacked my toiletries only to discover that some moisture had gotten into my prescription bottle of Crestor and turned it into a soggy pink goop. Sigh.