Something always happens...

So if you know me well (this is Michael typing), you may be familiar with my history of travel mishaps and misadventures. You might know about the hurricane I was in (alone), the narrowly missing a flight home from Greece, and the cross-border hitchhike on an 18-wheeler. This time, things were supposed to be different—I'm traveling with Samantha, we stay in actual accomadations, and take our time getting around. So we decided to rent a car for our sidetrip to the Loire Valley. A sensible idea, since there are three traveling and we want to reach out-of-the-way places. So I went online and booked a car for the three days. Wanting to save money, I chose the cheapest option available—a three-door stick-shift hatchback that gets like 100km/gallon. Only one problem: I don't drive stick. (Actually, I owned a manual Civic a few years ago for four days before it got totaled, not my fault and a completely different story.)

Somehow, I figured it would all come back to me, and... it didn't. Here's what happened: After getting the keys, we went across the street where our car was parked. There was a taxi parked behind me, so we needed to back up—except I couldn't figure out how. People were coming by wanting to take our space, but I had to wave them off. And all this in the middle of Paris. Finally, I noticed a car waiting to take our spot, and guess who it was? A driving school car, with the student behind the wheel and the teacher in the passenger seat! I waved him over and explained our problem in English. He got out of his car ( a VW Golf just like ours!) and showed me the tricky way to engage reverse. All was well—almost. I kept stalling over and over trying to leave the parking spot, and finally we broke free and entered mid-day Paris traffic. Right away the GPS led us to one of those traffic circles (%^#$@%!!!) where we went around and around looking for the exit—and almost got smashed between a 911 and another VW. Yikes. Thankfully, we finally made it onto the highway and towards our destination. Five hours and countless traffic circles later I think I've got a handle on French traffic—for now anyway.

Check out the vid below, courtesy of my laughing bro Johnnie.


Michael