Driving

The driving in Germany is a little scary. The roads are very narrow (often on the country roads there is no centre line drawn on the road), cars drive fast, and people park on the sidewalk or where ever else they feel like.

We bought a little used manual car a month after we arrived. I can drive a manual but it's been a long time since I've had to. The first time I drove a manual was helping my dad with fencing and I could barely see over the steering wheel of his truck. Anyway. So the first time here I had to drive the car I was a little nervous. After dropping Levi off at work I had to drive to a neighboring town to a dr.s appointment. I killed the car twice before even getting off base. Everyone drives so fast I just panicked and accidently put the car in 3rd gear instead of first (it sticks going into 1st sometimes) and killed it in a roundabout. Eventually I made it off base and to the hospital with not many other errors (except I drove about 40 km/h the whole way).

That was about 4 weeks ago. Today driving home I felt like I had been driving our little manual for forever. Sometimes you have to remember that there is a (re)learning curve to just about anything in life and it's okay to drive ridiculously slow or accidentally kill the car in a roundabout. These things happen.