Wuuuurst!!

As I mentioned earlier, I have my own car here. The only wrinkle, is that it has a manual transmission, and I'd only driven manual three times before today. Armin, sensing this, took me out for a proper drive today. It was sort of an ambush, because I thought I would just be practicing starting the car. (For those who don't know, the only aspect of driving stick that's actually difficult is getting the car up to about five miles an hour without putting yourself your passengers and the people behind you and in front of you in the hospital.) He took me to some empty road in the middle of nowhere, parked it on the sidewalk (apparently, you can do that in Germany for short periods of time without this happening), and we did a Chinese fire drill. He gave me the best lesson I've ever had in driving stick - get the car going without using the gas. Once you do that a few times, it's easier to get your shit together in terms of the interaction between the clutch and the gas.

Well, that was all well and good, except it pretty much went downhill from there (except literally). He took me out driving for over an hour; we probably went through half a dozen towns. Let me tell you, driving without glasses on in a foreign country in a manual transmission vehicle that you can barely drive is scarier than terrorism. It wasn't so bad for the most part; Armin only grabbed the Oh Shit Handle once. The worst, was when we were stopped on a slight grade. As expected, the car rolled backwards a bit before I got it going. I mentioned that that can be avoided by using the hand brake technique, but that's advanced. Well, I must have given him ideas, because he directed me straight to what must be one of the top ten steepest hills in Lower Saxony. I made the right onto the street, and Armin told me to stop the car and pull over to the right. Good, I thought, he's going to take over and drive us home. Then he tells me to start the car. I was pretty sure that we would end up calling AAA's german counterpart, but I actually pulled it off well. I'm certain that that was due to beginner's luck, and he probably was too; pleased as he was, he didn't ask for a repeat performance.

I should probably explain who these people are. Angela and Armin are the wife and husband in my host family. I'm distantly related to Angela through my mom's mom... whatever. Armin has the two businesses I mentioned, and Angela is a hair stylist; I think she used to have a salon. They have three kids - Lou-Ann (12), Joshua (9, I think) and Emilie (18 months?). Emily's awesome, she's like, my hero. She's a Wurstkind; whenever we're eating one of our stereotypical German meals, she demands "Wuuuuuursht!!" in the cutest way imaginable. Today, she was playing with some Play-Doh, and I joined her. She would hold out the cap of one of the playdoh containers for me to take, but when I reached out to take it, she would snatch her arm back. It was brilliant; she's going to be involved in the space program or something.

Armin and I are planning a trip to Prague, because Czech is awesome (the country and the language); we both hate flying and want to take the camper. The camper affords a ton of freedom; for instance, if we want to stay an extra day, no problem. Our only expense would be gas (and diesel at that); don't have to worry about a hotel or any of that nonsense. Personally, if we end up doing this, one of the first things I want to do is drive to the nearest bookstore and spend about ten thousand dollars. (And the Czech currency, I'm told, is quite weak, so I could buy a hell of a lot of books.) Czech is the next language I want to learn and having lots of books would be an invaluable resource. I'm going to buy a few books here as well, but just two or three. That is, once I find an ATM. Anyway, time to go find a camp ground outside of Prague.