Just Cruising

Well today I finally got a car rental! I went there with a copy of the International Driving Permit (IDP) in hand ready for presentation. The guy behind the desk took details of my credit card and the next thing you know, boom, I have hired car. The really annoying thing is that he didn’t ask to see the IDP. “Here I have my IDP to accompany my driver’s license, like it said on your website” I say. “No its OK I believe you” comes the reply. “No, No… Look, this is my IDP… That’s me in the picture… Look! It's me, this is mine… please as least, look at it!” said as a nervous twitch starts to appear on my face knowing the effort that has gone into getting the bloody thing here. He glanced and said, “that’s all in order now sign here” in same breath.

So we go outside and look at this car. Now this is bottom of the range, the no thrills eco car, but I thought it was quite impressive. It had cruise control and everything! After inspecting the exterior and looking for any dents etc, he said “OK it all yours” and handed the keys over. Great let’s go! I open the door and in I jump… just to realize there was no steering wheel. Oh yeah, it’s on the other side. The guy is looking me thing “what is this dude doing?” I look up at him gently laughing to myself, open the glove box and say “ah ha! There are the radio instructions… Doesn’t everyone check for that before driving off?”Oh dear god, get me out of here. The funny thing is, I kept doing this throughout the day each time me (on my own) finding it really funny. If you are ever walking through a car park and there is a guy who sits down in the passenger’s seat, laughs, and then goes in the driver’s seat, they are probably not from that country.

With my driving directions written down on a scrawny bit of paper, I head north looking for this furniture rental place. I must have gone up and down this road four times looking for a street called Huntingdon Road. The road turned out to have eight lines of traffic, which put me off as I was looking for a little street. I only actually found it thanks to my iPod touch and jumping on somebody’s wi-fi network, which was a massive fluke. When I found this place I managed to find a radio shack (like Maplins) and bought a sat-nav. This turned out to be a god send!

I am still getting my head around some of the traffic signals. I thought it would be the same as the UK right? Red=Stop, Amber=get ready and green = go, right? WRONG!

• Green means go if it is clear
• Red means go if you are turning right
• Amber means get ready to stop (so I have read) but here it seems to mean “put your foot down”
• Flashing amber means “caution”(so I have read) but here it means “meh”
• Flashing red means the lights are not working, so you give way to the left (so I have read) but here it means “free for all” and erm “go”

So to recap, the lights mean go.

I found another half decent Supermarket called “Kroger” which is like Tesco. They had a "foods of the world" Isle, so I got my HP sauce! :0) I thought about getting Ribena, but it cost $8.96! (P*$# off!).

I had some other jobs to yesterday too. I filled in the IRS form, and after all that it wasn’t as bad as I thought. The link they send me to was this massive document was relevant, but not exactly the information I needed. I Googled it and found the instructions I actually needed. After reading these instructions, it turns out the questions I didn’t have the answers to, I needed to just leave blank. Well that I can do. I am really good at not filling forms in.

I also had to go to the post office. I have been to Post Offices in different part of the UK and in Europe, but the Post office here are quite different. Quite a bit of it is automated, like most banks these days, but you stand in line waiting to be seen and they come to you. They ask what you want to do and then they pull you of line and help you get the info you need or show you how to use the machine. It’s great… especially when you consider what happened last time I got pulled out of line.

If you are wondering about the barn dance, it has been postponed until tonight.