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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. | |