|
Here in Portugal bad driving is the norm. Of course, so is bad parking. And yet, we have a written exam and also an obligatory 30 hour-long lessons in driving, where you're taught all the rules of parallel parking and others. I admit though that once I got my license and a new car, I couldn't parallel park anymore. Mainly because my new car had reduced visibility in the rear, and also assisted directioning (or however you call it?) and the one I'd learnt in was an old jallopy. But I'm now proud to say I practiced and can do it well. I hate bad parking, it makes me mad. I've gone to the trouble of leaving people notes when it's plainly rude the way they have parked. Just imagine, a row of parked cars all facing forward. And then some ass comes round in his BMW and parks it perpendicualr to that. How can you not fume?!
__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.
Fernando Pessoa, 1918
|