November 28, 2003
Cobblestones only look nice...
Tonight I once again took my life in my hands and drove in Prague.
This is truly not an activity for the faint of heart. Besides incomprehensible road markings, labyrinthine one-way streets, and some of the worst drivers in Europe, I was also driving very late at night, in quite a bit of fog, and in my friend's held-together-with-wishes-and-baling-wire British car (i.e. steering wheel on the right side, gear shift on the left hand, and did I mention there's no power steering?). But a good friend of mine was coming in from London at midnight, and I couldn't just abandon him to the rapacious taxi drivers waiting outside the terminal for prey, or leave him to the interminable windings of the night trams to get home, which would have turned a 20-minute-drive into a two-hour trip.
After almost going the wrong way down a few streets, and getting lost only three or four times — while desperately trying to find a right turn on one main street, I ended up forced onto a stretch of highway that took me a mile south of where I needed to be — I finally made it out to the airport at midnight, when his plane landed. One of his bags (well, a box of tea, of all things) had gotten lost, so he had to spend a bit of time dealing with the lost luggage people, and we finally hit the road again around 12:40 am. Naturally, even though we followed the signs that said "Centrum" ("Downtown"), we ended up driving out towards the Czech countryside (and once you get past the airport, you're really in the country — no suburban sprawl here, I can tell you), completely in the wrong direction and without the benefit of streetlights, either. After 5-10 minutes we found a gas station, thankfully, where we stocked up on Texas BBQ and Sour Cream 'n' Onion Pringles and turned around to head home.
Amazingly, once we were back in the right direction and in parts of town that I actually knew, I didn't get lost once: Evropská to Milady Horákové, through the Letenský Tunel, across Čechův Most, down Revolučni, across Hybernská to Seifertova, a right on Italská, a few more blocks to Vinohradská, round the corner, and voila! home again, home again, jiggity-jig.
I'm kind of impressed with myself, I have to say. I mean, I've now driven more-or-less successfully in Prague — I've always gotten where I wanted to go, even if it took me a few tries to find it — four times now. I think I've practically gone native.
Posted by wildsoda at November 28, 2003 12:41 PMI'm impressed. Wait, you're from New York. I'm still impressed, though. Coming from a small town, driving in big cities has always scared me. Especially big foreign cities. I managed to live in Tokyo for 5 years and not drive once. I can finally sort of manage Vienna, after 15 years. Not sure how Austrian drivers compare to Czechs. The Czech drivers I encounter in Austria seem very polite and safe compared to your average Austrian, but maybe they're the exception. Or car thieves being careful not to draw the attention of the police...
Posted by: mig at November 28, 2003 07:05 PMWell...I like a challenge. :-)
Tokyo, though? Wow. I don't think I'd try driving in Tokyo. Actually, I still have never driven on the left side of the road — I think that would rather freak me out. But I'll probably try it sooner or later.
Posted by: wildsoda at November 29, 2003 02:53 AMI tried it in Ireland, out in the West, so there wasn't exactly a ton of traffic. Going straight was okay, but intersections were tough. It was also very hard to get used to shifting with my left hand, and I found the traffic circles harrowing.
Posted by: mig at November 29, 2003 06:37 PMYeah, I think I'd have to keep repeating, "Stay left, stay left, stay left" everytime I needed to make a turn, and fight the feeling of fear of oncoming traffic. The left-handed gearshift wasn't too bad, although I did hit the wrong gear every now and then.
What I thought was funny the first time I drove my friend's car was that I kept turning on the wipers everytime I meant to put on a turn signal. After about four times I finally remembered it was on my right hand now.
Posted by: wildsoda at November 29, 2003 08:19 PMI've avoided driving in my new home city (Bamako, Mali) as much as possible. Most streets are unpaved and deeply pitted with large potholes, and everywhere is swarming with hard-to-see mopeds. But like you, I recently had to take make a late-night airport run. Also like you, I got a little lost on the way home, passing by the football stadium (huge crowds on the streets outside couldn't afford admission to the big game, just wanted to be within earshot) and driving through one of the markets.
Thankfully the market was closed. I wasn't so lucky the following day, when I was forced into another market by one-way streets. It was like four-wheeling/off-roading in a compact Toyota. At five miles per hour. Through crowds of people. In 95-degree heat. Did I mention there's no power steering -- or air conditioning?
But driving on the left? Oy. I really don't think I could do it.
Posted by: robin at December 3, 2003 06:32 PM