The first is from Pride and Prejudice, when Elizabeth mentions that Charlotte has married Mr. Collins, and Darcy replies:
"It must be very agreeable to her to be settled within so easy a distance of her own family and friends.''
"An easy distance do you call it? It is nearly fifty miles.''
"And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day's journey. Yes, I call it a very easy distance.''
Except for what we can reach on foot or by bike, nothing in Finland is an "easy distance" for us, and that has been...hard. Even a simple get-together with friends (at least those who have been insensitive enough to live outside of the city, ha ha) can turn into a major logistical puzzle for us. With a car, Elizabeth's fifty miles (our current situation), suddenly become Darcy's fifty miles of good road. It's a big difference, isn't it?
The second quote, from Mansfield Park, is similar...and I can't find the exact wording anywhere. I suspect that's because it's actually from the movie, and the scriptwriter has said she took some dialogue from external writings of Jane Austen not related to the book. But in that scene, if I remember correctly, Fanny and Henry are walking by the port, admiring the huge ships anchored there, and they have a conversation about liking or not liking the sea. Henry thinks the sea is a fantastic thing, full of adventure and opportunity, and Fanny says something like, "sure, but only if you have the means to sail away upon it." (Look, next time I watch the movie I'll write down the exact words, OK? But you get the idea.)
Finland is a country with so much to offer, and I feel like we're experiencing only a tiny corner of it. It's a thing full of adventure and opportunity, but right now, we don't have the means to sail away upon it, as it were. There are long-distance buses and trains, to be sure, and we've used them, but when you multiply bus or train fare by five...you might as well have driven a car.
So I think we're going to buy a car sometime in the next few months. Sigh - of both defeat and happiness. Part of me feels like setting large piles of euros on fire, just to get used to the feeling of paying money for gas and insurance. How liberating it has been, in many ways, to not have a car, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't grieve the moral high ground and Euro street cred I am giving up by giving in.
But I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't positively rabidly excited at the idea of all the amazing hikes we can go on now! I can't wait!
