i think i'm burning through my clutch.

so, in South Africa, and apparently the rest of the world outside of the US, everyone drives manual. we found out that renting an automatic is actually 3x more expensive than stick shift the first week we got to cape town. so manual it was.

we rented our little circa 1980's volkswagen chico car at a very reasonable price with the assurance that we could trade it in for an automatic if the manual proved to be too much for me since wishingonsatellite girl didn't have a license yet. i tried learning once 5 years ago from my cousin during study abroad. it probably lasted a full 15 minutes. but it was more than nothing.

luckily, one of my suite mates was a Toronto Canadian who was willing to teach me how to drive stick shift. We'd met him and his roommate the day before at orientation. One was going into ortho, the other into plastics. not that that's probably equivalent to AOA and intimidating in any way.

anyway, the orthopod Canadian was a great teacher. i didn't even stall once. i might have even gotten into second gear that day. confidence was inspired.

the next day i tried to drive to a supermarket. i don't know what i was smoking. all the starts and stops, the randomly road darting pedestrians and the cars that cut into your lane at 80 mph out of nowhere make local driving in South Africa. difficult.

but even before that, i stalled two times before i got to the campus gates. the third time the car sputtered menacingly and squatted stubbornly unresponsive, i was actually at the gate with a line of honking cars behind me. i'm ashamed to say it, but i panicked. and i begged mountain skipping German girl who was with us to take over. she was already at my door when i turned to get out. i kid. marginally.

we made it safely and back to the supermarket. but my self confidence was shot. mountain skipping girl offered to give me some tips afterwards and we drove for a bit together. then i went off on my own and just kept practicing.

the rest is kinda a blur. on Day 3, i got into Cape Town via the highway and managed to parallel park on a down slope. on Day 4, we got all the way to Stellenbosch amidst winding mountain roads. and now, i feel like i've been driving a manual my whole life.

but then today, on Day 8, on a really steep incline, i used my parking brake and clutch to help me get into first from a complete stop, and i definitely peeled out and inhaled the scent of burning car deposit. i know via the internet that one of the fastest way to ruin a clutch is to abuse it when going into first on a bad incline. and you can tell when your clutch is feeling more "spongy." and with my n of 1, i'm kinda certain that my clutch is feeling more spongy. or maybe i'm just getting better at using the clutch?

here's to hoping it's the latter.