A Month Away - Pt. 1

So, I'm back from the aforementioned entire month of August-long trip to Ireland and Germany. I'm not quite sure how to break all that down into convenient blog-sized chunks, though, so apologies if this devolves into a bullet-point list of incomprehensible sentence fragments.

I'll separate it up into a few posts. That way I can shame myself into writing prose all the way through. ;)

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Ireland
We spent the first week of the Ireland trip on an intensive driving course. The decision to do one in the first place was reached in pretty much one evening, and the thought process went a bit like this:

Me: I'm in my mid-twenties and still have no driving licence. I'm about to finish vet school. Vets kind of need one of those.
HL: I don't have one either. That might look bad on job applications.
Both: ...well, shit.
Me: I found an intensive course in my home town! I can learn in four days.
HL: Cool. I'll do that too.
Me: But you can't understand half of what my relatives say to you in that accent.
HL: It'll be fiiiine.

Cue lessons with Gary:
Gary: "[instructions in strong accent]"
HL: "What?"

We survived our lessons rather well, all things considered. Unfortunately we'll both need another attempt before we get our licences.

I had a couple of issues to overcome during the lessons. For starters, I found out early on that I had a problem with what I came to think of as "cyclist hangovers".

The way a cyclist thinks while on the road can all be understood by trying to cycle for a week in Cambridge. Once you fully experience the fact that you are small, slow and unprotected, and (in the eyes of many drivers - fuck the Highway Code) never have right of way since you don't have the force to back it up without endangering yourself, you too can develop Cyclist Brain.

However, having Cyclist Brain engaged while protected by several hundred kilos of metal makes you continue to try to not bother anyone or get in the way, which makes you look hesitant, which can get you in trouble in your test, so I spent most of the course trying to unlearn that behaviour.

I also developed a chip on my shoulder about reversing, possibly due to the sheer number of times I've heard "Women can't reverse" or equivalents throughout my life. I'd have loved it if that had turned out to be the "Ha, I'll show you 'can't reverse'-ing!" kind of chip, rather than the "Reverse? ....okay! shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit" kind.

Add in "left-hand, around a corner" and "while backing up a hill with a steep gradient" and I'd have had trouble most days, never mind doing that with wobbly test-day legs and the consequent hair-trigger clutch control it created.

So... no licence for me this time around.