The Autobahn

As a kid I would hear a lot about the Autobahn in Germany, the road with no speed limits. For a long time I thought it was one special stretch of road. I didn't realize it was actually just the name for the highway system in Germany. I certainly didn't imagine I would be driving on the autobahn almost every day. And yet, here I am.

Last week I decided to make the plunge and switch German classes from the class I had been taking downtown to one much closer to where we live. The stress of taking David on the train 45+ minutes both ways on the train 3 times a week, plus switching trains and waiting for 5-20 minutes each time on the crowded platform was just getting to be too much for me. It was a hard decision because I'm having to repeat a whole bunch of the material (a whole book actually) now that I've switched classes, but still I think it's worth it. Alone, I find riding the subway to be about 5x more relaxing than driving. However, with a (sometimes very grumpy) two year old in tow, I find driving to be at least 5x more relaxing! It's so nice to just be able to buckle him in and then more or less not worry about him the rest of the way home. He can't hurt or offend anyone, and he's unlikely to get hurt himself.

Now that I've switched courses, I drive to my course 3 times a week. It only takes about 15-20 minutes to get there, and it's a really easy drive. So far I really enjoy driving in Germany. The first day I drove further than supermarket, I noticed a few differences/adjustments I needed to make. I was honked at 3 times in my first half hour of driving around, and since have not been honked at once. Most of the honking was due to impatience. Now that I know that, I try to be skippier with my merging and turning, and I haven't had any more problems.

The drive to my German class doesn't include any "no speed limit" zones. But I have driven north and pretty quickly you're in one of those areas. I still only drive about 120-130 km's an hour. I've just never been very comfortable driving super fast. I do find it a bit odd when I'm going 130 km/hr (so like 80 miles/hour) in the middle lane and people are zipping past in the left lane going way, way faster. Not like one person either, everyone in that lane. That's not something I've experienced in the US!

I still haven't taken a picture of the car, but I have a good excuse. They've closed all the parking on our road, and we're having to park on a different block, so it's just not very easy to step out and snap a picture. Typically when I'm taking the car somewhere my arms are loaded full of things/children, I've just walked a few blocks carrying said things/children, and I'm just trying to get everything into the car as quickly as possible. So photos are not really the first thing on my mind. However, I still plan to try and get one as soon as possible ;-)