Going Out With a Financial Bang!

After an over-abundance of worry and doubt, we finally sold our car at the end of the day yesterday. Here is how it went down: I went down to the front desk at the hostel in the morning to deal with an annoying room switch situation (I won't get into it), when I overheard the man in front of me telling the clerk that he was "hoping to finally buy a car today." After about 3 seconds of deliberation, I decided to speak up and tell the man about our car (at that point we had decided to change our asking price from $3,500 to $3,000 since we had no interest the first day that it was displayed in the car market). I was completely honest with the man, even going to the trouble (and risk) of telling him outright about the few minor issues with the car (i.e. leaking transmission fluid, shuddering brakes, etc). He left acting very interested, heading directly to the car market. I was hopeful.

Meanwhile, Brian and Staci were at the car market at this same time, lowering our asking price on the vehicle. They stayed long enough to also talk to the interested man (I think he was from Belgium) and corroborate everything I had told him. After we all met up and discussed the prospect of selling the car, we basically waited around anxiously until we decided to call the car market around 2 pm. This is where our anxiety came to a head, as the man at the car market told us that our car was taken out of the lot for an inspection in the morning and was still not back yet after over 4 hours. This was very unsettling, as we were worried that we could lose the entire day to display the car to other potential buyers, if the Belgian withdrew his interest. If this had been the case, we would more than likely have had to sell the car to a garage today for an insultingly low price. Luckily though, just when we were about to call the car market back to demand that they retrieve the car from the mechanic's garage (across the street), I received a phone call from the Belgian. He basically said that he wanted to make a few repairs on the car (as suggested by the crooked mechanic) and felt that we should help cover the cost of those repairs. Much to my surprise, however, he still offered us the very fair selling price of $2,800, which I immediately agreed to. Needless to say, we were extatic, especially since we had bought the car only a month ago for $2,500!

There was one more minor obstacle that we had to overcome before this story could have a happy ending: retrieving the money. The problem was, the Belgian was having trouble withdrawing such a large lump sum from his bank account. We gave him a few hours before we called the car market again about a half hour before they closed, and they told us that he had still not returned with the money. While we realized that there was a possibility that he would not be able to get the funds until today (if at all), Brian and I decided to chance it and take a bus to the market right at their closing time (5 pm) to see if he somehow showed up in time. Luck struck again, and about 1 minute after we entered the market garage, in came the Belgian with the $2,800 in cash. With the cash in hand, we bid the man good luck on his 6 month journey in New Zealand and were FINALLY able to relax. It was a huge weight off of our shoulders, and when we got back to the hostel to tell the girls they were already pre-celebrating with a bottle of wine.

Today is the last day of our trip, so we decided to visit one more attraction before bidding Auckland and New Zealand as a whole farewell. We actually just came back from an excursion up to Mt. Eden, an inactive volcano in the heart of the city and Auckland's highest natural point of elevation. The trip was short and sweet and though the skies were far from clear enough to get a great view, we still got to see an impressive city scape. The best part though was the insanely strong and consistent wind gusts that we felt at the summit (see below).




I got a little carried away here (below).




While we could not afford sky diving here in NZ, Jessica got to experience a free simulation (see video below).





Tonight we will go out to a nice dinner (now that we have all redeemed our budgets a bit) and prepare for the arduous, 30+ hour journey back to the states tomorrow. It has been a phenomenal trip, enjoyed by all. The things I've seen and experienced in the past three months have been more diverse and astounding than I could have hoped for when we began planning this trip over half a year ago. I am glad that I could take you all along for the ride with this blog, or at the least give you an abbreviated notion of what it has been like here on the other side of the world. I would love to get feedback to hear your thoughts and to see who has actually kept up with this blog: Email me at mikegil2008@gmail.com



Thanks for reading!!


Sincerely,

Mike


PS-I have enjoyed creating and maintaining this blog so much that I think I am going to do something similar for my field and laboratory work during my post-graduate studies, wherever they end up being. Expect more on that in 2009!