Italian Driving Lesson - an interesting cultural experience

We arrived at our first Couchsurfer in Italy feeling slightly nervous, not knowing what to expect. We met Alessandro our host, a hyperactive person who kept us on our toes. Never the less a really great guy who taught us a lot about Italian culture. The most useful thing we learnt was how to drive in Italy.

We were meeting his friends at night at some unknown destination. He hopped into the passenger side of the car (which would normally be the drivers side in Italy) and started to give Tony directions on where to go and how to drive.

While making phone calls he was telling Tony to "take a lefta and a righta", "go through these red lights" - "it's OK we're turning righta".... "just get in front of this car" ..... "go faster we need to keep up with that car" ....."it's OK"... "we need to get over there" ..... "Tony you have to be more aggressive" ... "no one will hit the car" - "it's OK don't worry Tony" !......Meanwhile Tony is having kittens and thinking oh SHIT!!! "Now Tony I want you to parka here" ....

"Where" says Tony "there is no where to park" ........

"just here next to this car" says Alessandro "along side this one".

So there we were being asked to park in a three lane highway, double parked while we go and have ice creams !!! "it's OK Tony!"

The funny thing was that while this all seemed so outrageous it actually help to understand the Italian culture of driving and so far it seems to work. However we don't quite drive like Alessandro.

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