When you are not allowed to listen to your instinct

The most horrific thing I encountered when being in Englad for the first time was definitely the left hand side traffic. I just found it way too hard to get used to it. Probably because you can't teach an old dog new tricks even thoug I evaluate myself quite flexible. More then thirty years behind the wheel in the right hand side traffic has gotten pretty deep under my skin. Even crossing the road was always something beyond me. When only milliseconds saved me from getting smashed by a car (I've been still feeling that blast of the wind in my face as the car passed by) I realized I really had to stop before crossing the road and order myself – look right first and then left and then right again. And I trully did because I just couldn't trust my instincts.
I am pleased not being the only one having this trauma. I Canadian girl called herself Rebellious flew to Belfast, Northern Ireland, with her family yesterday. They hired a car to drive from the airport to their hotel. Her description of their first drive made me laugh reminding me of all the horror when my right hand fumbled in order to find the shift and how I had to chat myself up not to listen to my wish driving on the opposite site of the road. She got the same sensation, commenting this with words “Not good, not good at all.” I don't know how the drivers in Northern Ireland react when seing someone like me behind the wheel but suppose most of them get irritated the same way like many drivers in England – honking is the smallest thing. So I do know what she was talking about. (Anyway, I've never had an car accident.)

"So we get the car... which is when the panic sets in for all of us. I flat-out refused to drive since everything is on the left hand side of the road and I really don't want to get a) all of us killed, b) in an accident and c) a speeding ticket, traffic ticket, etc. So my dad's pretty much the only person left to drive (my grandmother has never driven, and my mother... well... it'd be a disaster. She can't even listen to music while driving without becoming too distracted.) So we get on the road... and it's an instantaneous mindfuck. We're driving down the lefthand side, all three of us (my grandmother is excluded from this) screaming out obscenities and cringing as people pass us, coming towards us, on the right handside of the road. I wish I'd video-ed the event because it was absolutely wild. When every instinct in your body is screaming at you to change lanes into the righthandside of the street, and yet there's traffic coming towards you on that side... it's pretty crazy. So my dad's cursing, and my mom's giving bad directions, and we've got cars honking behind us because my dad keeps stalling out (why, I don't know, we had standard cars for YEARS before we switched to automatics two years ago or so) and he won't drive over 30 miles an hour while he's adjusting to the car. Tensions... start to run wild. Not good, not good at all."