Saturday, July 18, 2009

In France today, 750 €* could buy you:

1388 postage stamps.

937 baguettes.

750 espressos in a café.

563 1.5 liter bottles of Coke.

241 Big Macs.

219 gallons of milk.

167 gallons of gas.

100 movie tickets.

34 doctor visits
(which would be 70% reimbursed by national healthcare,
30% by complementary private insurance).

or...

1 1995 Peugeot 306.


Our Neon is dying a slow and painful death, and we need something more reliable so I can take Benjamin to preschool this fall. They do have bus service (although the bus looks more like a tourist bus), but I'd have to walk him at least down to the center of our village. That walk only takes about 10 minutes for an adult - but about 30 minutes for an adult, a 3-year-old, and a 1 1/2 year old in a stroller. And there are no sidewalks (sidewalks? Ha! The road is not even wide enough for 2 cars!). And the walk back home is all uphill. So we got a car.

It smells kind of funky and the power steering is much less than powerful, but otherwise it seems to run fine. (And I should know, I drove it home from Lille, where we bought it, about 2 1/2 hours away. I'm not complaining, though - our Renault came from Lyon, so Frederic had to drive it about 6 hours home.)

* 750 € is approximately $1050 at today's exchange rate.

No comments: