Hi friends,
I am going to tell you in the following lines an experience I had on Friday, April 14, 2023 and how from a complicated and unpleasant situation one can finally get good moments that makes the balance of the day is not bad.
Due to my professional activity, I always have a company car at my disposal to be able to make my commercial visits and my training courses in chemical analysis laboratories. And I always keep the most modern vehicle, which is the one I show you below.
However, due to the fact that my colleague had to travel more than 500 kilometers, I decided to give him the most modern car, since I only had to travel 200 kilometers to the destination of my visit and the following week I did not need the company car to do other work.
After changing vehicles on Thursday, April 13, I drove early in the morning from Asturias to A Coruña. A placid trip of just 2 hours, with good weather and in good spirits because I was finishing the work week and the weekend is always a time that I love to rest or practice my hobbies.
While I was in A Coruña, I received a call from a customer who is located in the town of Lugo, 100 kilometers from A Coruña, and I decided to pay him a commercial visit and I promised to be in his laboratory in less than an hour.
Everything was pointing that I would make this second commercial visit and I could go back home and enjoy the weekend; however, before getting into the car I looked at the right front wheel and saw this striking bulging of the wheel.
What did I do then?
Well, although my reason was asking me to go to the nearest garage, I decided to make the 100 kilometers that separate A Coruña and Lugo and I made the commercial visit.
The visit was really short, I got a good order of services and then I went to look for an open workshop and I found a workshop right next to the largest shopping center in Lugo.
When I arrived at the shop, I told them what tires I wanted to put on the vehicle (all-weather tires) and they gave me a quote of 224 euros excluding VAT. A reasonable price for the brand of tires I selected.
Since the mechanics told me that the tire change would take about 45 minutes, I decided to go to the As Termas shopping center.
Inside the mall there are several restaurants with different themes, such as pizzerias, hamburger restaurants, vegan restaurants, etc.
However, a restaurant by the name of Galeón caught my attention.
Upon entering the restaurant, I fell in love with its ambiance. Seeing some cannons on one side of the restaurant and seeing a large ship's mast with its sails in the center of it made me feel as if I were inside a ship.
Specifically, I had the feeling of being inside a pirate ship, seeing how part of the props consisted of pirate skeletons hanging in various parts of the restaurant.
After asking for a table for one, I was seated at one of the outside tables of the restaurant and after looking at the menu I decided to eat healthy and ordered a delicious avocado and chicken salad.
And as you can see in this picture taken nearby, it looked wonderful and tasted excellent for a restaurant located in a shopping mall.
As I am a big eater, and as the salad was not enough, I ordered a dessert and of course I enjoyed a cheesecake which was good, but I don't consider it in the top-10 cheesecakes I have ever tasted in my life.
When I was finishing eating the cake, I received a text message from the garage telling me that I could go to pick up my vehicle.
When I arrived at the garage and did not see my vehicle in the reception area, I was confused by the SMS I had received. It was then, when the person in charge of the workshop asked me to accompany him, because he wanted to show me the state in which the left front shock absorber was.
As you can see it was destroyed and leaking oil. A situation that could have caused me a serious accident and thanks to the deformation of the wheel on the opposite side could be detected in time before having a traffic accident.
It was at that moment when we were looking at the condition of the shock absorber and I asked for an estimate to change the shock absorber and to try to get it in a spare parts store. After the estimate of 238 excluding tax, they ordered the shock absorbers and told me that I would need an hour and a half of time to do the replacement.
To my way of seeing this intervention the price is higher than other workshops, but who finds a workshop in a foreign city on a Friday afternoon urgently?
To make time, I was walking around the outside and inside of the mall and thinking about how to take advantage of the situation. That is, to put a good face on the bad weather.
On the outside, one of the things that caught my attention was this multiple rack to park the bicycles almost next to the main entrance of the mall.
On the inside, I tried to capture some reflections for my participation in the #shadowhunters community reflection contest organized by 
After going up the escalators, I accessed the food court again where I had had lunch and had the coffee I had not been able to enjoy earlier.
And when I came out of coffee I saw a beautiful shadow on the floor that I could not miss to publish it in the shadow contest organized by 
Being this shadow caused by the structure of the glass ceiling and the bars that support each glass.
Then, because I was taking pictures, a security guard told me that I should be careful not to take pictures of third parties and avoid taking any pictures inside the commercial premises. So I decided to find a place to sit and work with my computer answering emails until I received the repair message for my car, which happened in the time I had been told, including an axle alignment.
After the repair, I was able to return home and enjoy what was left of Friday and a nice weekend, but this is material for another post.
Best regards.
Own photograph taken with my iPhone SE.
Cover, separators and banner created with www.canva.com (free version).
This post is my participation in the #MarketFriday by @dswigle.
