Car Dealings
You guessed it. We are in the market for a new car. We have needed a new car for a little while now but have been too busy to go looking. It just so happened today that my clutch snapped while I was driving round a round-a-bout. The pedal just loosened to the floor and I was stuck with traffic behind me. I got out to try and push the car off the road but it was too heavy. No sooner, three beefy guys came out of nowhere and helped me push the car to a side road. A youth stopped on his motor bike to help. He looked under the hood and yep, my car wasn’t going to move. The youth waited with me until Farmor came to pick me up. We chatted about Australia and family and realised we could be distantly related. All his family, like Farfars come from Elvebakken. Of course the youth and Farmor knew each other (as Farmor seems to know everyone in Northern Norway). Moose got off work and we towed the car back to the farm.
In half an hour we were down at the car dealers sussing out a new car and the dealer, with no questions asked, gave us a test car for the weekend. And we haven’t even promised to buy a car! What a relief, I have rehearsals, dress runs and performances with my dancing kids all this weekend. It is very hard to get around Alta with only one bus that comes every other hour. There were no contracts, no security checks, no blood – just our name and telephone number was enough for the dealer to lend us his car.
While at the dealers we got the goss on buying a new car. There were no shady spiels or hard-sells, just jokes about throwing in the julenisse that was standing on the roof of the car. This is one thing I love about Norway. There is no pressure or secrets. Norwegians (most of them) are honest, upfront and casual when it comes to dealings with money or business transactions. And especially in a small town like Alta, people trust you and give you the benefit of the doubt. I remember these days once when I was very young in Australia. Life was more innocent. In this modern world Norway’s innocence has become a breath of fresh air.
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Norwegians are starting to get adventurous with cooking on the barbie.
Norwegians love their mountainous nature so much they spend whatever time they can in it – for recreation, fitness, hunting or just family time.
Autumn is Fårikål season in Norway.
hmm… here we had to give our license, which they kept a copy off, and give them a bunch of other details, then sign some things, then they let us test drive the car, while they were in it. So trust probably isn’t a word many people understand these days. A shame.
Just too bad cars cost a small fortune in Norway. A new car costing around 300 000 NOK before taxes becomes around 400 000 to 450 000 after taxes depending on engine size. A BMW M5 costs about 900 000 NOK before taxes, and 2 100 000 after taxes.
But I guess we manage to live with it somehow (because we do), but it is sad tough really. The Norwegian population has one of the highest average incomes in the world, but our car park is on average 10 years old. Every year a lot of teenagers die in car accidents that could have been avoided, or at least wouldn’t have been fatal if the car they were in was a better car that could withstand the force of the impact (or avoid the impact all together through the use of ESP on winter roads).
No offense to yourself and your personal integrity, but I imagine any notion someone gets that you are related to farfar and farmor and you are as good as gold. I can’t imagine that anyone has a better reputation in Alta than those two. Everyone knows them.
I used to use that connection all the time when I lived up there, it got me in a lot of doors. Even the Lestadianere respect farfar, they may not agree with him, but they respect him and yes, are likely related to him.
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from L-Jay:
Moose can imagine you knocking on a door saying ‘Let me in, I know ‘Farfar’!’ lol. We go around town meeting new people at the shops, in the street, potato picking etc and Norwegians are always curious about me – where I come from and who I’m connected to. When I say Farfar their pennies always drop. They always seem delighted that an Australian has joined Farfar’s family.
What a lovely way to live. I have to say, we bought a used car in Oslo recently, and my husband said he felt like buying used cars must be about the same all over the world! The car works and will be a reasonable solution for us during the year we are here, but the process was at times a little questionable!!
On a side note, I included a link to your Luciadagen post on my blog, hope you don’t mind! Thanks again for your entertaining, informative, and above all beautiful blog! I’m a faithful follower.
Lucky you! Down here near Oslo, my car was in the dealers workshop to have it’s EU test. Over the weekend their garage was broken into and my car was trashed…doors jemmied open, windows smashed and stereo stolen…apparently that is OUR problem, on our insurance, and they have no interest in supplying me with a free “rental” car whilst they fix the damage! Meanwhile I have three children and all these Julavslutnings, let alone Christmas shopping, and no car until the New Year! Its already been two weeks… ah well, its amazing how long we can live out of the freezer:)
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from L-Jay:
I’m hearing you
. We have rented a car for a month just to get by. Meanwhile we are madly trying to find out which car we should buy. I hate car shopping. And doing this at Christmas is crazy.