First Time Driving In Ireland

Took the bus to the Hertz rent a car on South Circular road. passed some pretty doors along the way. I was worried that we would not find the right stop but eagle eye Maureen got us there safe and sound. Only about 14 blocks away from the college.

We got there around 430 so had time to get directions out of the city. They gave us this little map which made it look easy.  Just left out of the lot. left at the corner, across the bridge, turn left, follow the Grand canal past five bridges , then turn right onto the N11 which at some point turns into the M11 and your out of town. OK, sounds easy. We are packed . We are ready.  Three lefts, five bridges and a right, how tough can this be?

We exit into the street, South Circular Road and realize that everything is backwards to what we are used to.  

We are on the wrong side of the road. 

We are each on the wrong side of the car.

Maureen is driving with her left hand doing the stick shift. The traffic, which all seems to be hell bent for leather, is all driving two inches away from our vehicle on all sides. 

Maureen says" tell me how close we are to anything on your side of the car". I tell her we are too close to everything on my side of the car.  She says " I am used to having the car end at my left side and so can't quite get  where the car ends on your side" which is of course the passenger side of the car over there.

 I'm thinking "Oh great, I am going to die!" 

At one point there was a bus that pulled up beside us that was literally two inches away from my side mirror. I held my breath as he pulled away. 

We did manage to go around the correct  corner in the left lane. We did cross the bridge  and we did manage to turn left in the left lane so that we could follow the Grand Canal. 

What turned out to be a little confusing on top of everything else we were dealing with at the time was that there seemed to be too many bridges as compared to the little map that the Hertz guy gave us  and no sign for the N11. 

We saw swans. We saw people walking with carriages and people fishing and more swans. We passed six bridges and then our road kind of vanished in an odd corner turn which we took because we didn't see the sign but it seemed to be well travelled and everyone else was going that way.  That would have been Upper Leeson Street which I looked up on a map later but which we did not know at the time. We did not see any signs until we were about 15 blocks past the odd  corner. Both of us  had had at least ten heart attacks and we had, of necessity,  worked out a code by that time.

Maureen decided that my yelling TURN or MOVE OVER was not the best advice, not so useful really, she thought that maybe my just saying left or right would be best. Sometimes tis the simple things that really do work well. 

Finally a sign, but it was a bad sign as it was half covered by trees so we were in the same boat not really sure we were going the right way. Then, suddenly, there were too many signs and we were trying to drive slow enough to  find our sign and where it was pointing without stopping all traffic.  Needless to say we did find the N11  and so the M11 and bravely headed off into the Irish countryside, seekers of adventure us.