No Legacies!

I had a huge realisation today that actually caused me some consternation. There are no subaru legacies here! That's probably what's missing from my life at the moment. In Christchurch every second car is a subaru legacy station wagon. Ok maybe that's a very slight exaggeration but check this out - a list of the people I know who own or did own legacies:

• My Mum
• My Auntie Bobbie
• My cousin Hamish (or maybe it was Josh, or maybe both)
• My cousin Andrew
• My friend Helen
• My friends Kim and Lennon
• Kim's parents

So as you can imagine seeing absolutely zero legacies around town feels a little like my world have been tipped upside down (which I guess given I'm on the other side of the world it has!). I am definitely going to be keeping a very close eye out for them from now on - there's got to be at least one person who knows a good car when they see one in this country!

Now onto some more general observations about cars here. Men get all excited about Granny cars - and they boast about the fuel economy of their cars. I mean sure they might be latest model German technology - but they are so sissy! Everyone has sissy cars. I guess to everyone's credit they are much more eco friendly!

There are a few people who don't have sissy cars (haha I totally contradicted my last paragraph) - they are a lot more very expensive cars around, and I must admit I do love seeing them around. But that doesn't change the fact that it's ok here to boast about having a Granny car. We have a Granny car - but you don't see me boasting about it! Anyway enough about the Granny cars (which are everywhere and are sissy!).

One great thing about motoring over here is that insurance is compulsory. Now all the smart people in NZ have insurance anyway but the dumb ones don't, and the dumb ones are the ones who end up buying cars that are way more expensive than they can afford and then crash them and end up in debt for years and years. Now it's mostly young kids who do this - they can afford the cars because they sign up for really dodgy loans that put them at such a financial disadvantage right when they're starting their life in the working world. And lots are boy racers. Here there are some boy racers too - but the majority of kids just simply can't afford the insurance on these flash cars till they're 25. It's brilliant they end up having to buy a sensible not very powerful car that they can afford to insure if they want to be on the road, then once they're 25 and the insurance drops they've hopefully learnt a bit about money and responsibility and can then splash out on whatever they want. This isn't the reason that car insurance is compulsory but I think it's a chuffing good side effect!

Ok that's all for now!

:)
Mindy