Vroom vroom (more like buzz buzz)!

As I mentioned before, Novartis graciously provided Johanna and me with a car to share.  It is a Ford Fiesta and it is a fun little car to drive.

• Top left and middle: Outside pictures of the car.  I don't really know why I covered the license, but they do that on TV and TV is smarter than me, so I follow TV blindly.


• Bottom left, bottom right, and middle right: Proof that Johanna and I can both drive a stick (manual transmission), because the car is in fact a stick.  I learned how to drive a stick in undergrad because my friend had a stick and because I don't drink and was the only sober person around...I drove.  I knew how a stick worked more or less, but I could not have drawn you a diagram (like I could with an engine) and even though I am a chemical engineer, and as AN engineer this upset me.  Naturally I headed over to howstuffworks.com and found the following article on manual transmission.  I love the internet!
  
  
  
  • Also note how dirty the floor is! Completely unacceptable in Germany where of course zey take good care of zer cars.  Time to break out the vacuum.
  
  
  
  


• Bottom middle left: Check out the sweet push button start.  The keys never leave my pocket.  The car unlocks when I walk up and gets mad if I leave the car without shutting the door (like when I ran into my apartment real quick and left Jo in the car, it beeped at her).  It also gets mad if we start moving before putting seat belts on.  Loud noises!


• Bottom middle right: I forgot to write the engine's sweet stats, though I did snap a quick photo.  The car buzzes like a bee and as I said is quite fun to drive.  I'll do a little more digging the next time I am in the car and update this post.
  
  
  
  • Update!  The car has a 1.25 L engine that produces a whopping 82 bhp which lists 0-60mph in 13.3s.
  
  
  
  

As a side note to reinforce the sunlight at all hours of the day thing, these photos were taken at 9 PM.