The first thing that I noticed is that the silver Opel Astra was missing the left (passenger side) rear door trim and hubcap. Obviously, this was the "tourist" model. The next thing I noticed was that, in fact, the steering wheel was actually on the right side of the car. That's where I expected it to be, but you don't really think such things exist until you see them for yourself.
Moving on to the shifter, I confirmed that the 5-speed manual had the same shift pattern I was used to back in the States - gears one through five progressing from left to right. Of course, this meant that I would be moving the shifter toward me as I moved up through the gears, instead of the way Henry Ford intended, but I was prepared for that. I'd been "mind-shifting" between Newark and Shannon and had it down pat.
The last thing that I thought as I cautiously left the Hertz position at Shannon International Airport was "I can't believe that they are actually letting me take this car. Don't they know that I have NO clue what I'm doing?"
I immediately proved my complete lack of competence by making my first wrong turn within one-tenth of a mile of the airport. I did stay on the left when I made the turn, but I somehow missed the giant sign with it's giant arrow pointing toward Galway. The fact that I drove on the right during my approach to this wrong turn shouldn't count against me, since I was the only one on the road at the time.
The wrong road actually turned out to be a pretty smart move in the end. Instead of immediately being thrust onto the N19 (the 120 kilometer per hour western-Ireland version of a freeway), I made a soft landing on a completely empty four lane boulevard that appeared to be intended for airport industrial traffic. This gave me the "15 year old in a parking lot" driver's ed experience I needed to get used to shifting with my left hand, driving on the left side and looking left when every fiber of my being told me to look right and vice-versa. I also found a nicely vacant parking lot where I was able to stop, collect my thoughts and set up my Ebay Magellan GPS with Irish maps. The only drag was that the voice was British. Damn it.
I eventually determined that I was not on the correct road and with the help of the GPS, I doubled-back and started my approach to the N19, but not before encountering about a half dozen "roundabouts", lovely little feats of traffic engineering, known in other parts of the world as a "glorietta" or "traffic circle". Ever driven around one of those? Clockwise? Now, there's something that will get the adrenaline pumping early in the morning!
Driving north on the N19 was fairly low-stress. Staying in the slow (left) lane and watching for signs to Galway, I even had time to turn on the radio. The N19 changed to the N18 - a "dual carriageway" (two lane blacktop road). The N18 wasn't too bad, but I did lose my beloved slow lane, so I was not under some obligation to make an attempt to stay up with traffic. Every once in awhile. I'd pull over and stop on the hard shoulder to let the 1000 or so cars that had backed up behind me go by, but all-in-all, it wasn't too bad.
Until I got to Gort.
Moving on to the shifter, I confirmed that the 5-speed manual had the same shift pattern I was used to back in the States - gears one through five progressing from left to right. Of course, this meant that I would be moving the shifter toward me as I moved up through the gears, instead of the way Henry Ford intended, but I was prepared for that. I'd been "mind-shifting" between Newark and Shannon and had it down pat.
The last thing that I thought as I cautiously left the Hertz position at Shannon International Airport was "I can't believe that they are actually letting me take this car. Don't they know that I have NO clue what I'm doing?"
I immediately proved my complete lack of competence by making my first wrong turn within one-tenth of a mile of the airport. I did stay on the left when I made the turn, but I somehow missed the giant sign with it's giant arrow pointing toward Galway. The fact that I drove on the right during my approach to this wrong turn shouldn't count against me, since I was the only one on the road at the time.
The wrong road actually turned out to be a pretty smart move in the end. Instead of immediately being thrust onto the N19 (the 120 kilometer per hour western-Ireland version of a freeway), I made a soft landing on a completely empty four lane boulevard that appeared to be intended for airport industrial traffic. This gave me the "15 year old in a parking lot" driver's ed experience I needed to get used to shifting with my left hand, driving on the left side and looking left when every fiber of my being told me to look right and vice-versa. I also found a nicely vacant parking lot where I was able to stop, collect my thoughts and set up my Ebay Magellan GPS with Irish maps. The only drag was that the voice was British. Damn it.
I eventually determined that I was not on the correct road and with the help of the GPS, I doubled-back and started my approach to the N19, but not before encountering about a half dozen "roundabouts", lovely little feats of traffic engineering, known in other parts of the world as a "glorietta" or "traffic circle". Ever driven around one of those? Clockwise? Now, there's something that will get the adrenaline pumping early in the morning!
Driving north on the N19 was fairly low-stress. Staying in the slow (left) lane and watching for signs to Galway, I even had time to turn on the radio. The N19 changed to the N18 - a "dual carriageway" (two lane blacktop road). The N18 wasn't too bad, but I did lose my beloved slow lane, so I was not under some obligation to make an attempt to stay up with traffic. Every once in awhile. I'd pull over and stop on the hard shoulder to let the 1000 or so cars that had backed up behind me go by, but all-in-all, it wasn't too bad.
Until I got to Gort.
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