Day 007 - Looking for a Car

So what started off as a slow day ended up being pretty good.  We decided to spend the day looking for a car as we are getting worried about not being able to find one within the next few days.  Since we only have accommodation in Vancouver for another 5 days, we getting concerned.

We thought we wanted a Nissan Pathfinder until we drove one today and realised it’s a bloody TANK!!  So after an entire day of calling different people to look at their SUVs we are going back to the drawing board and looking for something smaller.  I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING!!  Many of you already told us to look for a more economical car…..  yeah yeah we get it now!

Marc found this guy named Chaz who was selling his car and convinced Marc to get on the train to come look at this car.  I was a little hesitant at first as the guy said he would pick us up from the train station.   So you can imagine my thrill at the idea of getting into some strangers car.   Marc made me laugh out loud when he tried to reassure me by saying he knew what he was doing… “ I did my research honey… I called him twice!!!” Marc says convincingly….

Anyway, turns out it went really well and the guy was really nice…offcourse he was nice we’re in CANADA!! We drove around (on the Right side of the road) test driving the tank and it's not for us.

That being said, there are a few things I need to complain about CANADA. 

1. The food is not as cheap as I thought it would be.  Pretty much the same as back home.  

2. We found out that its mandatory to insure the car we’re about to buy, not just third party insurance but normal insurance too and its BLOODY EXPENSIVE!!  Like half the price of the car nearly!!

3.The most crazy part for me and Marc will disagree, because he thinks my previous point is worse, but  what blows my mind here is Mobile (or Cell Phone) providers.  So lets see, if you can wrap your head around this: You get charged to receive phone calls on your mobile here!!!! That’s right, you want to call me and talk for 10 minutes as we often do back home… NO NO coz not only are you paying a bucket load but I’ll be paying just as much for the same conversation!!! That’s right CRAZY!!!

So if you wonder why we still don’t have a phone number yet, that’s why!  Every plan is so confusing,  they charge for incoming calls and text, they don’t have data and you can do international calls or texting..  WHATS THE POINT?? Anyway, I’ll stop ranting coz its making this blog very boring but it just blows my mind!!!  Or as Russel Peters would say MIND-BLASTING!!!!!  ;-)

We ended up stoping in Yaletown for dinner at Roger’s Oyster Bar, which turned out to be AMAZING..

The food was really good and we met this guy who was sitting next to us and ended up chatting to him the whole night.  He’s name is Hans and he lived in Australia for a few years.  He used to represent Billabong here in Canada which was pretty impressive, so he knew exactly where the Gold Coast is!  It was so much fun chatting to him, he was so nice and gave us some good advise & shouted us a drink.  He said he might even e-mail us tomorrow with some info on some jobs he knows of. 

Anyway, tomorrow off to get our social security numbers and more car searching…


Sammy