One thing we didn't end up having to take care of in customs is our car. Poor Civic has some miles on her now and a bit of an underbite; it's from an unfortunate run-in with a larger station wagon on a rainy day on 66. We're thinking of driving the car back to Virginia sometime around Easter and attempting to sell it.
I'm worried that getting rid of the car again will mean that I'm limiting myself to certain jobs--when I already am limited by my language handicap--and won't be able to get access to services that I might need, like a doctor I actually like or a vet for a sick Penelope.
That being said, everyone in NYC lives without a car just fine. I didn't particularly like the doc Super Size Me, but one part that made an impression on me is that New Yorkers basically walk more than anyone else in the US. If you want to go somewhere, you walk and subway there.
And let's face it--I've never been particularly svelte, but after I quit smoking, I gained a LOT of weight. Being motivated to walk around will do me a lot of good. Ben will be able to bike, although my cycling skills mostly involve being able to not fall over on a bike. Biking in the city scares me, mainly because I'm just not very good at it.
After I quit smoking, I had to learn to live my life at a different sort of pace, and it was tough. I think that making the adjustment to not having a car is going to be a similar sort of process, but at least it won't make me gain weight!
We're going to sell the car. Even if we decide to get another vehicle, it'll be something like a Subaru that can actually drive around in the snow. Again, it's the waiting that is killing me, giving me time to think and be anxious about the decision, when if I had my 'druthers it would already have been gone by now.
Oh, and cellphones in Canada don't come with voicemail; you have to pay $7 extra for that. So basically if you miss a call, there's no way of telling who it was. I think I'm just going to give up and do it myself:
Hrm, I don't know about this Canadian cell phone service. I suppose it's just the homo milk of telecommunications.
ReplyDeleteThere would definitely be some aspects to living without a car that would be kinda freeing, but I would also be hesitant in your place. As far as I can tell, in the US being without a car is possible if you live in a major city but pretty limiting unless that city is NYC.
I don't know what the situation is in Montreal. I guess it depends a LOT on their public transportation. If it runs pretty much all the time and covers pretty much all the places you'd regularly want to go (without excessive transfers), then it could work quite well. I can say that in the DC burbs this isn't the case. I wonder what the situation is with car rentals and if there's any Zipcar equivalent. If those exist and are reasonably priced, then in combination with mass transit it could be quite doable.
Of course, the extreme cold would also make the prospect of taking mass transit (or bike) potentially a lot less appealing. Although, truth be told I'd probably take that over the heat of the DC summer.