Start driving with Big Blue

I got my Learner's Permit on Thursday, and I started to learn driving today.

Gina gave me my first lesson of driving a car. We did it in the campus of Hollins University, because there was no traffic light, and not many people. It was a good place to start with.

We started in the most remote parking lot. Gina explained to me how to start up her Big Blue. By following her instructions, I started driving. I held the brake and turned the key to wake up the car. After that, I switch the car from "Parking mode" to "Driving mode". I released the treadle bit by bit and the car started to move.

I drove in a very low speed, it was around 10 to 15MPH. After I got the sense of the speed and the brake, Gina encouraged me to make turns in the parking lot. It was quite hard to feel the distance between the wheels and the pavement at the beginning, because Big Blue is quite big. However I seemed getting better by practicing. Besides the parking lot, I drove a loop of the campus. There were many tasks that I could try in the loop. Speedup to go up to the hill, speed-down to get down to the hill, drove in curves when I was going up and down in the hill.

The first experience of driving was fun. I couldn't imagine that I could do it. And I was surprised that I felt calm when I was driving, though I was a bit nervous at the same time.
Thanks Gina.