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@voodoo said in Happiness Scale:
You get used to it pretty quick. I drove our van all around Italy (and most of Western Europe) in '99 - had to do a 3pt turn taking a regular corner on the main road driving to the Amalphi Coast at one point because the road was so narrow. The scariest is the first time someone overtakes you when there is someone coming the other way so you and the oncoming car both swing to the edge and the passing car is split across both lanes - terrifying. That and the moped riders...
The other fun drive is the Arc de Triomphe - we tried to avoid it but got funnelled in and that was a game of Frogger I'd like to forget.
I was the same re-the Arc. Was given instructions from the agent about how to get onto the motorway. Pre-GPS days so missed a turn and ended up on the Champs.
Got off the motorway near Naples later on the trip. Certainly an eye opener
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@canefan said in Happiness Scale:
Got off the motorway near Naples later on the trip. Certainly an eye opener
one of my proudest driving achievements was driving to find the leaning tower of pisa with only a very high level lonely planet map, navigating crazy italian drivers. I got us there with no dings - so that's a win!
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@voodoo said in Happiness Scale:
Amalphi Coast at one point because the road was so narrow.
you drove that road? Are you fucking nuts? I took the bus, and wanted to hire every driver and bring them back to Aus, incredible skill.
By the end of the week i was fine, and even driving back in to Florence was no problem. But trying to navigate, learn to do things the "opposite" way, and getting honked at for being a stupid tourist was fucked.
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@mariner4life said in Happiness Scale:
@voodoo said in Happiness Scale:
Amalphi Coast at one point because the road was so narrow.
you drove that road? Are you fucking nuts? I took the bus, and wanted to hire every driver and bring them back to Aus, incredible skill.
By the end of the week i was fine, and even driving back in to Florence was no problem. But trying to navigate, learn to do things the "opposite" way, and getting honked at for being a stupid tourist was fucked.
Young and dumb man! Now I'm old and dumb, but that's another story.
We did about 12,000kms over 4 months - I did all the driving and my mate was chief paper map navigator. No chance I could have done both.
We bought the van just out of Amsterdam at some dealers nearly-scrapyard (I still remember turning out of the lot onto the wrong side of the luckily empty road) and it was our transport and home for the whole time - it saw some damn good times and we eventually drove ourselves to Prague airport and left it there to fly to London.
Happiness!
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@voodoo said in Happiness Scale:
@mariner4life said in Happiness Scale:
@voodoo said in Happiness Scale:
Amalphi Coast at one point because the road was so narrow.
you drove that road? Are you fucking nuts? I took the bus, and wanted to hire every driver and bring them back to Aus, incredible skill.
By the end of the week i was fine, and even driving back in to Florence was no problem. But trying to navigate, learn to do things the "opposite" way, and getting honked at for being a stupid tourist was fucked.
Young and dumb man! Now I'm old and dumb, but that's another story.
We did about 12,000kms over 4 months - I did all the driving and my mate was chief paper map navigator. No chance I could have done both.
We bought the van just out of Amsterdam at some dealers nearly-scrapyard (I still remember turning out of the lot onto the wrong side of the luckily empty road) and it was our transport and home for the whole time - it saw some damn good times and we eventually drove ourselves to Prague airport and left it there to fly to London.
Happiness!
I did 10,000 kms in a Peugeot in 2009 (France, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium), and another 5000 odd in 2014 (France, Italy).
I reckon the absolute worst was Granada in Spain. Italians were mild by comparison - but I'll admit that I didn't do the Amalfi coast! Fuck that.
I've driven the roads around the Cinque terre though - that was a fucking mission in a mid sized SUZ, and there was a parking building at Portofino which still gives me the shits when I think about it.
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you've never lived until you've taken a wrong turn and got a rental car stuck in a small village square in Spain on the side of a mountain unable to get the thing out and having to beg a local to rev the fuck out of it and drive it at 30mph up a hill so steep at it was hard to walk up between buildings that until that point were definitely not far enough apart to get the car between. Bought that guy a lot of drinks. When we eventually found him.
As for happiness. My brother had a little girl this morning, his first child, my first proper niece (wife's sisters kids don't count) after a very traumatic pregnancy. Mother and baby doing well. Only downside is that she was born in Australia. My dad will be looking down with a big grin, bemoaning the fact both of his feckless sons are still unable to have a boy. Cheers to you all, today is a good day.
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Congrats @Dodge great to hear they are doing well, particularly if it was a difficult pregnancy, I know how stressful that can be. Funny you say that about having girls, my family has been the opposite. I have 3 brothers, my older brother has 2 boys, my younger brother has 2 boys, and I have 3 boys. So from my mums POV that's 11 boys in a row (a cricket team!).
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@MajorRage said in Happiness Scale:
It would be wrong to talk about Rome without mentioning the drives. Absolute borderline of genius and insane.
I knew Mrs M was right for me when she picked me up from Rome airport when I joined her on a family holiday in Umbria.
Figured if she could handle that traffic chaos so serenely, she could handle my lunacy too....
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@Dodge said in Happiness Scale:
you've never lived until you've taken a wrong turn and got a rental car stuck in a small village square in Spain on the side of a mountain unable to get the thing out and having to beg a local to rev the fuck out of it and drive it at 30mph up a hill so steep at it was hard to walk up between buildings that until that point were definitely not far enough apart to get the car between. Bought that guy a lot of drinks. When we eventually found him.
As for happiness. My brother had a little girl this morning, his first child, my first proper niece (wife's sisters kids don't count) after a very traumatic pregnancy. Mother and baby doing well. Only downside is that she was born in Australia. My dad will be looking down with a big grin, bemoaning the fact both of his feckless sons are still unable to have a boy. Cheers to you all, today is a good day.
Tu meke bro
Love and celebrate the good days, and you deserve a few my man
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With taxes in the UK set to go through the roof, I am beginning to think about somewhere new to settle.
I want to live somewhere with an excellent education system, a good human rights record, low to medium taxes, nice beer, good scenery and the ability to watch Rugby on a regular basis.
Anyone ever lived in Switzerland?
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@No-Quarter said in Happiness Scale:
Congrats @Dodge great to hear they are doing well, particularly if it was a difficult pregnancy, I know how stressful that can be. Funny you say that about having girls, my family has been the opposite. I have 3 brothers, my older brother has 2 boys, my younger brother has 2 boys, and I have 3 boys. So from my mums POV that's 11 boys in a row (a cricket team!).
Shame it's not girls, you could be considering a golf course in time.
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@sparky said in Happiness Scale:
With taxes in the UK set to go through the roof, I am beginning to think about somewhere new to settle.
I want to live somewhere with an excellent education system, a good human rights record, low to medium taxes, nice beer, good scenery and the ability to watch Rugby on a regular basis.
Anyone ever lived in Switzerland?
Live rugby as in go to the games? How about New Zealand?
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The whanau with the grunting teenagers have left after spending a long weekend with us.
All is well.
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Mexico City. Even the taxi from the airport gave me nightmares.
Portugal, don't know if it is the same now but it had one of the highest accident rates in Europe if not the worst, and all the taxis were Mercs-how could they afford the inevitable repairs! Lisbon looked ok but some of the single lanes through the villages were barely fiesta-wide, with no sidewalks! -
I always found driving a left hand drive car in England worse than driving in Europe or the US.
But I did drive for about 2km on the wrong side of the road in the US one time. Luckily it was in Vermont so I didn't hit any traffic.
I've twice completely feared for my life in a car, but driven by others, once in Vietnam where our driver from Hue down to the caves (can't remember their names) is the worst driver who just passed everything regardless of oncoming traffic.
The other was a FOB Samoan dude picked me up hitchhiking one day and emulated the Vietnamese driver, I was likely saved by the fact we passed an off duty cop who called the local cops who pulled us over, turns out the Samoan dude didn't have a license. The off duty cop stopped as well and was from Napier so he gave me a ride back home.
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@Nepia said in Happiness Scale:
I always found driving a left hand drive car in England worse than driving in Europe or the US.
But I did drive for about 2km on the wrong side of the road in the US one time. Luckily it was in Vermont so I didn't hit any traffic.
I've twice completely feared for my life in a car, but driven by others, once in Vietnam where our driver from Hue down to the caves (can't remember their names) is the worst driver who just passed everything regardless of oncoming traffic.
The other was a FOB Samoan dude picked me up hitchhiking one day and emulated the Vietnamese driver, I was likely saved by the fact we passed an off duty cop who called the local cops who pulled us over, turns out the Samoan dude didn't have a license. The off duty cop stopped as well and was from Napier so he gave me a ride back home.
I can't imagine what you guys would have talked about.
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@Nepia said in Happiness Scale:
I've twice completely feared for my life in a car, but driven by others, once in Vietnam where our driver from Hue down to the caves (can't remember their names) is the worst driver who just passed everything regardless of oncoming traffic
I developed a theory about that while over there. Namely that they drove cars in the same manner they ride bikes. One makes sense, the other doesn't.
Still better than the complete disregard for human life on display in India. Coaches overtaking on blind curves with certain death if you leave the "road".
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@antipodean when I was in Egypt we did an excursion from Aswan to Abu Simbel, we were in a 10 seater van, but part of a 20+ vehicle convoy.
Immaculate roads, that had only recently re-opened to tourist groups due to 'pirates' in the Nubian, therefore we had police escorts too.
Anywhoo, point was, this massive convoy was reminiscent of the wacky races cartoon.
We'd have a full bus pass us on a blind corner going over a hill at 70+ mph, then 10 mins later we'd be flying past several other buses on corners we had no business passing on...what i learnt, was it was basically one big old game of Chinese whispers...guy at front taps his brakes 3 times when a vehicle is coming, the vehicle behind does the same and so on...
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I used to have a theory about these countries who seem to drive crazy compared to us - ... "but it seems to work, so... : shrug :"
But then started to notice... hmmm... their cars have more dents than ours, and then... bike ride in India, 1 day out, 1 day back... - multiple bus wrecks on the side of the road on the way back that weren't there on the way out.
Nepal - coming across a bus wreck within an hour of it happening... not great.I don't know if one gets that shit in Iberia - I've never done country roads there, only seen the city action... but I get the impression they keep their crazy to city-speeds, city-risks.
Happiness Scale
