Driving in Germany

This week was my Figure Out How To Drive In Germany week.  First of all, they do drive on the right side of the road so I was already one step in the right direction.  Fortunately the car I have has a navigation system.  I don't think the British lady the lives inside speaks German very well because she never says the name of the street she just says to turn right in 100 meters.  After passing many right turns I have figured out approximately how far 100 meters are and am making far fewer u-turns.  U-Turns are a whole task in themselves.  First of all, many of the streets are only as wide as one car and so the making of a u-turn is not possible.  It's best to just follow the road until it comes out somewhere, reset the navigation system to where you were trying to get to and start over again.  I have now driven around the American Womens Club three times trying to figure out where to park.  Parking is either in garages, on the street or in designated areas.  Even the grocery store has only about 10 parking spaces since everyone walks to the store.  If you park in an area that has a blue P then you put this card in the windshield that says what time you got there and the police BELIEVE YOU and you won't get a ticket.  Haven't figured out where you get one of those just yet.  Parked there any way and hoped for the best.

The other crazy thing is that if you are in more residential areas there aren't stop signs.  If you are driving down the road and there is an intersection coming up on your right then it is your responsibility to slow down and give that person the right away to pull out in front of you.  That is unless you see a yellow diamond sign on the street somewhere.  If you see a yellow diamond then you have the right away.  I know, you can't even picture it.  Think how I feel in the car.  I keep stopping all over the place because I'm not sure who is supposed to go first.  I just keep the windows up and the radio on so if someone is screaming at me I can't hear them anyway.  Probably wouldn't understand what they were saying either.