North Yorkshire Notes or, I may have made an awful mistake.
Avid blog readers will remember (or can read 'Standards, No thanks!' below) my impending trip to the UK. Well, it's not impending any more, it's actually here. I'm actually on it.
The big news - Hertz gave me a car without needing an international license, so what a waste of time that was. I rewarded them by putting a thousand miles on it in 10 days. It's holding up well, though requires some coaxing up steep moorland inclines. Driving on the left for the first time was certainly an experience: kerbing the nearside tyre seems to be a favourite (well, I'm normally on that side of the car, aren't I?) and I had one violent disagreement with the GPS navigation when it put me in a multi-storey car-park at 70 mph, but that's another story.
The most interesting - and terrifying - experience was roundabouts. We only have the single-lane small tame ones in Germany, so arriving at the Birmingham Airport interchange was a heartstopping experience. I actually thought "Aha, so this is how I'm going to die. I see.", and considered parking the car up and going to study the damnable thing for half an hour to figure out how it works. I have adopted the strategy of approacing the things at high velocity, closing my eyes, and sorting out the resulting navigational mess after the fact.
The only other problem with driving around the moors is rounding a bend or a summit at high speed, and discovering a sheep looking at you from the middle of the road. I usually cope with this by frantic spinning of the steering wheel, and accompany the excursion into the heather with a strangled scream. I can hereby certify the Ford ABS system as Bloody Good.
Other than that, some serious relaxation has gone on. I've taken a lot of pictures. Unfortunately, a lot of these were on black and white film, which has to be specially developed and printed; apparently your high-street print shops just aren't equipped to develop this stuff. Well, it's understandable, them being staffed mostly with people who can only load the film into the machine and press 'go'.
Anyway, I still have a couple of days to go, so I'd better find myself a hotel for the night.
All the best from Whitby, North Yorkshire!
Avid blog readers will remember (or can read 'Standards, No thanks!' below) my impending trip to the UK. Well, it's not impending any more, it's actually here. I'm actually on it.
The big news - Hertz gave me a car without needing an international license, so what a waste of time that was. I rewarded them by putting a thousand miles on it in 10 days. It's holding up well, though requires some coaxing up steep moorland inclines. Driving on the left for the first time was certainly an experience: kerbing the nearside tyre seems to be a favourite (well, I'm normally on that side of the car, aren't I?) and I had one violent disagreement with the GPS navigation when it put me in a multi-storey car-park at 70 mph, but that's another story.
The most interesting - and terrifying - experience was roundabouts. We only have the single-lane small tame ones in Germany, so arriving at the Birmingham Airport interchange was a heartstopping experience. I actually thought "Aha, so this is how I'm going to die. I see.", and considered parking the car up and going to study the damnable thing for half an hour to figure out how it works. I have adopted the strategy of approacing the things at high velocity, closing my eyes, and sorting out the resulting navigational mess after the fact.
The only other problem with driving around the moors is rounding a bend or a summit at high speed, and discovering a sheep looking at you from the middle of the road. I usually cope with this by frantic spinning of the steering wheel, and accompany the excursion into the heather with a strangled scream. I can hereby certify the Ford ABS system as Bloody Good.
Other than that, some serious relaxation has gone on. I've taken a lot of pictures. Unfortunately, a lot of these were on black and white film, which has to be specially developed and printed; apparently your high-street print shops just aren't equipped to develop this stuff. Well, it's understandable, them being staffed mostly with people who can only load the film into the machine and press 'go'.
Anyway, I still have a couple of days to go, so I'd better find myself a hotel for the night.
All the best from Whitby, North Yorkshire!
posted by Faelkle at
03:17
