After they had fought for the driver’s license, could not wait Zhang Danhong, what they have Learned into practice. Your German friend has advised to buy a cheap used car. She did.
Christian said that every beginner must have one or two accidents to build, to feel on the road, really safe. Therefore, the first car should be, in his eyes, one thing above all: cheap. For 400 D-Mark, I bought a red Ford Fiesta. Cheaper it went.
When I first rode it, I had to think of a well-known comedian in China. He once said: “My bike is squeaking everywhere, just the bell, no sound.” In the case of my Fiesta, I had to rattle formulate so: “Everything, only the engine remains silent.” He was really very capricious. He often took a very long time, until he was responding. And as soon as I switched to Parking the car in a lower gear, he went out. That’s why I got used to Parking in the third gear. Christian warned: “If You continue like this, it will go wrong sooner or later.”
So a red car from the Cologne Ford plants I had at the time, only in a fairly used condition
And it went wrong – rather be early than late. One day I wanted to drive into a Parking space directly in front of the door and bumped into a high Tempo (whatever is in a third gear so) to a Park Volvo ends. The burst of glass made my heart skip a beat. In slow motion, I climbed out of my car. Relieved, I said: Broke my own headlight was gone it alone on the right side. On the Volvo a couple of Paint chips from the trunk of my Fiesta pasted, but a bump he had to happiness. The legend of the tanks-Volvo has come true.
Just not a hit-and-run commit
To chose home, I immediately Christian’s number and told him of my mishap. I should wait half an hour at the scene of the accident, he said. When the Volvo-owners should not appear, I have a piece of paper with your Name, phone number and address to write, and under his windshield wiper terminals. So the owner could contact me, so that my insurance for the damage emerging. “No, absolutely not, You are allowed to do so, as if nothing had happened. The would be hit-and-run”, – said Christian.
I watched Board the scene of the accident from the window. After half an hour I wrote the following lines: “dear Unknown, I’m a student from China and have just made the driver’s license. I’m sorry that my first accident, of all things, she has caught. Please have a look to possible damage, and do not hesitate to contact regarding a repair, get in contact with me.” I have never heard anything from the Unknown. My first accident has so resulted, in addition to the damage to your own car, to no consequences.
But the second was not long in coming and again it happened when Parking, when Reverse-Sideways-Parking, to be exact. The space was dark, narrow. I went inch by inch backwards, and all at once my car was behind the car a proper kiss. It again the same procedure is repeated with the difference that I waited outside in the cold, and that my message was this time applied less thick. That they, too, found no resonance, I was a bit disappointed.
All good things are three
In the third accident, I rammed, finally, of a moving object. And, they even had a witness – Christian. It was rush hour at the Cologne Rhine river shore road: All four lanes in both directions were full of cars. Christian was upset that the car in front of me that allowed drove, in his opinion, a slower pace than the police. So I switched to the left lane and overtook. I was just so proud that this maneuver was managed in the heavy traffic right off the bat, I noticed that my Fiesta from the car to the right was removed from me for a maximum of five centimetres and fell into a panic. To the left I could not Dodge, since in the oncoming traffic, a car killed one after the other passing me out. I swerved a little to the right and it popped. My Fiesta wavered. I was able to speak of happiness, that there are no more vehicles to list on us.
We were both on the side. In I rammed the car a young man sat alone. A little nervous, he said: “let’s Forget it and go on, okay?” I was pretty confused, while Christian replied hastily, “No Problem,” and pushed me immediately back in the car. I asked him why the young man was nervous, where I had the accident caused. As my German friend shook his head in disbelief: “You’ve got more luck than sense! Didn’t You smell alcohol from his mouth? He would have brought the police, he would be at least as guilty as You.”
A month later, Christian said, my time as a novice was now finished. “Your Fiesta has fulfilled his Mission. Now You could use a better car. Especially one with a functioning engine.”
The fall of the Berlin wall revived the German used car market
We wrote in the summer of 1990. This special time after the fall of the Berlin wall and the reunification of many strange flowering stem. One of them was the huge demand for used cars, because all the East Germans wanted immediately car a West. So I was with my Fiesta that I had bought for 400 D-Mark and the I had embellished within two months with a shattered headlight, a dent in the bumper and a fist thick Dent on the right side, for the 500 Mark again. It is the capitalism, long live was my first thought. And the second: Why didn’t I asking for 600 Mark?
Zhang Danhong was born in Beijing and lives since 30 years in Germany. In the series “English is not a bed of roses” is, she writes once a week about your first contacts with the German language and their Integration in Germany.