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Today's Tenerife rave

Started by Myrtle Hogan-Lance, Mon 20 May 2013, 16:11

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Myrtle Hogan-Lance

This thread is dedicated to raving about things in Tenerife.   :ole:

Do I want to rave about the fact that the Merc started today so we were able to drive it to the dealer and not call the grua?  No. 
Do I want to rave about the dealer telling me they would keep the car until it was fixed?  No.
Do I want to rave about the freedom our new little Honda gives us, the one we got for nearly 40% off because it was the demo?  No.

Today I would like to rave about yesterday's romería in Guía de Isora.  We love the annual romería and this time managed to drag Janet and Perikles along to join in the fun.  The crowds in their costumes, all ages, all sizes, floats, bands, dancers - everybody put on a great showing.  We ate and drank the food and vino the people on the floats were handing out and reflected that next year, they won't be pouring mojo onto the carne fiesta from a reused Fanta bottle.  Janet made a new friend in the form of a tiny little boy attached to a Sponge Bob balloon. 

It was a marvellous time, and here are a few pictures from the event.  In the first one, one of the horsemen is having a bit of vino tinto, presumably to shore up his nerves for the ride ahead.  The second one shows the image of the saint in whose honour the event was held.  In the third, one of the many food and drink floats comes along.  And in the fourth, two people are riding two stunning horses. 

[attach=1] [attach=2] [attach=3] [attach=4]

Janet

Fantastic photos, and it was a fantastic day! And yes, a small boy attached to a spongebob balloon .... :laugh:

Myrtle Hogan-Lance

Oh happy day.  I can see clearly again.  This is thanks to Europtica/Optical¡a in Playa San Juan.

A month or so ago my backup reading glasses broke.  I was due for a reexam but let it slide and then my main pair broke last week.  Disaster!!!!!  I cannot read without glasses.  And we had a visitor so I couldn't just run to the optician.  I attempted to glue each pair back together and managed to get the backup pair serviceable again, albeit with smears of superglue on the lenses.  I phoned Europtica and got an appointment for Monday morning.

My appointment went swimmingly, glasses were ordered and they said they would phone me when the came in.  They phoned me yesterday, Tuesday around 8 pm.  I ran down this morning and picked up my brand new shiny glasses and they are wonderful. 

:bravo_2:

Myrtle Hogan-Lance

I had a dream.

The dream was to one day get shot of the worst bank in the world, Bankia.  We decided to go all the way to San Isidro today to close the account.  I was armed with the filing cabinet.  I was armed with reasons.  I was prepared to demand the book and threaten them with a denuncia if they would not close the account on the spot.  I was prepared for a long time in a queue too.

We walked in....there were no other customers....I said to the nice woman that I wanted to close our account.  She very pleasantly asked for id and proceeded to cheerfully process the closure in under 10 minutes.  Somehow I think she may have experience in these matters. 

That's it.  Done.  Free at last, free at last. 

:e118: :e118: :e118: :e118: :e118:


El Profesor

Quote from: Myrtle Hogan-Lance on Thu 24 Jul 2014, 15:07

. . . . . . . I was armed with the filing cabinet.  I was armed with reasons.  I was prepared to demand the book and threaten them with a denuncia if they would not close the account on the spot.  I was prepared for a long time in a queue too.

.
I trust you had a stapler up your sleeve?.

Congratulations -  :thumbup: :banana:

May one ask which bank has earned the distinction of winning your custom? (Yes, I know they are all evil)

Myrtle Hogan-Lance

Ha ha, no stapler but I was prepared to leap over the counter if necessary.

We opened an account with Cajasiete a while back, simply because they have a branch with ATM down the road from us.  I can't complain about their service. 

We are planning to get an account with Openbank, where Janet and Perikles opened one, and they rave about it.  Apparently they have people you can actually understand on the telephone!

Perikles

Quote from: Myrtle Hogan-Lance on Thu 24 Jul 2014, 16:30Apparently they have people you can actually understand on the telephone!

Better than that! People whom even I can understand.  :great:

They call me Don Jeremy and pretend to be interested.  :Woot_Emoticon:

Myrtle Hogan-Lance

Oh deary me.  Tenerife scores again big time today.  For everything we needed to do I looked things up on maps and printed them out ahead of time.  :thumbup:

The occasion:  the Honda had to go in for its year 2 service.  I had booked the appointment and we headed to Los Majuelos for 0900.  The new dealer is called Hatobito.  Dropped car off, everything okay.

The plan was to take the tram to Santa Cruz to run errands.  We walked about 10 minutes to the tram, (past the northern Merc dealer and don't think that didn't give me the heebee-jeebees) bought tickets, and were off.  Tickets are 1.35€ per person for a single.  Machines are a breeze.  You just put your ticket in as you board and if you put it in upside down a handy young lady passenger will correct you. 

We got off at Plaza Weyler.  First stop, the Palacio Hindú where I love to shop.  They had a sale on but nothing I wanted so despite having tried a few things on we headed off.  The point is, I got to stop in and look.  Great!

Then it was on to TV Nalber, a short walk from Weyler.  It is THE place in Santa Cruz for radioaficionados (hams), people who need electrical equipment and cables, anything electronic. etc.  OH placed his order online yesterday and we walked in and it was fulfilled.  No problem, no fuss.  Went to the neighbouring Nalber to buy an analog to digital converter for my PC speakers, again, achieved in seconds. 

It was now only about 10.30.  And we were off to the Polar distributor (as in my broken heart rate monitor) not far away.  On foot once again.  One hitch:  they are on Calle de la Rosa, number 22.  We watched as it counted down from 38.....got to 26...20.  Uh oh, what's wrong?  We asked the shopkeeper at number 20 about the place we were trying to find and he pointed us down-number.  That's right, it goes from 38....26...20...back up to 22.  Naturally. 

My HRM is under a 2-year warranty and was purchased from Amazon.co.uk in December 2012.  Are we gearing up for a rant?   :gonnagetit: :gonnagetit: :gonnagetit: I was.  We walked in and I verified that we were in the right place, the authorised distributor/service centre and told him the problem.  One problem is that the belt was recording heart rates in excess of 200bpm for me when I start running (my max heart rate is 170-ish), not after reaching the top of a tough hill.  The other is that the watch is chewing batteries - 4 weeks max when it should be about once a year.  The guy was aghast, checked the belt and confirmed it was working fine and that the watch was the problem.  I left the whole kit and kaboodle with him to send to Barcelona who will take a few weeks to sort it out.  And he'll call me.  That part was tested when I left the shop with the guarantee and he had to call me to bring it back.

On our return we had to play with his two adorable little dogs once again, one of whom is madly in love with me.  I do give a good tummy scratch.

From there, on to the port.  As reported the other day :link: when I ticked the box when booking a ferry for them to verify our resident status, the system came back and said it could not.  Therefore I could not print the ticket and I could not check us in when the time came. 

We entered the Armas office which had two women working and it was full of 300 screaming people who had been there for 8 hours.  Nah, just kidding, I just walked up to a window and explained to the lovely Maria Rodriguez the problem, and handed over all  the documentation.  She performed magic keystrokes and that was that and printed the billetes.  It seems that because I did not enter our middle names, it was impossible for the system to verify our status.  Now, what we don't know is, does the system think our middle names are our first last names and our last names our second last names.  For another time.

It was not even noon and it was off to El Corte Inglés where like certain of our other members I had a certain need.  :link:  That's right, it was something from the lencería department.  Having looked up lots of vocabulary relating to the purchase of sujetadores, I entered the department with OH and we agreed to part ways and he would come back shortly. 

I...hate...this...part.  Started looking around and there was plenty to choose from for those requiring over the shoulder boulder holders.  My requirements are so modest as to not need mention.  Anyway a nice lady came up and wanted to help me so for once in my life I let her.  No aros and no relleno were the requirements.  She took me to every single sujetador which met those conditions, we selected a few and she took me to the changing rooms where she discreetly checked in on me every few minutes and ran off and got different sizes.  What a goddamned gem.  I walked away with new garments. 

Like Perikles's, they have someone else's name on them but I am not bovvered.  Innit.

Just about 1300 and the Honda dealer had not called.  What to do?  We were hungry so found ourselves near La Hierbita as recommended by @Prof (:link:) so decided to plunk ourselves down for lunch.  They have to have about the best mojo rojo y verde anywhere.  Had lunch and a couple of jarras.  Bliss. Then off to the Teatro Guimará tram station for the trip back to the Honda dealer.

On the way we decided to scrap the visit to Decathlon (just an excuse to spend money for no reason) and Ikea (we will be going up again soon anyway).

So that left our lovely favourite that @Pelinor put us on to, Leroy Merlin, :link:.  We needed a couple of filtre-jobbies for the solar water heater and some fluorescent tubes and starters.  Today, we simply walked up to the employees in the respective departments and told them what we wanted and they guided us to the aisles and presto, we were done and dusted.  We then spent some boring time in the outside part where OH inspected and measured scaffolding.  Yawn.

After that, we bid our lovely capital city and its environs a fond farewell and came back to our side of the island. 

I cannot believe we managed to get so much done in one day running around by tram and foot but we did.  Three cheers for Tenerife and Santa Cruz/La Laguna!!!!!


Delderek

Who needs a kindle, when we can read your posts on a PC :clap: