Another Laugh at My Expense

We are home! Our 'Austria Christmas trip' evolved to include Switzerland, Liechtenstein, a drive through Germany, Austria, Slovakia, a very short drive into Hungary, Slovenia and Italy. whew! I should be posting pictures from our trip, but since I took so many it will take me a while to sort through them and upload, and I thought you could all appreciate just one more laugh at my expense in the meanwhile. This happened on Friday the 19th before we left, but I was too busy to post it until now.

After being really homesick and crying on and off most of the day on Thursday, I thought I was doing better on Friday. I was cruising through the morning, I made it to school on time, even early. I snagged a great parking spot, which is quite rare. Sometimes you have to pull up on the sidewalks here or park down the road, it's totally crazy. I dropped the kids off in their respective schools and pulled out of my envious space. It was even surprisingly easy, the car next to me gave me more than an inch on the side I needed to turn. It was the last day of school before the holiday break and I was expectantly anticipating our trip to Austria.

I was going down the hill and had to turn left. The oncoming traffic was jammed because they were all trying to get into parking spots at the school uphill. The traffic finally had a break and I looked and they were all starting to go, so I turned, expecting the guy opposite of me to go, but instead he kind of inched backwards b/c of the hill, he didn't see me turning and I clipped into him!!! Yikes!!! nothing like wrecking in a foreign country!!

... in my panic, all I could think was 'Desole!' which is 'Sorry!'

The driver got out and looked at it and I thought 'oh, no', and so I kind of motioned that I'd follow him, thinking he was going to the school. Well, he didn't, and by the time I turned around to follow him, I lost him in town. I called Kevin on my cell, sort of panicking and told him what happened. 'Don't worry about it then,' he said, 'just go home'. Kevin is so laid back, but I was a bit worried about being a hit and run criminal when I clearly hit the other car in front of half of the school.

I finally found him in a parking place in our town center and he was already walking away from his car. So I quickly, but carefully - didn't want to crunch again - pulled in and jumped out. Thankfully he spoke a little English. Again I said my lame 'Desole!'. He said 'No problem, you barely left a little scratch on the bumper, it was already all marked up,' which I'm sure it was.

You see, as a result of living here where the parking spots are tiny and everyone drives terrible and the roads are ridiculous is that all the cars are all dinged up. So a little bumper scratch wasn't even worth his time! I started crying (duh, stupid American) and profusely thanked him. He asked how long I've lived here. 3 months. He said 'Welcome to France, and Joyeux Noel!'

So that was my first crash. Left a ding on the bottom of Piper's door on the van, but you can hardly see it for all the other scrapes all over our van. I'm SO glad we bought old pre-beat-up vehicles. Kevin backed into someone on the mountains the other day so I wasn't the first to add our marks at least!

Maybe I should add to my list of favorite things that accidents are no big deal here, rather common in fact. In the US that would have been an hour wasted calling the cops, trading insurance cards, etc. But here you just shrug it off and move on, don't obsess so much about the look of your cars, and live with the scrapes, scratches and dents.

Just another little vignette of my life in France. And yes, I laughed about it all day, it totally curbed my homesickness pity party of the previous day. There are going to be times I need to grieve for the loss of being back in the US - for the friends I have left behind and all of the experiences that will happen while I'm not there and that I will experience without anyone of significance to share with. But, I will also have to pull up the bootstraps and get on with life. And laugh at myself and my inability to navigate here - socially, emotionally and even physically. Thank you Lord for the humility and help me to slow down (literally) and listen and learn.