Sunday, October 12, 2008

Auto-update

Julia had a very buys week. She had a weekday game and didn't get home until late. Of course she had to go to work the next day which included practice of course. She had a game Friday and Saturday as well. The team won the game on Saturday which was cool. She was also able to visit with our friends Stu and Sheree for a short bit on Friday while at their school.

While she was at her game I went car shopping again. Our friends Lauren and Sarah were kind enough to babysit for us. Car used shopping here is very different than what I've experienced in the states. As you pull up to the lot (more on this in a minute) you are immediately surrounded by men trying to get your attention and your approval to let them show you around. We already had someone lined up; someone at the school had a cousin or something of the sort. We drove around back and found a spot. A person from the business office at our school was assigned to take us and help us out. He told us to hop out so we could find the office meet our cousin salesman.

We exited the car and stood staring at what was sort of a stripped down parking garage. It was constructed almost entirely metal. The main girders were sprayed with what looked like fire retardant. We climbed the stairs (which looked temporary) to the fourth floor. There in a corner of the structure were about 25 tiny offices crammed with about 6 or 7 desks. We negotiated our way to the very back corner and entered an office. We were greeted and our "guide" spoke with what appeared to be the head boss and a salesman. After a couple minutes we were off and hunting for cars.

There were three separate parties looking for cars. None of the cars have prices posted on them. They all have the year make and model posted along with the number of kilometers they have. The salesman has to call someone to find out the price for each car.

In many places the cars were stacked 4 or 5 deep. If you wanted to look at one of the cars in the back you had to shimmy in between the cars and try and get the door open without smacking the car beside. As you can imagine it was quite an ordeal if you wanted to test drive one of the cars in the last row. All of the cars in front had to be moved in order to allow the back car to exit. At one point we even went across the street to an identical "lot". There literally hundreds if not thousands of cars packed into every nook and cranny of these structures.

I'll spare you the details and just tell you after two weekends, many phone call and a couple trips back and forth across the street everyone found cars. The other two parties found their cars last weekend and went back to pick up their new used cars as I tagged along with hopes of finding one for myself. As luck would have it I found a car the exact car I was looking for this weekend. They even offered to deliver it to the school so I wouldn't have to go all the way back to the lot.

I'll get some pics up as soon as I get the car home.

3 comments:

pegmom said...

WHilt watching the video of Quinn the thought came that he is just one awesome Dude. What moves? What panache!

Anonymous said...

Hi Shermidans.
O

Chris said...

That sounds almost Cambodia-grade dodgy...nicely done!