Yep!  We did it!  We bought a car!  In Panama.  Who’d’ve thunk?  On Tuesday I was saying that I didn’t know if we really even needed one.  By Tuesday night we were doing research on the Central American version of Craigslist (www.encuentra24.com).  By Wednesday at noon, we strolled downstairs to test drive this cute little Toyota Yaris.  Yes, Eric was brave enough to go out on the main street in front of our apartment in someone else’s car on his first attempt at driving in Panama traffic!  When we got back, we talked the guy down about $700 from what really was a pretty fair price to start with (fingers crossed that the engine doesn’t fall out of the car as I type this) compared to other Yarises from the same year and with similar mileage, shook hands, and agreed to make it happen!  Mind you, all of this was done in Spanish.

We went to our bank almost immediately to see if we could go ahead and get the car insurance policy set up and ready to go whenever we got the paperwork done.  Turns out, on this visit to the bank we were greeted by the woman who helped us to open our account with kisses and hugs, then we were ushered to the front of the line!  She gave us the debit card we’d been waiting on, then took us directly to the woman who handles car insurance.  After about 20-30 minutes with this other lovely woman, we were all set!  All we had to do was email her copies of scanned documents when the deal was done.  AMAZING!  How was that so easy!?

I’ll try to pare (pair?  pear?) down the details of the actual car/money transfer a bit, but when we left the seller, Alberto, that first day after seeing the car, we understood that the plan was to wire money directly into his account after all the paperwork was done and the car was officially mine.  I say mine rather than ours b/c Panama insurance companies give female drivers a 50% lower deductible than male drivers.  Easy decision as to whose name it was going into.  I wonder if all the crazy male taxi drivers screw up the stats or if women are just more cautious or what.  Either way, nice perk.

Turns out, Alberto thought the plan was for us to get a “cheque de gerencia,” a cashiers check, from a particular bank.  Of course, this made more sense b/c we could directly exchange the check for the paperwork, but we had already discussed doing it the other way.   Anyway, after a bunch of miscommunications and a lot of weirdness from someone who seemed in person to be a normal guy, we figured out the process.  For example, we had originally decided to meet on Thursday at noon to do the paperwork at the Municipio (municipal building, i guess, is the translation), but once he said he wanted the check instead of the transfer, we told him that we didn’t know how long it would take our Panamanian bank to actually acknowledge the transfer.  “But I thought wire transfers happened instantaneously?!”  I know.  But remember…Panama.

Anyway, after Bank of America called Eric and he confirmed that yes, he did in fact want a bunch of money sent to a random country for the first time ever, they sent it and our Panamanian bank received it immediately.  Amazing.  We got the check pretty quickly and were able to meet Alberto at 2:30 pm.  When I texted him to tell him we could be there at 2:30, he told me he had been there all day.  I apologized, asked if I had led him to believe that we would still be there at noon, but he said no, it wasn’t a problem, he lived very nearby and it just made sense.  I’m not sure how, but that’s what he said.  Um…okay.

That same afternoon, however, the owner of our apartment, Isabel, who I may have described to you as the Panamanian version of a 60-something lady from Buckhead in Atlanta or maybe Savannah or Charleston, but who Marianela, our Spanish teacher, simply refers to as “un Judeo,” – a Jew – was having some guys bring over a new dining room table for us.  Turns out this thing is a monstrosity.  It took four big guys to carry the glass tabletop, so Eric had to stay here to let them in rather than them just leaving it in the hall for us to bring in.  He later said that he had a pretty good conversation with one of the guys – in Spanish!  I’m so proud of his progress, even though he doesn’t see it.

The table.

The guys with the table.

That meant that I was on my own to go ensure that all the proper paperwork was done on a rather large purchase in a confusing government building in a foreign country where I know some of the language but where they speak VERY quickly and where the government workers love to mumble.  Jerks.

We had to go to two offices.  One gave you a piece of paper saying that you were transferring the car from one person to the other and the other printed a piece of paper saying that the car is now in the new owner’s name.  Kinda silly, but hey, that’s government everywhere.  We only made it to one office before the other closed.  No worries though, Alberto and his son (one of the few really good-looking folks I’ve seen since we got here, honestly) assured me that the important part had been done, that I officially owned the car, and that we’d come back the next day to finish up.  He handed me the keys, I handed him the check, and I got into my new (used) car!!!

It had been Eric’s plan to meet me once the table guys had left, but I finished up first, so that meant that I was going to have to drive home.  I was actually pretty excited.  I didn’t have to go too far.  I could actually see my building from the Municipio and vice versa, but I didn’t know exactly which streets were one way, how to get into our garage, or which parking spot was ours.  But I made it!  Completely without incident (incidence?).  Here’s my shot of my first drive.  Mom, stop it…I was at a red light and I didn’t even look when I hit the shutter button on my phone.  🙂

I got it home safely and promptly took photos of it.  I wanted to wait to post this until we took it out in the sun so I could take better pictures, but I can’t wait.  It’s a big step for us down here.

See my smiling face in the chrome? I’m a goober.

Fancy remotes again. The only pic I sent to my parents when the deal was done.

Side view. I still just love spoilers, even on corolla type cars. It ain’t fancy, but it’s awful cute.

I let Eric sit in the driver’s seat for a minute.

The spedometer is only in km and is in the middle of the dash. Very strange.

Alberto insisted it was “celestre” or sky blue when I called it “azul” or just blue. I think he’s mistaken. It’s blue. I like it though.

I can’t believe we own a car with a Panama license plate.

The fancy remote that promptly stopped working today. Eric’s been trying to fix it for the past hour.

Maybe this covers the antennae? Not sure. Looks like a shark fin to me, and I like it!

You probably can’t tell, but the lugnuts are blue, just like the car!

From the front.

So, as for the rest of the weirdness with Alberto, we decided to meet up at 8:15 the next morning to be ready for the office to open at 8:30.  In the meantime, I discovered that the transfer document said that my name was “Paris Julie Solms” because US passports list our last names on the top line and our first and middle on the next line.  Luckily that turned out not to be a big deal.  Anyway, at 6 am, I got a text (Whatsapp) from Alberto saying that he was already at the Municipio because the first office that we had to go back to to check about the order of my name opened at 7.  WHAT?  Exactly.  It made no sense.  I ignored it and tried to go back to sleep.  About an hour later he texted again (still over an hour before we were supposed to meet up) saying “Que bueno!” or “How great!” for no apparent reason.  I hadn’t responded to the first text.  It was completely out of nowhere.  Really weird.

Anyway, I got there around 8 or 8:15 and we finished the paperwork and all is well.  A few other interesting tidbits.  If you have WhatsApp, you might know that when you text someone, you can see their profile photo.  So when I first received a message from the person who I only knew as the owner of this Yaris that I was interested in, I thought it was a really beautiful young woman.  Needless to say, it was surprising to see this guy show up.  He then told me that he was a helicopter pilot and showed me a picture of the giant helicopter that he flew.  He also had all his gear in the backseat of the car.  He used to be in what was formerly the Army and the Air Force and has since combined into one military branch.  He now, if I understood him correctly, works for the Presidential administration in some way, again, as a helicopter pilot.  I wanted to ask more, but felt stupid that I wasn’t understanding him.  It was also 8:30 am, I didn’t feel well, and I just wanted to get the paperwork done.

So now I’m googling him to see what I can find out.  I do have his full name, after all, and the equivalent of his social security number – although those numbers are much less of a secret here.  He texted his to me so I could get the cashier’s check, for example.

Now for a few UNC matters:

In remembrance of the (I believe 7th?) anniversary of Eve Carson’s death, I wanted to post this.  I love this quote.  It very much embodies my feelings about Carolina.

On Carolina/Dook game day, I believe that Eve would be with me in saying GO HEELS!!!  And, having not known her, I won’t bring her into this one, but GO TO HELL DOOK!

Thanks to Becca for sending me this photo, taken today at my beautiful Alma Mater:

Here’s hoping my parents let me FaceTime with their TV tonight!