I passed!

During the last week I've gotten a couple of emails asking why the blog hasn't been updated. Sorry, but I've been studying like crazy for my UK driver's license theory and hazard video tests. Last Friday I passed! It was like being a teenager all over again, only I wasn't used to taking tests anymore.

Perfect score on the multiple choice questions and did OK on the video. Over clicked on one video and lost all those points so that hurt, but it's done now. I plan on taking the behind the wheel portion before the end of the year.

All the things I had to learn as well as unlearn made this an intense venture. When you've been riding in the car for 16 years you know the signs, not when you move countries though. I knew some of them, but many were things I'd never seen before. The whole level crossing (railroad) is completely different. You drive on the carriageway (not on the pavement because that's the sidewalk), in snow and ice you drive in as high a gear as possible. Then there's road hazards like sheep, horses and "organized walks". And don't forget those crossings: the zebra, the puffin, the pelican, the pegasus and the toucan. They had a panda, but it didn't work out so well. That's just a sample of the 1,000 test questions I had to know.

The video thing was really intense. If you play video games, you might feel more relaxed than I did. The idea is that you click the mouse every time you see a hazard or the hazard changes as you drive down the road. The only problem is after decades of driving I know that everything is a hazard. So figuring out when to click was no easy feat.

Here's an example of what I was up against:


There were 14 clips, each with "one scoreable hazard" and one video had two hazards.

Check back this week as I'll be back filling the last month, including the rest of the trip to the Nederlands with visits to Delft and Eersel, a weekend in Zurich and a great trip to Berlin.