78. The first car my boyfriend and I bought together.

I fell in love in that car ❤️ People said that we were "crazy" and maybe we were, but it's become one of our happiest memories together.

Mar 27, 2023

My boyfriend1 and I bought our first car together after having “been dating” for four months. In total it cost 1.000 euros plus an extra 100 for getting the paperwork done. For a pair of 18 year olds, this was pretty expensive. We were studying and living in rooms opposite each other in student dorms. It was far from a romantic place to live and our first car was also very far from being romantic. It was a Ford Fiesta 1996.

Six years later, that car is the love of our lives and we wish that we still had it. The car’s name was Forete. It was a blue-silverish colour, it had no A/C and no heating, you couldn’t plug an aux cable into the radio and it wasn’t very big. We actually looked like two Playmobil figurines from the outside. I bought a wireless speaker from Amazon to listen to music in the car and that’s what we used for all of the time we had it.

We crossed Spain (around 900 km) in our little Hot-Wheel countless times, but seriously, more than 20 times for sure. In summer we’d leave extremely early to miss as many hours of the sun as we could and in winter we’d freeze our asses off until we reached our destination and were able to actually get out of the car and warm up. I remember one winter being so cold that I was wrapped up in a blanket in the passenger seat shivering whilst C drove in a scarf and gloves. We’d -always- eat a tortilla de patata baguette on our way up and our snacks would include chocolate covered donuts, the green tube of Pringles and an excessive amount of water. We’d only ever stop for petrol and we’d always stop at the same petrol stations, creatures of habit.

We also developed a love for going to big department stores and buying CDs for the car. We absolutely burned Joey Badass’s AMERIKKKAN IDOL album. Our tiny glove compartment was full of our favourite albums. We’d take it in turns to choose what to listen to, my number one choice was Sam Smith and C’s was Joey Badass. Our common love were the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Our relationship really flourished thanks to Forete. We’d spend hours together in that car going on little trips. When we didn’t have to study for exams, after lunch C would open up Google Maps on my laptop and write down the directions on the back of his hand in Bic pen. He’d grab two hoodies, a bottle of water, either Pringles or something to dip in hummus and tell me we were going on an adventure. We used to call them las aventuras de Jesly. We’d go to beaches, reservoirs, forests, up mountains or to a viewing point opposite the airport’s runway to watch the planes take off and land. Our plans usually included talking about any topic under the sun for hours whilst snacking, watching the sun set and then returning to our rooms in the student dorms.

Tarifa, Cádiz - We ended up here by accident because we took the wrong exit on the motorway.

We really did get to visit some beautiful places together.

Forete was our escape. The car’s tank was so cheap to fill up with petrol we used to say it was like a lighter, it was a dream. We’d get in the car sometimes with the plan written on the back of C’s hand and other times without one. We’d always end up somewhere and it was usually somewhere pretty cool. My favourite trips took place in the north of Spain, where C was born. I’d never been to the north before and when he took me for the first time, I fell in love. We drove for 8 hours and I discovered a complete different side of my country. Everywhere you looked there were mountains covered in deep, dense, green trees. There were small, traditional, fairy tale type villages on the side of the road; and in winter it became even more beautiful because everything was covered in snow. We used to wish as hard as we could that when we’d get there, we’d find snow. If we were lucky, we’d put the snow chains on and drive up little forest trails. I really am amazed at how far we pushed that car and how it delivered every time without fault.

C loves teaching me how to do this kind of stuff.

I love the sound of snow crunching under the tyres.

We bought Forete when we were 18 years old and it was a big part of our lives until we were 21. Our relationship had just started when we bought it and it died on one of our trips coming back from the north of Spain, it came full circle in a way. When we called the scrapyard to come and pick it up we were sad but I don’t think we realised in that moment what a big part of our lives it had been. We went through major, major changes those years it was with us. We opened up our hearts slowly through long, deep conversations in that car, we cried together in that car, we laughed until we had stitches and we drove back from Portugal empty handed in that car. We sang “Money on my mind” and “Riptide” at the top of our lungs, we visited Ikea hundreds of times, we loaded it with our skis, we had dinner in it, we fell in love and we became best friends in that car.

Every scary step I took throughout those years always either started or ended with me sitting in the passenger seat and C next to me driving. It was our safe place and we could take that safe feeling anywhere we wanted to. Now that I’m writing this, I suppose that without us, there would be no special space at all.

I don’t need an expensive, modern or fast car to be happy. I need our “car music” playlists, to see C singing at the top of his lungs, a hoodie and the love of my life by my side.