Six days in a car park
We've just successfully sold our car in Sydney's Kings Cross car market, but the week did not pass without incident, which is just as well because the car market is one of the most depressing places to be in Sydney, especially when you know what a beautiful city is lying on your doorstep. The car market is essentially just a level of the Kings Cross multi storey car park, it's dark it's damp and the smell of exhaust fumes is inescapable. Despite this, us and many other sellers will sit there from 9am to 5pm in the hope of flogging their car to someone else.
On Monday, not helped by having eaten very little that day, Jen fainted as we were walking back to the car. I was a few feet ahead of her and heard a clunking sound, then turned to see her sprawled out on the floor infront of a manouvering Toyota van. It's not a particularly nice image, seeing your girlfriend sprawled out like that, and as Jen started to come round we rang for an ambulance. The paramedics came and decided to take her to the hospital. She'd hit her head pretty hard on the concrete, so they were concerned and thought she should get checked out. In the end she was fine, and escaped with only a black eye, a cut lip and a bruised ego, and I had the added bonus of getting to ride through the center of Sydney in the front of an ambulance. She's fine now, and the next day was back at the car park, albeit bashfully.
As we were sitting in front of our car on Tuesday, I noticed some of the sellers at the other end of the car park were waving frantically at a car that was out of view. I figured that the car was in danger of running over or hitting something, but as it swung round the corner the glow of flames started licking up from under the bonnet. I sat rather agog for a few seconds, not really knowing whether to run over to help or to run away - whenever cars catch fire in films they blow up and I didn't really want to take the chance that Hollywood was actually telling the truth about something - but by the time I'd decided to get up from my chair someone had appeared with a fire extinguisher and put out the fire. The whole of the car market was filled with a pungent black smoke, but luckily no-one was hurt. I did feel sorry for the owner of the car, an amiable if slightly lackadaisical Irish bloke, who was returning from a test drive with a potential buyer at the wheel. It's not a particularly strong selling point for a car if it catches fire when you're test driving it, but when I spoke to the Irish guy he just shrugged as if this sort of thing happened all the time.
Yesterday passed without incident, and without customers, but one couple took our car for a test drive and seemed rather pleased. This morning they came back and offered is $1,700 for a car we'd paid $3,100 for. I said we wouldn't take less than $2,000 and they seemed happy with this and we shook hands, pleased that we'd finally sold our car, which particularly pleased me as it means I can now afford to buy new shoes. We made a loss of $1,100 which isn't ideal, but that's only 400 pounds in real money so it could have been alot worse. To be honest, I'd have been happy with the $1,700.
So we've sold and it means we can enjoy our last day and a half in Sydney, for we are flying to New Zealand first thing on Saturday morning, and if you'll excuse me until then, I've got some shoes to buy.
On Monday, not helped by having eaten very little that day, Jen fainted as we were walking back to the car. I was a few feet ahead of her and heard a clunking sound, then turned to see her sprawled out on the floor infront of a manouvering Toyota van. It's not a particularly nice image, seeing your girlfriend sprawled out like that, and as Jen started to come round we rang for an ambulance. The paramedics came and decided to take her to the hospital. She'd hit her head pretty hard on the concrete, so they were concerned and thought she should get checked out. In the end she was fine, and escaped with only a black eye, a cut lip and a bruised ego, and I had the added bonus of getting to ride through the center of Sydney in the front of an ambulance. She's fine now, and the next day was back at the car park, albeit bashfully.
As we were sitting in front of our car on Tuesday, I noticed some of the sellers at the other end of the car park were waving frantically at a car that was out of view. I figured that the car was in danger of running over or hitting something, but as it swung round the corner the glow of flames started licking up from under the bonnet. I sat rather agog for a few seconds, not really knowing whether to run over to help or to run away - whenever cars catch fire in films they blow up and I didn't really want to take the chance that Hollywood was actually telling the truth about something - but by the time I'd decided to get up from my chair someone had appeared with a fire extinguisher and put out the fire. The whole of the car market was filled with a pungent black smoke, but luckily no-one was hurt. I did feel sorry for the owner of the car, an amiable if slightly lackadaisical Irish bloke, who was returning from a test drive with a potential buyer at the wheel. It's not a particularly strong selling point for a car if it catches fire when you're test driving it, but when I spoke to the Irish guy he just shrugged as if this sort of thing happened all the time.
Yesterday passed without incident, and without customers, but one couple took our car for a test drive and seemed rather pleased. This morning they came back and offered is $1,700 for a car we'd paid $3,100 for. I said we wouldn't take less than $2,000 and they seemed happy with this and we shook hands, pleased that we'd finally sold our car, which particularly pleased me as it means I can now afford to buy new shoes. We made a loss of $1,100 which isn't ideal, but that's only 400 pounds in real money so it could have been alot worse. To be honest, I'd have been happy with the $1,700.
So we've sold and it means we can enjoy our last day and a half in Sydney, for we are flying to New Zealand first thing on Saturday morning, and if you'll excuse me until then, I've got some shoes to buy.
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