This Sunday I had one of my more humbling (non-language-related) experiences in Switzerland. Emilie took me to a local parking lot to teach me how to drive her car, which is a manual transmission, and I proceeded to fail in nearly every sense of the word.
Manual transmission cars are pretty much the norm in Europe, and people over here look at you like you're some sort of weirdo if you don’t know how to drive stick. (Is it my fault that the majority of cars in the U.S. are automatics and that’s what I happened to learn on?) As such, I decided that it was finally time to learn. Plus, I think Emilie is ready for a break in being the chauffeur.
I’m not sure that I could have done a worse job given the number of times that I stalled and grinded the gears. While there was pretty much no one in the area, those who on occasion happened to pass by definitely looked at me as if they were wondering what in the world was going on.
And though I did make some improvement over the course of the hour-long lesson, it’s clear that I’ve got a long way to go before I try to brave the roads of Switzerland (particularly given that I need to start paying more attention to the traffic rules).
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