Philly Driving

We really adore Philadelphia. There are so many things about it that make us extraordinarily happy, such as Boathouse Row, Reading Terminal, Scannicchio's, etc. Philly driving, however, tends to make me want to stick a fork in my ear and pulverize my left brain, the part that is rational and wants people to drive in straight lines and not stop in the middle of a single-lane road and use turn signals. For instance, here are some things that have happened in the last, I am not even kidding you, 12 hours.

• This morning, as I was leaving for work, this man was pulling out of a parking spot in my lot. Now granted, it was a kind of tight spot, but presumably, if he's parked there, he must do it relatively regularly (considering it's a private lot). But he decided to turn slightly to get around the brick wall...very very very slowly. But okay, the brick wall is kind of intimidating, so all right, take your time. But then he stopped. In front of the gate. And didn't do anything. And continued to stand still. Not moving. For FIVE MINUTES. He just stood there! In case I wasn't clear, he continued to sit in his car unmovingly and not exiting through the gate. And then when I opened the gate from behind him since he wasn't, and he inched forward to the gate (was he scared of it?) and then nosed his hood through and then stood there again. Even though there was NO ONCOMING TRAFFIC. AHHHGG.




• Yesterday, I was driving home from West Philly down South Street and I got to the 15th block (the same one where a guy rear-ended me and we got to witness a heroin addict jump on random cars and lie down in the middle of the road, and where, in a separate incident, a guy tried to climb into my car and started beating my windows when I wouldn't let him...but that's a subject for another post) and there was not one or two or three or four but FIVE buses parked in the middle of this single-lane road completely stopped with a random white blinky light on top. Mind you, this was not in the middle of the day for a potential school trip, but rather at ten-thirty at night. What were they doing there? No idea. How do people get through there? They don't.

• Each day, I take Lincoln Drive to work. It's a super curvy and beautiful road that goes through parts of Fairmount Park. The cars in the morning tend to drive between 25 to 40 miles over the speed limit since it's a 25 zone and they drive it each and every day. There are also an abundance of blind turns so you really have no idea what's waiting for you around the bend. This morning it was a pair of geese just strolling along. The funniest part was that they didn't actually CROSS the road. Instead, they just hung out in the middle of it walking right along the white dividing line, going along their merry way. The best part was that it completely halted traffic as drivers waited for the geese to finish their morning promenade. It was rather cute.

Those are just the semi-unusual happenings - completely disregarding the normal throw-your-hazards-on-in-the-middle-of-the-street-and-leave-your-car-ness. (Which I was once encouraged to do. By a police officer.) It's going to be tough driving anywhere else - if I go on a trip, it's always so liberating to come back to Philly and feel like I speed and run blatantly red lights and park illegally again. :)