Meeting Our New Car

Monday morning, Volvo picked us up and took us over the Volvo Factory. This place is huge! We were greeted warmly, took care of paper work and then the lady asked if "we were ready for her to deliver our car?" Heck yeah!!

Here we are, the proud new owners of a titanium grey V50 wagon (with red Swedish plates that we can keep on the car).

Even though Jacob got to drive it most of the time in Europe, we know whose car it really is:)

Our car got its first rainbath early on. It rained most of that day in Sweden and while we drove it through Denmark and Germany. But let me tell you, the rain sensing wipers are very cool, they automatically go to the speed needed to take care of the rain on the windshield.

At the factory they took us on a Safety Tour, highlighting Volvo's hightech safety features. Here is Jacob playing a video game...each time he sees the moose he is supposed to brake as fast as he can...then his reaction time is compared to how fast the Volvo safety features would kick in in this situation.

Then we drove our brand new baby 600 miles-down the coast of Sweden and across this 10 mile bridge into Denmark. Then we went through Denmark and into Germany...and here's where it got fun (or at least for the speed freak one of us). In Germany, we drove on the Autobahn. Jacob rather enjoyed cruising along at 115 mph (110 mph on average for one part of the trip), keeping pace with the German drivers in their Mercedes, Audi's and BMW's. It actually doesn't feel like you're going as fast as you are because everyone is very considerate and stays in the right lane unless they're passing. Another interesting sight we saw was many people going on camping trips, pulling their camping trailers with all types of cars. We saw absolutely no full-size trucks on the road anywhere (and only 2 smaller trucks). People use their cars to do everything they want...who needs to use all of that gas anyway.