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November 23, 2003
The Italian Driving Experience (Part One)
One of the biggest cultural shocks a new arrival has to deal with when adjusting to life in Sicily is driving. It is such a different and overwhelming (okay, terrifying) experience for Americans that three hours have been devoted to discussing it in the base orientation we are all required to take.
The first thing you will notice is that their cars are about a third of the size of the average American car. I rented a car the day after I arrived to tide me over until my comfy minivan arrived (you can knock off that snickering right now!). I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when they brought out my rental. It literally looked like a clown car. But true to clown cars, I was able to fit two large carseats, three boys and a great deal of luggage into it and still be able to drive (okay, so the rear of it was scraping the ground a bit). My sponsor had driven us around the day before and that morning, so I already knew that things were a bit different here. I felt like I was sixteen and learning to drive.
The towns here are old. Very old. Roman days old. The streets are narrow (guess they didn't anticipate cars huh?) and lined with two story stone/brick buildings which means that the streets can NEVER be widened. When I say narrow, I mean the average American would consider them a nice and roomy one way street. I looked all over to find the sign that showed which direction the traffic flow was, until I observed two way traffic! Oh, did I mention, that they also PARK on these streets? If you can't parallel park, put on your hiking boots. But fortunately for me, they park halfway up on the sidewalk (oh, did I forget to mention that one side of the street generally includes a sidewalk?). I already knew how to do that. So, while I am doing my usual 50 point parallel park manuever, cars are whizzing by in both directions. And honking angrily. Which of course makes me park so much better.
I started to have a sinking feeling that I made a huge mistake bringing a minivan. But looking around, I saw plenty of city buses and other large vehicles managing just fine. My car arrived about six weeks after me and by then I was feeling pretty cocky about Italian driving. About a week after I started to drive my minivan here, I decided to go to an outdoor market nearby in a town called Caltigirone. This place is world famous for its fabulous ceramics (ceramiche). Well, I discovered that there ARE one way streets here in Sicily, I just didn't realize that was what the sign meant. So, narrowly missing turning down a one way street (thanks, nice man doing all those helpful arm gestures), I found myself going the correct way down a side street that was half a car larger than my van. And then it got narrower. With a pounding heart, I inched down this street about half a mile per hour. Which of course made the guy tailgating behind me really mad. About halfway in, I had to stop, pull in the side mirrors and have my passenger coach me (there were literally inches to spare). I am not a religious person but I began to pray at this point. "Please, oh please, oh please, I'll be good, I promise, oh please oh please" was at least a fifth of the litany. I managed to get to the stop sign at the end of it and breathed a huge sigh of relief. And then I pulled out the wrong way onto a one way street.
This is one of the main streets in the little town where we stayed when we first got here (Motta St. Anastasia).
Part two coming soon.
Posted by DebC at November 23, 2003 11:48 PM