I did not handle this awesomely. I'd only been driving manual for a couple of months, and only driving in France for 2 weeks at this point. I honestly blacked out a lot of our time on the highway because I was so terrified. And I snapped at my mom when I got overwhelmed. The roads here are....special, you guys. Very special. I don't know why, but my mantra for getting through it became repeating to myself in my head, "Everybody dies someday!" I have no idea why that was comforting, but it was.
Try Italy or Greece, then country French roads will seem wide and comfortable. ;-) (I think the last time I was really frightened while driving was in the north San Francisco bay, on very wide freeways... everybody following each other close at 55 mph, under the pouring rain. We passed two accidents. Nobody seemed to think that maybe, in order to avoid accidents, the right thing is to leave some safety margin between cars!)
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