September arrived, students went back to school, trees started shedding their leaves, and our apartment lease ended. It was so easy to find housing for the summer months since students were leaving, but it was impossible to find a place for a week in September at a somewhat reasonable price because all the students had returned and taken everything back.
In the end, we stayed with our American friends: Alexandra and Peter. Cool guys. Both are former students of prestigious universities and both work for 8.5 at a nearby restaurant. They put us up in their living room, which is naturally a walk-through, and it had a sofa that was too small for the two of us. We had to sleep on the floor, blocking the path for four roommates.
Also, my sudden decision to go on a trip put an end to Irinka's career and projected earnings. But she had to come to terms with that after several hours of heated conversation. That was when the departure date was set - September 6th. One thing remained, and as it seemed to us then, the most difficult one - buying a car.
But the difficulty wasn't that it was hard to buy, but that I didn't have a driver's license, without which it couldn't be registered in the state. And I just didn't have a license to even drive it legally.
We looked for a car on Craigslist and found one quickly; luckily, in the States, and especially in a big city, there is plenty to choose from. We called and arranged a meeting. The photo showed a beautifully preserved VW Jetta, I think from '96.
The meeting was set in a rather rough neighborhood - a purely Mexican area where only muchachos walk, only el espanol is spoken, and prices for everything are twice as low. But the car was worth it; the $800 price tag was tempting, and even the owner, who turned out to be quite a cultured Honduran, was nice. I was already thinking about finishing the deal and becoming the owner of the vehicle, but there was one "but" - he didn't have the title (that very piece of paper on which the bill of sale is concluded). Everything ended, we wished Rodriguez (that was the owner's name) a happy evening, left him our phone number in the happy event that he found the missing documents, and left gloomily. It was truly gloomy because we had spent the whole day looking for a car, chose it, and were even ready to buy it, but everything fell through in a minute. The feeling of a climber who had scrambled to the summit but didn't quite make it.
After all that, we sat in the park to look at other posts, hoping to find something similar. Nothing! The only acceptable car for the same price turned out to be a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder SUV. The thought of high gas consumption bothered us, but there was nothing to be done. We called. A man answered, sounding about 45, who turned out to be very polite (we are lucky with sellers), but he immediately cut us off, saying he could only show it at 9 PM and he lived out of town. Yeah, we thought! We've arrived! But then he added: "Today is Tuesday, which means I have to be at church in 15 minutes!" That last phrase of his won us over. We thought that since he was such a religious person, and at his age too, he wouldn't let us down with the car! We agreed to meet at the last subway station at 9!
And so it happened! But what was our surprise when, instead of an elderly parishioner, we saw a guy of about 25, clearly of Latin descent and covered in tattoos. He clearly noticed our surprise and asked if we were probably expecting to see a church old man. Yeah! After which he told an exciting story of his complicated gangster life, the finale of which was beautiful love, a wife, children, and the church. After all, there is a power in the world that is capable of radically changing people, he said, and that power is God! We didn't answer anything to such an ambiguous statement, we just remained silent for the rest of the way.
The car was super: big, with a red interior, a three-liter engine, a spacious trunk (which is especially relevant since there are 2 girls among us), and it ran beautifully. It started with a bang, no oil was leaking anywhere, and there was neither the desire nor the need to check anything major by the light of a mobile phone. What can you expect from a car that is 15 years old and costs 800! We agreed.
We explained to the owner (I don't remember his name) that we had forgotten our license at home and that we needed to drive it closer to our house. He said: no problem, and we rolled.
Actually, I had never encountered buying cars in Russia or the States before. I had no idea what it was, but I imagined a very long and tedious process with filling out a bunch of paperwork. In reality, everything turned out to be much simpler. On the back of the title (bill of sale), we filled out a few lines, no more than a registration on some forum: Full Name + a few contacts. Then we gave the money, they gave us that very title, and we were the owners.
Further, more. In many states, or rather in most, to get behind the wheel, you need to have insurance. Getting insurance for a foreigner costs several times more, but again, the price range depends heavily on the specific company. To be honest, we didn't try very hard to find a cheaper insurance company and went to the first one we met on our way. The price turned out to be about 170 dollars a month, which suited us quite well, but, as always, there was one "but"... We needed a Massachusetts driver's license. Stupor!
Brainstorming and searching for solutions, I couldn't think of anything better than asking our friend Peter for his driver's license. Here it is worth making a digression and saying that Peter is a very small and modest boy who had driven only once in his life, that was his parents' car, and who wrecked that car in 7 minutes. Since then, Peter prefers public transport and is very critical of everything that contains an engine. But for all that, he was our only option.
We had to persuade Peter for a very long time, take him to a Russian bathhouse, and beg him. There was even a moment when we promised to leave the car to him for free as a gift after returning to Russia, but that only pushed him away, as he didn't even want to imagine himself as the owner of a vehicle. In the end, Peter gave in. He didn't even give in, but probably just decided to get rid of us, or just decided to please us, but in any case, Peter agreed to take out insurance in his name! We triumphed.
Very soon we were already regretting that we had asked Peter! The fact is that in the States, there is a point system for fines, like it used to be in the Soviet Union. That is, if you violate, you get penalty points, and the more serious the violation, the more points. And if you have a lot of points, you have almost no chance of negotiating with loyal American police officers; you have to pay large fines and, most unpleasantly, a high cost of insurance. That's what happened to us. We had to reap the fruits of Peter's car accident and pay 420 dollars instead of 170 just because Peter had 6 penalty points for that accident. But there was nowhere to retreat.
The next stage, after obtaining mandatory insurance, is registering the vehicle and getting license plates. In general, you can drive a car for 7 days after receiving insurance without registration, but we didn't take the risk - we decided to do everything in one day.
Registration in Boston takes place at the Department of Motor Vehicles. At the entrance, a woman gives you a ticket with your number and lets you into a large hall. There, like in a church, there are benches where people wait for their turn. And instead of pastors, there are about 15-20 windows behind which employees sit. I had number 185, when I entered, number 70 was being served. I spent no more than 10-15 minutes in line, which means about 9-10 people are served per minute. In my opinion, Americans are the best organizers in the world. I have always been amazed at how they set up these lines to rationally direct queues. Or on the road, when there is some kind of accident, a specially trained person always pulls up, who sets up cones, fencing off the collision site. And afterwards, as support, a couple more people might pull up, one of whom will hold a SLOW sign, and the other will point with their finger in which direction to bypass the obstacle.
Okay, got distracted! Let's continue about the purchase process. After registering any vehicle, the owner has 7 days to pass a technical inspection. After passing it, a sticker is pasted on the windshield (similar to the Russian one) and the car is considered fully registered. But it was with the inspection that we had difficulties: firstly, we were afraid that in a '93 car, something would definitely not meet the standards and we would be asked to fix the defect, and we no longer had any extra money or time; secondly, it was already Thursday or Friday evening, and in the States, they were preparing for the Labor Day celebration and a day or two off were announced + Saturday and Sunday, which categorically did not suit us, because we had to set off on our trip no later than September 6th. So we decided not to pass the mandatory technical inspection. True, we had a sticker from the old owners on the glass and it was valid until February, but if they had checked it, it would have turned out to be invalid!
That's it! The process of buying and processing documents was finished. I don't know how it is in Russia, but here everything turned out to be very simple, but quite long. It all took me 2.5 days, considering that we never passed the technical inspection! At the same time, Irinka finished her work and we started developing a route for the next month!
