It was the perfect city car. It wasn't pretty, but it was functional. We drove it fearlessly through Paris without worry of bumps and scratches since it had plenty already. But after two years, and multiple vacation car rentals, we decided that it was time to upgrade.
We thought about buying a new car. But driving a new car in a city where its denizens use bumpers as a parking aid seems a bit impractical. With lots of people at work coming and going, there is a good source of used cars.
We found a nice, well maintained, hardly driven 2008 Citroën. While its not as powerful as Thomas would have liked, it meets our needs for now. Scout has a ride to the park. We can do our weekly grocery shopping. We even planned a weekend trip to Loire. The only inconvenience is that it's a stick shift.
This means that the next few weekends will entail Thomas teaching me how to drive. The first obstacle was finding a large parking lot in France for the first lesson. That is quite a challenge, since there is really not enough space in France, We had to drive 30 minutes away from Paris to find a big box store with a large parking lot. And then we had to have the lesson on Sundays when the stores are closed.
After a bit of a rough start (read small argument), Thomas and I found the good student-teacher balance. Thomas had to dig deep to find his patience- especially after a few jerky stops and stalls. An hour after we started, Thomas taught me the basics and I made it to second gear. Next time, hills!