Before we were able to head off to visit all the wonderful places around the US there were a few housekeeping things that we needed to get sorted. Firstly we needed to purchase a car.  We decided that while we were in America, we would drive around in an American vehicle.  Hence, we settled on buying a Chevy Trailblazer, please feel free to visit the following website which shows you what a trail blazer is like.  www.chevrolet.com/trailblazer.

Like a lot of other things over here we came across a few snags whilst trying to purchase the vehicle. For some reason, in Virginia, if you don't have a social security number you are not allowed to register a vehicle and without the vehicle being registered the car dealers are not allowed to let you take the vehicle out of the show room.  So, after about 3 hours with the salesman, we finally managed to find a way to take the vehicle, on the proviso that I got my Virginian car license in the next week, which would enable us to by-pass the social security number in the computer system and allow us to register the vehicle. 

Snag number two - after agreeing to this, we went to get our car license we then found out that we needed a letter from the US State Department saying we were allowed to be in the country etc etc. So a day before the temporary registration expired and after lot of phone calls to the DMV we managed to get Carol a temporary number in the DMV system, which allowed us to register the vehicle. As for the drivers licenses, well that took a little longer than hoped, as that State Department letter proved difficult to get. We eventually got the letter and after four hours sitting at the DMV (nothing moves quickly here), a written test and a once around the block in our trusty Chevy we had our licenses.

The Trailblazer is a fantastic car. Though not the most economical machine for city driving, it is very comfortable for highway driving and has loads of space. This proved useful when picking up friends arriving on posting from the airport.