driving in a parallel universe

Yesterday and today i drove on the left side of the road. That was both not as bad and far worse than i ever imagined.

It isn't that everything is backwards. No no, nothing as simple as that. It's that exactly *half* of everything is backwards. For example, at an uncontrolled intersection you still yield to the guy on the right, not the left. The gas pedal is on the right of the brake pedal, but the signal light is on the right side of the steering column instead of the left. If i told you how many times i turned on the windshield wipers by mistake, you'd giggle.

Today we drove to the near-by town of Bray to do some grocery shopping. I soon realized that i'd made a huge mistake. Two days before Xmas is not the best time to be learning how to drive on overly-congested narrow streets.

So i'm trying to deal with all of these flipped variables, but on top of it there are all the brand new events -- things i've _never_ seen before in my life! Like, i'm already getting totally stressed out coping with 62 randomly jumbled variables, when a guy coming the other way veers across the road to grab an empty parking spot on my side. [Somehow, i had failed to grok the significance of the fact that 52% of all parked cars are facing in the wrong direction. I guess i naively assumed they were doing that when the road was clear!] He proceeds to do some hybrid front-in ass-rotate parallel parking maneuver right in front of me, forcing me to brake to avoid a head-on collision, while hoping the guy behind me is one the 17% of drivers who are actually paying attention to the road. The doofus merrily shimmies and shammies into his spot, not caring a whit how long i have to wait. And i can't go around him, because oncoming traffic has instinctively read this as a premium opportunity to *go much faster*.

Little did i know how much worse it was going to get... I could write several pages on this hair-raising experience, if only i had hair. Suffice it to say that we aborted our plan, and i was thrilled and relieved to get back home with my feet back onto good 'ole terra firma.

While walking to the local grocery store, still a bit frazzled, i had to be wary of more crazy drivers flinging themselves around the round-a-bouts with completely indiscernible angles of exit. Xan mentioned the signalling rules that i'd learned the day before, but i just laughed -- as if *anyone* here would actually follow those conventions.

One thing is certain, however: if you see a car coming your way with its windshield wipers on, duck for cover!