DRIVING NUTS
Is driving to the nearest city so exiting for you that you feel yourself a hero? For me the answer is "yes." A trip to Baltimore that occurred just a few weekends ago I esteem as one of the biggest achievements in my life, on a level with a getting a degree from the university and giving birth to my son. I learned to drive a car for the first time in my thirties, when I came to the US. In my native country, Russia, driving a car is not a matter of surviving as it is here. Public transportation - buses, trains, street cars, metro in the big cities - supplies the needs of society. Most consider having a private car not critical for the average Russian family. Living in a suburb, I found myself without the possibility to move around freely. This was a good reason to start learning a driving as soon as possible. So I went to a driving school where I spent time among American teenagers, listening to a teacher with a lot of attention, mostly because of my less than perfect English. Then I read a driver's manual carefully like the Bible, keeping my English-Russian dictionary aside. Passing a written exam at the local MVA was not very challenging except a few questions when they rephrased questions from the book and I was confused a bit. But I was successful anyway. What an embarrassment to be my age and still do not have full driver's license, I realized when the cashiers, officers, sales-persons kept asking me maniacally one question, "May I look at your ID?" Handing my permit to them I was met by wry glances, "Hmmm, does she look so bad being young or is she a foreigner?" But the due date finally came and, after a successfully passing the test, I've got my license. Little by little I explored the area where my family lives, making my circles wider and wider until that time, when a tangent line touched the Baltimore beltway. "I am driving through downtown Baltimore", only slight thought appeared in my head when I saw M&T Bank Stadium glooming behind the skyscrapers. "I drove to Baltimore today!" later I said proudly to my family when they, alarmed, met me with a question about where the hell I've been lost for the last few hours. Not a big deal, you may say and I agree. Philadelphia - that is a destination. I'm going there next weekend.