I have to report the exciting news that I have successfully driven in England! Twice!
After I figured out that I needed to push the stick-shift away from me to move into 2nd gear -- thus not continuing to move from 1st directly to 4th and stalling -- it went fairly well. We were on some slow, fairly crowded roads, which I thought would have been scary but in fact made things easier. I just had to focus on the car in front of me and hope that he also wasn't driving on the left for the first time. That, and focus on not sideswiping cars parked to my left. Objects on the left are closer than they may seem, what with all the extra width of the car in that direction!
It was also helpful to have a local "navigator" so I didn't have to figure out where I needed to go at the same time as concentrating hard on staying in my lane. However, I think the wet-behind-the-ears salesman at the VW dealership did a poor job at hiding his slight nervousness at the realization that he was a passenger to a wet-behind-the-ears left-side driver. But, he was a good sport and we all made it back in one piece.
No car yet, though we know it will be a late model Golf of some type (casting the net narrow to make life a little easier). More to report when we start studying for our written and road tests!
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