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Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 11:01 am Post subject: Ophelia goes to America:the driving test.
I wonder whether anybody would be interested in learning about funny things which happened to me during my year in California (1991, not 2007).
First I have to explain about the two rites of passage into adulthood in France: the Baccalauréat and the driving test.
The Baccalauréat is the final exam you take at the end of high school. You are tested in at least 8 subjects with 4 hour papers for each of them, and then if you pass you have automatic access to university, no further selection. That's the easy one, and the taxpayer is happy to foot the bill.
The driving test I found much more stressful, as the examiners' standards were impossibly high and all learning has to be done in an official school with high tariffs (this was before the British system of being allowed to learn with your parents in the family car -- if the parents could live through the ordreal-- was introduced).
The sad truth is I had to take the driving test three times - this was a personal disaster, the only time I had ever had to take a test again, and my father's patience was wearing thin as he was footing the bill.
One of the reasons I failed was that I was told I was driving too slowly in town -- they made sure the test took place in the most tricky parts of town with narrow streets everywhere and traffic coming from all directions, etc...
Anyway, many years after I had officially been initiated into adulthood, I decided to go on a teacher's exchange programme in the US.
The Ministry of Education organized meetings before we left, and I learnt that I would have to take my driving test again. I knew that this is what Americans did when they moved to another state, but to me the prospect was ominous.
Once in California, I bought a car, drove around happily for two months, postponed the test for as long as I possibly could, but I needed the licence for insurance purposes, and also shop assistants demanded to see my Californian driving licence everytime I wanted to buy something, and life was becoming difficult.
A European friend of mine took pity on me , explained it was really easy, and for starters offered to take me to the spot where the driving tests took place in San Diego. Oh, so this was known to all and sundry? Indeed, it was.
Seeing the place was a great comfort. It was a residential area in San Diego, with very wide streets and no traffic-- I wondered how many people ever failed-- but it was becoming clear that failing people was not the point.
Then I took the written part of the exam: it was in a large building with a nice lady in a cubicle at the entrance. Her only question was in which language I wished to take the test. I said in English, got my MCQ, and was invited to sit wherever I liked.
I started the test and noticed that people around the room were openly using the answer book -- in the language of their choice probably--
in France it had felt like the people watching you taking the test were policemen in plain clothing, and nobody would have dreamt of cheating anyway.
Then I went back to the nice lady, who told me my results were wonderful and I had only one mistake (*I'll write about it below as this is also an interesting point). She smiled, and things were definitely looking good.
A few days later, I drove in my Toyota to pick up my driving examiner at the appointed place.
He handed me a form which informed would-be holders of a Californian driving licence that it was really unnecessary to chat with the examiner as this was not a social occasion (I can tell you no such forms are necessary in France, just surviving half an hour with them being silent is enough of an ordeal).
We went to the nice official place, and the equivalent of a manoeuvre in France (parking in an impossibly small place for example, not being allowed to try again if first attempt as not satisfactory) was... a U-turn in one of these wide empty streets -- I suppose one has to make allowances for people taking the test in a Limousine if that's the only car they own.
I kept wondering if something tricky was coming next, but next was just taking the examiner back to he center, and being complimented on my driving skills.
I would definetly be interested in hearing about your American assimilation.
Close friends of ours originally came from England, and we spent many happy hours exclaiming over the differences in our countries.
Just how different our homes were was suprising - they didn't have top cupboards in the kitchen, no deep freezers for extra meat, tiny washing machine and dryer in the kitchen.
And they talked about when they rented, having to pay for electric, telephone, and television with coins in a slot instead of being billed monthly. Oh, and being paid weekly rather than biweekly.
And no travel mugs - no drive-thru coffee places. People just didn't drink coffee in their cars.
OK - Whilst Chris O'Connor is testing his drum....
Jales.....my in-laws took a holiday in Vancouver - flying over by themselves when they were in their mid-eighties.
They drove us mad when they came back - full of enthusiasm. My father in law said Vancouver was always so TIDY. He never saw anyone cutting the grass - but it didn't seem to grow any more than an Axminster carpet.
If you bought an ice cream - you got a serviette.......
They went to vist our friends, Keith and Janet who married in 1964 like us, then immediately emigrated to Canada.
Everything in Janet's kitchen was behind doors - washing machine, fridge, freezer, dishwasher - everything behind polished doors - like a Victorian drawing room. My kitchen is like......well, I can't tell you - a mix of French Provincial and old Lancashire Scullery.......farmhouse with old solid fuel central heating stove.....I love it...but well.....it isn't tidy and it isn't always very clean even. I have to have the stove because that's where the cat lives....and that is where we kick our wellies....to dry off the mud.
Still, when Janet and Keith came over to the UK and visited us.....they said, they thought we were missing certain refinements and utilities...but they were missing....something too.....
