Today, we said a sad good bye to Pidgeon's Peaugot. It was a good car. It served him very well. At times, when dating was going lousy and he felt bad about himself, this car really helped pick him back up. I felt really bad that we couldn't afford to keep it, but we're just not in the position where we can afford two cars. Add up personal insurance, car insurance, gas, misc. car mishaps (like battery dying or light bulb needing to be changed), multiply by two, and it's just way too expensive for a barely one income family right now. So, we stood by our decision and did the trade in. We dealt with snafu after snafu and finally, yesterday, we got the call that the car was ready. We needed to be in Rishon LeZiyon this morning by 10:00 a.m.
Yesterday was a whirlwind of phone calls. We had to get everything ready for picking up the car today. That included purchasing new car insurance plans. And, since the car is officially in my name, I had to get personal insurance in my name. Almost 1500 shekels later, I had the piece of paper I needed regarding personal insurance, but we were fighting with our insurance agency on car insurance. They wanted to charge us 3000 shekel a year for car insurance, while UMI (the Chevy dealership) would only charge us 2400 shekel a year. We asked our insurance agency to come towards us a bit with the price, especially since we have apartment insurance, double personal insurance and medical insurance with the same agency. They refused to budge. Since we're on student salaries here, I said forget it. And, Pidgeon and I decided to go with the UMI insurance.
We both slept fitfully last night. Well, actually, I slept fitfully and Pidgeon slept well but just not long enough. When the alarm went off at 7:30 a.m. this morning, I jumped up and got us out of the apartment by 8:30 a.m. We needed to be in Rishon by 10:00 a.m. to deal with the trade in people and car insurance policies so we could catch the 11:00 a.m. Hasaah (ride) to the car park. Well, we enjoyed our last ride out of Jerusalem in the old car and made it to the dealership in time. Pidgeon felt it was bittersweet, and we left the car up in the parking lot and made our way towards the dealership. It took us an hour to fill out all the appropriate forms, get the old car checked and approved, get the alarm instructions, fax an account cancellation with our old car alarm system before the Hasaah was ready to leave.
We took off without a hitch but then the Hasaah driver was called back because he also forgot to take the mail. There was one other person in the car with us, the owner of the UMI dealership in Haifa, who was on his way to pick up a Chevy Aveo for the dealership. The conversation between the men was pretty amusing, and I enjoyed how Tzvi (UMI Haifa) went off on the Mazda dealership up North. His friend had the same experience with Mazda that we encountered when we went there looking at cars. They have zero customer service, would not come towards us with a price, would not do trade in, and basically acted like we were just annoying flies bugging them during their work days. Pidgeon got involved in the conversation and I just sat back and tried not to get too thrown around in the van on our way to the car park.
By the time we pulled up to this huge car warehouse located about 10 minutes away from Yavneh, my bladder was killing me and I was begging for a smooth ride. I ran inside with Pidgeon, dropped my stuff and headed straight for the ladies room. When I got out, everything was done; all the forms filled out and signed. The Chevy technician was on hand and he led us to our car.
And she's BEAUTIFUL! We got the car tour, learned how to use all the neat features like our GPS and the reverse radar that lets us know when we're a little too close to the car behind us. We were like giddy children with a new toy and, we were just so excited that this car was finally ours, that we drove all the way back to Jerusalem with the plastic still on the seats.
It wasn't very comfortable. But, it was just perfect.
Pidgeon got the hang of the new car really nicely, even revving the engine a couple of times to just listen to the new car sound. I wasn't that excited about the new car smell and am already plotting ways to get some sort of car air freshner from Yankee Candles over to this Country. We went straight to Nayot to the SuperPharm because I needed some more Clexane shots and my Ishur (Israel's version of perscriptions have expiration dates) ran out today. One we parked the car, we decided to remove the plastic so as not to tempt fate. We threw it out in the garbage in front of the pharmacy and then went inside to pick up more shots. We also went to the SuperSol next door so I could stock up on frozen fish for the week. I was able to find some great salmon fillets and even some pollack fillet too. I grabbed a bag of salad on the way to the checkout so we could have something for lunch, and then we checked out.
When we exited the supermarket, I was totally confused and for a minute couldn't find the car. I had completely forgotten what she looks like and, expecting Pidgeon's old car, got really disoriented. Fortunately, Pidgeon remembered where we parked and within minutes I was happily seated in the new front seat.
It was nice to get home though. We pulled up in front of the apartment at 2:00 p.m., drained, hungry and exhausted. We were trying to contain our excitement though, because it's the 9 Days, but for me this was really the BIG purchase that needed to get done before the baby.
Next, P"G, is baby gear!
Well, I'm off to fold the laundry that I did yesterday but never got around to folding.
Yom Tov from Baka!
Yesterday was a whirlwind of phone calls. We had to get everything ready for picking up the car today. That included purchasing new car insurance plans. And, since the car is officially in my name, I had to get personal insurance in my name. Almost 1500 shekels later, I had the piece of paper I needed regarding personal insurance, but we were fighting with our insurance agency on car insurance. They wanted to charge us 3000 shekel a year for car insurance, while UMI (the Chevy dealership) would only charge us 2400 shekel a year. We asked our insurance agency to come towards us a bit with the price, especially since we have apartment insurance, double personal insurance and medical insurance with the same agency. They refused to budge. Since we're on student salaries here, I said forget it. And, Pidgeon and I decided to go with the UMI insurance.
We both slept fitfully last night. Well, actually, I slept fitfully and Pidgeon slept well but just not long enough. When the alarm went off at 7:30 a.m. this morning, I jumped up and got us out of the apartment by 8:30 a.m. We needed to be in Rishon by 10:00 a.m. to deal with the trade in people and car insurance policies so we could catch the 11:00 a.m. Hasaah (ride) to the car park. Well, we enjoyed our last ride out of Jerusalem in the old car and made it to the dealership in time. Pidgeon felt it was bittersweet, and we left the car up in the parking lot and made our way towards the dealership. It took us an hour to fill out all the appropriate forms, get the old car checked and approved, get the alarm instructions, fax an account cancellation with our old car alarm system before the Hasaah was ready to leave.
We took off without a hitch but then the Hasaah driver was called back because he also forgot to take the mail. There was one other person in the car with us, the owner of the UMI dealership in Haifa, who was on his way to pick up a Chevy Aveo for the dealership. The conversation between the men was pretty amusing, and I enjoyed how Tzvi (UMI Haifa) went off on the Mazda dealership up North. His friend had the same experience with Mazda that we encountered when we went there looking at cars. They have zero customer service, would not come towards us with a price, would not do trade in, and basically acted like we were just annoying flies bugging them during their work days. Pidgeon got involved in the conversation and I just sat back and tried not to get too thrown around in the van on our way to the car park.
By the time we pulled up to this huge car warehouse located about 10 minutes away from Yavneh, my bladder was killing me and I was begging for a smooth ride. I ran inside with Pidgeon, dropped my stuff and headed straight for the ladies room. When I got out, everything was done; all the forms filled out and signed. The Chevy technician was on hand and he led us to our car.
And she's BEAUTIFUL! We got the car tour, learned how to use all the neat features like our GPS and the reverse radar that lets us know when we're a little too close to the car behind us. We were like giddy children with a new toy and, we were just so excited that this car was finally ours, that we drove all the way back to Jerusalem with the plastic still on the seats.
It wasn't very comfortable. But, it was just perfect.
Pidgeon got the hang of the new car really nicely, even revving the engine a couple of times to just listen to the new car sound. I wasn't that excited about the new car smell and am already plotting ways to get some sort of car air freshner from Yankee Candles over to this Country. We went straight to Nayot to the SuperPharm because I needed some more Clexane shots and my Ishur (Israel's version of perscriptions have expiration dates) ran out today. One we parked the car, we decided to remove the plastic so as not to tempt fate. We threw it out in the garbage in front of the pharmacy and then went inside to pick up more shots. We also went to the SuperSol next door so I could stock up on frozen fish for the week. I was able to find some great salmon fillets and even some pollack fillet too. I grabbed a bag of salad on the way to the checkout so we could have something for lunch, and then we checked out.
When we exited the supermarket, I was totally confused and for a minute couldn't find the car. I had completely forgotten what she looks like and, expecting Pidgeon's old car, got really disoriented. Fortunately, Pidgeon remembered where we parked and within minutes I was happily seated in the new front seat.
It was nice to get home though. We pulled up in front of the apartment at 2:00 p.m., drained, hungry and exhausted. We were trying to contain our excitement though, because it's the 9 Days, but for me this was really the BIG purchase that needed to get done before the baby.
Next, P"G, is baby gear!
Well, I'm off to fold the laundry that I did yesterday but never got around to folding.
Yom Tov from Baka!
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