After a month of driving …

It has been about a month since I had Ash (can this be considered a mooniversary?)

For the first couple of weeks, I’ve been practising driving on the road with Cart next to me to give me advice. It feels kind of odd, and new and quite scary. Which I think was reflected a lot when Cart starts to shout ERRP ERRP ERRP! when he feels that I’m starting to go dangerously.

He sounds kind of like this 😛

Thankfully, he doesn’t do that anymore lately. Which means that I’m driving better. Yay! And that’s wonderful, because that sound really makes me feel even more stressed out.

I’ve even been going on my own for short distances in the neighbourhood. I feel really proud of myself. Yes, yes. It’s probably not a big deal as it seems that every Tom Dick and Harry (Maybe Tomasso, Ricardo and Aroldo in this context) are able to drive. But to be honest, prior to living in Italy, I never imagined that I’d be driving, much less own my own car. There just wasn’t a need to.

Anyway, recently a realisation dawned upon me when I suggested to Claire that we head to hydromania. (we didn’t go in the end, as I found out that I had to go for work training, rendering my coupons that I’ve valiantly collected, useless)

Anyone wants to go with me before the 20th July?!

To get there, it was a shorter path to use the highway rather than to use the residential road. I thought that I could make it, but Cart was worried and didn’t want me to go on the highway by myself for the first time.

And so, last weekend Cart and I went to the G.R.A highway. And I realised Cart’s concern. Oh gosh. It was really scary. Everyone were going really really fast. Like more than 100km/hr on average. As a new driver, I’m legally only allowed to go at 90km/hr at maximum. And since Ash isn’t new, the engine capacity isn’t powerful and acceleration is slow.

Oh! And another thing I noticed about Ash is that, it goes bumpy-bump and you could really feel the road when you go at higher speeds. But I think that’s an issue that city-cars seem to share.

So I felt quite nervous and sort of attacked when other cars start to go near me.

I think I’d prefer to avoid the highway as much as possible for now. Moreover it confuses me. Every sign looks practically the same to me. I’m completely confounded at where to exit! I think I just need to study the roads more. (Because, using GPS = Guna pun sesat)

To end, I’ll embed this really funny animation about driving in Italy

Sidenote : I still go out with Sam the Scooter. It’s just so much easier to find parking. Moreoever he’s cheaper in fuel consumption. Any way to save money