Afterthought: Dorkdom.

Yesterday on my way to checking out my new apartment I took a wrong turn. Because the road I was on was so quiet I decided that I could u-turn just about anywhere. Full of foresight I chose a spot with a bus station (yay, public transportation up to 5km from my new home!), that gave me extra room to take care of the maneuver. Turned out I didn't have enough room to do my turn in one swirl, so I put the gear into re.... "wait a minute, how do I put this thing in return???!!" Yup, I had no clue. Despite having driven many many vehicles over many many years. Here is what I did...: Tried, and tried again. No luck. And yes, of course I tried lifting up the handle, pushing it down and all that. Still no luck though. I started sweating. As soon as I saw the first vehicle heading my way - I was sideways on the highway, pretty much perched up against one of those shields (don't know what they are called) in front of me - I smiled encouragingly and waved a older, friendly looking Swede down..."I sure hope this man speaks English..!". And he did... and smiled when he learned about my pickle. He jumped into "my" stranded car - almost moved it into that bank in front of it (yikes!) and then reversed it beautifully. He smiled again, touched my shoulder encouragingly, and left with a farewell greeting... "just move the ring up", he said. Aha. Sooo sweet. I thought it was awesome. So, dork = friend magnet? Am not sure, but made it where I needed to go in time. And back (backing out of the parking lot included).