The Road to... Grand Bourg

On Sunday I accompanied my host family to a park, where there was a festival to celebrate the first day of Spring. There were loads of people, and we could barely find a place to park. Luckily, we found a nice police woman who told us to park in front of a line of cars. Slightly dubious, but eager to get to the park and enjoy the day, we did as we were told.

And enjoy the day we did. It was a huge park; the sun was pouring down and there were people everywhere. They laid out on blankets drinking mate while live cumbia music emanated from a large stage that had been set up for the occasion. I walked around with Manuel, my host brother, and before long he ran into some of his friends.

All was well until we got back to our car. As it turns out, we weren't the only ones who had decided to add to the line of cars; sure enough, someone had parked in front of us, so close that it looked like we would need a can opener to get out. However, I went to the Wold School of Driving in Wausau, WI, and my instructor, John Grass, was a master at parallel parking. So I sized up the situation and decided that I could indeed get us out of there. Sara handed me the keys, and I asked her and the kids to be my eyes so that I wouldn't nick the cars behind or in front of us.

Sure enough, little by little, I was able to free our little white Fiat hatchback from our parking space. Just I was beginning to feel triumphant, Sara and Manuel jumped in the car, saying 'Dale, dale!' (Go, go!). I looked in the mirror and immediately recognized what they were talking about: there was a brief break in the steady stream of traffic, and if we didn't leave now, we'd be stuck for another ten minutes.

So I threw the car into first gear and floored it, hoping that my manual transmission skills would come back to me as I ventured out into the crazy Buenos Aires traffic. And sure enough, they came flooding back as I swerved in and out of lanes--which is normal here--trying not to kill anyone (I'm not so sure how normal that is). But I soon got the hang of it, and managed to enjoy much of the sunny drive back to Grand Bourg. At one point, Katia (9), who until then had only seen me walking, observed with a tone of disbelief: 'Chris--you're driving!'

Yes I am, Katia. Yes I am.