vroom
this is exciting – today our new (well, new to us) car arrived – it is a 2004 Renault Mégane (here is another picture). It had 23,000 kilometres on it, which isn’t much, really, and we got it at a great price due to having imported it from another country (those are Luxembourg tags) – so much so that if we want to sell it in France in six months, there’s a good chance we’ll get our money back, and then some. We’ll likely be using it in Ireland, however, even though the steering wheel will be on the wrong side of the car!
which reminds me, I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this in my journal or not, but I’ll be doing an internship at Allied Irish Banks in Dublin from May until November of this year.
anyway, we spent a good deal of today driving around lost – though I’ve walked around Clermont-Ferrand quite a bit I have never really looked at the street signs (which are normally somewhat hard to find), so you can imagine that driving around trying to find things (without a map by the way) wasn’t easy. You can use the cathedral, which is at the center of the old city, as a sort of landmark, and I vaguely know the names of the various city suburbs, but otherwise I just sort of drove around hoping to see something somewhat recognizable so that I could head in that direction (there are lots of handy street signs along the sides of the roads with arrows pointing every which way, almost porcupine-ish).
we managed to find Bébéland, where we bought car seats and an exercise toy for Amelia, and Auchan, which is sort of Wal-Mart-esque but has much better cheese (they sell beer, wine and liquour, too). We bought a full carload of stuff, mostly chestnut flavored desserts for Yvonne (she is obsessed).
I’m very happy with the car. It is one of the most European looking cars on the road (I would say the design is quite funky), and it’s got a lot of nice touches (power windows, automatic climate control, and a trip computer that counts down the kilometers until you need gas – these aren’t the fanciest of options I suppose but I’ve never had a car with that sort of thing). Also, it’s a diesel, which will be much cheaper on gas, and will make it easier to resell in the future.
nothing more exciting than that to report!
which is sort of Wal-Mart-esque but has much better cheese
LOL! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! 🙂
Awesome euro-bubbly car! 🙂
Happy new year! How was the new year abroad?
hey man – happy new year to you too! The new year abroad was a bit dry perhaps – Yvonne and I were here in our apartment, and the kids were asleep; we don’t have a TV so we basically lay on the bed with our computer and found a web site with a clock on it and watched it count its way to 12:00 CET, then we watched a Stargate Atlantis episode on DVD. But we spent it with the right people (each other) – it was nice.
So should I come visit France or Ireland then? 😀
And should I bring Chestnuts?
hey man – that’s a tough call. France is of course more “exotic” than Ireland due to the language and culture thing. But in Ireland, I’ll be working (not in school) so I’ll have free evenings and weekends – plus it will be easier to get to us (a plane flight and not a plane flight + 4 hour train ride) – and Dublin is more exciting than Clermont-Ferrand.
have you ever been to Dublin before? It would definitely be cool due to the beer factor to hang out in Dublin together. In fact, it’s probably one of the more ideal “Brian and Clay” places in the world!
as for chestnuts, we’ll see – the rate Yvonne is going she’ll burn out on chestnuts within the month…
Well then, looks like it’s Ireland!
I’ve never been to Ireland before, no. The closest is Amsterdam.
I spent a weekend in Dublin/Ireland once… it was… scary. A story for another time perhaps, but the short version is this: My friend and I got advice on how not to get stabbed in the back by roving mugger gangs and almost got thrown out of our B&B to spend the night on the streets. It was… interesting. 🙂
So what you have there is kinda like my car?
Yeah we spent time driving around lost, too, as the street sign situation here is the same.
Happy New Year!
Cute lil’ car!
–riney
I *love* those little cars!
Happy New Year to you and your family.
Heh, I have two of the previous generation Megane Scenics in my diecast toy car collection (and a Citroen Xsara Picassso and a Citroen C3). It’s cool to (sorta kinda) know someone who actually owns one!
That’s a cool car 🙂
man, that car really has some european design and lines! oh, maybe that’s because it’s european?! cool stuff though.