Bill has gotten awesome at driving a stick shift. When we left he had driven his brother Joe’s manual car only a handful of times, but apparently trial by fire has been working pretty well for him. Driving has been working out pretty well for us for the most part, but it’s had it’s share of drawbacks. As a side note, driving on the Autobahn is cool but not that cool. The car can only go about 200 km/h which is about 130 mph, and we never made it above 170 or so, so even when you gun it you can’t go that fast, especially when accomodating the other slower drivers.
As I was saying (writing?), driving does have it’s drawbacks. The worst of these is arriving in a strange foreign city and attempting to find a hotel via crappy google directions. Besides having trouble finding streets or even highways, for that matter, there’s the issue of obeying the traffic laws and navigating the car through narrow one-way streets (or equally narrow two-way streets). It is stressful and annoying. However, when we set out from one city to the next, the trouble is far outweighed by the excitement of getting on the freeway and seeing whatever terrain is around, going at our own pace, listening to our music loud, and having a small oasis in a foreign place.
I think we’re doing pretty good with gas. Our car takes diesel, and while I couldn’t tell you how many litres and kilometers, I can tell you that it costs about $100 to fill the tank, and with that we can go almost 600 miles. It’s been a while since I drove in the states, but I think that’s pretty good.
So that’s it. Just a little note on the driving situation. All in all it’s a great thing, and I’m glad we have our little European Peugeot as our third traveller.
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