Today I went to the grocery store. Our grocery store is built on top of the parking lot, so after you pull into the parking lot, you go into the store and take the "travelator" (escaltor) up to the grocery area. The only thing downstairs is the ATM, some coined kiddie rides, and a sort of kiosk where you can get your picture (or kids pictures, etc) taken. When I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed several young men wearing bright yellow safety vests and they had rolling carts of what looked like cleaning supplies. After I got out of my car, one of these young men approached me and asked me if I wanted my car washed. He probably saw me pull up in my Passat (which I have found out over here is considered a luxury car - ???) and thought to himself, "An here comes zee reech American!" He said for 15 euro he would wash it, but for 35 euro he would do a "valet" job and wash, wax and clean the wheels and also vacumn the inside seats and floors and clean the inside windows and dash. And actually he told me 38 euro but then he said, "For you today, eet will be only tirty-five euro. Eet eez special price." (prounciation added). He was French by the way. So I thought, "Why not? I haven't had this car washed or vacumned in the year and a half that we've been here. (I know, gross.) The scary thing was, I had to hand him the keys to my car and then he would drive it over somewhere and wash and valet it and bring it back. It was supposed to take 45 minutes. That was a little scary, and if he had been the only one there doing that, I probably would have said no. He said to me, "I am very good driver, I have license and drive very careful." So I handed over my keys and went in to shop. Forty-five minutes later I came back down and could not see my car anywhere. I was watching another guy washing a car that looked like mine, but when I started to walk closer, saw that it wasn't. As I was watching the other car being washed, I marveled at how little water he used. He hardly even had any water on the pavement under the car. I finally decided that they must be using some kind of car cleaner that you don't need to rinse off. I watched him wash the car thoroughly and then he just sort of used a squeegee to get the water off, then dried it with a rag. As I walked over there (this had been after about 15 minutes) another guy approached me and said, "Miss? Eet will be one minute." So I went back over to where I had been standing, and sure enough, about a minute later here came my nice and shiny clean car. There is another shopping center I go to quite often. When you first enter the parking lot (not covered) you see a guy who washes cars there in a section that is far from the stores and quite vacant. I've felt sorry for this guy all winter, because he is there everyday washing cars in the freezing weather. I've never seen a full-service car wash here, like the Octopus Car Wash in my town in the States. There is an automated one at a gas station in our town here, but that is all I've seen, besides these guys working in parking lots. Maybe I'll trade cars with my husband tomorrow and bring his Golf back. :0)
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