Saturday, September 7, 2013

Thoughts from Northern Ireland

Hmmm...not sure why the font has hopped to larger size but hang in with me. We are in Bangor, Northern Ireland and while still Ireland, things are different here. For example, instead of kilometers per hour, which is used in the south of the country (Dublin areas), they use miles per hour. Now, the odometer only has kilometers per hour; so I have NO clue how fast I should be going. Also, in Dublin and the south they use Euros and here, we use pounds, or British Sterling. Both monetary systems are light on bills and heavy on coins....all sizes and all colors.

Parking is a serious issue for my driving. Everything is parallel parking and cars are squeezed in tightly everywhere. What makes the driving horrid is HOW drivers park. They can and do park outside of the marked areas along the street...so if a car is halfway into your lane and parked, you must swerve into oncoming traffic to go around the parked vehicle. This means you are literally driving into oncoming traffic. And, of course, that driver is also swerving towards you because there are parked cars on his/her side also. There is one lane (in good places) for vehicles travelling in both directions. Navigation is scary.





Note the cars on the sidewalk. When cars are parked like this on both sides of narrow streets, it leaves a less than one lane space for two lanes of moving traffic to manage. Traffic parked the wrong way when you turn a sharp corner leaves you a bit disconcerted. There are very few street signs and many one way streets...with little signage indicating what direction one is going. An adventure.













 

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