The DMV cafe
1. Jeremy and I now have (temporary) Finnish driving licenses. We traded in our UAE ones and our permanent Finnish ones should come in the mail soon. Our visit to the Finnish version of the DMV was an interesting cultural experience. In essentials, it was the same - sit and wait for your number, get called up, find out what paperwork you're missing, etc. But: there was a cafe, like INSIDE the DMV. The nice lady at the counter sent us there to wait while she finished up our paperwork. She gave Jeremy a coupon for a free hot chocolate and pastry to enjoy in the interim. And then she personally came and got me when she was finished. Oh, and the cafe had a salad bar. A salad bar! Inside of the DMV! That cafe was the most old-fashioned and hokiest and most bizarre and yet most heartwarming thing I've seen in a while. We ALL need a cafe in the DMV in our lives. A happy place to seek shelter in while we wait for tedious things in life to get sorted.
2. We're like 80% going to get a car. And the great debate of my car-owning life is turning out to be: 5-seater vs. 7-seater? We now fill a 5-seater on our own, which you'd think would point us toward a 7-seater. But we are buying this car for ourselves, right? Why should we spend more money and drive around a bigger car just to be able to give random hypothetical people a ride in some indistinct future? On the other hand, that would be really nice to be able to do, as well as when guests come. But is the extra cost (and higher taxes/fuel burden) worth it? In the UAE, we opted for a 5-seater and I was happy with our decision most of the time. However, as the girls got older, it would have been nice to be able to take their friends with us on outings sometimes, but it wasn't possible. So: 5-seater or 7-seater?
3. We went to a dealer showroom to look at some used Toyota Versos (5-seater with pop-up back row to fit two more people) in person. We were really nervous about what a hard sell would sound like in Finnish, but it turns out that Finnish used car salesman aren't quite like their US counterparts (or at least this one wasn't). He showed us what we wanted to see and then left us to our own devices. The closest he got to a "what do I have to do to get you into this car today" line was when he blurted out, almost as an afterthought, "hey - buy this car!" It was a great line.
And maybe we will! Buy this car, that is.
