Friday night was our annual Christmas Dinner with the school.  They go all out and take us to a lovely restaurant with a good meal, wine and a grab bag exchange of gifts.  It's always fun. This year the restaurant they chose is in the low hills in a very exclusive but busy area.   GP and I headed out fairly early because being Friday we knew there would be a lot of traffic.  We were bumper to bumper on a main road for a good part of the way and it being Italy, many drivers had made the road a two laner instead of one lane, pushing and passing to get ONE space ahead.  At one point we had to move to the left because we were coming up on a line of cars parked on the side of the road.  A big Chevy Suburban, (ridiculous in urban Italy), wouldn't let us move over and honked and pushed by us.  GP got rightfully pissed off, opened his window and explained in no uncertain terms,"it was a one lane road and he had no choice but to move over to avoid hitting the parked cars and had she, (because it was a she), a brain in her head she would have noticed that in fact all of the cars ahead of us were letting the drivers on the right in".  He may have added a few choice words in there and a few comments about Italian women drivers.  Anyhow, she pushed passed and we ended up behind her.  We started joking saying wouldn't it be funny (not) if she was from the school!  But then we came to our turn off and she turned.  And then we came to the restaurant and she slowed down and I started to panic.  First she parked illegally in front of the police station, but decided that wasn't a good idea and backed out.  We whizzed past hoping to hide our car far away so she wouldn't see who got out of it but as we were turning into a one way road to park in an empty space we'd seen, she came driving up the road towards us the wrong way and took the space!  All the while I was saying, "shit shit shit, hide the car hide the car"!  It was like a Chevy Chase movie!  We found a place to park quite far away and GP took off his hat and coat before going into restaurant.   I hadn't seen her face to didn't know who it was and GP just kept saying she looked like Morticia from the Addams Family.  I was REALLY hoping she hadn't gotten a good look at GP because he had been quite explicit about what he thought of her driving, (and to give him credit, after watching her parking I agree).   So we went into the restaurant and found friends at a table in a far corner where we could be inconspicuous.  GP scanned the room and found the driver, a lovely woman who teaches ESL, and has always been more than polite and friendly.  This solidifies my long time theory about Italian drivers.  The minute a person gets behind the wheel of a car in this country it's like Jekyll and Hyde.  They become hideous, arrogant, rude and egocentric.  I have seen the sweetest most ladylike women flip people off as they pass them for having the audacity to be driving to slowly.  Fortunately, I don't think Sara, (for that is her name) recognized GP but I guess I'll find out Monday!  (And she does rather look like Morticia...).   xxoo me