They Drive on the Other Side of the Road!

Finally back at a computer! I wrote this on my first day here in Christchurch. I'll be back with some more in a couple minutes...

As my flight was about to take off from Aukland, I thought to myself that since NZ drivers drive on the left side of the road, I should aim for what I think of as the driver side of Jake's car when he came to pick me up, so as not to look silly. Of course, even with the premeditation I had a mental lapse and headed for the normal passenger side before Jake stopped me with a quick joke. Dang! I had the whole event planned out too! The whole driving on the other side of the road thing is pretty difficult to get used to! And riding as a passenger on the left of the car is also quite odd.

Has anyone else ever felt like a book they were reading started relating to their life at the very moment they were reading the book? I feel as though this has happened to me on a couple of occasions and I can't tell if I shape my thinking in life at the moment I am reading a book to have a common theme with the book, or if I am just reaching to find a similarity between what I am reading and what is going on in my life at that moment. But, anyway, I am reading a John Grisham (pure entertaining garbage, I know) in which the lead character is being forced to adapt to a new culture and a new language and he is taking that approach that he take the bull by the horns. Now, obviously I am not trying to pick up a new language, but the culture here is certainly different, and as Jake is working today I am just basically killing some time by myself. Though I have often travelled between places by myself I have spent very little time in new places by myself and I am still getting used to how different you feel walking down a street you've never been on, by yourself, with no true intended purpose.

On Jake's recommendation I decided to go for a bike ride towards the center of town. Simple enough right? But consider this: you bike on the opposite side of the street (so as to travel with the cars) and when you approach an intersection you must first look to the right, instead of to the left, because that is the closest lane of travel. And when you are crossing an intersection, you have to watch for left-turns from your direction of travel and right turns from the opposite direction of travel, which, at least to me, is more difficult that one might think. Now combine, riding a bike under totally different traffic conditions on streets you've never been on, and the simple bike ride into town becomes a bit more of an adventure. I must mention that the temperature is a near perfect 75 degrees or so, which made any worries I had disappear pretty quickly (-;

So, I made my first trip towards town, didn't really get all the way into town, but then rode back to a small shopping center where I made my first purchases on New Zealand soil. Now, I am back at Jake's just relaxing after all of the travels and all of the hectic happenings of the past few days. Nice to sit down with a new beer (Monteith's Summer Ale) and just unwind.