Live Video Games

Two of my classmates pretending to push the car out of the way of our van!

Riding in any vehicle feels like a video game! There are absolutely no rules. The lines on the road (when there are lines) mean nothing. There are about 3 stop lights in this entire city, and stopping when they are red is apparently optional. As is driving the right way down one-way streets. The scariest thing is that humans, horses and donkeys pulling carts, cars, mini-buses (vans) and trams all share the same spaces. There are sidewalks, but they are fair game for businesses and usually blocked by chairs, tables, and vendor's carts. One afternoon, my classmates and I set out for Monteza, a popular beach. We hired the school's driver to take us. When he parked the car at the entrance to the beach, we noticed that the cars had been parked in (one row in front of another row...) and no keys had been collected. When we returned to the car, sure enough, another car was sitting in front of it. "How are we going to get the van out?" we asked. The attendents indicated that they were going to push the other car (apparently they don't use parking breaks here, and all cars are manual transmissions) out of the way... We, of course, got a huge kick out of this and two attendance proceeded to push the other car out of our way, and then roll it into our spot when we were out!