Driving

It's no secret that I'm slightly enamoured with our new place of residence. Bahrain is new and exciting and a huge adventure. I know that there will be things that come up later that knock the shine off, but one thing that's working hard to tarnish it a little bit is driving. Ugh. Driving. I hate it. Like, a lot. 

I'm pretty type A when it comes to certain things... Driving is one of those things. I like rules and regulations and laws and all that jazz. I like knowing what can and can't be done so I can feel prepared to handle situations. Driving in Bahrain is chaotic, to say the least. I'm trying to come up with a funny metaphor but I can't. There's no real way to funnily describe the shit show that is driving in Bahrain. 

The rules here are pretty clear... there are no rules. You can do a u-turn in the middle of the damn street, drive through dirt lots to get to where you'd rather be if one connects you to somewhere else, if you've left more than two inches between your front bumper and the car in front of you-- that's enough space for someone to pull out in front of you. There's honking of horns (though, oddly, it's not malicious), pedestrians not giving a shit, cars coming out of nowhere, and people riding your butt because that's the way it is. And that's just driving. Navigating is just as harrowing. 

There aren't really street names, everything is numbered. There's a road number, then a block number, then a house or building number and that's the address. It's SO much. 

I've driven on the wrong side of the road in England and driven all over Europe and the United States. But nothing. NOTHING compares to driving in the Middle East. It's stressful and chaotic and crazy and bizarre and it makes no sense for my little type a brain. I don't like it. At all. 

Christopher on the other hand? This fool was made to drive over here. He's the king of making up his own driving rules so he loves it. Me? I'll just be sitting over here in a cold sweat driving the 8 minutes it takes to get to Stella's school from our hotel!