A home for our friend

Since my last blog before we headed to Eygalieres was about our new friend, Tom Tom, I thought it would be appropriate to fill you in on the home we found for him. Luckily, fancy cars are not a priority for the Wall family. We do appreciate nice cars, but they have never been a huge focus for our family. We did indeed love Herbie, Bucky's convertible VW Bug that he bought himself for his 50th birthday and he was sentimental about parting with it this summer. We also had a wonderful love/hate relationship with my green Volvo that we owned for 10 years and sold to my nephew, Canham, for $1 before heading to France. But, we have never been the type of people who have to have a certain car, a particularly sexy car or a new car for the matter. Lucky for us, since our car here in France is a 1993 Ford Fiesta. We bought it for 500 Euros from our friend and the owner of the house we are living in, Myriam Bourg. The car was her father's and then her husband's. It is now ours.

When we decided to move to Eygalieres, we knew that transportation would be an issue. Eygalieres is a small village without public transportation and a car is needed to get around outside of the village. We budgeted a certain amount for a used car and spent lots of time and energy while we were in Lyon looking for a car. We had narrowed our search down to a Renault Clio or a Citroen Picasso. We knew we definitely wanted a French car, with 4 doors (or 5 portes as they say here because they include the trunk/hatchback as a door), and I, personally, didn't want a white car. We searched websites, alerted our French friends to be on the look-out and scoured the streets of the city for "For Sale" sales - to no avail. We decided to rent a car and do so month to month until we figured something out. We got a pretty good rate and had plenty of other things to worry about, so we put the car issue on the back burner.

That was until we headed south and Myriam offered us the opportunity to buy her car. It was a great price and the exchange would be easy...Plus, we knew that we would travel long distances mainly via train so we wouldn't have to rely on the car for real road trips....so we decided to go for it. Ironically, the car did not have a cigarette lighter (or power outlet) so there was no way to charge Tom Tom, but after my dad arrived, one of his first tasks was to put in a cigarette lighter which he did with great success!! So, now we can travel throughout Provence (looking very local) with the aid of our Tom Tom who cost almost as much as our America made, white car. It does have four doors and the price was right. Bucky and I actually felt frugal for a minute! Come visit and we will take you for a spin. Ooh la la!!

Our new car...name TBD.

The girls washing the car. (The rental is in the back ground. It has since been turned in and we are living the high life in the Fiesta! Ole!)