Driving Skills

We rented a car here in Spain.  A friend who has been here before assured us that it was a necessity.  Although not a necessity, it certainly subtracted 2 hours of travel for C & H to and from their Spanish classes.  I became the official chauffeur, making 2 round trip excursions along the coast (about 20 km each way) each weekday.

I learned some new rules of the road, have gotten a little bit bolder about entering traffic from merging lanes, managed to drive on streets without the help of passengers, park in amazingly conservative spots, and get the car spattered with muddy beach sand.  With extra insurance purchased, I'm hoping I will escape unscathed.  Additionally, the standard shifting has been a factor.  I think there has been one of the entire 10 days that I can say I haven't stalled.

My most recent accomplishment was parking in front of our "villa" in a spot where many cars have used the sidewalk for two tires. (Four tiny spots are designated for our quad-plex villa.) The street where I usually park is exactly 3 mid-sized cars wide with zero tolerance. When I announced my intentions of parking there (there have been only a few times there was a free spot and out of 3 attempts I had been successful once before), H volunteered to get out and... save his neck "help".  However, all passengers remained, and with only one backing up, and a clearance of 1 inch from the curb, I squeezed our VW Golf into the spot, and squeezed myself out of my driver side door.  There was at least the distance of 2 side mirrors between me and the next car!

The picture isn't at all as exciting as the "performance".