I told Nate that if possible I would like to figure out
driving in Holland. Since Dave and Kristie are over here and our friends Nathan
and Ken are coming over in a few weeks I’ll be going on day trips with them. I
was planning on just taking the train but when the tickets would be around 30
euros per person for a round trip ticket, that’s close to 100 euros per day
just for transportation. The company pays Nate for one tank of fuel a week, and
we have a car that gets such good MPG that we are only on our second tank in four weeks.
Nate has been interested in riding a bike to work, since it
would take similar or even less time since he could take a more direct route.
Plus it would give him some daily exercise. The place that we are staying rents
bikes for only 10 euros per day, so if Nate rode his bike, then I could drive
the car and save us a bunch of money.
I had asked Nate if we could go to the larger grocery store
that’s across town. As we walked toward the car Nate went to the passenger side
door. At first I thought he was just going to open the door for me, but instead
he was going to let me drive.
It was a little stressful I have to say. One thing that I’m
not used to is all the bikes; you really need to watch out for them. Luckily
it’s not really too bad as the bikes have their own lanes and their own signals.
Cars are never permitted to turn right on red so unless someone jaywalks/rides you should be good to go on a green light.
One other difference is that the stop lights are on the
close side of the intersection and usually on either side of the lanes instead
of above, so they are much harder to see and you could easily miss a light if
you’re not paying attention.
Before leaving the parking space I asked Nate what my first
few turns were, so I knew basically how I was going. The car is pretty easy to
drive, it’s just a little nerve racking because it’s kind of a big car, especially
for over here where the lanes are narrower.
On the way home things were a little trickier as the road we
went down was only about 1-1/2 lanes wide with no line down the middle and a
bike lane on either side. So depending on if you were going past a car or a
bike you had to shift around in the lane.
It was stressful, but after driving a few more times I’ll
probably feel better about it.
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