Rolling pin Lada

The price of a taxi has come down quite a lot in the past few weeks with a few new firms opening. Back in January a journey around town was 220 tenge but now it has dropped and the lowest is 140 tenge. The mornings at the moment bitterly cold – today was -21 and yesterday -18 – but by the end of the day we have temperatures up to -8 or -6. So over the past few days I have been enjoying a taxi to work rather than the 20 minute walk into the wind. The drivers for the firm I use know where I live and understand me on the phone now. There was a time when taxis were being dispatched to my destination but I think that was my failure in mastering the words ‘to’ and ‘from’ – now to avoid confusion I just say ‘Orphanage. Can I have a car’ and I get the reply ‘...yes, where to’ and then I can say where which avoids the confusion. Anyway yesterday I got in the Lada and I am positive the gear stick was a rolling pin - home improvements are quite common to cars but that is the strangest adaptation I have seen. Then today I phoned a different firm because my normal one was busy and waited for my car and the same guy in the same taxi with the rolling pin gear stick arrived but today is was 10 tenge more than yesterday because I was using a different firm