Driving

Yesterday (Monday) afternoon, Havalah took me driving. In New Zealand, you are allowed to drive with a foreign license for one year if you are over 18. Driving is one thing I really wanted to learn for two reasons. One: so I could help during the wedding running errands and stuff and two: so I could boast about it later. :]


Havalah pulled out of Matt and Susie's driveway for me because it is tricky and narrow. She had to back out and turn around in a very tiny space. A lot neighborhoods have driveways to houses and then a driveway next to that that leads to a house behind the first one, and some even branch off to even more houses. And keep in mind that all these driveways are only wide enough for one car at a time. Nice and confusing and safe. :-P


This one house Hav, Dahv and I babysat at, you drove down a driveway on a pretty steep hill that only paved where the tires went, it leveled out and we took a left (the driveway also continued straight) and drove about fifty feet to the house. There was one parking space straight ahead that was occupied so we had to to the right down an even steeper hill than before and park about a half a car's length down. On the hill. Facing down. In a car older and probably worse than Max. (Max is my 19 year old Dodge Dynasty) That was a trip and a half.

Anyways, driving. Havalah backed out and turned around for me. At the end of the driveway, I took over. When you first sit down, it's a little confusing. The shift is on your left which bothered me some because I am very much right handed and can't do a whole lot with my left. The wipers are on the left and the blinkers on the right. Which makes for fun when trying to turn. Both of them are also flip up and down, you don't turn it or anything for like wipers.

Pulling out onto the road was easy because we're in a small, quiet neighborhood and no one was coming. I did have a little difficulty staying in the middle of the road because my perspective was way off and a couple times Havie had to say something to keep from ending up in the ditch. I was able to kind of get into a groove pretty quickly and being on the other side of the road didn't phase me much. I did not enjoy roundabouts, however. In The States, roundabouts (or traffic circles) go counter-clockwise (or anti-clockwise), in New Zealand, roundabouts go clockwise. Also, I have only had to deal with small, one-lane roundabouts without traffic lights. Here, traffic circles are EVERYWHERE and there is this tricky little setup (that NO ONE likes, btw) between Mt&S's house where Havie and I are staying and Mk&J's house where we can frequently be found, where there are two roundabouts right next to each other that they sort of connected and added traffic lights to. Confusing and annoying! Havalah didn't take me through that one, thankfully! I did go through one roundabout that had two lanes, you enter through either but only exit through the left one so it's nice and confusing. Also, you are technically supposed to indicate right to enter and left to exit. 8-O

Once, I practiced in quiet neighborhoods for a little bit, I went a little bit into town, just to the edge really. I was able to practice diagonal parking to the left and pulling out of said left-handed diagonal parking space.

I almost drove solo this afternoon. I was complaining because I was hungry and there wasn't much to eat. It was like 3:30-4, I hadn't eaten lunch and my breakfast was a toasted cheese and a glass of milk at like 10:30-11. Havalah offered to let me borrow Walter (her car) and drive three minutes down the road to New World the grocery store to wander around and get some food. However, we had company coming over and I didn't really want to leave the house and not be available to help clean. As it was, Havie and I left an hour or so later to pick up Dahvede and we stopped at New World anyways.

(Posted on Tuesday August 25, 2009 at 10:10 PM)