Transport!!!

Life just got easier. Gone are the days of walking absolutely everywhere for absolutely everything. We like walking as much as anyone but it was starting to get real old, real quick. To understand where I am coming from you have to first understand the climate in which we live.

It is hot. It tends to be between 28 and 32 degrees everyday, that is in celsius so that would be between 80 and 95 (ish) most days. Then add in the humidity, and there is plenty of it. It seems to be anywhere from 60% to 80% most days. The worst of it has to be the sun. Man, the sun is intense here. I believe the UV level in California in the summer is somewhere around 4-5, here it is 14! When it is sunny, you literally cook, you can feel it burning your skin it is that intense. Then there is the rain which is torrential when it comes.
We had learned over the months here that if you have to walk, do it early or late. We don't walk between 12 and 2 if we can help it, it is just too hot. One day we did the River Walk at 1:00, Mariana started getting dizzy and flush. Bingo, heat exhaustion. We had to sit in the shade and hydrate.

Now of course with the car comes better quality of life. We can get out of the city. I can surf on a regular basis, we can do the shopping, I can surf on a consistent basis, we can explore more restaurants, and did I mention I can surf?

Cars are expensive here. Example; my Mazda 3 in the US was about $18,500 and with closing costs and the like it came out to just a tad under $20K. That is with leather seats, Sirius Radio, AC, Sport Package and the likes. Here, the base model Mazda 3 starts at $26,000. In Australia they list a car with the MSRP price but that IS NOT including dealer markup, transfer fees, rego, paint, etc. so when you add all that up it is another $4000.00 on the sticker. Cars are expensive here, really expensive.

We got a good deal on our little Yaris. It is small like most cars here as gas is expensive. It is compact but roomy enough for me to shove a couple of surfboards in and get me to D'Bah, that is all I wanted.

Did I mention that I can go surf?