SOLD!

They say that the two happiest days in a man's life are when he buys a boat and when he sells it. The same can be said of my owning a car while living abroad.  It is now time to move on and I need to sell the car.  I tell myself that I will never buy a car overseas again because I can do without this hassle when packing up to leave... but I know I will.  Owning a car has been well worth it in the fact that it has provided me with the freedom to travel to places I could not have got to without it.
Now that I appear to have found a buyer for the car, I find that I have mixed feelings.  This car has taken me places I never dreamed I would go. In it my family was able to explore Bulgaria and Greece on the weekends.

It has driven us through snow, up mountains, to family and onto ferries.  It has taken us to 13 different countries, some for less than a day, and covering five in one long day.  It carried us and friends to ski resorts, beaches, islands and dream-like natural parks.
I can't say it never let us down, or that I never wished I hadn't bought the car.  The mechanical problems turned out to be easily fixed with a new part, and although I was inconvenienced at the time, I was never in danger.  The car got me through Albania twice without a scratch.  I can't even get it into my garage without a nick or scrape.
Parking can be a problem, and twice I wished I had traveled to Vienna by another mode of transport.  But I forgot all my "driving in a foreign city woes" the next day when I was able to continue on through the Alps, stopping at the

site of a concentration camp and finding an inexpensive chalet in the hills outside Salzburg.  And although I could have visited the salt mines and 'Eagles Nest' by bus tour, it wouldn't have been the same adventure.  When you drive you plan your own route, stop at those unexpected places on the way, and stay as long as you want. An extra day in beautiful Bled? I'll stop in downtown Ljubljana if I can find parking.  And if in doubt, we will just pull over on the side of the road and work out what to do next.

One of difficulties I just can't explain is the fact that I have a problem selling my car when it is time to move.  In my mind I imagine a host of new recruits eagerly on their way abroad, who can't wait to get out and explore the place by car.  But I offer my car to the expat community and no one is interested.  It cost too much, and owning a car is a hassle.  Driving in a strange city can be dangerous or overwhelming.  But if they only knew what they could do... who wouldn't want to drive through a tunnel and cross over into another country inside the mountain?

Who wouldn't want to take a Greek car ferry to explore an island? Who wouldn't want to follow a GPS coordinate to an abandoned ruin with no signs? Who wouldn't want to drive through the forgotten beauty of Bosnia just to get home? Who wouldn't want to share the road with sheep and goats once in a while? Who wouldn't want to arrive in Budapest by driving in across the Danube at night?  Who wouldn't want an Albanian car-wash? Who wouldn't want to be able to say, "I'm driving down to Greece for the weekend"?
I'm sold on owning a car in the Balkans.