Our New (to us) Car

We are very excited to finally have a car! We have been borrowing my in-laws van for the nine months we have been here while waiting to find a car (and hoping the value of the dollar would go up!). We started seriously shopping for one in December. It takes so much time to go from place to place and shop. After we saw this car, we knew that this is what we wanted. It is a 1999 Chevrolet Astra, and only had about 33,000 miles on it appeared to have been well taken care of.

It is a comfortable ride, and we are enjoying the air conditioning VERY much! Not only because it is hot out, but also because we can roll up the windows and don't have to smell so much exhaust! We just noticed recently that the exhaust pipes on all the semis and trucks here are located under the truck, pointing out the side, not on top like I remember the semis having in the States.  So when you drive by them in a car, the exhaust blows right in your face! It's lovely! Especially when traffic is crawling and you get to sit right next to one for a long time.

When we were shopping for a car, we also had to take in to consideration the license plate number. You see, here the license plate stays with the car. When you buy a new car, it already has a plate on it, and it will be on that car for the life of the car. Why does that matter?...you ask. Here is São Paulo, in efforts to control and limit traffic, there is one day a week that you cannot drive your car inside the city between 7-10 am or 5-8 pm. Your "no driving" day is determined by your license plate number. For instance, if your plate ends with a 1 or 2 you cannot drive during those hours on Monday, if it ends in 3 or 4 you cannot drive on Tuesday during those hours, 5 and 6 is Wednesday, 7 and 8 is Thursday, and 9 and 0 is Friday. I told you all that to tell you that even if we found a great car, we had to be sure it had the right license plate number before we could consider buying it. If we had a car we couldn't drive on Wednesdays, it would make it very difficult to get to church, and one of the churches we occasionally attend meets on Thursdays, so we didn't want that day. Friday night is when we like to go out sometimes to do something fun with the kids, so we really didn't want that day either. And, praise the Lord, this car ends in 2! Monday is a great day. Who wants to go out on Monday morning anyway?!

Just another interesting tidbit about life here in São Paulo!

Now if I can just learn to drive stick shift, maybe I can drive it!!