The Blood Knight!
Yesterday’s mood was reversed by something I happened to stumble upon and actually get today. It’s unlikely to last, but it’s a rather nice feeling for the moment. I think I’d better start from the beginning…
The plan for today was a long walk, going through four or five Christmas fairs, just as something to do… I was going to walk a certain distance in order to be able to get on a bus that’d get me straight to one of those fairs, visit it and then keep walking as I’d go through the rest of them one by one, then take another bus from the last one, get off it when it gets as close to this area as it’s going to get and then walk the rest of the way back. And all of that while wearing boots that are a little too small…
With the traffic being as it is, the bus ride to the first fair turned into two long and awful hours. I could have walked there in that much or likely even slightly less, but that didn’t look like such an appealing prospect, considering the boots. So the bus was hardly moving, but it had a very effective air conditioning system, which meant it was quite hot inside. Since everyone was dressed appropriately for the weather outside, the vast majority were looking at least a little afraid after a while, trying to find enough room to get their coats off, looking for things to wipe the sweat off their faces with and so on. Eventually a woman yelled at the driver to turn it off unless he wants to kill us all, which prompted an older man to say nobody else is bothered by it and mockingly ask whether she was in heat. The woman told the man to ask the others before speaking for them and eventually, since the driver didn’t care about any of this, somebody else opened a window, which made the rest of the trip a little more bearable. Seriously, even I felt like throwing up in there, and my tolerance to heat is quite high.
After eventually arriving at the first fair, I realized there was hardly anything to see there. So I quickly moved on and started walking towards the second. Looked at what was being sold there for a while and eventually moved on, though not before a woman yelled after me to ask if I didn’t want to get something nice for my girlfriend. I’d just want my girlfriend back, thank you very much…
After some more walking, I arrived at the third fair, which was the “Smart Gifts Fair”, organized by a nice bookstore from here. But I either didn’t even get to the “fair” part or didn’t even notice when I did. Either way, that’s not why I was there. The real reason was that I took the opportunity to just look through their English books section. In a way, I was thinking to look for Victory of Eagles; then I was staring at the rather many books by Raymond E. Feist that they had… All of a sudden, I noticed the top half of a cover sticking out from behind a couple of other books that were stacked in front of it. It said Greg Keyes. My first thought was obviously that it couldn’t be what I’m looking for. I’ve never seen any book from The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone over here and besides, even if was from that series, I assumed it’d be the most recently released one, The Born Queen, which is the fourth in the series, so finding it wouldn’t be all that useful for me, since I only read the first two. But I set the books that were in front of it aside and, much to my surprise, I saw The Blood Knight, which is the third one in the series and therefore just the one I was looking for. I let out a quite audible “Hey!” and then grabbed it and looked at the back cover, thinking it’d be too expensive. (It’s not just that books in English usually are very expensive over here, but that bookstore is pretty well known for the atmosphere and their prices do tend to reflect that. So I expected it to cost over 40 lei, perhaps closer to 50, and I’m really unwilling to pay more than 35 lei (at today’s rate, that’d mean $11.85, €8.28 or £7.40) for a book.) But, to continue the surprises, the price tag said 32 lei. So I just grabbed it and rushed to the register before I got time to think about it and get scared. Only been wanting that book for the past three and a half years, after all…
So I bought that book, left the bookstore and canceled the rest of the trip since I didn’t really feel up for much of anything anymore. Despite the fact that I probably could have ended up walking less by picking other options, I was already shaken so I thought the shortest route is the one you know. That made me walk back until I ended up close to the second fair and took a tram from there, since I knew it’d get me closest to here. That tram certainly took its time, so I waited for quite a bit and people obviously ended up packed like sardines inside it for the entire trip. Also, since I didn’t exactly know what cues to look for to know ahead of time when my stop would follow, I just made my way to the door and got off after passing the last place I was certain I had to pass… Which was two stops short of where I actually should have gotten off, which resulted in even more walking.
In all, I was out for just under five hours and therefore walked for slightly under two hours. The public transportation part was really unpleasant and my feet are complaining about the way the boots treated them. Expected a couple of toes to be in a rather bad shape for a while after this and it looks like a few other areas have also been affected besides them. I’ll also need new boots, obviously, but realized these were too small after buying them two years ago and didn’t exactly have any winter since then to need to wear them, so now that we finally seem to be getting a whiff of a proper winter, with a fair amount of snow on the ground, it’s noticeable. But getting this sure means it was worth it!
It would seem that I find myself being able to make purchases much more often lately. Worryingly so actually, at least for me, since it’s been just over a month since the last time I bought something. It’s not just the social anxiety that makes me very uncomfortable with the idea of purchasing things, after all…
