Chris went shopping with Aidan to buy a car. In he end, Aidan bought a car, and Chris ended up borrowing his original car Mavis, as her part exchange value was likely to be negligable. Mavis is a 1994 Dodge Caravan, and she has a definite personality. Now that Chris has insured her, we have learnt a few things about car ownership in Saskatchewan.

The number plate on a car is registered to a person. Chris went in to insure Mavis. Insurance is state regulated, and the basic insurance is a standard, state regulated price. When you get a car, you have to register it in your name. This includes fully comprehensive insurance, with a $700 excess. Having registered the car, Chris was given a new number plate which has stickers on it showing when it (and the insurance) expires. So yesterday afternoon, Chris was outside unscrewing the existing number plate from Mavis, and putting on the new one.

You can't register a car in Saskatchewan unless you have a Saskatchewan issued drivers license. The person who bought Mavis didn't have a local license, so having bought Mavis, sold her to a friend for a dollar so he could get her insured. Another interesting fact is that it is only the first time that a car is registered in Saskatchewan that it gets inspected (MOT style). You can drive round in a rusty bucket of bolts with no brakes for years, just so long as it was originally inspected the very first time it was registered in the province. That could explain why there are so many cars going around that are falling apart here!

Now we just have to get used to driving an automatic, on the wrong side of the road, turning right on red lights in a city that only has one roundabout. Other than that, we are all set!