12th November 2011 - Life in the Colorado

Here are a few pictures of us in the Colorado "en-vrac"...

Wai Leng eating a nice ice-cream

Mila has just received her "lolettes" from grand-ma & grand-pa, yeah!!!

I don't know how do the Americans without a "Laura Star"...
A power transformer is mandatory too!!

Guess which one is our car???

Buying anything when you just arrived in the US is a real challenge. If you have not been here for at least 12 months and built what they call here a "credit score", then anything will be hard to get:

(1) A cellphone

(2) Internet connection @ home + TV

(3) A loan for a first car (IMPOSSIBLE!!!!!)

(4) A credit card (...only with a USD 5'000.- deposit)

(5) A loan for a second car (as long as -4- is ok, it "can" work...)

Well, when we arrived here everybody told us that it will be really easy to get a car loan and everything else for a true American dream...but since the 2008 crash (banks + real estate), they have learned a little and they are now taking no risks AT ALL!! So we had to buy our first car cash, give a few hundresd of dollars deposit for almost everything (cell phone, TV connection, Internet connection, utilities charges like gas / electricity and of course this was required for our credit card). T

he credit card is King (or queen) here in the states as it will help you to built your "credit history". The more you buy, the more you pay, the more "points" you get...the more reliable you are towards the bank...and the more money you can get... well, it is not too far from the reality!! 

As we got a secured-Visa card, we also could buy Wai Leng's car with a loan...AMAZING!!

Here is her very first-own-car ever:

Wai Leng's car (Mazda-2 - 2011)

to be continued in the next episode...