Getting a car (and driving it)

About the fifth time in as many weeks (admittedly not that often) that I had to stand out in the sun and sweat while watching taxis whoosh by, I decided it was time to re-think the transportation situation.  So I badgered asked my husband to re-think it for me.

This was probably the single easiest thing we've done so far -- renting a vehicle.  We rang Fast Rent a Car on Tuesday evening (www.fastuae.com) and were told we needed to email a copy of my driving licenses (foreign and Abu Dhabi) and passport visa page.  Well, except for the minor annoyance of trying to scan these things via a bum USB port, the admin work was taken care of early Wednesday morning and we immediately received a call from Fast telling us that we'd have the car delivered by that afternoon.  A recitation of my (newly acquired) UAE credit card number sealed the deal and by 1530 we had wheels.

Now for the scary part.  I was going to actually drive the thing to work the following morning.

I suppose I did experience a moment or two of sheer terror the previous night, but that quickly passed (well, sort of).  And at 0745 on Thursday morning I was off, and giddy with delight at the fact that for the third time in three years I was back on the right side of the road.  Seven minutes later I pulled into the gates at work, parked five meters from the door of my building, and said goodbye to waiting for taxis.

For all my fears, driving in Abu Dhabi ended up being a hell of a lot easier than driving three hours at night in the rain in Hungary, navigating labyrinthine London streets, riding a (non-automatic) scooter in Mexico, trying to keep up with the 60 MPH speed limit on English country roads that maybe are wide enough to accommodate a bicycle, or making the 2 AM run from Florence to Rome to catch an early morning flight.

And I still have all my fingers and toes.