Well, after a month of relying on my own two feet it seems that fate has decided to reward me with a set of 6 wheels to aid me in my continuing quest for Yankdom. Two of them belong to a newly acquired bicycle, while other four came free of charge with a 1989 Toyota Cressida that I have generously been given use of.

I rode my shiny new bicycle home from the shop the other day and I must admit that the journey was very pleasant. Portland boasts the most number of cycle paths for almost any city in the US and it’s drivers are most considerate. I trundled along the highway, trying my best to indicate effectively despite being weighed down by a large bag of cycling accessories that hung from my right arm. I have yet to take it for a real, adrenalin charged spin. Unfortunately, I am also somewhat lacking in medical coverage hence I may have to delay such activities. Given that I still work for a Spanish registered company, to my knowledge, the Spanish Government will only pay for me to be transported home if I lose all bodily function. So, if I do crash I better make it a good one!

Now to the more exciting of the two equally attractive beasts, the 1989 Toyota Cressida. I’ll be honest, until I saw it, I never even knew such a model of car existed. It is an automatic drive, metallic silver saloon with electric sun-roof. One novel thing about it is that the seat belt places itself automatically in position when you open and shut the door. This unexpected feature brought me 39 seconds of trapped confusion followed by 17 seconds of bemused entertainment (I was to later become beset with despair at the sheer pointlessness of it all when I realized you still have to buckle up the bottom half of the belt, but let us not dwell…). It has been well taken care of with no visible defects and sounds like a small cat purring quietly in the sun.

During my lifetime I have driven in a number of different places and situations, from back country roads of rural Wales, to 12 lane mega-expressways and I generally feel confident most of the time. My family would perhaps question this and regularly accuse me of dangerously erratic behavior, so much so that as a passenger my father’s knuckles turn white as he grips the arm rest in fear. I learned in Wales where the roads are occasionally wide enough for 2 cars at once and tend to follow the course of old, winding sheep trails. I have driven in Italy and Spain, where passions run high as drivers shout loudly and toot their horns in a cacophony of rhythms for seemingly no reason whatsoever. I have driven in Morocco where one is required to literally push ones way through a crowd of people, chickens, goats, sheep and wild children, gingerly bumping them out of the way with the car’s fender. I have driven in Turkey where a beautifully laid freeway can suddenly turn into a dirt track causing you to plough across a surface of loose pebbles at 70 miles an hour. I have had enough near misses to take a good few months off my life and yet, with the exception of a few careless bumps, I have survived thus far unscathed (and yes I am touching wood as I write).

And so what is there to say about driving in America? Thankfully, a few years ago I was lucky enough to drive from New York to San Francisco in just under 3 weeks and so the experience is not new to me. The simple truth of it is that driving in America is very enjoyable indeed. The entire country has a love affair with the automobile that no other can match. City streets are often 3 lanes wide, down each of which you could easily fit 2 Fiat 126s and still have room for a donkey in the middle. On the freeway everyone drives at roughly the same speed and there is none of the ever present need to overtake everyone in your sight that makes European driving so stressful. Reverse parking is seldom required and the three point turn is a myth that is sometimes discussed in a quiet whisper at the back of gas stations, but nobody really believes it’s true. Of course there is plenty to criticize when you start to consider the environmental effects, the lack of daily exercise and general laziness it encourages but as an experience one begins to understand where such a love comes from. Whereas driving London makes you feel like an rottweiler locked in a broom closet, driving the US conjures up romantic images of wild buffalo charging freely over vast open planes.

Driving in America is awesome.