A dog, a girl, and a car

Today was quite interesting.  I had a relatively light load for walking dogs today, so I decided later that I was going to change my car tires to winter tires.  The forecast says snow either tomorrow or Friday.  This has been forecast for almost a week now, so there's a pretty good chance it will be significant snow.

While walking my second dog of the day which happens to be in the same town J and I live in, a little blonde girl came right up to us while she was on her way to school.  It was kind of cute.  She spoke only german, so  as is typical, a question is asked in german that I can't understand.  I then follow with "Enschuldigung.  Ich spreche wenige Deutsch."  This translates roughly to, "I'm sorry.  I speak weak german."  To my surprise, she then asked if I spoke english.  I said yes, and then she said nothing, but continued to follow me walking the dog for another half of a block.  The dog was so excited about being tailed, that I had to stop to get the dog under control.  Once I did, the girl came up to pet the dog.  I did have to restrain the dog from jumping, but she didn't seem too afraid.  She then proceeded to have a conversation with me in german about her own dog, which was a boxer.  I was not able to contribute much to the conversation, but I did learn a few words, like "springen" because the dog was jumping, and others that I have now already forgotten.  Along the route I was taking, she branched off to her house, or at least the house she was heading toward, and said goodbye.  I felt self-conscious while she was following because I was a complete stranger and she just followed along to pet the dog and chat.  Oh well, it was an easy way to learn a little more german.

To my german-speaking friends...after walking another dog in downtown Kaiserslautern, I got to my car when a woman came up to me, pointing at a hill that had construction on the other side and said something about "zuras."  I have no idea what this means nor can I find it online.  Did she mean a different word?  I told her I didn't understand what she was saying, to which she shrugged and then promptly left me.  Whatever.  I'm guessing it wasn't a life-threatening situation.

After finishing walking dogs, I proceeded to swap out my summer tires to winter tires.  For car people out there, german cars have lug BOLTS, not lug NUTS.  I lightly researched this in advance so I wasn't surprised when I found this out.  Swapping the tires out was actually quite easy.  The only thing that bothered me is that there were four bolts per tire, not five like I'm used to.

So I get to the last wheel when not one, but TWO bolts snap!  Both for the same half of the same wheel!  I had to test drive the car anyway to get it out of the garage, so I drove it around the neighborhood only on first gear, and it seemed to handle ok.  I also was very careful not to turn too sharply.  I checked it four times to make sure that the wheel was ok.

This puts me into a predicament.  I will probably have to buy a new rotor to replace the one holding the other half of the broken lug bolts.  I also am tempted to replace all of the lug bolts in the car.  I might be able to salvage the rotor I have, but I would have to try to drill out the snapped lug bolts and try not to damage the threads of the rotor...a tricky task.  This is a predicament because this is the only car I have for the next two days.  While I could limp it to a shop, I doubt they would readily have spare rotors and lug bolts on hand.  Well, I cancelled half of the dogs I have tomorrow, and I can take the train for the other half.  J and I talked about it and first thing tomorrow, I will see if I can talk to the german mechanic in town.  Ideally, he can drill out the two bolts and will have two spares.  That would literally be all I would need to be back up and running again.  We'll see how tomorrow unfolds.

And the excitement continues...

Here are some car pictures.  Yes!  Finally!  Pictures to prove that I own a different car!

I couldn't get a good angle of the car because it was dark and parked in my tight driveway.  Hopefully, you can get an idea of how relatively small it is.  I think it is actually classified as a mini car, which I would believe.

Yep..bolts, not nuts.  Yep, four, not five.  That sweet little tool there is a swiss army key tool.  It's the shape of a key so that it easily fits on your key ring, but is the combination of a phillips and flathead screwdriver, wire cutter, wire stripper, nail file, and a very limit knife.  I freaking LOVE it.  It was one of my many Eddie Bauer finds that my wife got me as a gift for Christmas last year.  Eddie Bauer sometimes is so much my taste I can barely stand it!

Yeah, a little shorter than they are supposed to be.  I double-checked the rotor and indeed, the other halves of these are still in the rotor, possibly to never come out.  Yes, Dad, I oiled all of the lug nuts I put back in.  I'm guessing the previous owner did not employ that practice.