Cultural Learning 101 cont'd...

>>La Voiture

The other day we ventured out in the Peugeot (stay tuned for a little internet contest regarding this) to accomplish three tasks: get stamps, visit an open market, and pick up the days order of bread. Not too difficult of tasks... but remember this is cultural learning 101, what seems easy often is thrawt with challenge.

We jump in the Peugeot (first learning that you must pull the choke to start the car - I haven't done this since the old riding lawn mower... but okay!) and begin our journey. The car is stick, which isn't a problem for me; but the road rules are quite a different story. We head down the hill for the first obstacle... the one car blind tunnel pass where you must beep the horn in the daylight and flick your headlights in the evening.

Second cultural challenge: Just because it's a car... does not mean that it operates the same way as the one I have at home!

So I stop to bang on the steering wheel, which is the only place I know for a horn, and it's not there. So I bang and hit everywhere else within reach. While I'm doing a mad search for the horn, someone else pulls up behind me and starts blowing their horn. Before this person blows their horn to death, I located my horn on the end of one of the controls by the steer column and blow it. I'm pretty sure the other car's incessant horn blowing covered us, I wanted to be legal!

I think that I have located all of the important controls now! I discovered most of them while searching for the horn.