Happy April Fools day everyone. I'm not much of a prankster (well,
except when dealing with Scott) so I've never really had any pranks
pulled on me (thankfully!). The only notable one would be shortly after
Steve and I moved to Bakersfield. He called me at work saying his mom
called and she was unhappy and he wanted her to move in with
us. I about fell out of my chair. He was so convincing and so
troublesome. I can't lie to save my life (especially to him- I always
start to laugh or smirk) so I've never been able to get him back. Maybe
someday I'll tell him Randi and Andy are sending their kids to visit for
the summer (once they have a couple more!).
Anyways, an update on our "getting settled" status. As you know, I got
my residence permit so Steve and I rushed at the first opportunity to
get our liquor permit. We made our first trip to the liquor store
(well, our first, my second) and spent about $300 on our bar. Liquor
and American products are the really expensive things here. Everything
else seems reasonable.
We're also car shopping. You can buy most any car but we've been told
that since we plan on buying just one, it has to be 4X4 so we can out in
the dunes. We have to secure a loan from our bank in the U.S. and
they'll only give us a loan for the term of my assignment here (forget 5
year loan terms- we get a 2 or 3 year loan). That makes monthly
payments more interesting! We've looked at Nissan Pathfinders,
Mitsubishi Pajeros and Nativas (looks like a 4runner). We can apparently
get a good deal on American made cars here (mostly Chevy's)- but the
parts are expensive. And, as I told Steve, I'd never consider an
American car in the U.S. where parts are cheap and plentiful why would I
buy one here where that's not the case? So, we're sticking with
foreign. Toyota's out since everyone drives Land Cruisers (seriously)
and therefore service is rude and hard to schedule. We'll look at Honda
but I think we're going with the Pathfinder. I imagine we'll be car
owners next week. I might even drive by then. Maybe. I don't really
feel there's any incentive to getting behind the wheel when Steve puts
up with me screaming "brakes!!!" at random intervals. I have no idea
why I'm not driving yet. It doesn't look that hard (nor does it look
fun though) and I know how to drive a roundabout in theory (that's what
Steve told me when I once asked if he knew how to drive a standard).
Maybe that's the key- if we get a standard I'll have to drive and he'll
have to learn how to drive a standard in practice.
In addition to car shopping, we're paint shopping. We should probably
be rug shopping as well (seems easier to match paint to a rug than rug
to paint but whatever). We need to get rid of the Bahamian bedrooms and
dingy beige. So we went to the paint store and picked samples-
seriously, probably 50 of them. For a whole house, it's probably
reasonable. We're trying to match our newly recovered sofas- God help
us! Seriously- when your couches are navy blue with navy flowers and a
little cream in there- what color do you paint your walls (not cream- so
boring!)? Steve once picked a contrasting table cloth for our table
setting that looked great and was not at all what I was looking for- now
he thinks he's got skills at this sort of thing. I keep reminding him
he's a boy and therefore cannot be better at it than me. Who knows-
maybe he is? Now that we have DSL at home, we'll get our house pics up
and you can see our dilemma. Later we'll post the "after" pictures.
Anyways, happy Sunday!
-Erin
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