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	new car
	May 26th, 2020
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	A funny thing happened to me on Saturday. I went to a lovely BBQ
	with some friends in Reyjkavík and had to head home around 2300 in
	order to catch the last bus from the capital out to my little
	suburb. The bus picked me up and deposited me there 20 minutes
	later as planned. While I was on the bus, I took out my kindle to
	do some reading.

	When I got off that bus I needed to make one transfer onto the #7
	bus which would take me into my neighborhood, saving me a 1km walk
	from the town center. I've done this many times and knew the bus
	would be along any moment, so I kept reading. As expected, the bus
	came around the corner and up the hill toward me. I hopped on and
	kept reading.

	See, here's where things get a little silly. I may have been
	pretty drunk at this point owing to said BBQ earlier in the
	evening. I was most certainly not paying attention as I was
	reading. I also forgot completely that the number 7 bus travels in
	both directions from the same bus stop I was at. I usually would
	check the exact timing of the bus because there's no way to tell
	from the signage whether it's headed to my neighborhood or away
	from it. In fact, during that last nightly route both busses
	appear at that stop within two minutes of one another.

	So yeah, I was a little surprised when I looked up to find myself
	in another town and not in my neighborhood. I was screwed. Ugh.

	There were no more busses and taxis don't just wander the streets.
	You need to call them and arrange a pickup. So what's a drunk guy
	to do in this situation? If you guessed "walk 10km home around
	a mountain in the middle of the night in Iceland" then you win
	a prize!

	I took a shortcut across the middle of a golf course at one point,
	and marveled once again at the well maintained and numerous trails
	and paths available in my area. Almost everything was well lit and
	clean. It was lovely! It took me over two hours to get home and
	I got a few hot-spots on my heels since I was walking in flimsy
	slip-on shoes and not my boots. Still, no harm no foul.

	Anyway, today I bought a car. :D It's a 2017 SsangYong Tivoli. It
	is white and in pretty good shape with only about 60,000km on it.
	I'm not sure you'll believe me now, but this was actually in the
	works before Saturday's adventure. My wife and I were talking
	about how nice it is here to be able to take the bus everywhere
	and how it was probably better for our health to do all the
	walking. We also admitted that it's frustrating not to be able to
	go out into the countryside. We live only 25 minutes from
	þingvellir, after all, but we never go. We want to head up north
	this summer and we were considering renting. But there's little
	annoyances too.

	This summer there are a number of activities available to the kids
	in the area. One is a little zoo and horseback riding place where
	the kids can learn to take care of the animals. It would be
	perfect for my boy. The farm is only 5 minutes away, but that's by
	car. It's directly on the other side of the mountain behind my
	apartment. To walk there would take an hour, each way. That's not
	something we could sign him up for before. Now it's no problem.

	People here also just assume you have a car or access to one. It
	can be tricky when activites happen at odd spots. Even travelling
	to IKEA from my place is a chore because it takes 4 transfers and
	over 2hrs to get there. Now with a car it's an 18 minute drive.

	We don't intend to use it for everything. Certainly we want to
	have it to go out into the country and see the sights. We also
	will use it for things like IKEA trips. But we want to keep using
	the bus to go downtown and walk to go shopping for groceries.
	I don't know how realistic that goal is, but we shall see.