Clear The Roads

We now have a vehicle. Being two relatively well off, relatively young, childless, cultured, fun loving people, what kind of car do you think we bought?

If you guessed a used station wagon, you get a gold star.

Marlys and I are the proud owners of a 2001 Holden Commodore station wagon. We are taking unsexy transportation to a whole new level. The Commodore (or "Commode") is the highest selling car in Australia, and the term "basic transportation" springs to mind when viewing or driving it. On the upside, it has plenty of room for visitors and their luggage, is cheap to insure and operate, and can take a lot of incidental contact. The two points being critical when you haven't driven on left hand of the road since 1994.

On our first driving experience, we picked up the car at Jen and John's house on Friday night. John, who owns a car business, had made sure we didn't end up with a lemon and got us a very good deal. We had a couple drinks with them: champagne for Marlys to calm her nerves, water for Matt so he would be an alert driver. Suitably prepared, we headed to the car, where Jen then got on her knees and said a few prayers (wish we had a picture of that). Then off we go.

No problem. Driving on the left is actually fairly easy when there is traffic and you know where you are going. You just follow everyone else and plan your turns. Marlys and Jen had plotted a course to our apartment from their house on Melways, and we had a highlighted path with the fewest number of possible turns all laid out.

There is still entertainment value galore. The wipers and turn signal switches are reversed, so Marlys knows when Matt wants to turn left because he turns on wipers. And it took Matt quite a while to realize there is a rear view mirror up and to the left.

Of course, we couldn't have a totally uneventful trip. We did luck out and get caught up in a sobriety check point. Thanks his exhibition of caution earlier in the night, Matt passed with flying colors in his first encounter with Melbourne's finest. We finally parked the car at our apartment, from whence it has not subsequently moved, and immediately repaired to our new local pub for a nice big VB.

We're waiting for traffic to die down to nothing before venturing forth again. I think Saturday at 5 AM. I'm sure our neighbors think we are odd - we have a car in our parking space, but no gas, electricity, furniture or fixtures in our apartment. They have a mighty expensive parking plan, those Yanks.

Next up: trip to Tasmania.