Notes on Vehicular Activity

Recently while driving my compact Honda Fit with a Sicilian friend in my passenger seat, I had to execute a [not-unusual] hair-raising merge from a full stop (the on-ramp was questionably if not specifically designed to prevent the usual moving acceleration-to-merge and instead tested drivers’ ability to simultaneously pray and discover the zero-to-sixty ability of their cars).   I waited for a window in the traffic zipping by (due to the variance of speeds driven, you can never quite tell if the window is sufficient, hence the praying), floored my gas pedal, and away we went.  My engine roared and I chuckled to myself at my little car’s short-man complex:  it seems to need to roar extraneously while increasing its speed at merely an acceptable pace.   My friend made an appreciative sound and said in all earnest (and thick Sicilian accent), “Ah nice.  Like Ferrari.” 

Uh yeah, sure…my Honda Fit is juuuust like a Ferrari, haha.   ;D

I had remarked in an earlier blog entry that driving here is a whole new experience, seemingly without rules.  And (before my Fit made its way across the ocean), while driving our European rental car, which was calibrated in kilometers per hour, I didn’t really know how fast I was ever going.  But now my car is here.  My lovely little Honda Fit was dwarfed by every other vehicle on the road in America, but here it is in constant peril of having its side mirrors decapitated.  Anyway, my car tells me how fast I’m going in miles per hour.  Turns out that the left lane of the autostrada (the interstate) travels at a flow between 90-100mph.  So that’s why driving seemed so slow during our visit to the States.  Ah, ahem, it also turns out that my darling Honda Fit isn’t nearly as fuel efficient while barreling at autostrada velocities…

I may have also previously mentioned that our neighborhood volcano, Mt. Etna, constantly Christians us with a light sprinkling of ash from its ever smoking summit.  Virginia folks, recall that one week during Spring when yellow pollen coats every outdoor surface and turns your car a putrid hue.  It’s like that all the time here.  Except not yellow, fortunately.  Everyone’s cars are in a constant state of that I-just-went-4-wheeling-on-a-dusty-country-road look.  Not many people have garages though (us included), so we’re all in it together, and I choose to think that the ash gives everything a quaint “antique” look.  Here’s the thing though – this dusty coating, it’s not dirt, it’s ash.  Our cars are relentlessly coated in microscopic rock shards.  So we have to be careful to thoroughly rinse the windshields before running the wipers or we’ll scratch the glass (hmm – “frosted” windshields; could be pretty, if dangerous).  And no one dares write “Wash Me” (or what have you) with their fingers on their friend’s cars, lest they scrape the words or images into the paint permanently.  Unless that’s what they’re going for.

Turns out my car’s gas tank holds about 35 liters.  Good to know. 

Vespas and scooters and motorbikes are everywhere here.  Talk about no rules of the road - those guys do whatever they want.  It’s insane.  To me.  There must be some code of conduct, but for the life of me, I can’t figure it out.  It’s got to be something the Italian’s are brought up to understand; something that as a foreigner, I’ll never fully catch on to.  So while I’ll occasionally let myself feel the thrill of the left autostrada lane, I’m going to go ahead and miss out on the European scooter experience.  I’ll take my Ferrari, er, Honda any day.