Showing posts with label British. Show all posts
Showing posts with label British. Show all posts

Friday, 17 February 2012

Staying Right

You will see these cool leaf imprints on the sidewalks around Yaletown
This may seem a bit of an odd post to be getting into, but being English (where everything is done on the left) you can perhaps start to empathise with my concerns. Basically, I find myself occassionally walking into people here in Vancouver, not because I am mad, but I have come to the conclusion that this happens because I am just overly English (in some respects!) I mean even when I was in India last year, there is still evidence of a colonial hangover, as I had no worries freely veering to the left-hand side of the (not very exsistent) pavement, or driving on the left-hand side of the roads in Goa, as this was something that was not changed in the wake of Indian Independance.

In Commonwealth Canada however, it is a different ball game altogether. I walk around downtown with my girlfriend, and she is constantly dragging me over to the right-hand side of the sidewalk. Additionally, and somewhat scarily, should you have a current UK driving license, you are actually allowed to drive in Canada for upto six months from your time of arrival - cruising on the freeway wouldn't be so bad, but driving within a city, no thanks! I think the remedy for this little quirk that I have discovered is to just keep practising, right, and if worst comes to worst, just apologize in your best British accent!