"Routine, it's lethal" -- the thread of international vacation travel

I’m in Ireland for a week of holiday. We hired a car and are driving all over the island. I’ve actually driven on the left before; I rented a motor scooter in Thailand for a couple of days a few years ago. But Thailand is not like Ireland. There are five of us traveling together so we rented a Hyundai Tucson–a “compact” SUV. Ireland seems to specialize in narrow roads bordered by walls covered in hedges. Often the road is single track with no shoulder at all. The walls are a foot or so from both sides of your vehicle and you just pray not to encounter oncoming traffic.

Ireland traffic follies:

We drove from Dublin to Belfast and were a bit dismayed how slow the speed limits were on the expressway when we crossed the border into the UK. We didn’t figure out until the next day that speeds/distances on road signs in Northern Ireland are miles/mph not km/kph. I’m sure the drivers behind me were cursing my name.

We left our AirBnb near Galway to find some dinner. It was pitch black out and we were driving down a narrow road when the headlights of an oncoming car appeared. Luckily there was a cluster of row houses on the left with a wider patch of drive adjacent to the road so I stopped my car giving plenty of room for the other driver to pass me on the left. The other driver, of course drove right up to me and stopped a few feet from the front of my car. After a few seconds of wondering what the hell, I realized my mistake and sheepishly steered left around him.

Turns are easy. What’s surprisingly hard is station keeping in lane while sitting on the right side of the car. I tend to drift to the left away from the center lane too far and have to force myself to drive farther to the right than is intuitively comfortable.

I went to Ireland with a tour group years ago and those narrow country roads were quite something when you are in a tour bus. Add some oncoming traffic and occasional cyclists. . . Thankfully our bus driver Paddy was up to the task.

Holy flashbacks. I commend you for driving on that trip. It reminded me of a business trip we had a few years ago to Dublin. My American coworker drove, it was a mixed group of 5 of us so we needed a larger SUV (first mistake.) They offered him the Audi Q7 as a free upgrade for our group and he took it (second mistake.) It was also rainy and dark and we were staying in Malahide so every time we went to something IN Dublin proper it was a bit of a haul. It was awful for driving. I have no idea how we didn’t die and I’m not saying that lightly. You are a trooper, Matt. I would not have ever done that, especially after the trip I had. If I did it would be in the smallest car possible. And this is coming from someone who drove on small town and country Italian roads for two years. Fortunately there, you drive on the right side of the road. It’s harrowing being narrow, but not nearly as bad regarding dodging larger cars, trucks, etc.

We go to England every other year, with our own car, and I always find that driving on the left side comes completely naturally. I don’t think about it, I just do it. Those narrow country roads are the ultimate test: if you are suddenly confronted with oncoming traffic, which side do you instinctively swerve to? I feared it would be to the right (like I would do in the Netherlands) but somehow it never was. Funny thing: as soon as we are back, driving on the right feels natural too…
On the other hand, my wife is regularly gasping and almost screaming when I take a roundabout the (in her mind) wrong way, because her system tells her that’s wrong. Needless to say, she doesn’t drive over there.

In the end, you have it, or you don’t. It is not a skill and as such not something I can or would brag about. I am still glad one of us has it though, makes driving over there a lot more relaxing.

Guess I am lucky that I don’t have any trouble adapting to the other side of the road either and have lived many years with both systems. However I have not yet tried driven over a border to the “opposite” system, as I imagine sitting on the “wrong” side of the car would be irritating? Not sure how big a factor that would be though.

Also in terms of initially switching over I guess it makes a difference if you are driving a manual or an automatic. Switching gears with the other hand takes a bit of getting used to. I remember during my first few days on the opposite side, I kept hitting the door when I wanted to reach for the gear stick!

At least in Ireland it’s hard to get the roundabouts wrong. They all have swept curbs that clearly guide you the correct direction. You’d have to try hard to go the wrong way. That said, it did take a couple of near misses to train me to look right instead of left before entering.

That is indeed the only thing I need to focus on when I arrive in England. Btw: there are several crossroads in England that are turned into a roundabout by painting a circle on the crossroad. I hate those: you don’t know you are approaching a roundabout until you are just about on it…

Weird Irish pecadillos:

  • You can’t get drip coffee anywhere. It’s espresso drinks only and they’re very snobbish about it. Not sure why a watery Americano is better than a fresh drip, but there you go.
  • Even though driving is on the left, pedestrians tend to walk on the right side of sidewalks and are very reluctant to shift.
  • Public transit in Dublin is kind of confusing for tourists. It has great coverage, but consists of 4-5 separate overlapping systems with separate ticketing. Stops are confusingly laid out, signage is sparse, and schedules seem to be hazy suggestions. It works, but it’s a bit chaotic. Give yourself plenty of extra time.

This is generally the case in Europe, including the UK. My local railway station cafe (much fancier than these usually are) does filter coffee, when it hasn’t run out, but it’s very much the exception.

Interesting, I’d never have thought of drip coffee as being fancy! My exposure to it has generally just been a watered down brown liquid, thus being the “poor mans coffee”. Just goes to show how our prejudices influence everything! :)

Oh believe me, nobody in Ireland thinks of it as fancy either. It’s definitely just my personal preference. I prefer the mellow, nutty flavors of filtered coffee to espresso. And I generally think of Americano as a kludge: adding water to espresso to approximate filtered.

It’s not that filter coffee is fancier, just that this place has more options than a traditional railway caff, and is the sort of place that gives full origin descriptions for each of its coffees, and so uses a different coffee for its filter option. If a place only has one option, it’s generally going to be espresso and other things you can make with an espresso machine. Or if it’s really rough, instant.

Cool! Thanks for the clarification. I have to confess I’m not actually much of a coffee drinker, but when I do feel like one, I tend to go for the (wimpier) cappuccino option (or a flat white if they have one).

I believe the Starbucks in Malahide had drip coffee made and could be ordered when we were there. Then again, the place mostly catered to Americans that were staying nearby, for all I know that was something they did just for that reason.

But I have to admit I usually went for espresso or latte depending on the time of day there so I don’t doubt drip coffee was hard to find.

Isn’t that normal? I was always taught to walk against the flow of traffic so that you can see cars approaching you and step away from the road if needed.

Well, I mean if he’s saying the walk on the right regardless I’m guessing that’s not always against traffic.

And yes regardless which side traffic is on I’m always going to walk and/or run against traffic.

You need to experience Tokyo…

I gather it’s a model of public transit efficiency. Is that actually the case? I’ve always been partial to Paris’s system. And I have to say, even though San Diego’s system has pretty poor coverage, it is efficient, easy to use, and keeps really well to its timetables.

Here is a curated selection of tourist Ireland photos.

Cliffs above the Giant’s Causeway

Dunsandle Castle. (This is not on your typical tourist agenda. We found it by searching Google Maps for “castle” along our route. It’s down a very narrow dirt track and on private property. We climbed over a gate to get to it. But it was so cool to find this abandoned overgrown ruin in the middle of the forest.)

And here’s a photo of your typical Irish vista. This one on Dingle Peninsula, but pretty characteristic of all of rural Ireland.
image

Dunquin Pier on Slea Head. It was so, so windy the whole time we were on the west coast. Dunquin Pier is almost the westernmost point in Europe. (The westernmost pub is 1 km away.) In summer you can catch a ferry from here to an island off the coast.

The Temple Bar district of Dublin. Dublin is about half the population of San Diego, but feels about 3 times as bustling. Temple Bar was just packed with people, live music blaring out of every pub.

We had a great visit. The weather wasn’t too bad. We did a lot of driving, but also saw a lot of stuff. We finished the trip with a Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s house near Dublin put on by a group of mixed marriages (Irish & American), which was really nice. Irish folks pay about 1000x more attention to U.S. politics than I do to Irish politics and I felt a bit chagrined at how little Irish politics and history I know. We visited so many historic sites it’s time to rectify that somewhat.

Hahahaha.

No. It’s the most confusing system I’ve ever been in. Two different subway systems + train lines, etc… Different languages and uses didn’t help either. Got the hang of it after a couple days, but being used to continental Europe, it felt extreme.

Map: https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/routemaps/pdf/RouteMap_majorrailsub.pdf

Well here we are post COVID, I find myself with far fewer responsibilities, so I intend to travel a bunch this year. Any strong recommendations, particularly for Mar-Apr? I speak enough Spanish to get around, like to scuba dive, and otherwise just noodle around museums, parks, interesting cities, etc. I’m eyeballing Belize for a quickie that has the diving thing on lock, beyond that I’m interested in Colombia, Ireland, maybe Switzerland but open to anything.