by It looks like I might have bought a car. I met the owner in a McDonald’s car park earlier this evening. He intimdiated the hell out of me, after seeming quite personable on the phone. This red 2006 Dacia Logan looked in good nick, but what do I know, really? I offered him €2000, which was my absolute limit, and he accepted. It isn’t finalised yet – we’re going to meet in Iulius Mall to hopefully go through the process on Sunday. I expect to be intimidated again. The car has air con – an absolute must here – and interestingly it runs on both LPG and petrol. It starts on petrol and then uses LPG as long as it still has some in the tank. I expected the LPG tank to take up half the boot, but that wasn’t the case. I hope that the LPG will provide a fuel saving for me. Frustratingly I wasn’t able to test-drive the car properly. I drove it in the car park – literally two or three turns of the wheel – and that told me nothing apart from that car parks at one of the busiest times of the the week are horrible places to be when you’re out of driving practice.
This was the third Dacia I looked at this week. On Tuesday I took the bus into the depths of Calea Șagului to look at another red one. After hanging around an industrial park and eventually finding a coffee machine, I met the owner and gave the car a proper test-drive. I liked what I saw and felt. The major sticking point was the price. He wanted more than it was advertised at. Are you trying it on just because I’m foreign? Whatever the reason, bugger you. Then on Wednesday I looked at a navy blue Dacia in the south of the city, but discounted it immediately because it didn’t have air con.
Timișoara gets pretty congested at times, so I’m hardly salivating at the prospect of driving in town. Outside the city, though – well, that’s the whole point.
When I got home from viewing the car, I watched the first episode of Wild Carpathia on YouTube. Not quite as enjoyable as Flavours of Romania (you can find that on Netflix) but still well worth watching, especially for the bit at the end with the future king.
Mum and Dad were in a dull mood when I spoke to them this morning. All the banking stuff was getting them down, especially Mum. She looked shattered.
A busy Saturday in store tomorrow, with four lessons.
