Keep Left

With their apartment hunt at an end, Bryan and Jane decided to dedicate the remainder of their time before Bryan started work with some sightseeing. Their first order of business was to get a rental car. Bryan and Jane intended to buy a car of their own soon, but in the meantime they needed a way to get around - and a car that was not theirs to attempt driving on the left side of the road with first. Like much of the rest of the former British Empire (as well as Japan for some reason), Kiwis drive on the left, or the wrong, side of the road. A danger to visiting pedestrians and a confusion for American and European drivers, driving on the left is an art unto itself. Left turns are the easy ones, and right turns hard; roundabouts take the place of four-way stops, and there is a whole lot more car to your left than you're used to in the US.

Jane was actually looking forward to the mirror-effect driving because she hoped that it would tame Bryan's driving, at least for a bit. Bryan was always a much more cautious driver when he felt slightly uncomfortable, and driving on the other side of the road should make him uncomfortable. Or so Jane thought. Bryan eased into the left side of the car and, like a fish swimming along with the current, Bryan flowed along seamlessly with the native left-hand drivers. After only a few days of sunning his right arm instead of his left, Bryan was back to his old driving habits: weaving in and out of traffic and setting his own "reasonable" pace. Bryan and Jane's friend Amy had told them that she was glad to see them leave the country if only because it would make the streets of Chicago safer.

Bryan told Jane that he couldn't wait to get their own car. The automatic they rented just didn't give him as much control as the manual that he wanted would. Keep left indeed.