Scion, we hardly knew ye

Hey, a post without an exclamation in the title! Well, that didn’t last long. Beware the evil power of the exclamation point; it’s stronger than you think. It already has called Becky over to the Dark Side (see all our previous post titles). I’m trying to stay out of its clutches, but it’s tough. Wish me luck.

Anyway, so in actual news we sold the Scion today. The buyer was a guy named Nate from Yardley, which might as well be in Jersey since it’s on the other side of Philly, and so we met in the middle. And I’m not just using that as a metaphor for a successful transaction. We met at a notary near King of Prussia to do the exchange, and it went off without a hitch. Actually, that’s not completely true since I forgot to bring a screwdriver, and we had to first drive to a Rite-Aid to buy a new screwdriver to remove my old license plate. So that would probably have to count as a partial hitch. But other than that, I can’t complain.

In a strange twist, the notary we used is located only about a mile from where I used to work as a Co-op student at GlaxoSmithKline in Oaks in 2001-2. One of my main jobs there was keeping up-to-date on all the urology drugs in development by other companies. If it sounds glamorous, that’s because it is. Seems like forever ago now, but being in the old neighborhood and commute brought me back to old times pretty quickly. But as they say, you can’t go back, and I saw that our old office is now a vacant medical office building. Whoa whoa, snap out of it man! OK OK I’m back. Nostalgia mode: off.

Back to the car transaction, I really have to say hats off to Craigslist, you’ve come through again. At this point, Becky and I are pretty impressed by the site, as we’ve sold a lot of stuff at good prices on Craigslist in the past year. I can’t say we had too much stuff in our apartment in Burlington, but what we had, we sold, and what we sold was probably sold on Craigslist. The remaining stuff was either thrown out (sorry Brita filter), or sold to extremely hard-bargaining Asian women at a yard sale by Becky.

I was a bit surprised to get more and better responses to my car ad on Craigslist than I did in a paid posting on AutoTrader. I would have thought that a car-specific site would get more interested traffic than Craigslist, but Craigslist must really have a good-sized audience. Either that, or we’ve been extremely fortunate to find the one interested buyer for our cars and for our furniture that we sold earlier. Which, though remote, is also a possibility. I know there are a lot of scams and junk being put on Craigslist, but in our experience, you can definitely find good buyers on there.

In the end, selling the car was a bittersweet experience. I know that I had to sell the car, and that it should come as a relief to be able to get it sold at a good price before I left and not have it hanging over my head, but I’ll miss the Scion. The toaster, box, Xbox, or whatever you want to call it was a really good car. Unique look, good gas mileage, excellent amount of space, relatively cheap price, I hate to sound like a commercial but it’s a pretty good deal.

Nate, hope you enjoy the car as much as we did. You can stop pretending that gas mileage was the reason you wanted to buy the Scion, and admit that you bought the car because you like the styling. And not that you would, but don’t let anyone give you crap about having a unique car, or as I call it for Becky’s benefit every time we see another Scion xB on the road, a sweet ride. Happy trails in the Scion, man.

Lastly, it’s occurring to me quickly that selling your car is a big step, and doing so is helping me to believe that we’re actually going to New Zealand. I guess I haven’t mentioned it earlier, but it seems like we’ve been waiting to go to NZ for so long that it’s somewhat difficult to believe that we’re actually leaving for there in 5 days. It’s a strange feeling, like I’m in some sort of denial that we’re getting to do this. Add that to not having a car for the first time in 5 years and it all seems pretty surreal, but in a good way. I guess we’re sailing in uncharted but interesting waters right about now. Happy New Year’s everyone.

Unemployed Hobos

I worked my last shift at the Batdorf Restaurant on Wednesday night, so my days as a near catastrophe waitress have come to an end - or at least until we need to find paid employment in New Zealand (finally, I have a marketable skill set! No thanks to you, sociology degree...). Oddly, my "near catastrophes" always occurred when waiting on family members. My mother had the pleasure of being doused in house dressing (yum... red zinfandel vinaigrette), and poor Tommy took a plate to the head (in my defense, he leaned right into it). Other than the guy with the shellfish allergy to whom I served lobster bisque, my overall record was pretty clean.

I shall now join the ranks of Andrew and the rest of the unemployed hobos. Of course, with only 9 days left before NZ Day, I'm sure we will have plenty of last minute details to take care of to keep us busy.

(Seriously) The Final Countdown!

We have less than two weeks to go before what we have affectionately named "NZ Day". Our plane leaves Newark (or "Nork" if you're in the know) on January 5th, which should provide a memorable last glimpse of the east coast (ahh, the smokestacks).

In true countdown fashion, we will start to commemorate the important moments leading up to our imminent departure. So...

On the 14th day before NZ Day, Becky sold her car! She looks pretty from a distance but was a mess upclose. Black ice on a Vermont highway will have that effect. Still, the Saturn and I traveled many miles together, and, although I often spoke ill of her, I suppose that she will be missed.

Congrats!

A belated congratulations to our friends Andy and Krista who were married on December 8th. The ceremony at the Eden Resort in Lancaster was beautiful, and we were very happy to be part of their special day. To Andy and Krista, hopefully you two will be able to justify Andy's purchases going forward, and marital bliss will ensue.

Unfortunately, I (Becky) have a severe inability to remember to take pictures at events. ["Actually, I'd attribute it more to laziness." -Andrew] Hopefully, I'll get over it when we're in New Zealand (no one likes a text-heavy blog...). Since I failed to take a single picture of the bride and groom, you will have to settle for a self-portrait of me and Andrew. Congrats again, Andy and Krista!

Bula Coup D’Etat!

Since I last wrote part of this blog, Fiji, has been subject to a military coup. Military leader Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama deposed the country’s Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase, in a bloodless coup on Dec. 4 after threatening to overthrow the government at an earlier deadline. (For a more definitive account, check out Wikipedia.)

At first, when I heard about the coup, I was pretty nervous. I mean, who wants to hear that a country that you’re about to visit is undergoing its fouth military coup in the past twenty years? Not me. Visions of landing on the Fijian tarmac and being abruptly swept away to a sweaty tropical jail (without mai tais!) started dancing through my head. But a quick check of Fiji’s history showed that most of the coups were largely non-violent, and that this one looked to be no exception.

So we’re still planning on traveling to Fiji on our way to Auckland. Little seems to have happened in the past week in Fiji since the coup, and, as I mentioned, it’s looking like the non-violent form of overthrow that has happened before in Fiji. While Australia and New Zealand recommend their citizens not visit Fiji now, it doesn’t look like tourists are in any danger there, and there have been no news reports stating such. The U.S. State Department hasn’t issued a travel advisory for US citizens either. Unless the return of the Prime Minister to the capital Suva brings major violence in the interim, I believe I’ll feel okay about traveling to Fiji. (We weren’t planning on going near Suva anyway, so yay for that.)

Still, any coup is bound to frighten off some tourism, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend that anyone plan a trip there now while there’s a fair bit of political uncertainty. For one thing, coups aren’t a behavior you’re supposed to encourage, so it just seems irresponsible to reward relatively bad behavior from a country with your hard-earned vacation dollar. After all, there’s a lot of paradises out there, many with more stable governance. But since our tickets/rooms are already booked there, I’m thinking it’s still alright for us to go.

However, this is all subject to further developments, so I’ll refrain from getting overconfident that this will go off without a hitch. Still, it never hurts to be optimistic. To be continued…