Laguna Matata

We're car owners! This morning we purchased our first "grown-up car," aka the first car that our parents didn't help us pick out. Which means our brothers helped. We spent hours on the phone with Josh's brother, who is an amateur mechanic and gave us a crash course in car buying, and my brother, who is luckily addicted to Top Gear and has an encyclopedic knowledge of European car models. They both gave seals of approvals to our very glamorous...station wagon.


We feel pretty good about ourselves--making a major first-time purchase is pretty scary for non-risk-takers like us anyway, and we did it all in a foreign country where we were just learning words like disque (break pad) and break (station wagon). Hopefully our new Renault Laguna will live up to my brother's enthusiastic recommendation. After all the stresses we've had with other major decisions here (our disastrously bug-infested apartment, for example) we're expecting something to go wrong with our car...but trying not to worry about it. Laguna matata! And one major worry WAS lifted away by this car purchase: I don't have to learn to drive stick! I think we found the only automatic car for sale in Provence. For the first time since touching down in Europe, I can drive myself somewhere! I feel like a person again.

So, how did we celebrate finally having a car after 2 years of taking buses to the grocery store and not going to the beach that's only 30 minutes away because you need your own vehicle to get there? Well, in the best way we knew how: by accidentally putting gas in the diesel car our friend lent us to go pick up our new "Renaultcerous." So, we spent the afternoon making calls from the side of the road, trying to find a tow truck (remorqueur) and a garage that would do the procedure to flush the gas out of the little violet Clio's system. Beach trips, grocery store runs, and being everyone's airport taxi will have to wait until tomorrow. But hey, laguna matata--no worries!