The Blue House of Crazy: We have cars!!!!

When we got to Turkey, Joel ordered our cars ASAP. We were using a Pool car from their fleet. An unidentifiable year Focus Station wagon. We couldn’t fit all three car seats across. So Jocy has to sit in the middle without one. FREAKED me out! But, its not a law here and we never drove faster the 40mph. Joel hated it. The clutch was about gone and it needed new tires… 2 or the 4 managed to get replaced. Poor Joel had to drive to Izmit on a spare one morning. Adding an extra 30 minutes to a crazy drive.

At home, you are responsible for ordering your own lease car. That job had been passed to me since it was my car. Here, HR does it thru Avis rental cars. They don’t give you many choices and they didn’t bother to explain how to add extras on. Heck they couldn’t even tell us our monthly payments! We were told my car was ordered but Joel was delayed because they were doing model year changeover.

That was in August. We are now well into October and Joel is still on HR to find him a driver. The first two months they gave him a complete run around about it. Then they came back and changed everything they told hime. Then one morning he gets a phone call that a drive is here for an interview… NOW. The guy claimed he understood English but Joel didn’t really like the guy. So Joel told HR he wanted more options. There was supposedly another guy and he spoke English. They told Joel they didn’t know when he could be interviewed. Then the next day, he was there for the interview! So Murat is our new driver. He lived in Australia for 16 years and speaks excellent English with a funny Australian/Turkish accent. And he knows everything about Istanbul so we have our own private tour guide! LOL.

The next weekend, Joel’s boss and some coworkers where flying into Istanbul for a week of training. One of the guys, Joel had launched in KC with. So, tours were set up and our family got to tag along. Joel and I had already been to Hagia Sophie and the Blue Mosque but not the Palace or the Spice Bazaar. They kids hadn’t been too any yet. Work didn’t have a Transit big enough for us and the Focus wouldn’t fit us with Murat. Parking in a nightmare here so I really wanted to use Murat. I told Joel that he could go and me and the kids would stay home. He said he’d work it out.

He never told me how….but that we were going on Sunday. Saturday morning after breakfast, we were talking about our grocery trip. Joel told me to grab my coat and come with him. We went down to the garage and what do I see????? An orange Grand C-Max that is my car!!!! I have the mini-van of Europe. I have given in! LOL. Not that it was much of a choice and it has been great with all the tight spaces. I love it. It’s smaller than what I would ever pick but perfect size for here. It’s a 6 speed MT with a Turbo Diesel Engine. Still getting used to not only driving the car but driving in Istanbul. I haven’t driven a car since July 30th! That is a record for me. Joel got a pretty Dark Blue Fiesta. MT and Turbo Diesel too. But he doesn’t drive it and our driver keeps. The only time I saw it was when Murat was driving my car. Smile Such craziness! We have a driver! So what had happened with the cars, was Joel had started asking daily questions about when we’d get out cars. He finally was told they were both being built that day. The would have been highly unlikely event. Since they were order a few weeks apart. not that we were told when. So a few days later, they explained they were being billed together on the day. Which was later explained, they were in port!!! Woo Hoo! But not to get too excited because it can take a month to get it out then get it licensed and registered. But Joel’s admin said he was on it. We got the cars a week later. LOL. I need to get Erman to do more stuff for me!