Learning how to drive

Like many other people, on last new year's eve thought about my new year's resolutions and one of them was to learn how to drive.

The first attempts

My first time trying to do it was around the end of January-beginning of February. My boyfriend took me to a car park that is empty on the weekends, although it was very far from where we live it was the perfect place to start.

I don't think I had ever seen my boyfriend so angry and frustrated before, and every time I drive he gets like that or worse so the next step was to hire a driving instructor.

My first driving instructor

He looked nice at the beginning, the first lesson he was patient, nice and funny, he could even speak Spanish since he lived for some time in Spain, so I decided to pay him for the first batch of ten lessons... not the best decision...

He changed, all of a sudden one day he picked me up and he was red and sweating, I asked him if there was something wrong, he said he was fine, but ohhh he wasn't, he was very angry for some reason, so I thought every one gets angry at times so I decided to be understanding and take it as a: drive under pressure practice.

The problem is that it kept happening, I was getting shout at and given out to by a neurotic angry man that I barely knew, it was scary to be in such a small enclosed space with a guy that looked like he was going to start beating me up, but I was stuck with him for ten lessons, of course as soon as the lessons were over I hired a new driving instructor.

Second driving instructor

This one seemed like he was done for the job, never got nervous or scared or even worried, never angry, we could be in the worse situation, stuck in the middle of the street blocking traffic of tree streets full of angry drivers beeping, and he was calm and relax, taking his time to explain to me what I had to do to get out of that mess I had just got my self into.

The problem with him was that I did not like his driving technique, the way to start moving the car that he taught me was using only the clutch and no gas at all, of course I had very little margin of error and kept cutting out very often, also the way for turning the wheel he taught me did not suit me at all. I tried to talk him into letting me use another technique but he insisted his was best and would not let me change it... time to change driving instructor...

Third driving instructor

I had seen driving by my house this driving school car that was a red mini Cooper, and since I have always liked those cars I thought it would be nice to learn how to drive in one of those. I looked for that driving school on Internet but I could not find it, so when we saw the car driving around we took note of the website, it was: www.howtodrive.ie

I looked online, called the number and booked a lesson. On the day of the lesson I was waiting for the guy, it was already 15 minutes past the time and there was no sign of the him, so I decided to give him a call. He said that he was close but could not find the place, so I went out to meet him, he was an old guy really nice and calm, that looked good.

I liked my lesson that day, he was perfect: patient, calm, nice, I liked his techniques and he was teaching me in a mini :-)

The only problem with him is that a few times he actually forgot our appointment and got there very late and many times he did not even show up (yes, he stud me up many times with out calling because he did not know how to find my number in his mobile) but he would always try to make up for the late arrivals and "stud ups" with free or extra long lessons, so it was ok.

I took many 10 lesson courses with him until the day of my driving test arrived. About a week before the driving test Jonathan sent his car to be serviced, since I was going to make the test on that one, but it turned out that there were some problems with the car that they would have to get fixed and they needed a few more days to do that, but we had time, so we did not worry too much... It turned out that the day before the day of the test we called the garage and they said the car would not be ready for the test, so the panic started.

That night I called my driving instructor to ask him if I could rent his car for the test, but he said his was booked for another test but he wold give me the name of someone else that could rent me his car. Latter he called and said he did not find anyone, and the panic got worse...

However, in the garage they had loaned a car to Jonathan while they were fixing his, so I thought of making the test in that one; Jonathan had changed his insurance policy to the borrowed car and I am included in it, so it would have been fine, the only thing was that the insurance disk in the car had a different car registration number, so I had to start my driving test explaining the tester why that was there, and the panic hummm, subsided a bit...

The day of the test

I woke up, it was still dark, looked at the clock, it was 1AM, I had to go back to sleep to be fresh for my test, so I closed my eyes, tried to calm down and waited... It did not help, I waited more... Again no help, I was getting less sleepy... Long story short: I did not sleep any more :-(

Around 6 am I got up and started getting ready for work, I had to work half day before my test, the day passed so slow, I just wanted to get it over with.

Around 11 my boyfriend called me, he had got a driving school to rent me a car but I had to take one lesson with them first, I said yes, I wanted to take a lesson just before the test to get into the driving mode anyway, so I cancelled my lesson with my old driving instructor and booked and waited for 12pm so I could get out of work and start preparing for my test...

I went home, put on comfortable clothes and did 30 mins of yoga, to relax the body, did 15 minutes of meditation, to relax the mind, took a shower and went for my lesson.

My fourth driving instructor

I met him close to the test centre at 1:45pm, he had a Toyota Yaris, that was going to be my test car, his name is Brian.


He was I think the best driving instructor I had, he corrected a lot of things that I was doing wrong, for example, my previous instructors had told me that going one or two km above the speed limit was good, but this guy told me that if you go above the speed limit, even by one km/hour you fail.

Also I was using a method for reversing around the corner that is easy but your mirrors have to be adjusted in a different position, lower so you can see the corner of the foot pat when you are close to it, also I was concentrating too much on looking at the rearview mirror and was not looking back out of the car enough, that is also a fail. Plus he said that method was a thing of the past and he taught me how to do it the correct way.

He also corrected another few things I was doing wrong and got me ready for the test. We went back to the test centre and I got into the office to wait for my tester to call me in.

The test

The tester was about 10 minutes late, plus I was 15 minutes early, that makes 25 minutes waiting, the longest of my life, tried to read some magazines they had there but it was impossible, I could not read, my eyes moved and read the words but they were not getting to my brain, I gave up on that. Then I remembered I had not had breakfast that day, nor lunch and it was almost 4 pm already, I had a granola bar in my bag, so I ate as much of it as I could.

Finally a tester came to the room and asked for a name I did not know and a girl behind me got up and went with him, another few eternal minutes passed and another tester came and said my name, I got up like a spring and bounced all the way to his office.

He seemed like a nice guy, not evil and scary like I had so many times pictured my tester, he was calm and smiled all the time, like if he was relaxing in his sitting room, this was good, he was obviously in a good mood.

He asked me a few questions about driving to which I answered correctly of course, then he took out a sheet with loads of traffic symbols, pointed a few of them and asked me to tell him what they meant, I did it correctly too, I had studied my theory.

Then, after I signed a document stating that I was ensured to drive that car we went outside and I took him to my rented car, asked me to lift the front to see the engine and asked me to tell him what some parts of the inside of a car were for, easy things like: where is the battery?, where do you put the liquid for the breaks? Etc, I did this correctly too.

Then he checked all my lights were working, got in the car with me and told me to drive as I would normally do (hehe) so we went.

The other me

Then I became someone different, it was not me driving, it was someone else, someone that had slept that night, that had eaten, and that was not nervous at all, someone that knew how to drive, during the test I saw him put marks on his sheet, this is bad since they only put marks when you do something wrong, but I just saw him and did not care, I was too busy driving well to worry about marks, then he put more marks and more marks, but I still did not care, did not even count them, just kept driving. What? That, how did I do that? I have no idea, some spirit that knew how to drive possessed me during the test, ask him...

Then the driving finished, I parked the car close to the test centre and we walked in, while we were walking I asked him how did I do, he said to wait until we were inside (ayayayayayayayyyyy). So we went inside, he took out some documents, asked me to sign something, I did, then he did some writing, I was being as patient as I could and then he said: "Libia, you passed your test" (yiaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!). He gave me the documents and then said something else that I did not hear, the voice in my head shouting of happiness was too loud and did not let me hear any of the things he said, I could not wait to get out of there and tell everybody: I passed!!

The glory!

Finally the tester stopped talking and I could get out, as soon as I came out I saw a pair of hands and heard: boo! It was the driving instructor asking how it was, and I told him I passed! Then he took the tester's document and counted the marks, the guy had given me 6 bad marks, you can only have 9, only then I realised how close I had been from failing.

Then I gave him his keys and went to look for Jonathan, he was going to be waiting for me in the car park, so I went there and when I saw him he was still far so I started walking faster, I wanted to tell him, but it was taking to long to get to him so I started running, and then I just could not resist anymore and before getting to him I shouted: I PASSED!

Telling the world

After that we went to the garage where Jonathan's car was since he had to get some stuff done there, and he was telling everyone there that I had passed my driving test, they would get excited and congratulate me for my great achievement.

The next days I told my friends from work, they were very happy for me and they congratulated me too, and then told anecdotes from their own driving test. Even my manager in a meeting mentioned it and everyone in the meeting congratulated me.

Then I started telling my friends from Mexico, I would be all happy and eager telling them:

- I passed my driving test!

And they would respond something like:

- ahh... and how is the weather there?

I guess since in Mexico it is not that difficult to pass your driving test (I heard you can just pay a couple of hundred pesos to "pass it"), passing your driving test is not that much of s big deal. I think the most difficult part of getting your driver's licence there is the queue you have to do to submit your form...

Anyway, although I was tired, hungry and stressed most of the day I think it was one of the best days I have had...







The stitch Witch

-- Desde Mi iPad

Yendo a comprar estambre

Por fin ha llegado la hora de unir los cuadritos de tejido. Los estoy uniendo con medio punto con un estambre color crudo, que es el mismo que usé para los cuadritos con los lirios de agua.

Como se me acabó el estambre tuve que ir a la tienda de estambre. No son tan malas noticias de hecho, siempre me ha gustado ir a la tienda de estambre, está en un centro comercial que parece que antes era una casa, una casa muy grande de hecho, y la convirtieron en un centro comercial, abajo puse unas cuantas fotos:

Este es el centro comercial por fuera

Esta es la entrada

Así se ve cuando recien entras

Tienen pinturas en la pared

Este es un restaurante que tienen ahí adentro

Los cuadros un poco mas de cerca

Otro ángulo de la pared con las pinturas



Este es un lugar en Dublín (podrás saber que es Dublín porque está lloviendo;-)



Este es otro lugar en Dublín

Y otra tarde lluviosa en Dublín

Más de Dublín

Algunas pinturas de hombres irlandeses

Y esta es otra vista del restaurante

Ahora, para todos aquellos que piensan que México es la tierra de los flojos, quiero que sepan que esa acusación no tiene fundamento… Bueno, está fundada en imágenes como la siguiente:



Pero esto no es cierto. De hecho yo pienso que los mexicanos somos de las personas mas trabajadoras del mundo:

• Tenemos en promedio solo 10 días de vacaciones al año, los europeos tiene 20 por lo menos, pero algunos tienen mucho más que eso, por ejemplo en Francia tienen alrededor de 30, mientras que en México hay personas que tienen solo 2 días al año.
• En México mucha gente trabaja de Lunes a Sábado, no ves mucho de eso aquí en Europa
• En México la mayoría de las tiendas abren 7 días a la semana. En Holanda por ejemplo, las calles están desiertas los Domingos, nada está abierto!
• Y lo mas importante, en México las tiendas no cierran hasta al menos las 8 de la noche todos los días, lo que significa que al salir del trabajo puedes todavía ir a comprar algo. Aquí en Europa, la mayoría de las tiendas cierran a las 5 o 6 de la tarde la mayoría de los días!

Así que tengo que esperar hasta el Jueves para ir a comprar el estambre, ya que es el único día que cierran a las 7:30, ya que los demás días cierran a las 5 y yo salgo de trabajar a las 5:30.

Así que el Jueves después del trabajo, agarro mis cosas y salgo del trabajo a agarrar el Luas (en caso de que no sepas, el luas es un como tren o metro que va al centro de la ciudad, para ver fotos ir a http://www.luas.ie/), viajo hasta la última parada, la cual me deja donde empieza la calle Grafton. Esta es una calle famosa de Dublín, muchos artistas que cantan y tocan ahí se han hecho famosos, incluyendo Bono the U2!

Este es el inicio de la calle Grafton

Esta es una tienda muy cara en esa calle

Y claro para tiendas caras aquí está Chanel

Y Louis Vuitton



Y miren! Yoga Lotus ;-)




Esta es mi parte favorita de esa calle



Otra vista de lo mismo

Una vez que llego, ansiosamente camino a la tienda, la veo, ya puedo oler el estambre, el sonido de las agujas al tejer llega a mis oídos, llego a la tienda y veo los colores!

La tienda de estambre

El otro lado de la tienda de estambre

Entro, estoy en éxtasis, sigo viendo los colores, los veo! Los veo todos!! No, esperen, no todos!

tii tii tiii tiiii (música de la película psicosis): http://www.moviemusic.com/audio/psycho_17.mp3

El color que necesito no está ahí!
Pero aún tengo esperanzas, tal vez lo tengan adentro en algún lugar, se les ha de haber olvidado ponerlo en los estantes o algo así, verdad?
Es posible, verdad? Si? Si? Si???

Así que llena de miedo, voy con la muchacha que está acomodando unos estambres detrás de mi y le doy el papel en donde con mucho cuidado he anotado el código del color que necesito, se lo doy con ojos llenos de esperanza, ella lo toma, lo vé, me voltea a ver a mi y dice: “au, ese color se acabó en todos lados” se escucha como en cámara lenta:
“seeeee aaaaccaaaabooooooo”

Todabía con el corazón roto me convenzo a mi misma de que, no puede ser tan malo, lo van a tener otra vez pronto, verdad? Verdad? Así que pregunto: Cuando lo van a tener en existencia otra vez? Y ella me responde de nuevo en cámara lenta:

“nnnoooooo looooo vaaaaammmmmoooooossssss aaaaa tttteeeeennnneeeerrrr pppooooooorrrrr uuuuuunnnnn meeeeeeessssss” (se escuchaba como cuando Doty de buscando a Nemo habla con la ballena)

Grito por dentro: nooooooooooooooo!!!

Creo que ella vió la expression de desilución total en mi cara y continuo: “Lo que pasa es que la fábrica que hace ese estambre está en Italia, y cierran todo el mes de Agosto para irse todos de vacaciones, así que en Septiembre siempre tenemos muy pocos de los estambres que ellos hacer” :-( pobre de mi…

Así que mi colcha está parada por todo un mes :-(

Going to the yarn shop

Now the time has finally come to join the crochet squares together. I am doing this with double crochets with yarn in colour ecru, which is the same I used for the waterlily square patterns.


Since I ran out of yarn in the middle of this I had to go to the yarn shop. Not bad news actually, I always enjoy going to the yarn shop, it is in a very nice shopping centre that looks like it was a house before, a very big house actually, and they made it into a shopping centre, below a few pictures.

This is the view of the shopping centre from outside

This is the entrance door

This is when you just walk in

They have lovely paintings inside

That is a restaurant that is inside

These are some of the painings from closer

Another view of the wall with the paintings

This is a place in Dublin, you can say that because it is raining ;-)

This is another place in Dublin

And another painting of a rainy evening in Dublin

More of Dublin

Some paintings of irish men

And this is another view of the restaurant

Now, for all those that think that Mexico is the land of the lazy, I want you to know that this is a totally unfounded accusation... Well not totally unfounded, it is founded on images like the following one:

But this is not true. I think us Mexicans are actually one of the most hard working people in the world:

• We have an average of only 10 days holidays a year, the Europeans have 20 at least, but some have much more than that, for example in France they have around 30, while in Mexico some people has only 2 days holidays a year.
• In Mexico many people works from Monday to Saturday, you don't see that much here in Europe
• In Mexico you will find most of the shops open 7 days a week. In Holland for example, you will find the streets deserted on a Sunday, nothing is open!
• And the most important, in Mexico the shops do not close until at least 8 pm every day, which means you can go buy something after work. Here in Europe most of the shops close at 5 or 6 pm most of the days!

So I have to wait until Thursday since it is the day when they close later, this is 7:30, the rest of the days they close at 5, and I don't finish work until 5:30.

So on Thursday after work I take my stuff and run out of work to get the Luas (in case you don't know luas is a tram that goes to the city centre see http://www.luas.ie/ for pictures), travel all the way to the last stop of the green line, which leaves me just where graft on street is starting, now this is a famous street of Dublin, many artists that come and sing or play here have become famous, including Bono from U2!

This is the start of grafton street

This is a shop that's in that street

Of course the Chanel shop is there

And Louis Vuitton

This is my favourite part of the street

Another view of it

And look! Lotus Yoga ;-)

Once I am there I eagerly walk to the shop, see it, I can smell the yarn, the sound of needles knitting reaches my ears, I get to the door and see the colours!

View of the Knitting shop

View of the other side of the knitting shop

I go in, I am in ecstasy, keep looking at the colours, I see them! I see them all! No wait, not all!


tii tii tiii tiiii (music from the movie psycho)

The colour I need to buy is not there!
But I still have hopes, maybe they have it inside somewhere, they must have forgotten to put it out on the shelves or something, right?
That is possible, right? Yes? Yes? Yes???

So, full of fear I go to the girl that is organising some yarn behind me, give her the paper where I have carefully taken note of the colour code of the yarn I need, I give it to her with my eyes full of hope, she takes it, looks at it, looks back to me and says: "awww, that colour is out of stock everywhere" her words sound to me like in slow motion:
"oooooouuuuuuuuttttt ooooooofffff ssssstooooockkkkkk"

Still with my heart broken I convince my self that, it can't be that bad, they will have it again soon, right? Riiight? So I ask: when will you have it again, and she says again in slow motion:

"iiiiiittttssss oooouuuutttt ooooooffff sssstooocccckkk foooooooorrrrrr aaaaaa mmmmmooooooonnnnnnnntttthhhhh" (sounded like when Doty talks to the whale in finding Nemo)

I cry inside: nooooooooooooooo!

I think she saw my expression of total disappointment and continued: "the thing is that the factory that makes that yarn is in Italy, and they close the whole month of August for holidays, so on September we are always very short of their yarns" :-( poor me...

So my blanket is stopped for a month :-(

Estanque de lirios

Estanque de lirios es el nombre del proyecto en el que estoy trabajando estos días y por los últimos 8 o 9 meses…

Es una cobija hecha de cuadritos de tejido sacados del libro “200 Crochet blocks” (ir a http://www.amazon.com/Crochet-Blocks-Blankets-Throws-Afghans/dp/1931499683 para ver el libro en amazon, trae la opción de ver por dentro). Para hacerla básicamente tejes muchos cuadritos de 15 por 15 centímetros y luego los unes unos con otros para formar la cobija.

Con cuadritos de tejido hay una gran variedad de cosas y diseños que pueden hacerse, y con todos los diferentes patrones que hay (el libro que mencioné trae 200 él solo) la parte difícil es tener que aceptar que no los puedes hacer todos.

Este proyecto está hecho de 180 cuadritos de 4 patrones diferentes:

Alhambra

Burbujas alternadas

Cruz de encaje

Y por supuesto, el lirio de agua

Cuando todos los cuadros se cosen unos con otros se supone que simula un estanque con lirios de agua.

Me estoy tardando mucho en terminarlo, pero ya estoy en el proceso de bloquear la figura de los cuadros, lo cual es una de las últimas cosas que hay que hacer cuando se teje a dos agujas o a ganchillo.

Hay muchas técnicas diferentes para bloquear la figura de los tejidos. Ya que no tengo una tabla para bloquear, me compré 5 aros para bordar y les puse un pedazo de tela de algodón a cada uno, luego les bordé un cuadro de 15 por 15 cm para marcar la medida y forma que los cuadros terminados deben de tener.

Luego prendí con alfileres los cuadros de acuerdo a la figura:

Los rocié con agua para humedecerlos y luego los colgué a secar:

 

Esto se hace para que todas las puntadas de la prenda terminada queden del mismo tamaño, ya que la mayoría de nosotras tejemos mas apretado unas veces y mas flojo otras.

Así que hace que los cuadros cambien de esto:

A esto:

Ahora, la razón por la que a veces tejemos mas apretado y a veces mas flojo, no se cual es, pero tengo una teoría, puse un ejemplo aquí abajo:

Acabas de cenar y empiezas a tejer con una taza de té viendo algo que te gusta en la tele y tu mente empieza:

Ahh, por fin, tiempo para tejer, este color se va a ver muy bien con mi blusa amarilla (puntadas flojas), pero voy a tener que adelgazar tantito para que me vuelva a quedar (puntadas apretadas), que tiene, al cabo mi novio me quiere como soy (puntadas flojas)… o no? (puntadas apretadas), bueno el me dijo (puntadas flojas), o me habrá dicho nada mas para que dejara de preguntar? (puntadas apretadas), tal vez solo me echa mentiras porque no puede molestarse en ser honesto conmigo! (puntadas mas apretadas), y encima de eso piensa que soy enfadosa! (puntadas todavía mas apretadas), seguro que piensa eso, de otra forma haría el esfuerzo de decirme la verdad (puntadas mas y mas y mas apretadas), pero obviamente no le importo lo suficiente!!! (los dedos se te empiezan a poner azules), de seguro está conmigo nada mas para tener a alguien que le limpie la casa!! (el estambre está a punto de reventarse!)…

El novio entra al cuarto y pregunta: has visto la cinta scotch?

Tu: No soy tu sirvienta! Mentiroso!! (le avientas el tejido en la cara y sales del cuarto enojada)

Mente del novio: umm.. puntadas apretadas otra vez… bien, la tele está libre ahora, puedo ver futbol, yupiiii!

...y es por esto que las prendas tejidas necesitan bloquearse :-)