Sunday, April 29, 2007

Driving sans toi.

Dear Darin,

I hope you're having a great time at "convention". Is there still snow on Mammoth Mountain?

I'm having a great weekend. Friday, I had dinner with some of the volunteers. The hostess has an amazing view. I'm sad to say that it tops ours. She can see the rooftops of downtown Annecy plus the Chateau on the hill plus the canal plus almost everything we see from our living room. Good food and good company. They seem to want to take care of me while you're away.

Yesterday, I DROVE TO LEIGH AND JOHN'S HOUSE ALL BY MYSELF!!! And the car is still in one piece. And I'm still alive. Am I thrilled about it? Maybe. L and J threw a wonderful (and huge...21 kids) birthday party for Jessica. She opened our gift before her friends arrived and wore the Hello Kitty bathing suit during most of the party. It was very cute. I got to practice a little French with the kiddies. It was fun to hear all these little bilingual kids running around. One of them approached me and proudly announced that she's from England. I told her where I was from, but she had no idea what and where the USA is. C'est dommage. I was pretty pooped after only maybe one hour into the party. How did I survive those days of being a camp counselor which was only a few summers ago?

The day ended with a nice BBQ dinner. Remember how hungover I was the last time we dined with them? I swore I wouldn't allow it to happen this time because I was driving home and I consider myself to be a renewed student driver. Once while I was away from the table and not guarding my wine glass, I came back and saw that it had refilled itself. Amazing. The drive back was pretty late in the evening so I was alone most of the drive. Remember that light in Annecy-Le-Vieux where I had to stop and couldn't get the car to start so I had you switch seats with me and drive the rest of the way home? This time it was red. Luckily, no one was waiting behind me so when I tried to start the car on the hill...I did it and without using the emergency brake. And it was easy. What was I so afraid of? I had a cheering section of one after I successfully did that. :)

Later on today, I'm going on a bike ride. I'm planning on the piste cyclable to be like the 405 freeway. Especially since today was the Annecy Marathon.

As I type this post, the church bells are ringing and I see a family sitting out on their balcony eating lunch and enjoying the gorgeous weather.

Talk to you soon. I miss you.

Love,
Emily

5 comments:

christine said...

Yay!! It sounds like you're getting the hang of it. Are you from one of those states where the permis is automatically granted? I was but it was bad in some ways because I learned everything from Seb and from studying signs hands on! I never actually studied anything in a book. I still haven't ever gotten the hang of driving in centre ville in Europe and I always get terrified if I don't know the 'ville and I'm forced to drive through it. I'm never sure until I'm right on top of a street if it's a one way and that always freaks me out...AHHHH BUS!!!

The Late Bloomer said...

I don't know if I'll ever be able to get my permis here, because just the idea of it freaks me out... And I think it's an amazing accomplishment to be able to drive in France! Given that I'm a nervous person anyway, and had a hard enough passing the easy-as-pie American driving test, I can only imagine how many times it would take me to pass here...

But I may very well be forced to do so one of these days if we actually move to la province, where I will have to be able to drive to get from Point A to Point B... We'll see! (I've only managed to get by without it up until now because I've been living in the région parisienne, and transportation here is really quite good.)

Congrats to you, Emily, for making your way around town so well! And such a sweet blog entry, I love it... It was nice reading about your weekend.

ashtanga en cevennes said...

Emily, what a sweet post. Congratulations on all the little achievements, all the little challenges met... Living in France has been like learning everything over again, and it's all that stuff and business of living which fills out our days and builds up our confidence.

Anonymous said...

Dear Emily,

We'd love you to list your expat blog on our new website, to help us build a great resource for all women living overseas.

Please take a look at our site at: www.ExpatWomen.com.

Thanks,

April.

P.S. Are you going "home" for good or for visit/vacation?

Unknown said...

Congrats! I hate driving in France. I'm always afraid that I'll miss one of those giveway to the right things. And I'm one of the lucky ones that got to swap my Australian driving license for a French one(still doesn't help me with the actual driving though!)