Ireland Part 3

The Driving and The Roads

Irish roads: all I can say is they are fucking small. The car I drive here in Toronto would never make it in on the roads over there, just too big. We had a small blue car, not the cool blue but baby blue. And when we picked it up the car had scratches all over it. Both Liz and I thought this was great because how could they blame anything on us.

I was off the plane and straight behind the wheel. As most of you know they drive on the wrong side of the road and the steering wheel is on the opposite side from here. As it turns out it wasn't actually that hard to get the hang of. The worst part was roundabouts. I mean what the fuck are those things? The first one I stopped at I was totally lost. The rule is look right and then go when you see a gap.

The roads in the country and around the streets of Dublin are very, very tiny. It was hard to have cars trying to pass each other going in opposite directions and on some roads you have to pull over and let one car go at a time - crazy. But driving up the coast from Galway at some points was great and the roads are like a race track with all the turns and ups and downs, it was alot of fun driving all over Ireland.

One day Liz's Dad was driving us around the countryside and that guy drives like a maniac but it was alot of fun and he showed no fear when the cars where close enough to touch as we passed each other.

The worst day for driving was when some girl did not see us and hit the side of the car. Yes, she did not see us and just hit the passenger side of our car. I have no idea how she missed us but she did. All I remember was the noise and I thought o my god who did I hit! I freaked out. Liz was very calm and she handled all the exchange of information as I walked around saying why me, why me. It really wasn't that much damage but I have to admit I did have a freak out....it was just a bad day. More on that later.

By the end the holiday I loved the roundabouts as it did seem to speed up traffic and for aggressive drivers like me it was great. So I look forward to driving in Ireland the next time we go over and this time I know I'll be better and less nervous and maybe I'll have less people in the car yelling at me and freaking me out....yes, I am talking about my crazy mother-in-law (yes, you Anne).

garry

The roads were too hard for me. Garry's not a slow driver and that's normally fine but he kept turning right when I said left and using the wipers instead of the blinker and my nerves were shot to hell. The ding with the other car was just the icing on the cake. That night involved me crying and saying that I wanted to go back to Canada, to be in my own bed and 2 weeks was too long to be away. So as you can see I got a little bit carried away lol. Anyway after a cry, in which Garry was very, very nice to me and helped me keep things in perspective, I started to feel better. And actually Garry did a fantastic job of driving on roads that were made for rally races, over bridges you couldn't go on if there was a car coming the other way and learning how roundabouts worked whilst I just closed my eyes, held my breath and hoped for the best.
Liz