Driving

We have two cars that we're driving here: a rented Peugeot that's the size of a small station wagon, and a smaller Peugeot that we bought used from a British man. Jennifer's company has ordered a Citroen for us to use the years that we're here, so as soon as that comes, we'll turn in the rental car.

Jennifer has driven in France a number of times now, since she drove every time she came here for a business trip. As a result, she tends not to get flustered by the roads and the unique driving situations that you find here. Here's an example of a unique driving situation. When we were staying in the hotel our first week in France, workers started to repave the road that went past the hotel. The road is divided by a median strip down the middle. The first day the workers tore up one half of the road, so it was possible for both sides of traffic to take turns driving on the other side. On the second day the workers tore up the other side of the road, but drivers could then use the first side. On the third day, however, the workers had torn up both sides of the road, rendering it completely unusable. That was the only road that led in and out of the hotel. When Jennifer left the hotel to go to work that day, she was confused about what she was supposed to do. Apparently the workers motioned to her to get on the sidewalk, so she drove down the sidewalk for about a third of a mile until she reached another road. This is one reason why the French have small cars. There's no way an Explorer or an Expedition would have fit on that sidewalk.

Two characteristics of the roads here are different from all the places I've driven in the States. First of all, some roads are amazingly narrow. They barely seem wide enough for one car, and yet they're meant for traffic that goes in both directions. Secondly, there are about a million roundabouts. If you drive for a mile, you'll probably cross three roundabouts.

I, unlike Jennifer, sometimes feel flustered when I drive here. Part of it is that I have no idea where things are yet, so I have to rely completely on the GPS. The other day the girls and I set out to buy groceries at a big grocery store in another town about 20 minutes from our house. I followed the directions of the GPS, like usual. At one point she (we've been calling her "Tammy") told me to take a sharp right turn in a little village. I stopped the car and looked at the road she wanted me to go down. It was the narrowest road I had seen yet. Still, I knew that French roads are often narrow, and I trusted Tammy. I started down the road, which went down a very steep hill and was surrounded on both sides by thick trees. If another car comes toward me, I thought, we're going to crash, because there's no room to pull aside. After driving down the hill quite a distance, I came to a dead stop. There were two metal posts in the road blocking any further descent. The girls and I realized that this was, in fact, a bike path.

I had a moment of extreme panic. I now had to either back the car up a very steep hill in order to get back on the main road, or I had to leave the car in the bike path and go get help in the little village. I was too embarrassed to have any French person see that I was dumb enough to drive down a bike path, so I started backing up. At one point the car hit a low stone wall that jutted into the road. Oh great, I thought, now I've blown a tire. It was okay, though--the bump didn't seem to hurt the car. The girls helped direct me as I drove backward and upward. (The road wound around a lot of blind corners, which didn't make things easier.) Finally we made it to the top. My heart didn't stop racing for about half an hour after the incident occurred.