Taxi ride of death...

So now that things are calming down a bit here, I can tell you about the crazy drivers in Spain.

First of all the Spaniards LOVE their glorietas, or as we like to call them the roundabouts or traffic circles. These are used to replace traffic lights. I personally am a bit scared of them, mostly because I get visions of National Lampoon's European Vacation stuck in my head. The scene were Clark gets stuck in the traffic circle in London and can't get out.

I digress, I have had the opportunity to ride in the car about 4 times with Marta, our campus liason. I love Marta, she is a wonderful person, very sweet and very attentive during our time of crisis here. But Marta drives likes she talks, at the speed of sound.

Half the time when I am speaking to her I can't process what is being said, especially when she is on the phone. If I am face to face I can do a much better job. Someone on the staff likened her speech to a machine gun, which I must say is very very accurate.

My 4 trips with Marta, were life altering. She doesn't care about speed limits. Nor does she care about the speed "bumps"(which in reality are speed mountains). I swear each time we went over one we literally caught air. Also she doesn't care if the bus is stopped in front of us, we can just merge into the oncoming traffic lane to get around it because she evidently knows that the bus that is coming at us head on is going to magically stop. (Too bad I am not as certain as she.)

Street driving is bad enough, lets not talk about the parking lots or the parking garages, there are lots more stationary objects that can be hit there. We came close so many times it isn't even funny!

But after all of my ranting and raving about riding in the car with her, she is the epitome of a good driver compared to my taxista from last night. The entire time I was praying that I would make it back to the university alive.

I had a clear view of the odometer and it was consistently at 150kph, which converts to 94mph!!!!

He was changing lanes every 3 seconds, weaving in and out of traffic like none other.

A normal 30-45 minute taxi ride, was only 15 minutes...yeh that is ridiculous. The most ridiculous part though, is that it was the most expensive taxi ride from the airport to the campus EVER, totaling 63 euro. The shortest ride, but the most expensive, yeh that makes sense.

Ok, hopefully tonight will be very very very low-key.