Hello my weirdos. I’ve been the driver of our vanimal (what I’ve named our van) the last couple of days so I’ve been pretty tired by the time we’ve gotten back to our B&Bs and haven’t posted much. Driving requires all concentration. It’s weird enough to drive on the left side of the road on the right side of the car, but then you throw in the tiny roads, a crazy high speed limits and a massive van and you’ve got a white knuckle experience! Motorway and city driving has better, wider lanes which is nice but intersections, roundabouts (rotary) and different road markings make it a little confusing. Not to mention, there are very few street name signs in Ireland and nothing and I mean NOTHING has an actual address. You just kind of need to pop in a general area into your gps and guess a house number. It’s super weird.

Now country driving is where the real adventure is. Most of it is on “two lane roads” which really means one wide lane that’s a perfect fit for one large vehicle with rock walls on either side of the road. Sure. That’s fine, until another car comes from the opposite direction and you both have to basically scrape the wall to get around each other. It’s still doable though. Let’s throw in a lot of twists and turns and blind corners. Ok, tricky but still doable.Until a garbage truck or delivery truck come barreling down the road. You’d better hope you’re in a wide spot in the road when you see one and just stop or slow way way down so you can squeak by. Over all, it’s still doable, though stressful.

The stress of it all is heightened by the speed limits. Through all the twists and turns and narrowness, you’d think the speed limit would be a cautious one, right? Nope! It’s generally about 80 to 100km which is roughly 40-60mph. Ummmm, what? Sounds completely overwhelming right? If you panic, it can be. But if you find yourself driving here, just remember, you’ve been driving for a while, you know your own traffic laws so just translate them to here. Drive as fast as you’re comfortable with. There will be a line of cars behind you but they’ll either go around you or you can pull over in a wide spot and let them pass you. No big deal. Better to be safe than in an accident! Plus, there tends to be animals, bicyclists and pedestrians  in the road as well. Slower is just safer.

I do however recommend that if you’re renting a car here, rent a midsize to compact car because getting around larger vehicles on narrow roads will be a hell of a lot easier!

Overall, I feel like I’ve done well. My passengers have not screamed for their lives more than once, I haven’t squashed any critters, I haven’t crashed or damaged the van, or had any fenderbenders. I’m getting used to the driving and I’m starting to feel comfortable with everything. 

I know one thing, I won’t complain about California traffic as much after driving here. Good old, slow ass, LA and SF traffic.