Saturday, December 10, 2005

To grow Mike Tyson's neck in UK

I was surprised when my dentist told me during my regular check up that my neck muscles are really relaxed and strong, I didn’t know why but I gave a second thought and here is why.

Since I arrived in London I am totally confused about traffic and direction. Looking out from my eggy shaped window at Heathrow, I see cars without drivers, Okay, Ouna is jetlagged no problem.
Out of the airport to catch the bus, I am going to get in the bus from the driver side, so I am going to walk over the driver, oh, no driver. Where the hell does the driver sit??

“Watch out, a car will have head on collision with the bus”, that is what I wanted to shout to the driver, but apparently everything worked fine.
I decided to go on stand by mode till my final destination.

Next day, Ouna is fresh and ready to hit the road Jack.
Okay let me get this straight, I am sure that the person who is in charge of streets in UK has a paint factory, there are writing on every inch of the asphalt {look right, left up, down and behind, I guess they missed chin up, straighten up little soldier).

Now I got it, they drive on the other side of the street here, of course I knew that before I came here but seriously you won’t get it until you are in the middle of the action, the writing on the asphalt to alert pedestrians to watch for cars as by default people visiting UK will look the opposite side (I mean the other side, left is right, right is left oh well, just look), not really sure if British read these signs.

Since then I decided to look both sides, I am not gonna bother by reading the look thingy written there, especially since I was a little I have hard time to know which is right and which is left (the hand I use for writing is right hand).
Did any one get it, yes, for the last 8 months, every time I am in London I have to keep looking right and left every traffic light and every pedestrian crossing forced my neck muscles to work out, real work out, I guess I will grow Mike Tyson's neck soon.
By the way, Sweden had changed driving direction over one night.

P.S I am not sure if the other side of the street rule applies on pedestrians as well!!!

Last week I was chatting with a colleague of mine who is British and based in Dubai who said, it took him sometime to learn how to drive on the other side of the street, not like we do in UK.
I was sort of surprised when I heard the two words “other side” it is really interesting to hear how people look at things we took for granted all our life.

1 comment:

Sooski said...

It's about time for UK to change it!!