adventures of an american housewife in the south of france

A Pony of Our Very Own

As I've been writing all these posts on our recent travels, I realized I haven't told you much about how we've been getting around.  Within a few months of moving to Montpellier, we  decided we wanted to look into the idea of buying a car.  There was so much to see that was right at our fingertips and we wanted more flexibility than the train could offer.  Plus, we love road trips.  You guys know that. We set our budget at a max €1,200 and started spreading the word.  We wanted to buy a car!  And hopefully before the holidays.  We didn't have high expectations of what we would find, any little shit-kicker would do as long as it would get us from one place to another.  Our very generous friends started looking on Le Bon Coin for us (basically, France's equivalent of Craigslist) and one day in October we encountered...
THE PONY

and she's all ours!

More specifically, a 1996 Hyundai Pony.  Isn't she a beaut?  She does not have power steering.  She does not have power windows or locks.  She does not even have airbags.  But you know what she does have?  A pop off CD player.  Who needs an iPod hook up anyway??  A €1,000 later (under our budget!!), she was all ours!  And she's fabulous!  I mean, yes, she's basically a 16-year old girl's car, but we love her.  They don't make colors like that anymore, I tell ya.  Her previous owner worked at a garage and kept her in tip-top shape.  The exterior is a little banged up, but the interior is clean and well maintained.  She had about 190K km on her and runs better than we could have hoped.  So far we've taken her Annecy, all over Italy, and to Barcelona without incident.  She's a keeper!

Happy Hub in his new wheels

And there's one other feature of The Pony that cemented our love for her.  She came with a mascot.

road warrior

This was almost like a sign.  Did you know that Michael loves the Powerpuff Girls?  As in, he owns the DVDs (don't ask).  When we saw Buttercup perched on the rear view mirror, we knew two things:  1) this was the car for us. and 2) she must remain up there until the end of time. So after she was registered and insured, we got ready for our first road trip to Annecy!  No road trip would be complete without a soundtrack, and since The Pony doesn't have an iPod hookup, we had to do it the old fashioned way.  The 1996 way.  With burned CDs.  So The Hub did what he does best, and made 4 mixes for The Pony from our music collection.  The mixes are made up of either songs about horses/ponies, or songs from albums that came out in 1996 - the year of The Pony's birth.  Thought I'd share them with you all.... MIX 1:  Pony Ride 1.  A Horse With No Name - America, America 2.  Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones, Forty Licks 3.  Dig A Pony - The Beatles, Let It Be 4.  Mine's Not A High Horse - The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow 5.  16 Horses - Soul Coughing, The X-Files: The Album 6.  Pony Ride - De La Soul, Stakes Is High 7.  Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony? - Ween, Chocolate And Cheese 8.  Judy And The Dream Of Horses - Belle & Sebastian, If You're Feeling Sinister 9.  Greta Ties Up Horses - Tea Leaf Green, Live at The Independent 10.  Horses - The Refreshments, The Bottle & Fresh Horses 11.  Rambling Pony - Fleetwood Mac, The Pious Bird Of Good Omen 69' 12. The Horse - Silent In The Morning - Phish, Rift 13.  Build Me Up Buttercup* - The Foundations, New Direction B-side *that one's for Buttercup, of course  MIX 2:  1996 - The Essentials 1.  People of the Sun - Rage Against The Machine, Evil Empire 2.  Wonderwall - Oasis, (What's The Story) Morning Glory? 3.  1979 - Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness-Twilight to Starlight 4.  Pawn Shop - Sublime, Sublime 5.  Hotwax - Beck, Odelay 6.  Soft Serve - Soul Coughing, Irresistible Bliss 7.  Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart - Stone Temple Pilots, Tiny Music...Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop 8.  Outtasite (Outta Mind) - Wilco, Being There (Disc 1) 9.  Good Friday - The Black Crowes, Three Snakes And One Charm 10.  Smile - Pearl Jam, No Code 11.  Big Me - Foo Fighters, Foo Fighters 12.  Sucked Out - Superdrag, Regretfully Yours 13.  No Other One - Weezer, Pinkerton 14.  Milk It - Nirvana, From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah [Live] 15.  Down In A Hole - Alice In Chains, MTV Unplugged 16.  All That I Need - Blind Melon, Nico MIX 3:  1996 - The Guilty Pleasures (this one is especially fun to listen to when you're so sick of driving you might fall asleep.  Singing along to all the words perks you right up!) 1.  Real Love - The Beatles, Anthology 2 2.  Hook - Blues Traveler, Four 3.  One Headlight - The Wallflowers, Bringing Down The Horse 4.  Shadowboxer - Fiona Apple, Tidal 5.  Don't Speak - No Doubt, Tragic Kingdom 6.  Counting Blue Cars - Dishwalla, Pet Your Friends 7.  Tripping Billies - Dave Matthews Band, Crash 8.  Who Will Save Your Soul - Jewel, Pieces of You 9.  Novocaine For The Soul - Eels, Beautiful Freak 10.  The Distance - CAKE, Fashion Nugget 11.  Dancing In The Grey - Citizen King, Count The Days 12.  6 Underground - Sneaker Pimps, Becoming X 13.  Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand - Primitive Radio Gods, Rocket 14.  Michael Jackson - Fatboy Slim, Better Living Through Chemistry 15.  Naked Eye - Luscious Jackson, Fever In Fever Out 16.  Jealousy - Natalie Merchant, Tigerlily 17.  Name - The Goo Goo Dolls, Greatest Hits, Vol. 1: The Singles MIX 4:  1996 - The Beats 1.  Zealots - The Fugees, The Score 2.  No Diggity - Blackstreet, Another Level 3.  California Love - Tupac Shakur, All Eyez on Me 4.  Snoop's Upside Ya Head - Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tha Doggfather 5.  Street Dreams - NaS, It Was Written 6.  Tha Crossroads - Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, E. 1999 Eternal 7.  The Numbers Song - DJ Shadow, Endtroducing..... 8.  Earth People - Dr. Octagon, Dr. Octagonecologyst 9.  Elevators (Me & You) - Outkast, ATLiens 10.  Yesh Yesh Ya'll - Redman, Muddy Waters 11.  Episodes - The Roots, Illadelph Halflife 12.  Peer Pressure - Mobb Deep, Juvenile Hell 13.  Mind Power - A Tribe Called Quest, Beats Rhymes & Life 14.  Sunshine - De La Soul, Stakes Is High We've been rocking these tunes pretty hard. We love you Pony ♥  

3 Responses to “A Pony of Our Very Own”

  1. Greer says:

    love this post! sounds like you have truly embraced this little car!

  2. Shannon says:

    As a passenger in the Pony, it doesn’t get any better than this!! So much leg room too! “Ride it, My Pony”

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