After starting the gas station job, life was improving significantly and I stayed in the camp another 3 or 4 months before moving out. I bought a car, a very old Volkswagen with a non-synchronous transmission, even though I did not know how to drive. We pooled our money together and Jirka drove and taught me. Mr. Konir also found me a Pony II moped through a contact of his, which gave me independence for shorter trips around Vienna. On Sundays we took trips to the mountains outside of Vienna and I finally had enough money to buy clothes and see movies and such.

On one of those Sunday trips, while Jirka was teaching me to drive on serpentines in the Alps, we came around a curve on ice and Jirka yelled at me “Gas, Gas, Gas” — meaning let go of the gas — so I stepped on the gas instead. Luckily we went into the snowed hill on the side and damaged only the left headlight. We pulled the fender away from the tire so we could continue driving. Jirka took the wheel and showed me how to take each curve spinning the wheels, snow or no snow, ice or no ice. On the way back we were stopped by police because of the headlight, but the officer let us go. After that experience I got scared and stopped driving, since around that same time another Czech refugee who was driving without a license had an accident and went to jail for a year. I sold the Volkswagen to a Czech who had decided to go back to Czechoslovakia and wanted to take a car with him.