Our Car

(I've had this post in my draft folder for a while now, but every time I think about taking a photo of the car, it either rains or Albert has got it. I've done quite a bit of driving since I wrote this post and getting used to it.)

It's a seven seater.

We thought naively that buying a second/third hand car would be easy, go to the caryard/online and just buy one. It turned out that is isn't quite that easy. People thrash their cars apparently, ie there are no rules with regard to servicing them (like WOFs). So how would we know what is a good car and what isn't?  Also we naively thought that for the money we sold our van (which we loved) we could buy a equivalent car/van. We didn't need anything flash as long as it drove and didn't need too many repairs, what was the problem? Well people here said that under 10K that it would be impossible! ARGG, we didn't want to spend that much.

Thankfully God had a plan there too and one of the church members volunteered to go out with Albert and look for one. (for those of you who have seen "Fly Wheel", apparently car salesman are really like that, and so for us outsiders, who know nothing about cars, how do you know who to trust?) It took them the whole Saturday but finally at the last car yard (by then they had just about given up hope) THE car was found. The church member managed to squeeze a good deal out of the dealer (who providentially happened to be a Christian). 

The end result a Honda Odyssey which makes me laugh! We sold our van to a family who were growing out of their Honda Odyssey! Even though our car is pretty basic for USA standards I think it is pretty fancy. It's got button to unlock and lock (a novelty for us) and it also has a button to open and close the sliding doors! It's got cruise control, AIRCON (a necessity here) and a stereo. 

My security blanket

We've also bought a GPS as navigation around the suburbs is a bit frightening to say the least. It is VERY busy here and so getting step-by-step directions of where to go, what lane to be in and some advance warning when to turn is necessary and lifesaving!  The advantage of this compared to printing directions of google, if you miss a turn etc accidentally, it recalculates! It also has a feature, to go home, so no matter where you are, it leads you home! Another bonus to the GPS is that it tells you how fast you are going but more importantly what the speed limit is, speed limits seem to change at will or so it seems!

Freeway

Albert has most of the driving so far and is getting pretty confident in driving around. I've managed to do some driving too but still with my security blanket (GPS) firm in hand! I haven't been brave enough to 'brave' the freeway. 

Now that we have a car, our options are endless, we were walking everywhere in the stifling heat but walking gets you only so far! We've now managed to do some birthday shopping for Kate (more on that to come) and Grace, also managed to buy some more groceries, cleaning products and some household things we have needed.