Imparo (I learn)
Despite the formidable hurdles, I (F) have embarked on the patente di guida/driver's license project.

Find the autoscuola? Check.
Trip to the Poste for two tax stamps and a something or other that costs €28? Check.
Three nights, thus far, of classroom instruction? Check.

My fellow students are all eighteen and straight out of an Italian version of The Breakfast Club. The instructor yells and cajoles and lets loose the entire range of Italian gestures (including the vastly vulgar ones), but the kids make the same mistakes over and over and over. Which given questions like these, is not surprising:

This basically asks if you can drive through a railroad crossing when the gate at the crossing is up. The answer is falso because if the gate possibly might be broken they could substitute a free-standing one. However, they don't ask you what do you do if you get to a railroad crossing and there is a free-standing barrier. You just have to assume it hypothetically might be there...

And here, you have to know that if a bridge is forte pendenza/sloped it doesn't mean sloped like a drawbridge, but a bridge that slopes from one end to the other. And secondly, you would have to know that when it is important to how much a bridge slopes they put that measurement shown as a percentage on the sign itself. Easy peasy.

There are other good questions like whether you can run down blind people if they are walking without a white cane (don't worry, the answer is no).

I am just going to go ahead and memorize every single thing and whether it is true or false. Wish me luck!