driving

One of the challenges I face living in France is driving.  Namely, I don't know how to do it.  Drive stick that is.  We recently (and by that I mean in january, which now is not particularly recent) bought a Yaris - yes right before that whole recall thing - and I am sloooooooooowly learning how to drive it.  It is going so slowly partly because Marc is the person charged with the task of teaching me and he is usually working, partly because I have no real need for it.  I bike or walk or take the bus or train pretty much everywhere I go and when marc and I go places on the weekends Marc drives. One day, however, I hope to obtain  this mysterious and elusive thing known as a french drivers license.  France has an agreement with certain states in the US so that you can exchange your American drivers license for a French one.  California is not one of these states.  In fact I think they chose the states based on the likelihood that residants of these states would actually end up in France.  That is, the lower the likelihood residants of a certain state would immigrate to France, the higher the likelihood France has an exchange agreement with that state.  Come on Arkansas? Kentucky? Kansas?  I guess I will just have to do it the old fashioned way and re-take the written and driving portion, a process that is likely to be challenging and expensive.