boots

It is summer on television. I want summer. I continue to tell people that the weather is like Chicago’s, although it was bitingly cold today – 13C, I think, and I’m ready – very ready – for a change. I’ve been shopping for boots, which is a long-term thing for me. Imagine how many people here have feet as big as mine (size 42 here, size 10 in America). I went shopping on a day I though would be muddy and was in fact very icy. There and been a thaw the night before, and I was prepared to go tromping through the bazaars looking for shoes, which are everywhere, not in their own section. Instead, it was extremely slick and lumpy ice everywhere. Everyone was trying to find low areas to walk, because if you step on high places, you slide down onto everyone below you. And I was wearing ugly boots, which amounted to a moral offense, garnering stares and frowns. Shoes are taken very seriously here.
I’m not looking for pointy-toed boots, since these would be dangerous on me, to say the least. Imagine some poor foreigner sliding around, with very large feet and leaves and papers poked through on the toes, like a freelance sanitation worker. I can’t imagine how many people I would hurt, getting onto and off of buses.
I found one pair that had a perfect style, but they were too small. Two of us were in the shop (the bazaar just go too cold, and I’d had no success), she had the right shoe on, and I had the left shoe on. I made a face. “Too small?” she asked gleefully. She bought them. So, the hunt continues.