Sweet, Sweet Ride.

2001 Suburban.

It's Saudi tough and we like it.

We laugh about the trucker lights on top. It's for when we get buried in the sand people will know where we are.

I wish we had the before picture of it. It use to have black pinstripe down the sides, but the guy we bought it from surprised me and took them off because he knew I wasn't a fan. We also had the windows tinted. It looks great now and I'm pleasantly surprised and really happy about our new ride.

There are no bells and whistles inside, but it's in pretty good condition. We feel safe in it and bought it from a trust worthy man who specializes in finding cars for expats on camp. He came highly recommended and we now know why. We told him what we were looking for and this was the first car he showed us. We bought it that night. It wasn't what we really wanted, but it's what we could pay cash for and feel good about. He then did ALL of the paperwork for us and dropped the car off a few days later with everything in hand, and a few added bonuses. No pinstripe and tinting.

First tank of gas, SAR 53 which translations to $14.13. There's a perk to living in an Oil country and working for them too.

It's a hard decision when you get here. Buy new- you know the history of the car but it's pricey and there's no real financing. You also have to get some one to help you in the first place. Most times as a Westerner they don't acknowledge you at the dealerships. Or you can buy Used- but you never really know the history, so it's tricky to find a reliable car. The good cars from other expats sell quickly, most often to another expat months before the person really needs to sell it. And we find that some people here try very hard to take advantage of the new expats (like us) and will ultimately take you for a ride (we almost had this happen on a BMW Z5).

So given all of this, we feel blessed about the Suburban. Just like the things that had lined up to make it possible for us to come here, I feel like this car also lined up just in time for us. There is a reason we are here.