Pippa Goes to Cambridge

“The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say”
From The Fellowship of the Ring By J.R.R. Tolkien

Anni's friend from Germany came to visit her this weekend and, since Coventry isn't exactly a lovely or good representation of England, we decided to go to Cambridge.  At first we were going to take a bus and/or train. That option, however, would have taken at least three hours one way. Our next plan included renting a car - a manual,  which I (being over 25) would have to drive. This somehow transformed into borrowing Pippa - still with me driving.  

As some of you may remember I drove a British automatic to Scotland in February. It went surprisingly well.  With that under my belt I approached this new challenge with less apprehension. There was one major difference - Pippa is from Italy. As you may (or may not, I guess it isn't as obvious a fact as I think) know in Italy the drive on the correct side - in other words,  they drive on the right.  This was good in one sense because I do really know how good I'd be at shifting with my left hand.  On the other hand,  that meant I'd be driving on the wrong side, sitting on the right side (both figuratively). To say it a different way - I'd be driving on the left and sitting on the left.  I prepared myself for it to go horribly wrong. I did surprisingly well. At no point did I drive on the wrong side. You're impressed,  right? \

Once on the road I discovered that Pippa thinks that she is really an Italian race car - every time we took a roundabout she'd squeak her tires, even though I didn't go very fast. It felt great to be driving a manual again. I'd almost forgotten to feeling of being in complete control of a vehicle. Plus, Pippa kinda reminds me of Scoots, my first car, so I also felt sentimental.

Felipe acted as my navigator and it was funny because he, having come from Mexico, wasn't used to roundabouts either. So when the GPS would tell us to take 'the third exit' he'd say 'it's like a right turn.' Which made total sense to me but to the two Germans in the back seat it seemed ridiculous. Other than a few times of indecision on the part of my navigator we were a successful team.

Oh, and Cambridge was pretty and we got to hear the King's College Boys Choir, in case you were wondering how our day went.