Friday, January 08, 2010

Diesel, baby


A little note to my post yesterday. I've been googling Jettas this evening, and I see that there are many reviews of the 2009 Jetta TDI, which is what I am buying. And the reviews of it are pretty great. It's a turbo diesel, which they claim gets as much as 40 mpg, performing great at the same time. Oh, yes...

In Norway, Jettas aren't popular at all. Volkswagens are super popular, but sedans are totally out. Everyone around here wants either a station wagon or a hatchback, and anything else is uninteresting. Kind of lame, but, on the other hand, it means that I got a really good deal on this Jetta, which I like!

Thursday, January 07, 2010

New car


So, I bought a new car today. Excitement, excitement... Actually it's not a brand new car, but a 1-year-old VW Jetta (I've always loved Jettas...). We've been thinking about buying a new car for a while now. Gaute's 15-year-old Volvo is falling apart and didn't pass its last inspection, so it is pretty much done for after February, when the registration expires. My car is 5-years-old, and still runs and looks great, but it's starting to run into those 5-year-old car problems which have a tendency to show up (at the moment, my parking brake isn't working, for example). So, first we thought we would buy a new car for Gaute, something about 4-5 years old, in fairly decent shape. He was actually all set to buy a car, and the deal fell through, and the his motivation was gone. Then we started thinking that maybe we could get by with one car for a while, and get a new family car instead. So we started looking at Volvo V70s, which are really nice, but not so cheap. We found one that we liked, and had the dealership give us a trade-in price for my car, which was ridiculously low. And the car we wanted was really pushing our limits.

So, then Gaute came up with a great idea. We could buy a new "commuter car" for me, and my Renault could be our 2nd car, which he can use. My car is pretty big, with lots of room for when we go to our cabin and stuff, and runs fine (just have to get that pesky brake fixed). And I really wanted a car with an automatic transmission for when I sit in traffic on my way to work. I'm pretty happy - I think this was a good compromise. Now I get a new car, and Gaute gets a car, too. If we would have bought the Volvo, we would have spent more money, and Gaute wouldn't have had a car. Plus, the Volvo was smaller than the Renault. Now we have a big car with room for 7 people (as long as two of them are midgets) plus a mid-size car with room for 5 people.

Anyway, this has been a rambling post, but hopefully you get the gist of things. I don't have my car yet, they're going to give it a service checkup and stuff, but I have been promised the car by the end of next week. Here are some pics of the car from the online ad:



Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Twenty-ten (otherwise known as two thousand and ten)

2010...It's kind of hard to believe I'm still alive. When I was a kid, 2010 sounded like it was sooo far in the future, that I couldn't really imagine what life would be like. Was pretty sure that we would be riding in hover cars and that robots would be cleaning our house. But here I am with a car with 4 tires and a Polish cleaning lady...

Christmas vacation is over, and I started back to work this week. I was actually kind of looking forward to getting back to work. And I have had a nice week at work. What hasn't been so great is the feeling of total exhaustion that I have had every evening when I get home. We were staying up really late every night during vacation, and sleeping in really late. My body has gone into shock this week, getting up at 6 every morning. I'm hoping that my sleep habits will adjust themselves soon, so that life feels a bit more normal.

It's been super cold here this week. Today it was -20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) pretty much all day. Makes me happy that I got a new down jacket for Christmas!