Life In Ireland: The Car
Of course, the most obvious difference about driving in Ireland compared to America is what side of road you are supposed to be on. A lot of times we are asked if switching sides was hard. Honestly, it wasn't - the hard part was getting used to which side of the car to get in to. Every now and then we still walk to the wrong side first. It's been a long time since either of us got in only to find the glove box, though.
There are two things that were much harder to get used to than driving on the other side of the road. One: parallel parking. Two: narrow roads. In the cities, two-lane streets are often one-lane wide. People still parallel park on the side. But the city planners rode horses, so how can you blame them? As you can see below, the roads don't get wider in the country:
Finally, the vocabulary:
trunk = boot
hood = bonnet
windshield = windscreen (and you wipe them with the windscreen wipers)
turn signal = indicator
gas = petrol
highway = motorway
parking lot = car park
Labels: Ireland
