My Maiden Voyage

Today was my first solo flight in the White Citroën. Prior to coming here, I was accustomed to my bright blue little Beetle (une coccinelle, en français), with its lovely, easy-to-drive, automatic transmission. Luckily, I got some lessons before I left on how to work a stick shift. But driving here is a lot different than it is back home, basically for four reasons:

A. Roundabouts (aka rotaries): Apparently the French really like their rond-points because they are everywhere! I discovered that they are especially tricky when one has no idea of the surrounding area. On the plus side however, there is a considerably less amount of stoplights, which makes driving quicker.

B. It’s Europe, so the streets are narrow. That’s what makes them look so charming. But it also makes knowing who has la priorité (the right-of-way) a requirement at all times, because if two cars are on the same street, passing in opposite directions, one of them has to stop in order for both to eventually get by. It would be almost impossible to drive a big SUV here.

C. Windy/curvaceous roads: Any sort of pre-planned arrangement of grids just doesn’t exist. It calls for a considerable amount of defensive driving, because oncoming or neighboring cars can’t be seen until the very last snake bend.

D. And last but not least, the hills: being located in a valley between the Jura mountains and the Swiss Alps, it’s pretty mountainous terrain around here. Which means that starting up from first gear on an incline is a frequent occurrence, usually necessitating the use of the hand brake; or at least I can expect to roll back a bit before picking up speed, and I wouldn’t ever want to roll back into the car behind me!

My first time driving—I don’t think I’ll ever forget it—it was so overwhelming! My host mom S was in the passenger seat, serving as the driving instructor, and I have to say she did an excellent job of staying calm. If I were her, I would have been pretty scared for my life! In my defense, we were heading home from Geneva, so I was driving on some fairly intense autoroutes.

So every night last week, either S or D took me out for a little tour of the area to practice shifting. It’s funny because we were switching between French and English, so many a time I find myself trying to conjugate a verb in my head while keeping my eyes on the road (which trust me is harder than it sounds, in midst of a conversation and a driving maneuver).

But now I feel I’m starting to get the hang of it, and apparently S does too, or at least she trusted me enough to go to the supermarket all alone today, with a shopping list of the food items we need: some fruits and veggies, a few cartons of milk, and of course, some brie cheese.

Thank goodness I have no dramas, problems, or funny anecdotes to report back—everything was fine. But I don’t want to jinx myself now, because I’m still learning. It’s nice though that it's starting to come naturally. It's even approaching the point of being “fun” now, when the engine kicks in just right and I get a nice zip of acceleration.

And after driving around here for a year, it’s going to make Framtown in my Buggy a piece of cake in comparison.


The White Thunder Slice