How I got a Mercedes to drive in England. Luck pure luck.

The Key

Kind Phil takes some time off work
 to drive us to Eurocar Rental

On Friday Phil, our home exchange host's son, kindly popped by to drive us to get our car rental. The idea of driving a car on the left side of the road is quite daunting, but the reality is not as bad as it sounds. You just have to think positively and prepare yourself for the adventure ahead of time. I decided to do a little creative visualization, and for a few nights, before drifting off to sleep (it was actually a pretty good way to get to sleep, I discovered) I just imagined exactly how I was going to walk to the RIGHT side of my car, (always bright blue, and very beautiful)  open the door, get in, turn on the ignition, drive on the LEFT side of the road,  how I would turn left, turn right. I always fell asleep just before I figured out how I would deal with the roundabouts though. The time came and Phil dropped by to pick us up and the hunt was on for the place where I had arranged our car hire. En route we had a number of dizzying spins on half a dozen roundabouts. While we whipped around them I  frantically tried to analyze exactly what he was doing  (this felt quite a bit like cramming for an exam, actually). Finally Phil drove us into bowels of Milton Keanes near where a  new city stadium was being built. We saw a small sign that read "Eurocar Rentals". My booking printout actually read "Alamo" and had the byline "To Find Us Just Look For The Green Alamo Sign" but who am I to question such things. The brusque fellow at the counter seemed to be expecting us and he quickly advised us that unfortunately the Vauxhall was not available. Would we, perhaps be OK with either a seven-seat MVP Volkswagen immediately, or, if we could wait for 30 minutes, a Mercedes? No problem, I said, as soon as the shock wore off, we would wait. However, I shortly discovered that I had left my passport at the house and it was necessary to book the car. Phil had already left to head back for work, the house was a long taxi ride away and the man behind the counter was looking at me with polite disdain. While he was shaking his head and saying "no, I am afraid we need a passport" I could see the image of Leif and Kendra and I happily tooling about the British countryside in a beautiful, spacious Mercedes fading away. I tried accessing Dropbox on my phone to get to a jpeg of the passport but it seemed to be beyond the current capability of the phone. OK, to be truthful - in my frenzied haste I pulled out its battery thinking I had to reboot and  that pretty well screwed up my phone for the next half an hour or so. I left Leif to fiddle with the phone and  I frantically searched my wallet for another photo ID  (besides my drivers licence) that they might accept. Finally I found my old American Express Costco card that I rarely use, with a fuzzy four year old mug of me on the back. I handed it to him with a flourish, saying "It's American Express !" He peered at it, flipped it over to see my grinning face, sighed, and said something like "I suppose it will have to do". In no time I was behind the wheel of a lovely Mercedes. Thank-you Costco.

 Left side of the road? no problem. Roundabouts? well it has been a couple of days and they are now making sense, but lets just say for the first few times I wish I hadn't fallen asleep those nights quite so quickly.

Not blue but very beautiful, here is our Mercedes we have decided to call Frans