Adieu, Fenry!

A week after buying a new car, I managed to sell the old one. Eventually someone responded to the ad who was actually serious enough to come look at the car (rather than ask me to drive it to Indianapolis) and he came back to buy it the next day. I asked for $700, he offered $500, we settled at $600. I'm happy and I think he will be too (because there's no other cars for sale in that price range!).

In the 3 years since I bought it, I put about 4,615 miles on it but no extra dings. The switch back to automatic hasn't been too hard; only a few times have I reached down to change gears. I think Cindy will miss the sound of metal scraping on metal every time she opens or closes the passenger door and the way the glove box comes off in your hands if you open it...

The Annual Robert Burns Party

We went to a Robert Burns Supper last night, hosted by the same friend who threw one last year. This year there was about 30 people! The piper from last year came and deafened us once again. Again, there was an ode to the haggis. But Cindy found it not offal-ly enough (she prefers her liver as pure pâté).

Dodgy Bros

When we bought the new car we were only given one pair of keys. A long one for the door and a short, stumpy one for the ignition. So, worried that we might get locked out, we decided to get another set cut straight away.* The first problem we had was finding a key cutter. There had been one in the mall but he'd been replaced by a shop selling musical instruments and knives.** I put a question on Facebook and it turns out that Americans get their keys cut in hardware stores.

The second problem we had was extreme cold. The last couple of days it's been around -10 ° and apparently this doesn't agree with door locks. Central locking was struggling and after Cindy opened her door, it wouldn't latch closed again until we'd locked and unlocked it several times.

So off to the hardware store we went for new keys and some silicone grease.*** When we got there the guy said that he might not have a blank to match the stumpy ignition key. Then he looked more closely and explained that the ignition key was identical to the door key but broken off half way. Turns out there's a fragment of key stuck in the ignition which allows us to start the car with any old key or screwdriver. (Cindy's not too happy about having paid good money for such a vehicle.)

The folks at the hardware store suggested pulling the fragment out with a magnet. But the rest of the key is brass, so I doubt there'd be enough nickel plating left for that to work. And even if we can get it out with a pair of tweezers, there's always the risk that the door key really is a different cut and we won't be able to start the car to drive to a locksmith. We're going to have to think over our options.


* Yes, we have AAA but it's easier not to have to wait. I've only ever called them for flat batteries before; I've never locked my keys in the car in America.
** Including a shiv disguised as a Zippo lighter. The last time I was there for a new watch battery he didn't put the seal back properly. Water got in but when I went back to complain, the shop had disappeared.
*** I read online that WD40 is only good for releasing joints that are rusted solid. Silicone, white lithium or teflon grease is best to keep joints moving.

Two Car Family

A little while ago I took Fenry in for some minor repairs and asked them to have a look at the brakes while they were at it. Turned out that new drums, shoes, cylinders, pyramids and tetrahedra were needed for both the rear wheels, which was going to cost $380. Given that I paid $400 for the car, I had to think this over a little... Knowing that rego time was coming up soon was an added incentive to make the decision quickly.

Today Cindy and I went and bought a new car, a '98 Hyundai Sonata GLS. It's an automatic so she'll be happier about driving it more often and we'll both be less worried about it breaking down. The 3L V6 means that we'll be able to get to Indianapolis quicker but it might also be more expensive to run. Luckily insurance is not much more.

The guy selling it had posted two ads, the second explained that he'd already dropped the asking price from $1700 to $1400 and insisted on "no low-ballers". So I wasn't sure whether I should haggle but when I offered him $1300 to take it then and there he jumped at it. (Maybe I should have started lower.)

Now I'm just trying to sell off Fenry to re-coup some money. I've put up a few ads on online classifieds and have already had a bit of interest so I'm confident that it won't take too long to sell. Actually, I've learnt a bit about Craig's List* in the process. I had heard that it was full of weirdos so I wasn't too surprised when the Nigerian scammer asked me to send him my details so he could pay me in advance. One told me that my car was underpriced because he wanted me to use a certain trade-in site; another told me that he'd previously bought a newer mint-condition Civic for less than I was asking and offered me about half the asking price, if he can get cars that cheap, good luck to him. The strangest was one who told me that he had $500 cash and could come around if I'd accept that much; it sounded like something a dealer would say, to put the pressure on but he also told a story about it being for his son. But there's been a couple of more normal sounding inquiries so I'm confident.


* Most Americans pronounce the name Craig as "creg" but not all do. I haven't yet worked out which ones.

Sane American Products

Here's something you won't see in Australia - not because it's crazy, because it's sane. Pepsi is tapping into a demand for boutique soft drinks by making versions of Pepsi and Mountain Dew with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. Such a thing would be unnecessary in Australia because cane sugar is so cheap! I doubt that they'll win over those people who believe that New Coke was a big conspiracy but it's always good to see people rejecting HFCS.

We saw these bottles with their retro labels in the supermarket yesterday so I bought a bottle of Mountain Dew (I hate Pepsi so I doubt that real sugar would make me like it). Yeah, and apparently in the 60s Mountain Dew was sold with a bumpkin as their mascot. I now discover that the bottle I bought was not the original recipe, which I missed by a few months. Well I've never had the original recipe anyway so I'm not too bothered.

This may sound silly but if you've never lived in America you won't realise how, because of huge subsidies to corn farmers, high fructose corn syrup is the basis of all sweet things and is even added to things that shouldn't be sweet (like bread). Actually, there are also differences when you buy bags of plain old sugar. All the no frills brands are beet sugar and the expensive ones advertise that they're cane sugar. Because beet sugar doesn't go through the same refining process, you can't find big cheap bags of raw sugar, you have to buy demarara or turbinado or some other fancy name.

iPod Touch

Apart from the free upgrades, I've also been redeeming my frequent flyer points for toys - a 32 GB iPod Touch!

For those who don't know, it's much more than a normal iPod - it doesn't just play music and movies, it's also a mini computer for web browsing and games. It has pseudo-GPS by knowing the location of the Wi-Fi network you're connected to (not very accurate but I think it might improve once SkyHook has gathered enough info). I've been filling it with other useful applications like dictionaries, a toilet locator, a unit converter, an ebook reader, movie times and a fart machine.

It's not a phone but it has Skype so, with the new headset that includes a mic, I can use it as a phone wherever there's wi-fi. And in Bloomington there's free wi-fi everywhere - campus, cafés, restaurants and everyone's apartments.

I'm very happy with it so far. The only disappointment is that it doesn't work with my old Firewire iPod charger so I'll have to by a cheap compact USB charger from eBay. (Which is easier said than done. It's great to see the chargers getting so much smaller but the first batch of Apple chargers were recalled. These old ones and new fakes are being sold on eBay and apparently most of the fakes are not compatible with my model of iPod. But I didn't even get a chance to try to the first one I bought, that seller's gone out of business, luckily before I could pay him. Now I've bought a pair of cheap $1.37 chargers that don't try to mimic Apple's style but say explicitly that they work with the 3rd generation iPod Touch.)

I am really looking forward to taking it to campus on days when I don't feel like carrying the laptop and bringing it out at French table when we need to look something up.

Flying

I was a bit worried when I heard about the attempted bombing in Detroit and the new security measures. This wasn't actually a problem for us. On the way to Morocco I bought a small bottle of calvados (because it was cheap and I wasn't sure if I could get it later) with the intention of bringing it back to France. Then I remembered that we weren't planning to check any bags (cheap airline) and a 200mL bottle wouldn't be allowed on board; I decided to try anyway. I needn't have worried, the security leaving Marrakech didn't put any limit on the amount of liquids... but they did segregate men and women into separate queues for the screening!

Things were a bit more serious leaving Paris. The Spanish Inquisition started before we even checked our suitcases. After my cabin bag was x-rayed a guard asked me to open it. I asked him, "Did you see something inside?" but he replied, "No, just checking." They were in a very curious mood that day, he wanted to know what was inside every box and what everything was. He even asked about the TimTams, whether there was liquid inside, "No, they might be a little wet in the middle but it's not liquid." But the thing is, it wasn't just him, everyone was curious about what we'd been up to. Less than 100m further along, we were stopped again, asked more questions about our bags and what we'd done since we checked them, "Well, I had a cup of coffee..." and most passengers had their hand luggage opened and checked manually a second time.

Naturally we hoped to get upgraded to Business again but that didn't happen. As we sat in Economy Plus we reminisced about our time in Business, looked at the high prices of alcohol and calculated that between us we'd had about $50 worth of alcohol last time. The plane was late taking off because there were not enough de-icing machines to go around, so we got in to Washington a couple of hours late. Our trip through Customs was made a bit quicker by a blasé officer who let us take our 15L of cider through without paying duty. Then we saw that the next plane was delayed by two and a half hours so we had plenty of time.

Now Cindy, having flown more United miles than me, had been given some credits for domestic upgrades. Last time she wasn't able to use it because First Class was full but this time she was upgraded to First at check in. I wasn't all that jealous about a one hour flight but she was talking about sharing the seat, having half an hour each in First. Then, as we were waiting at the gate, my name was called over the PA and I received a First class boarding pass too! The seats were no better than Business but the stewardess took drink orders before take off and brought us snack boxes with chips, salami, Oreos and jelly beans. Not as much fun as 8 hours of Business but it was a nice treat.

The World's Classiest Strip Club

A while ago we were watching a doco on the Crazy Horse Cabaret of Paris; it followed some new dancers through their training. I was a little surprised when they interviewed some of the parents who described how proud they were. Then I remembered that the thing about French people being more open about nudity is not just a stereotype, e.g. topless bathing is more common than in English-speaking countries (but they do, in fact, shave their armpits; the French claim that it's German women who don't).

Then it went one step further - Cindy's mum thought that it would be good for us to have a cultural experience and decided to shout us tickets to see the show. It was excellent, very artistic:

Apart from the erotic dancers, there was a pair of male tap dancers to prove that it was a real cabaret and not just a strip club. They had quite a funny routine and were obviously talented. It must be hard competing with all those boobs.

Ouarzazate

From Morocco

After yesterday's trip to Casablanca we decided to take a bus trip to Ouarzazate.

We travelled over the Atlas Mountains, taking the highest pass in Morocco, 2,200 m. It was quite cold up there and the air was quite thin (water bottles opened in the mountains were flattened on the other side). We made plenty of stops to photograph the picturesque views.

From Morocco

On the other side we saw rocky desert with little towns built around casbahs. We had lunch at a nice little place in Ouarzazate overlooking the casbah. We only had time for a quick tour of the medina (the old city) before heading back over those windy mountain passes to Marrakech.

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world...

From Morocco

Yesterday we saw so much in Marrakech that we decided to go up to Casablanca for the day.

The train ride takes more than 3 hours so we only had the afternoon. Casablanca is a big commercial city with less touristy stuff. We managed to find Rick's Café but it was closed and we didn't have time to come back.

The other attraction was the biggest mosque in the country and one of the few that non-Muslims are allowed to enter. However, we arrived too late for the tour and only saw the outside.

From Morocco

Riding on the Marrakech Express

From Morocco

Cindy and I decided to get away from the winter weather with a short side-trip down to Morocco.

We flew down Sunday night and checked into our hotel just outside the medina, the old city. We ventured in looking for dinner and found it a bit overwhelming. It smelt of burning charcoal and two-stroke and scooters were constantly trying to run us down but we managed to find a decent dinner and some bottled water.

The next day we found the touristy part of town and spent the whole day in the souks, the traditional markets. There is an amazing range of things for sale: spices, clothes, ceramics, woodwork, metal crafts and leather goods. It had been a while since I'd been in a market where haggling is a must so at first I didn't understand that there were no prices. They all wanted you to make an offer and some sellers would even refuse to put a figure on an item until you chose a couple of other things to buy at the same time. This was a bit frustrating when we wanted just one thing from that stall.

I noticed a couple of things about business in the souks. No one has change, they're always wanting you to pay with a smaller note; in fact, this is true even in bigger shops. The traders can get anything for you, even if it's not in their stall.

From Morocco