Cars and duststorms

I okay, I'm several days late than I had promised... Something came up at the dealership where they needed to do maintenance work on my car before they could give me the keys - "Patience pays off" so I waited till Tuesday.

And so, on Tuesday arvo after work I headed out to Chatswood to the Mercedes Benz dealership. This was the very last time I would drive the MPV. So the stats are as follows:
Car: Mazda MPV
Year: 1993
Years in family: Early 2000 to Mid-late 2009
Final kms driven: 311,536
Condition: It's had its time.
I gave my final goodbye and headed up the lift to the main lobby. MPV, You will be missed.

I sat down with the sales guy and signed my name on so many bloody documents that my wrist hurt. After all that signing, I grabbed my belongings and hopped into my new car. He gave me another 'tour' of the car; the 'ins' and 'outs', maintenance hatches, where to top up wiper fluid, etc. I signed a few more documents and finally was given the green light to go.

The drive was much like the test drive - Very easy and familiar. Not too many driving differences in terms of passenger comfort but actual driving of course was very different compared to a 7 seater family vehicle.

I drove out to 'Mando centre' and parked over at the Westfield parking complex for a few spins around and about the near empty parking floor and took a few shots too:

Above: YAY!!!!! (Plate blotted out for obvious reasons)

Above: First park was a 'sucess'....

I then met up with my mum at Mando Centre and had dinner there as she had to head to Killara for something and my dad would be joining her. Then they would come home together, negating the need for me to hang around. So we drove out of the parking lot into... rain.
Anyway, I dropped her at a nearby station and let her make the rest of the trip...... since I didn't have a street directory with me at the time.
I got back home and started to intensely go through the manual, tips, tricks, etc and just trying to get familiar with the car's function, buttons, whizbangs and do-hickys, etcetcetc.

Top & Bottom: First night in garage

So onto today...
This morning my phone rang at 0550hrs while I was sound asleep. It was my dad who gave me a dire weather warning - A massive duststorm was sweeping across Sydney and covered much of NSW. I dragged myself out of bed and began shutting all the windows around the house and when I looked out the window...WHOA - The entire sky was just a big brown. It was like being in a sandstorm but without sand. I could only make out street signs across the road - barely. It was so incredibly thick and windy that it was difficult to close the windows without getting a mouthful of dust it the process.
I rinsed out the dusty taste out of my mouth and went back to sleep, hoping that it would clear up by the time I woke up. NOT.

I woke to find that the sky was still a strong orange/brown and my room was awkwardly darkened during that time of morning. I ran through my morning routine, dropped the newspapers at my grandmother's, prepared myself for the day and left - All with a brown backdrop.

As a 'first' drive for the Fortwo, it was useful to have foglights installed. I arrived at work and throughout the day I watched my Fortwo gradually go from a strong shade of black to a light shade of brown. It looked as if someone had literally thrown a can of family sized Milo over my car.

In the distance: 'Fortwo: Lightly browned edition'

After work, I headed to me mate's house in my lightly browned Fortwo, picked him up and drove back to my place where we swapped around some anime he wanted to watch and some I neeeded the last few eps of. Dropped him back home, picked up my mum from the station. End of day 2 for the Fortwo.

All in all, these last 2 days have been pretty exciting and very strange. Other than that, I'm very excited about finally driving a Smart car - A 9 year wait since it was first introduced into the Aussieland and finally it is in my hands.

Moral of story: Patience pays off.