My girlfriend Shelby and I just got back from a vacation in Ireland. It was great! Check out this cool yurt we got to stay in.
We also got to have drinks on the top floor of the Guinness brewery, which was awesome.
That’s not what I want to write about, though. I want to write about how lucky I am to still be alive after having to drive in Dublin.
I could get past the fact that upon receiving our rental car, I had been awake for about 21 hours. I could get past the fact that our car was “automatic” only in the sense that it felt like there was a small person under the hood doing a marginal job of shifting for us. I could also get past the fact that I had to rather quickly get used to driving on the left side of the street. The thing I couldn’t get past that driving in Dublin was a no rules, anything goes, “good luck you’re on your own” shitstorm.
I’m used to driving with a certain set of rules. Around here, the rules are that you drive on the right side of the street, there is a stop sign or set of lights at an intersection, you signal to turn, and signs point out anything that deviates from these rules. The rules may change, but whatever they are, every street follows them.
In Dublin, rather than having a set of rules, every lane was covered in words painted on to hint at what may be going on. Are you on a two way street? Fuck you, now you’re on a one way street. Is there a red light? I hope you guess which one of these 3 or 4 lines to stop behind. Lanes literally had arrows painted in them to show which way they go.
It wasn’t much easier to try to walk around, either.
Pedestrians need to read these, because besides this warning, there’s really just no way to tell which way traffic is going. In many places, the letters we worn down. In those cases, you’re pretty much fucked and you’re going to get hit by a Saab.
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