Storms, wind and driving a Smart car

   Last night we had one heck of a thunder storm. We woke up to a howling (literally) wind. And it was COLD. Seemed like a good day to relax and read and talk--all warm, inside activities!

    I did have to go pick up my rental car. I had rented the "city car", which according to the Maggiore website, was a Panda. Fred and Deb have a Panda. I really wanted to drive a Panda! Pandas are cute, cuddly and black and white.

Fred's cute white and black Panda

Pandas are just so darn cute!

    But when we got to the car rental, they said all they had was a Smart car. I'm sure you've seen these cars around--you know, the cars that look a bit like a mola-those fish that look like they got their bodies caught in a car door and chopped off their tail ends?

Mola-sometimes called the giant sunfish. More mutant than cute.

Smart car-sometimes called the giant rollerskate.



 

    The lady at Maggiore asked if it was okay for me to drive an “automatico”. She was using the term loosely-sure, the Smart car has no clutch, but I had to push the shift forward to shift up, and pull the shift down to downshift. This isn’t as easy as it sounds—after years of conditioning driving a standard shift, you shift up for first, and DOWN for second. So I kept shifting into first and then instead of pushing the shift forward to go into second, I would pull it down and downshift. The Smart car didn’t like this much—the engine would whine, and the little arrow on the dashboard display would frantically flash UP! UP! UP!

Smart car gear shift. Note that the key is directly below the gearshift too.

      My other Smart car observation was that I felt like a very small bug next to the semi I had to pass on the autostrada. Wish me luck as we venture out tomorrow in our Smart car to explore more of Italia. Pray that I don’t get smashed by any Italian semis.

    Below are some pictures of Fred and Deb’s house and surroundings. I'm not putting captions on because Blogger is being weird and removing the pictures when I try to caption them. Maybe I can do it later.



The last is the view from my bedroom window. :)