Strange occurances...

Hey all! Hope this finds you all well! :) Things here have been going well, but I'm hoping that today goes better than yesterday afternoon did... After I finished yesterday's blog, I left McDonald's and headed to the grocery store to buy some groceries. After careful observation, I have finally figured out what side of the sidewalk I'm supposed to walk on so that I don't get taken out by the bikers... I feel so accomplished. :) Anyways, I was minding my own business and walking on the appropriate side of the sidewalk, when all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a very large object approaching me. I turned to my left and had to literally jump out of the way of an oncoming car! That's right... a car was driving on the sidewalk, and it was coming at me quite fast! Now, being that I've never been in a circumstance quite like that before, I was caught slightly off guard, so I jumped out of the way and watched as the car preceded to drive past me and then drive off the sidewalk onto the cross street directly ahead of us. As I watched this take place, I was in completely baffled and wondering if I was just imagining it... Not so much. After the car drove off, I turned to see where it had come from, and realized that the driver apparently did not want to sit in the traffic at the stop light, so instead he chose to just drive onto the sidewalk and then turn onto the next side street. Now, I know that I'm an impatient driver at times, but never in a million years would I decide that it was ok to drive on a sidewalk... especially when there are pedestrians walking on the sidewalk! However, what I've come to realize, is that this is quite normal around here. I've found that people don't like to wait at traffic signals, so they simply drive onto the sidewalks and catch the next side street. Or I've also watched people drive up onto the sidewalk to park their cars so that they don't have to walk as far to get to where they're going... It's craziness here! Now, not only do I have to worry about getting taken out by bikers, but now I apparently have to worry about getting hit by cars while walking down the sidewalk!! And just in case you think I'm exaggerating, I've attached a picture so that you can take a look for yourselves...



Yep, that's a car parked on the sidewalk (the actual road is on the right)... And the worst part of it is that it's parked in the walking section of the sidewalk... So, now pedestrians must walk over to the bike section and risk getting taken out by a biker, just so that they can get around the parked car. Sometimes I wonder about this culture... :)

And then after the sidewalk incident, I attempted to cross the street at a crosswalk. As I was about 1/4 of the way across, the light turned red and within .3 seconds of it turning red, I had to jump out of the way of a van that had come barreling around the corner! And, the worst part, was that even as he saw me crossing the street, he didn't even try to slow down. As I stood and watched him tear around the corner, he motioned at the crosswalk to show me that it was red, which meant that I shouldn't be crossing at that moment... At that point, I was highly ticked off from almost being hit by two cars within a 5 minute time frame, so as he motioned to me and gave me a dirty look, I used a few choice words of my own to let him know that I had indeed tried to follow the rules, and I wasn't just jay-walking. :)

What I've come to realize after that incident is that when a crosswalk or traffic light turns from green to red here, they don't give a time delay before the next light turns green. So if a crosswalk is green and then turns to red, the minute it turns to red, the traffic light turns to green which gives the ok for oncoming traffic to go... If that makes any sense... Needless to say, after that incident, I practically ran home and stayed inside for a while, away from all types of moving vehicles! Once Brian came home, I decided that I would try to venture out again... I'm getting the feeling that there's more safety in numbers around here. :)

Well, I'd better get going... I'm going to go rock climbing with Maike (I found out that I've been spelling "Micah's" name wrong this whole time... oops! :)). I can't wait to get back to the gym!! I'll let you know how it goes... :) Oh, and before I go, I promised Stacy that I would post this picture of the snail I took a picture of. I have to say, that before moving here, I've never seen snails that are this big! The snails here are like monstrocities!! They're huge and after it rains, they are all over the place... We actually have one on the roof over our balcony at the moment... eew! Let's just say, that Brian and I have learned very quickly that we have to carefully watch where we walk after it rains around here!! :) On that note, I have to run... Will write more soon! I miss you much!!

This is actually a smaller version... Most of them are alot larger than this one.