Today I rented a car. I feel this urge to get out of the city. Eventually I want to drive into the mountains for some climbing so I figured renting a car was the only way to go. I managed to pick up a Subaru Legacy for 5 days for a little over $300 Kiwi which comes out to like $160 or so. Not a bad deal at all. Instead of driving to the mountains, I drove 20 minutes east to the beaches of
New Brightong and hung out for a few hours. In the past 5 months, the only "beach" I got to stand on was that on the shores of the
Ross Sea. It was nice to sea the sea without any ice in it as well as feel the sand underneath my toes.
It makes you almost want to move there!
Being my first introduction back into driving in society, renting a car in New Zealand probably wasn't the most brilliant idea I've ever had. For one, if it's designed for a car to fit through it in New Zealand, it's small. It's going to be small. It's never going to be big. Period. This I learned very fast as I pulled out of the service garage at the rental shop. I tried not to look at the agent that rented the car to me out of fear of whatever face he was making as I thugged my way out of the garage. Then came driving on the left side of the road. I've never done this...not even by accident back in the states. For about 30 minutes striaght, I said the word "left" over and over and over again praying to God I don't make the mistake of defaulting to sub-conscious
American driving. At one point while driving from Christchurch to New Brighton, I saw something that triggered some inquisitive though as I was making a right hand turn and before I knew it, I was heading for the right hand lane with several on coming cars. Luckily I had plenty of room to steer back into my intended lane of travel and I escaped injury, damage, and angry gleems of disapprovals from the other drives. I got the hang of driving on the left side of the road right away. The one thing that took me days to get use to was walking to the right side of the car to get in the drivers seat. (As of writing on 26 Feb I still have the habit of walking to the left side). It feels good to drive again and not rely on public transportation. Maybe I can do a road trip while down here...
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