New Zealand - Day of Firsts cont'd

13 January, 2009 continued.

I left off with the promise of detailing more exciting firsts. I drove on the left side of the road for the first time in my life. I was extremely nervous, thinking that I might somehow forget what I was doing and wander into the other side of the road when making a turn. But you quickly get the hang of it. The trick is to focus on staying as close as possible to the right side since we American drivers have a tendency to wander to the left, dangerously approaching the curb or another car. Though everything feels pretty much the same, the one thing I really dislike is passing cars going the other direction on a State Highway. Despite its grand title, New Zealand's state highways are more like long, winding, 2-lane country roads. When you pass cars or trucks going the other way at a 100 kmph, it feels like you're going to scrape the right side against the other vehicle's but just narrowly miss! I do not like that feeling at all. I don't know what it is, but it seems different when the driver's seat is on the left side.

The next first experience was skydiving, but that definitely deserves its own entry.