Although I'm living in downtown Sydney, my office is actually in the western suburbs, about 40 km from CBD. My work provided me with a car - great! Now I just figure out how to drive on the opposite side of the road. Hmmm....
The car company actually delivered the car to my office the week before I started, so I took a taxi out to the office on my first Monday morning. My first day went well and then the end of the day came.... I think I may have been more fearful of driving than I was of living by myself on the opposite side of the world for six months. Okay, here we go.
I go to put my computer bag in the back seat like I always do in my car at home and of course, I walk to the wrong side of the car. Oh boy. This is going to get interesting. I walk over to the 'proper' side of the car, buckle up, and take off for my next Aussie adventure.
I don't know if any of you have ever driven on the left side of the road, but it is so wrong on so many levels. It is literally doing the opposite of what you've learned your entire life. Within the first 5 minutes of being in the car I got honked at for drifting into the left lane. Sorry! I'm new here!
My office is really close to the highway, so after I get honked at and get back into my lane, I head on to the highway. Scariest thing ever. It was like being 15 again and being on the interstate for the first time. I had a death grip on the steering wheel and just tried to stay in my lane. Now might also be a good time to mention that I had no idea how to get home. I mean, I had a general idea (just follow the signs back towards Sydney, right?) but not so much the specifics. Being on the highway wasn't too bad - it's a divided road and everyone is going in the same direction, so it was a little easier to relax a bit and just go with the flow. Unfortunately the highway I take turns into more of a larger city road than a highway, and I'm pretty sure the lanes are not regulation space. Luckily I've been driving in downtown Chicago for seven years and I'm comfortable with city driving. Otherwise, I would have really been up the creek.
So, I'm trucking along (radio off, of course) concentrating more on driving than I have since 1995, and I'm getting closer to the city. About 30 seconds before the lanes fork, I realize I'm on the wrong side of the fork. Awesome. I'm driving on the wrong side of the road and I'm about to be lost. Sydney is a pretty small city and fairly easy to navigate and since my husband and I had explored the city the day before, I at least had a feel for where I was going. I may have accidentally entered a parking garage, but other than that, I knew how to get to the apartment. The problem was being in the city there are a lot more opportunities to make a decision while driving. That is not a good thing when you're driving on the opposite side of the road. It just means more opportunities to turn the wrong way into incoming traffic. I managed to stay behind someone at all times as to be able to just follow what they did (even if they weren't going in the direction I needed to go).
Eventually I made it to the apartment building and pulled into the parking garage. The dreaded parking garage. Parking garages are hard to park in when you're in your own car driving on the side of the road you know how to drive on. Pulling into a parking garage (to the left - weird!) in a rental car and feeling like I'm driving from the passenger side was not fun. Thank goodness there was no one else in the garage that day. There may or may not have been a few curb checks, and I may or may not have taken some extremely wide turns. Finally, I made it into a parking spot. Man, I have never been more happy to get out of a car in my life. Oh wait, I have to do this every day... twice a day! Didn't really think that one through, huh?
It's been about three weeks now, and I'm finally getting a little more comfortable with the driving. It helps that I go exactly the same way every day, so at least I know where I'm going. By the end of the first week I was finally able to turn on the radio while driving.
You don't have to worry about me texting and driving any time soon that's for sure.
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