Driving in England: Think left!

We bought our car today, a nice Ford Focus in great condition, I can not describe how happy and relief my dear husband is. We found out that buying a car in England was not as easy as we might have hoped for. First of all, it is not like "pay and drive". It is more like: pay a deposit; go and get insurance and proof of insurance; come back in a couple of days; take your car but do not drive until you pay the road tax at the post office (?); Oops, sorry, not here, you have to go to the other side of the city to register your car... five days and 5 hours of train rides later: Now you can drive, well, attempt to drive...

Driving on the left side of the road, on the right side of the car, shifting gears with your left hand, looking at the mirror on the left side of your face... that is one too many "lefts" that I was preparing for. The challenge is not only to remember to stay on the left side of the road, it is also complicated to manage to stay on the center of the road, as we tent to drive closer to the left... the roads are so narrow here; I guess they were made when they were only single horses on them, plus, they allow drivers to park on both the sides of the road... making it virtually impossible for two cars to fit on a two-way road. The following is an example of an extreme two-way road that our dear "Lucy" gps navigator friend took us too. I think my Dad would have been very excited to take the "Short cut", quite the adventure.

En Español: Para manejar en Inglaterra hay que pensar en la Izquierda

Ya al fin tenemos un carro, un Ford Focus, y con el descubrimos todas las dificultades de manejar a la izquierda, con el timón a la derecha del carro, mirando al espejo en el lado izquierdo de la cara y con la mano izquierda en la palanca de cambios: esas son muchas izquierdas. Además, las calles son muy angostas y permiten parquear carros a ambos lados.
Comprar y registrar el carro fue más complicado de lo que pensábamos, se demoro varios días y con muchos tramites. Pero ya esta! Para quitarnos al menos una preocupación, tenemos un sistema de navegación satelital GPS, en el que entras la dirección a donde vas y el te va diciendo la ruta, lo llamamos "Lucy". Es bastante efectivo y muy útil, sobre todo al comienzo cuando tenemos que acostumbrarnos a manejar al otro lado.