My Car is dead... long live my car!

one week ago today my trusty 2002 Toyota Camry had a messy run-in with another car... and then that car had a less-messy run in with a third car. Point of the story is, my brakes went out in the rain and as a result my car was so smashed up that they declared it to be totaled. So now I'm going to have to get a new car, which is kind of scary because I've never picked out my own car before, and kind of exciting for the same reason.
I wanted something a little more fun/sporty while still being fairly practical, but not boring. Which is hard to do and almost a contradiction. I don't like SUVs because I was once in an extremely low-speed rollover accident involving one. Plus they take a crapload of gas and they're hard to park. No convertibles because they're heavier than a regular car and not as fast or safe. No red cars because I think they're vulgar (except I think red saab hatchbacks are cute for some reason). I wanted something that I could drive and have fun in for a long time, including being able to put 1-2 children in it because within the timeframe that I own this car I'll probably have that many.
Enter the Audi A3. It's something between a hatchback and a wagon, you can drive it like a racecar but it still gets almost 35mpg on the highway.

I took a 1.5 hour lunch today from Family Medicine clinic to go test-drive one. It was fun and pretty and it made me feel fun and pretty. Ethan's going to go look at it tomorrow because he is much more knowledgeable about the subtleties of cars than I am... and if he thinks it looks okay then hopefully I'll be able to get into the car by the end of the week! I'll admit, the no-frills Chevy Cobalt that I'm currently borrowing from Enterprise is not so hot.