om de var små, vita och släta sku de ju vara huvudvärkstabletter

[cimorene]

it seems i am in serious need of a swimsuit and a medium-weight coat to wear in the rain. i dread shopping by myself for things in finland because i don't know what stores to look in except for the few things concentrated in the centre of downtown around the market square and the one mall with our favourite department store.

this sucks. i used to love shopping by myself--even if it was just for socks or acrylic paints or buttons or drawer pulls. one of the things i miss the most about alabama is driving. of course from a political standpoint a place with excellent public transportation is better than a parking-lot-covered place where you have to drive everywhere, but... i love to drive. (we don't have a car now, and anyway, i don't know how to drive stick, so even when we borrowed the brother-in-outlaw's sweet brand new volvo i couldn't drive it.) i miss driving the back way from alberta to wal-mart and the woodland forrest district and speeding up and down all those hills and through all those little curves, counting the mailboxes, singing along to the radio at red lights. i even miss changing lanes.

my driver's license will expire in another year if i can't get home to alabama to renew it in person by then, and then it will be much harder to get a license in finland assuming i ever finally learn to drive stick after all.

Comments

[northern]

Start taking lessons. :)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

yeah, guess i have to. but when we don't even have a car i wouldn't be able to practise outside the lessons (and since crappy stick driving is bad for the car i doubt any relatives will want to lend their relatively nice cars for the purpose). *sad* we don't even really NEED a car, because we live right near the city centre and it's a short walk to practically anywhere.

[aeslis]

I also love driving. It's always felt like a game to me, in a way... a live action video-game except, you know, high class graphics and more dangerous consequences. I loved Tokyo but I was happy to drive when I came home, and I almost always drive my friends places.. it feels weird when I'm not behind the wheel.

Do you miss stop-and-go traffic too? I doubt I ever would, but having my own personal singing bubble is fantastic.

[northern]

Hah, driving always felt like a video game to me, too. I had so much fun, learning.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

yeah, learning for the first time was so great. i still remember going round and round the parking lot with fondness.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

i'd take stop and go over nothing, but i don't actively miss it, no. :) besides, i don't HAVE to be at a red light to sing. i can sing when the car is moving too.

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

Are you absolutely sure you need to go back to the US to renew your license? PA let me renew mine online and just sent me a form to take with me to get a photo taken when I'm next in the US, and a new license with no photo. (It says "Valid Without Photo", handily enough.)

It may just be a states are different thing, but I thought I'd mention it in case you can do it but they're not obvious about how. :)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

oh, thank you! alabama is generally backwards compared to pa, as i'm sure you either know or suspect, but i'll check into it--it's certainly possible.

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

I think you can do it on paper, too, because I knew someone who had one back before you could do things online- They just don't publicize the information much. Hopefully Alabama is the same way and it's just a case of tracking the info down. :)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

i found a downloadable pdf! yay!