I made a number of fairly substantial purchases in the few weeks that I came here. I already mentioned the bike in my last post, and that has served me really well actually. No more flats since. I've also bought a car, and while that has added a lot to my ability to simply navigate the bay area, I've burnt through a fair chunk of money to do so.
There are, of course, several expenses with cars. There is insurance, gas, and the unplanned expenses as well. But owning a car has given me a range of experiences that have been, or possibly will be worth it all.
The Car
The car itself is nothing too special. I bought it off of some guy on craigslist for $2,995. He and his family came from India, and he was working as an Amazon Prime driver. He was driving another car, which he planned to sell, but he also wanted to buy a new hybrid, with better gas milage. I guess if you are driving all day, especially in California where gas is $3 per gallon, the cost of gas rapidly exceeds the price of the car itself.
The car was in great condition. I knew from the ad in Craigslist that it was a 2002 Inifiniti I35 with 200,000 miles on it. I really had pretty low expectations. When I saw the car I noticed it was a little dirty. There's something in the air here that just clings to cars. Possibly some combination of smog and dust, but that was really no matter. The upholstry was in good condition, the breaks work fine, the stereo works perfectly, and the AC is functional. Really the only problem I had with the car itself was the turning radius. The thing turns like a truck, which isn't really a problem most of the time, but it's very noticable when it's needed.
But I'm thrilled. With a car I'm able to get to work pretty quickly, and I'm able to cross all the roads, which I wouldn't dream to do without a car. The way all of the suburbs of San Jose are built is for accomodating automobiles. Which is really helpful to drivers. I can imagine that it's much less of a headache to drive in the suburbs of San Jose than downtown Boston, for instance. It's a little tragic. There's a nasty self-reenforcement with having a car and living here. Everyone without a car is pushed out.
What I did with the Car
A car is just a rusting piece of metal unless you drive it. And I did more with it than just drive it to and from work. Last week, there was a concert going on featuring Sting and Peter Gabriel. Naturally I have only listened to the music my Dad listens to all my life, so I was thrilled and really wanted to see if I could get tickets. No such luck. But the fact that I had to autonomy to even try to do that thrilled me.
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| Selfie of me and two other Co-ops, Ellie and Emily |
I also took my car down to Santa Cruz with some of the other Co-ops from Northeastern. The trip was rather uneventful but I was shocked by the change in weather. It was a full 25 degrees colder next to the ocean than it was on the other side of the hills in San Jose, where it was about 85 degrees F. There's a boardwalk with a bunch of amusement park rides, but we didn't go on any of those, we had plans to go to Great America later on a company pass. The beaches were nice, the water not so much. It was frigid and turbulent, and though I really only got my toes wet, just to say I've been in the Pacific Ocean, other people fully submerged, and didn't deign to stay in for more than about 30 seconds.
Instead we walked along the wharf and watched the sea lions swimming around. We ate at a taqeria and someone with us bought a skateboard at what I assume was a fairly famous skate shop. I suppose if you are aiming on picking up learning to skate California is a good place to do it.
I drove back to San Jose, through the winding mountain roads, and we went to Great America Amusement park. My company bought us day passes, and maybe we should have gone all day. I'd certainly have saved money on gas and would have been warmer, but we arrived around 5:30, and had a good time until the park closed around 10. There were even fireworks.
On Sunday, the day after, a group of us decided to check out the beautiful city of San Francisco. I didn't drive, instead I took the Caltrain up with my good friend Quan, and that's probably for the better since driving around SF, and in particular parking didn't sound too appealing. When we got there I noticed it was equally cold as Santa Cruz the day before. I wound up buying a pretty great sweatshirt in Chinatown for $17, and I was comfortable the rest of the time. I was a little sad I didn't see the other notable sights of SF. But those adventures are scheduled for another week. This post is getting on in length, so I'll post those adventures later.
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