February 21st, 2016
We had our first car issue this past week. Our Honda started making an intermittent scratchy/grinding/squeaky sound on Tuesday morning as I was driving E to school. Hubby got a recommendation of a mechanic near E’s school that worked on Hondas and spoke English. On Wednesday morning, I took the car in.
I’m not a fan of dealing with car issues and was nervous about having to explain car sounds to a German mechanic. Its awkward in my own culture! After describing what I was hearing, the owner of the shop had one of his mechanics take a test drive with me. Of course, the car barely made the sound that I had heard so loudly minutes before. Classic! Thankfully, he told us to make an appointment for the following morning to drop off the car. He would try to figure out what was going on. I asked him if he thought the car was safe to drive. He said, “I hope so.” Great…
Before I left the shop, I asked if they had a shuttle service. They did not. Since we are a one car family, I wasn’t quite sure how to get home but told them I would try to figure something out and left. Once home, I asked my friend Amy if she could give me a ride. However, that afternoon, their car broke down! We heard there was a bus option but had a difficult time figuring it out. Later, hubby was told by a German national that the mechanic should be able to call a taxi. It was our only option at the time and I was hoping it would work. That evening, the car was making so much noise that it confirmed there was definitely something wrong.
Thursday morning, I attached E’s little red bus pass to his backpack. We had applied for this bus pass as a backup option if we ever needed it. All children who ride the buses are required to have one. Since I wasn’t sure if I would get the car back before school got out, E and I went through bus protocol and how many stops he needed to count before he would arrive in our village. I was told the bus driver would be a German national and may/may not speak English. He would not be alerting kids as to when they needed to exit the bus. However, since I would be at the bus stop, I reassured E that I would not let the bus leave with him. With our plan in place, I dropped E off at school and then drove over to the mechanic.
As I waited in line to drop off the car, the owner came over to me. He informed me that the mechanic would drive back to our house with us, return the car to the shop and then come and get us once the car was fixed. I didn’t even have a chance to ask him about calling a taxi and he had a plan! I was grateful and relieved. The same mechanic I took the test drive with the day before met us outside. I formally introduced myself. His name was Ralph. He spoke English allowing us to chat a bit on the way to the house. Lil S made him laugh.
By early afternoon, we learned our car would need another day in the shop. I contacted E’s teacher confirming his need to ride the bus home. Since I had always picked him up from school, I had sent her a message that morning to explain our car situation and tentative bus plan. She messaged me after she got him on the bus. Besides the fact that E was starving when he got off the bus, he was pretty excited about getting to ride it.
Later, the boys and I were outside playing on our driveway when hubby walked up to the house. He had taken the train home from work. I’m so grateful that we live in a place where we can use public transportation. There are definitely tradeoffs but its helpful to have options.
The following morning, we were out of the house much earlier than our norm in order to get E back to the bus stop. I wore our German safety vest as we walked in the darkness of the early morning. Thankfully, another woman was also walking to a nearby bus stop so we weren’t alone. As we walked through our village, we also passed a few others. The bus arrived several minutes early which left a couple of boys chasing it down the street when it pulled away from the stop.
Our car was ready that afternoon.The culprit was a rusted ball joint. Ralph came back and picked S and I up at the house. I was about 27 Euros short to pay our bill in cash and offered to pay the rest on my credit card. The owner told me to bring the remaining balance on Monday. He said I was a nice person. I thought the same of him! Here’s our bill of service in German and our old ball joint that Ralph sent us home with.
We navigated our first car issue, learned the school bus system and found a good mechanic in the process. Phew! I was honestly intimidated about figuring this all out on the front end with the various new experiences included. By God’s grace, it all worked out. And, now I know what makes “THAT” sound. =)
