Thursday.

Today I was supposed to go down to David and get the insurance for my car. Well, as with everything else Central American, it didn’t turn out like I planned. Only this time I was prepared for it and didn’t let it get to me.

It turns out there is a specific order you have to go do things here, and getting insurance is dead last. This now, is a little bit different than back home.

It seems you have to take the car to a place where they check to make sure that it isn’t stolen or something. They give you a paper.:|

Then you have to go get a mechanical inspection from a certified place, and they give you papers.:-/

Then you go get copies of all your papers>:(, including your passport and importation forms. Once you have that, you go to the place where you get your registration and they take all your papers, create a file for you, and give you a code #.

And then they give you some more papers. U-(

Ok, ok. From there you go to another place to get your plate, and then return to where you had your file created to get a registration sticker. That is if they don’t hassle you about not having insurance yet. If they hassle you, you have to get insurance first, and then go back.

Then you go to another paper and plate your paper…:>>

All this is necessary only because I have never had a car here before. It is like starting from scratch and seems a little backwards. To do all of this, you have to drive around without a plate on your vehicle, a registration sticker, or insurance. Basically, your nuts are on the windowsill until you get your insurance. And there is no other way to do it. Here, that is.

Ah, well. What can you do? This is the first year that they have made insurance mandatory, so I guess it will take a few people to get in accidents while they are doing all this to get the industry to smarten up.

In the meantime, it will cost me around 150 buks to get all this done, and today saw nothing accomplished for which I set out.

This doesn’t mean it was a bad day. I bounced around a few stores looking for this and that. I needed a new tire pump. My Crappy Tire one gave up the ghost, and I got some CD’s to burn and some cases to put them in. Got caught in my first rainstorm with drops the size of nickles. Sat out by the pool and caught some early morning rays. Practiced my Spanish with Luce (said Lucy), who works here, and otherwise enjoyed the day.

Sorry, no pictures. It wasn’t a picture sort of day, but if you could have heard the sound of the rain coming down on the roof when you were inside the building… you couldn’t be heard above it.

Hmmm… I wonder how tomorrow will turn out.