We bought a car.

When we first talked about going to the island, we were not going to buy a car. We figured the island was small enough to walk places, I imagined we could walk to church. We were told we could shop a lot at the Asian Market that was really close to school. We had a beach near by. We were set. There was no need to buy a car.

Then we got here.

The island may be small, but its not small enough to walk the entire island. The church is way too far away to walk to every week. It could be done, we would just have to plan for 2 extra hours both ways. The Asian Market was great for a lot of things, but we needed more than what we could get from there. The beach near by was fine, but we live on a Caribbean island. How could we just stick to one beach (albeit a great beach).

We had a lot of great help, I will say that. Jillian and James Harding were willing to take us to church weekly. Jillian took me to a doctor appointment once.  Marcie Edwards and Amy Byrd took me to the store and too a few activities. So did Micki Hayden. The Wrides allowed us to borrow their car to go on a date a few times, plus a doctor appointment and Stephanie took me to almost all the activities and store. So could we have made it without getting a car? Probably. But asking other people to go out of their way to help you out all the time is really hard, (while also really humbling). So with all that we decided to buy a car.

Its a 2005 Hyundai Accent. Back in the states I have a 2011 Hyundai Accent that Aaron likes to call "the blow up 2000". So when we bought the 2005 Hyundai Accent Aaron joked that he had no idea he'd ever purchase another "blow up." We definitely paid way to much for the car and what it was worth. But it turns out most people do on the island.

We can only unlock the car on the driver side of the car. You can tell its been a few accidents. It did have 95K miles on it though ( that just goes to tell you how small this island is, 95K miles for a 2005 is really good - I think.) The trunk doesn't even pop open with the key. It looks cosmetically horrible. Its a car though, and it will get us from A-B. Which is what we needed/wanted.

Buying a car on the island is slightly different from buying in the states. You don't need a title to get the car. You just need a bill of sale. That turned into a bit of a hassle for us, the girl we were buying the car from was leaving the island the day we got the car. We had to make sure everything was correct before she left. Turns out it wasn't. But we made it work. Then you get insurance, and have to get your car inspected. They have several things on the car that have to be working in order for you to pass inspection. I'll be taking the car next week to get inspected so lets hope it passes. Every year you buy a new license plate. That is how they do road taxes here. Once I passed the hassle of trying to get the bill of sale correct, everything else went smoothly.

I told Aaron it was our first big purchase together since we both came into our marriage with cars. He reminded me that Med School was our first big purchase, only that has only his name not mine, and this car has both our names.

I guess you could say that is kind of exciting. Our first big purchase with both our names on it after 2 years of marriage.

If you look close enough you can see the rust above the wheel well

Our Sweet Car

My dad says all the junkers I drove growing up prepared me for this.