Living in a hotel 25 minutes from base with 2 shuttles a day really cramps our style.  After some finagling, we were able to get the last car at the base by the airport to rent for a week (we’re hoping to buy a car in that week).  Mike was given the keys and told to find the littlest car in the parking lot, no joke. ha  Somehow, he managed to drive the manual transmission car back to base to pick up me and the kids.  After seeing him drive a stick and stalling 10 times, I took over.  Not sure what I was getting myself into, now I was the primary driver on the crazy Italian roads!

One of our life saving preparations was bringing our GPS preloaded with Italian maps.  Without it, I wouldn’t drive.  Road signs are hard to read because there are sometimes up to 10 pointing in different directions.  Even with the GPS, I’ve taken the wrong turn.   The kids, Mike and I and about 4 bags of groceries fit in our little car.  I’ve been honked at, cut off by cars that enter the highway going super slow (very short or little onramps), and literally screamed out loud when someone passed around me at cyberspeed.  Luckily, our car is tiny because many of the roads are tiny and only fit one car, but are considered two lane.

Lately, we’ve been house hunting and riding with realtors.  We’ve looked in one area that is half-way in between the kids’ school and Mike’s work.  It is more rural and more Italian. (i.e. no americans and zilch english) .  Today, our driving realtor hit the landlord’s new car as we left the first house, stalled in the middle of an intersection and hit the curb while driving 50 kph.  You should have seen Mike’s face, haha.  The other day, we went down a windy hilly street that had concrete walls 15 feet high on both sides that was 2-way but was about a total of 6 inches wider than our car on both sides.  Honking when coming upon corners seems to be key.

After a few days of driving, I’m starting to feel a little better with the car and traffic, but still have no idea on direction.  Thank God for GPS!  This is going to be crazy fun!