I have to make a confession
You may remember that I wrote about our car purchase about three months ago? I have to make a confession, until yesterday, I never sat on the driver's seat! It's not that I didn't have enough experience driving a car, or had many accidents that made me afraid to just do it, it's more circumstances and local traffic plus the bad road conditions that made me hesitative to do so.
We bought the car for kindergarten
The pandemic has made public transport so uncomfortable (mask wearing while bloody hot in the subway is an example), and it was also not advised to use public transport when not needed. Soon, home office was a normal thing, and this brought some bumps in our original plan regarding kindergarten. The idea was, to upgrade the choice of kindergarten, so that dad could take her when going to work and pick her up when finishing work. Meaning, the kindergarten was not nearby, but located near the office.
I adapted, brought her by public transport while dad stayed at home in the office working, and some days (when he needed to be there) he took her. It was ok, until they decided to have a 3 year construction period exactly on our route! The only option left was a crowded bus which made a detour as well, meaning 45 to 60 minutes one way at least, 15 to 20 minutes extra walk towards bus station on the way back home, and depending on the crowd, another 45 to 60 minutes bus.
You do the math!
This was not doable at all as it was half a day wasted on traveling. It was also exhausting, as I find traveling in public transport, packed like sardines, not fun at all. As soon as the pandemic appeared in a second wave, we asked for special leave until we could figure this out as I discovered this was a problem lasting for years. Thankfully, a few months ago, we bought a car, and I thought we could bring her back to kindergarten again.
Kindergarten and schools closed
They were now closing schools and kindergarten just days after we purchased our car! In the end, this was probably not the worst thing, because the car turned out to have some issues. This didn't help me getting in the driver seat at all. So I started to focus on homeschooling as I wanted to check that option for next year anyway and it would be good for the little lady.
Back to kindergarten 3 days a week
The decision was made a week ago, to send her to the kindergarten 3 days a week so that I can combine the homeschooling in English with those days. On top of that, it will finally give me back some valuable hours that I can spend productively compared to when she's at home. The most important reason is probably her interacting with other children.
Soon, I will have loads of time
This week, I could not arrange school meals anymore, so she could only go mornings. Next week, she can go back full days. Although traveling by car is saving at least 50% of the time compared to public transport, it's still quite long for only 3 hours at the kindergarten. But she's very happy she went yesterday, and all the kids were happy to see her according to the teacher. So even though currently, I'm on the clock to pick her up, next week, I will have so much more time to be efficient in what I want to do.
I'm happy that I started driving again
Yesterday, I was so stressed that I would soon need to drive the car again. This car is a station wagon and much bigger than my previous cars. On top of that, it's loud due to a leakage in the exhaust pipe. And it's more powerful than my previous cars as well. These reasons alone made me anxious to drive.
But the unknown traffic in a foreign country with roads that suck were probably the biggest issue. The last time I drove a car was about 5 years ago and this was not here. I made this driving thing much bigger in my head than it actually was.
My boyfriend had different concerns than I had
Where I was mostly worried to get into an accident due to unclear traffic directions, or suddenly changing driver lanes or idiotic behavior of other drivers, he had different concerns.
He didn't tell me until afterwards, but he thought I would probably not use the clutch properly and cause damage by not having that under control. He was wrong though, I managed that just fine. He was pleasantly surprised haha.
I still was a bit scared after 1 drive
So he decided to join me this morning on the route to kindergarten just for my confidence. While driving this morning, I felt that this was going to be fine and in an hour or so, I will pick her up alone. I'm so happy that I had to force myself to just do it, because it's giving me back so much freedom.
You won't believe how much easier it was going to the supermarket yesterday without a 5 year old complaining while I just want to make sure I don't forget anything of my list. What a joy to do that peacefully, lol. So from having a chauffeur for a few months, I'm now back to being my own driver, and I should make the best out of it, right?
Summer time, here we come!