We have a car!

Yikes! My last post was over a month ago. I so did not mean to let it go that long. Thanks Lou for reminding me! We're not totally without excuses though, it's been a busy last month, and will probably require a few posts to describe.

In the beginning of April we finally got our drivers licenses back, which meant we could officially start our search for a used car. I assumed everything would get easier once we had the drivers licenses in hand, and just needed to find a suitable used car. Boy was I wrong!! We started our used car search at the local car dealership. We knew in general you would get a better deal from a private seller, but it sounded stressful to try and figure out everything on our own in a foreign country, so a dealer seemed like a better choice. Unfortunately, we did not have luck with dealerships. We went to a few dealerships in our town. The first one the guy was totally sleezy and dishonest seeming. We asked him about the warranty which dealerships are required to provide in Germany, and he told us it would cost a few hundred euro extra. That coupled with the fact that we found out we'd have to pay 20% extra than the listed price of the car for taxes, made the whole dealership option seem a lot less appealing. We still thought it might work out, and checked out a few other dealerships, but they were selling only very new used cars, and didn't have anything in our price range.

Once we gave up on buying a car at a dealership, we decided to try private seller. After a few scam emails, and tons of email inquiries that didn't receive a response, I started calling people up on the phone. I remember when we moved here people told us; "everyone in Germany speaks English" and "You'll have no trouble getting things done with limited knowledge of the language" Well, I have to say, that may be true as a tourist, or if you're willing to spend a lot of money on everything you do, but in day to day life, that is just not at all true! Not one person I called up about their used car spoke English. After a long run of frustrations and complications, we finally found a car that fit our specifications,was within our price range, and was being sold within Germany (for some reason a lot of people only wanted to sell their car for export). The seller of this car, while kind of sketchy seeming, was willing to deal with us in spite of our sub-par German.

At the end of the day, we ended up buying the car. But it was not easy! We dealt with all kinds of issues from the guy selling it, and then there was all the trouble of insuring and registering the car. However, in the end it has all been worth it. Dylan has gotten to work on the car which he's really enjoyed (from the get go it needed a new battery, oil change, and the drivers side window was not functional), and we have all really, really enjoyed driving it. We drove to bible study and church last weekend which made our Sunday about 100x more relaxing a pleasant. I got to drive to a friends house  yesterday that would have taken me over an hour by bus/train, but was only 13 minutes by car! We've also already made trips to Ikea and and grocery store. It's been so nice.

The car we ended up buying is a 2000 BMW 316 compact (when in Germany...) It's very sporty and cool, but still big enough for all four of us. All four of us are absolutely loving it!