Mine should be revoked.  Serious.  In New Zealand a driver’s license from the US is valid for a year and then when you get a New Zealand driver’s license you only have to pay a chunk of change and voila! license to drive.  Oh the humor…

When I first arrived, I was going to postpone getting a car for as long as possible. Then I realized that taxis are really the best form of public transportation and that just wasn’t going to work.  I got a car.  When I was at the car lot, I didn’t even want to test drive the car because I was so nervous to drive on the wrong side of the road.  I drove around the block and promptly hopped out of the car and said, “I’ll take it” because I just couldn’t muster the courage to do that again.  Then I had to drive home.  Ack!

Sitting on the wrong side of the car and driving on the wrong side of the road has probably been the most stressful thing I have done since being here.  I walk to the passenger side of the car almost every time I go to get in the car.  Not to mention that the car is a stick shift.  My left hand is really only attached to my body so that I can count successfully to ten; other than that it is pretty much useless.  Trying to shift gears with my left hand was a challenge to say the least.  Me not being mechanically inclined, I thought for sure that if I have to shift with my left hand then the shift pattern would be a mirror image of what I am used to with first gear being closest to me.  Not so.  It is exactly the same, you just sit on the other side of it.  Whoever decided that is obviously not a logical thinker.

Driving on a straight road wasn’t a problem.  I got that one down pretty quickly, but at times I would freak out because I couldn’t remember what side of the road I was supposed to be on.  The best piece of advice I got was that the driver should always be in the center of the road.  Ah!  It all makes sense now.

Unfortunately, the town I live in isn’t just one straight road, turns would eventually have to be made.  First attempt at a turn was a left turn.  Similar to a right turn in the US, so not that hard.  I felt good about that rather quickly, but a right turn was just not going to happen.  For the first while I just drove in a circle around the city only making left turns to avoid a right turn.  That can make for a long journey to the grocery store that is just one right turn away.  Internally, I was giving myself a pep talk, “You can do this Jessica, just make a right turn”.  It came time that there were no more left turns to make and I had to make a right turn.  Sweaty palms.  Heart pounding.  White knuckles.  I signaled. Shit!  The windshield wipers came on.  Are you kidding?  How is that on the wrong side too?  After that little episode of being flustered and confused, I slowly eased into the turn and I couldn’t help but pause and look over my shoulder because I am certain that someone is going to come slamming into me as I cross the right hand lane.  Shoo…made it.  Finally it was time to get out of that beast of a car, that is enough stress for one day.

I would look at the car in the parking lot and it sure looked nice, but I didn’t want to get in it again.  I can walk!  So that’s what I did every weekend.  I parked the car and only drove when absolutely necessary.  It is slowly getting less stressful.  Thanks to the little blue circles that have arrows pointing to the lane that you are to be driving in, especially helpful when turning and having total memory loss of what lane you are supposed to turn into.  I don’t know what I would do without those.  But those little circles don’t help out much with this one stupid, stupid, stupid law that you have to ‘give way’ to the car crossing traffic when you  are both turning at an intersection.  Not sure whose bright idea that was, but it certainly doesn’t light up the sky.

Roundabouts.  Roundabouts every where.  I struggled with those when I was driving on the familiar side of the road.  Am I supposed to signal if I am going straight through?  Okay, I will.  Damn, windshield wipers again…

Could someone build a train in this town please?