Beautiful Goodbye
Trip Start
May 28, 2010
1
32
Trip End
Ongoing
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Then things went from bad to worse. Curtis tried to bump our ad up to the first page on the website for about the 20th time, but it wouldn't accept our payment. It was stuck on the 15th page and we were leaving in 2 days. Don't panic...
Curtis was freaking out and went to have a shower to relax. Afterwards, he was ready with a new plan. We would pack up our stuff and move to the city until we left, and stand in front of hostels begging people to buy the car.
He was just about to share this brilliant idea with me, when the phone rang.
It was David. Asking if the car was still for sale. And saying he was very interested in it. Curtis was confused until he realized this was a different David! We made arrangements to meet at a train station outside of Sydney and we were on our way again. What a roller-coaster!
We had a bit of a wait at the station before David arrived. He was from Belgium, not France, and he was traveling alone. He was super nice and easy to talk to, and, more importantly, he loved the car! He said it was exactly what he was looking for, and he agreed to buy it immediately!
Only one catch: he'd just arrived in Australia, and his money transfer had not come through yet. And it probably wouldn't until after we left the country. Well, desperate times... we came up with a deal. We signed the change of ownership papers and then we went online and he bought 6 months of insurance for the car with his visa, under our name. This was quite expensive, and acted as a deposit of sorts. The car would be stored at Ben & Tessha's house, and when his money came through he would pay them, and they would wire it to us. It required trust by both parties, but it would work.
And with that, our car was sold. And somehow, after all our talk of timing its sale so we wouldn't be car-less for too long, we managed to have it right up until we left! Honestly, we shouldn't have been surprised. Things like this had been happening since day one of the trip: someone was watching out for us. Another perk? I got to tell Curtis "I told you so"! I'd been telling him not to panic, that it would all work out somehow... I win:)
But that's not the end of our car story... On the way home from selling the car, our cell rings. I answer, and its David. I ask if everything is alright. Curtis, meanwhile, is dying inside - he thinks something happened, that David is backing out. David starts saying some things that don't make sense, and I am confused... until I realize it is the other David! French David was calling me, begging to buy our car! Apparently they'd gone to get their camper van, but couldn't - the owner had been arrested! So they were in a panic, and wanted to buy our car immediately! I had to tell poor David that, unfortunately, within the last hour, we'd sold it. Which came as quite a shock to him, considering that only hours before we'd been begging him to take it! Poor poor David, I hope everything worked out for them in the end.
So that was that. If their deal had fallen through earlier, we'd have probably sold them the car for $500 less than we'd wanted to. Instead, we sold it to a guy who loved it, for exactly what we'd paid for it 7 months earlier. This is our life. We are blessed.
I may or may not have mentioned in a previous blog, while we were housesitting we were also cat-sitting, looking after Ben & Tesh's poor broken cat Kofi. Broken because they ran her over with the car a couple days before they left! Anyways, Kofi lived in a tiny cage the whole time we were there, and we just had to feed her and change her litter and bedding.
Well, when we first got to the house, Kofi was in a pretty good mood, considering. Over a few days though, she started crying a lot. Meowing and whining, you know. There was nothing much we could do for her. We thought maybe she was tired of being inside all the time: we packed her cage outside one afternoon and put her on the grass. She hated it! We would pet her and talk to her, but she didn't much care.
Finally, Curtis brought over a radio and plugged it in beside her cage, tuned to any old station we could find. Well, that was the answer! In a silent house, she was miserable. But give that cat a Portuguese radio station and voila! Happy cat!
Tessha came home the day after we sold the car. Unfortunately Ben had to stay at the festival to finish tear-down, but we had an awesome time with Tessha. She puttered about in the garden while we packed, and we hung out in between:) Our last night, we had a feast of stuffed golf-ball zucchini out of the garden. Heavenly!
Finally, it was time to say goodbye, to Kofi, Florentine the chicken, the house, the beach, Tessha, and the whole country. We'd done everything one last time: visited the garden, made cookies, walked to the stack, and surfed (one of the best days yet!). We were ready. We left Stanley the car behind for David, and headed for the train with our two huge packs, two day packs, a random duffle bag full of our wetsuits, and the didjeridoo wrapped in bubble wrap. Getting to the airport was the easiest its ever been, as the train went right into it. We checked our bags, even the didge, without a hitch or additional fee, went through security, and wandered the airport until our flight, which was delayed by an hour or two. I fell in love with, and bought, some crazy beautiful Ugg boots (Curtis loved that)! We finally boarded the plane and our feet left Australian soil. I can't explain what that was like, after a year away, to begin the journey home.
Home. Surreal.
