Snow parking zone

When I returned to Boston last week, I retrieved my car from the airport parking garage and made my way home. As expected, our building's parking lot was completely full and I had to search for a spot on the street to park. But since the Holiday Blizzard of 2010 had hit town, I realized there were fewer parking options than usual.

Instead, there were mountains of snow where cars used to be able to park and several vacant spots were coated with several inches of packed snow and ice. My little car is not exactly made for snow, and I am a thoroughly Californian driver, so I gingerly backed my car into a spot that seemed free.

Well, parallel parking in the snow is not a strength of mine, so I ended up leaving my car poking out into a driveway. Fortunately, it wasn't towed and i moved it to the parking lot the next morning.

But today, I realized that winter has just begun! And it's been so long since I drove to work that I didn't realize how mounds of snow had piled up on the sides of the route I take to work each day, rendering previous two-lane streets into 1.5-lane streets. So now, in addition to having to avoid the slick ice, I have to maneuver among Masshole drivers who honk at my grandma-inspired driving style.

And again, I was faced with fewer parking spots than usual this evening. Fortunately, I found a relatively close spot near my home, but the tires definitely started to slip as I backed her into the spot. This is going to be an interesting winter of commuting.

Soccer mom Panda!!!!

Something I detest about spending the holidays in the 'burbs is that I am without a vehicle. In a city, this is a relatively minor irritation, but in suburbia, it's akin to being a prisoner!

After meeting Wang and her family for breakfast, I promptly had to high-tail it home so my mom could take her car to an appointment while my dad was at the dentist with his car. Fortunately, my mother works within walking distance from the house, so I'll be able to use it most of the time, but when both parents need their vehicles, I have nothing better to do than work or watch the netflix I brought with me.

My mom, it should be said, drives the ultimate bougie suburban soccer mom car: a silver mercedes m class. Picture Annette Bening in American Beauty but with much less pent-up rage (Whatever happened to Mena Suvari, anyway?). So, here I am, trying to maneuver this gigantor car around town. It certainly handles differently than my little Ford Fusion, but fortunately the California roadways are made for SUVs, not horse-drawn carriages like Massachusetts.

Motorbike madness

On Day 3 of my visit to Ho Chi Minh City, I finally got the chance to leave the hotel. On today's agenda was a factory visit outside of the city, so a car picked me up to ensure that I got to the right place.

The streets of Ho Chi Minh are swarming with motorbikes. It's a pretty unbelievable sight - thousands of people on their bikes, zipping along, moving with or against the "flow" of traffic, weaving through each other and through any cars in the road and basically causing chaos.

At first, it's simply overwhelming, but soon you realize there's a certain rhythm to it. People aren't really aggressive drivers like in the states and there seems to be an unspoken rule about road etiquette. Even when the traffic lights are out (which is often, thanks to unstable electricity), people maneuver through intersections just fine, not really stopping for each other, but slowing down to make way for oncoming or turning traffic.

The only place I've visited that compares is Delhi, but there the density of motorbikes doesn't quite compare to what I've seen today. And where there are motorbikes in Delhi, they're usually loaded with entire families, which I haven't seen here in HCMC ... as much.

Segway sightseeing

Our original plan to visit Berlin was to do a segway tour of the city on Sunday, orient ourselves and return to those sights of which we wanted to see more. It would have been an excellenet plan, too, because Sunday was the day we had beautiful sunny weather, unlike today which has been the coldest, rainiest day since arriving.

Sadly, all the tours were booked on Sunday and yesterday promised to be the worst day weather-wise, so we reserved our spots on the segway tour for this morning. We arrived at Alexanderplatz this morning well in advance of the appointed time, treated ourselves to a Starbucks, then headed over to the office and met up with our tour. Our guide was a very energetic young man from Belgium and there were two other couples: an older one from England and another one of Hispanic heritage from Washington, DC.

We spent several minutes trying out the two-wheeled transporters, which was kind of intimidating and a bit more difficult than I imagined. The segway accelerates based upon how you distribute your weight, so leaning forward or backward can suddenly send your vehicle darting along. After sort of getting the hang of it, we were off!

We first stopped at the fountain in Alexanderplatz, where the British woman promptly fell off her vehicle, landing very gracefully on her back. I thought maybe that was a portent of things to come, but it was the only accident of the day. We buzzed along the Berlin streets, visiting Museum Island, several squares that had importance either due to Nazi activity or Cold War-era tensions, then quickly found ourselves at a cafe, in order to escape the freezing cold outside.

After warming our near-frozen digits, we took the obligatory photo at Checkpoint Charlie, saw a stretch of the Berlin Wall, zoomed along to Potsdamer Platz, visited Hitler's last-stand bunker, headed to the Brandenberg Gate, enjoyed a view of the Reichstag and dove into dangerous traffic. I had a near-miss with a bus that refused to yield the bus/bike lane to us, but fortunately had my wits about me and stayed to the side as it passed.

We viewed the TV Tower, then returned to the office, turned in our plastic ponchos and headed home. It was a fly-by view of the city, and I would highly recommend the activity on a warmer day. At the end of our tour, we all seemed pretty adept at navigating our segways, but we didn't really get a chance to take in any of the sights. And since we depart tomorrow, it means we have many reasons to return to Berlin!

Flash flood

Weather is scary! As I drove home from work yesterday, a huge crack of lightning illuminated the gray sky and opened up the clouds! Suddenly, a sheet of water was coming down and traffic slowed to a halt.

I had my windshield wipers on full and still struggled to see inches in front of me. It was like being in a car wash, only I had to navigate.

Huge puddles materialized from nowhere, cars failed to stay in their own lanes because they couldn't see the lane markers and it took me an additional 20 minutes to get home.

In San Francisco, I guess I never really had to deal with weather.

Farewell, Flora

On my way to work yesterday, I noticed that the "check engine" light was illuminated on my car. And after last week's fiasco with the tire, I figured it was time to think about a new car. And now was as good a time as any since I hadn't yet registered Flora the Explorer in Massachusetts yet - another fee, for sure.

Twelve years ago, after a long day of car shopping with my pops, I brought Flora home and committed to a snappy green Ford Explorer Sport. Later that summer, Flora joined me in Washington DC, where she basically sat in a garage for several years. She would take me to swim practice a few times a week, but otherwise, I didn't do much driving.

Four years later, Flora took me cross-country back to California in a three-day zip across America. And for two years, Flora took me to grad school every day as I pursued a more marketable degree.

Then for six years, Flora basically sat on the street, moving occasionally to avoid street cleaning tickets and taking me to my parents' house from time to time. In San Francisco, I really didn't need a car, but I kept Flora anyway.

So, it wasn't very surprising when folks at the car dealership were shocked at how low Flora's mileage was. Sadly, it didn't help much in increasing her value when I traded her in yesterday. Adios, trusty gal!

Vehicular me-slaughter

Oh, how I long for the days of a simpler, non-car commute! Even though San Francisco's muni underground system is possibly the worst public transport system in our galaxy, I prefer being shuttled around to having to drive myself places.

This morning, I got up bright and early to head to work. When I stepped into the parking lot, I saw that my car seemed ... slanted. Well folks, I had a flat tire! Thanks a lot, Boston roads! So, I called AAA and waited two hours for them to arrive and get the spare on, causing me to miss a conference call and get to work a good 2+ hours later than originally planned.

And since I have a California license, California plates and California insurance, I figured I had to get my butt to the DMV (Why it's called the "RMV" here is anyone's guess.), which meant leaving work more than an hour early and standing in a depressing room amongst the finest citizens Braintree, MA has to offer for 1.5 hours.

Finally, I surrendered my CA license and will be on my way to becoming a Masshole. Sad.