Crappola Granola!

Well wasn't that a crap day! On many levels!

I failed my driving test. What's that you ask, why was I taking a driving test? Because Canada and Australia don't have a reciprocal licence exchange relationship! That means that I had to send a message home to the Australian authority who issued my licence asking them to send me an official letter (at a price of course, stupid administrative fees) stating how long I've had my licence and what offences are on my record (I had one speeding ticket once, 92 in an 80 zone past a pill-box, big deal!). And then on the strength of that, they generously let me sit the written test to get a G1-licence (L-plates) and skip the mandatory 1 year waiting period before I could sit the practical test. They even generously let me skip straight to the G-licence test (the highway test) rather than having to get a G2-licence (city streets test, basically equivalent to P-plates). Never mind the fact that if I came here from the US or France or, I don't know, Austria, I would've been able to get a G-licence over the counter in about 10 minutes. They even have that relationship with the UK who drive on the left like we do! But not with a 2-bit nowheresville country like Australia. Like do they even have cars in Australia?

I would send an email to Alexander Downer, the foreign minister, suggesting a reciprocal driver's licence exchange relationship be set up with Canada, but we all know how good Alexander is at reading his cables...

Anyway, so I hire a car on 2 weekends out of 3 to get some practice on the highways because they say you have to sign an affidavit saying you've had enough highway experience in the last month and won't crash and die taking your examiner with you. (Hmmm, wish I'd thought of that earlier...). We even drive out to Niagara and back, and also to Scarborough (beyond Toronto) and back. Highways aren't easy and they are stressful, but they're do-able. And so I drive today by myself in a hire car to the drive test centre - this is all perfectly legal I might add, because I'm allowed to drive a car with my Australian licence, I'm just not allowed to own one because none of the insurers will cover me without a local licence. I get there 10 minutes ahead of my test only to be told I was supposed to be there 30 minutes early. Nobody told me that, and I did read all the instructions. Oh wait, I didn't read the fine print at the bottom of the booking sheet - right it was in bold even if it was no bigger than the other font, and also half off the page due to poorly positioned photocopying. So I've already pissed off the examiner by being "late" (we still got away on time) and I start the driving test. I'm going okay until I notice I'm doing 60 in a 50 zone. I kinda freak and slow down right away (I don't brake but I ease off) and then I'm thinking to myself, "Did I just fail the test?" Something so simple as going over the limit. And I'm used to suburban streets being 60, and the street in question only had houses on the far side (which is enough of course). So now we're turning in a direction which is back toward the driving centre I think. I'm worrying but thinking "well I don't know for sure so just keep concentrating, exagerrating your head checks etc". A few minutes later and we've gone past the driving centre and towards the highway. Okay. Heading for the lane that takes us onto the driveway. It's a left turn so I put on my indicator to turn and the instructor immediately tells me to turn it off because there's another turn in front of the turnoff in question (she's right, and the guy in the ute turning out of there would've driven in front of us if I didn't cancel the signal, but this is still okay).

I'm still pretty nervous now. While I know I'm a competent enough driver, I've had a few moments over the last couple of weeks to do with the fact that I don't know the area very well. A missed highway turnoff here, getting caught in a turning only lane there, not seeing a speed limit sign here (they don't have the red circle and are harder to spot)... I'm worrying that some unknown event or obstacle will come up that I won't be able to deal with. So I'm pretty tense and I'm not concentrating as well as I might be.

Anyway, I'm on the highway and the instructor asks me to, when it is safe, change lanes one over to the left (remembering I'm supposed to keep right as it's a right-side of the road driving country), and then change back again. I can see a semi trailer in my rear view mirror in my own lane approaching (I'm doing 100, he's speeding, maybe 110). I change into the lane on the left (the middle lane of 3) and when I'm done, the semi on the lane I want to go back to has approached. I decide to let him pass me rather than cutting him off or speeding. He doesn't pass me very quickly so I slow down a little to let him past. Meanwhile, another semi approaches in my own lane. Eventually he decides to pass me on the right too because I don't get a chance to move back. I'm talking this all out loud to the instructor to make sure she knows what I'm thinking. I'm nervous but I'm taking the defensive case as I see it. I know the trucks aren't allowed in the left-most lane by law. Anyway, I eventually get into the right-most lane again and we continue. We get off the highway and get on again coming back the other way. She asks me to do the double-lane-change again, and I do it right away before anyone gets near me. I probably do it too quickly (later I see that I lost marks for not waiting 2 to 3 seconds after indicating before moving lanes !? WTF? as if there's time on a crowded highway - the gap in the traffic moves on before you can wait that long). Anyway, I also get ticked off for taking a corner too fast getting on the highway - it had a sign posted maybe 40km/h (suggested) which I don't see and I'm doing 70 or 80, but I slow down right away and i'm in control of the car at least as far as I'm concerned. I'm a bit worried about this, but I'm pretty sure it won't be a fatal error.

So, eventually we get off the highway exit and back toward the driving centre. Only the dreaded reverse parallel park to go I'm guessing. I've relaxed a bit by now. I've done the highway bit and the rest I think I can handle. We go back into the drive centre parking lot - somewhere here there's supposed to be some markers to do a parallel park in, but instead we just park normally in a space and she says turn off the ignition. For an instant I'm like didn't we already do the stop and park bit? Then she says I've failed. I'm floored. I've been dreading this moment since I found out I had to do the driving test. The driving test is the only test in my life I've ever failed (except for that 9th grade Indonesian language vocab test where I had been off sick the last week and didn't know any of the words...). I've had this bad feeling all day that something was going to go wrong. And it did.

The driving tester tells me that what I did wrong was letting the trucks pass me on the right ie the outside lane. In particular I slowed down to about 80km/h to try and hasten the pass, which meant the second truck behind me had to slow down. She said I was supposed to speed up to get in front of the first truck in the first place. I protest that this would've involved speeding. She said it would've only been a few km/h over the limit (never mind that the truck was approaching at about 110, ie already 10 over the limit). Then she adds that I took the entry lane too fast as I already knew. Anyway, I've failed the test. I ask her a couple of other questions, including about doing 60 in a 50 zone. Turns out I was fine because I eased off shortly after realising my speed, so I didn't need to worry about that at all.

So! Fuck! Pardon my French, but it's my blog and I'll swear if I want to! And now I get to drive home by myself on the highway (which supposedly I'm too dangerous to drive on) and drop the rental car back. At least the guy at the rental car place was nice. He said he'd failed his only attempt at a G licence too. He was just using his G2 licence permanently and putting up with bigger insurance premiums (and having a max blood alcohol level of zero instead of .05, and probably fewer demerit points to lose). He said he failed because he sped up to pass a car to overtake to do the exact same lane change. Great, so at the moment it seems like it's a matter of luck how you go on the highway.

The reason why all this matters so much at the moment is because I need a local licence to be able to buy a car (insurance reasons) in order to be able to get to a job I'm about to be offered in Ancaster (it's 3 buses = 2hours, or expensive taxis, or sporadic lifts from neighbour otherwise). So I was particularly tense for this particular test. I'm probably a bit tired too because I spent all day Saturday driving more than an hour to Toronto, spending about 10 hours there playing Magic, then driving home in about 80 minutes due to getting lost. I had good sleep on Sunday, but still you're pretty worn out from all that driving.

Oh yeah, did I mention I've _almost_ got a job? Well I do. And when I know for sure, I'll write a more positive blogpost about it. When I've figured out how I'm going to get there that is...

I'd also like to rant about how nothing in Canada pours properly. Juice containers are so poorly designed that they either slop all over the place from being poured to quick, or they dribble down the soide of the carton onto the table from being poured to slow. I could've sworn things were better designed in Australia. People just don't seem to try here, or get the fact that things can be done better. They're so - mediocre!

Forgi also had a bad day - which ended with tracking cat poo on the stairs after emptying the rubbish. She's just spent ages scrubbing the carpet to try and get the smell out. And it's cold again now so we might not be able to open windows for a while... At least we're allowed to own guns here. I wonder if I can get one that loads with cat poo so I can shoot it back at the little buggers...

And the ginger powder we bought from the Asian grocer doesn't smell or taste remotely like ginger! It just smells vaguely of "Asian grocer smell". We don't know what the heck it is!? It could just be really old I guess.

Oh and a big kissy kissy to that arsehole who decided to lift the bungee cords from our rubbish bin last week! The same week I bought them! The first week we put the bin out! Some gutter-dweller decides it'd be fun to pinch a couple of cables that we use to keep our bin lid closed in case of raccoons. They're even like dirty! And they cost like a few bucks for half a dozen! What sort of low life would bother!?

Well, I've told some people I'd put up Niagara photos soon, but not today!

Rachel told me to add: "Some days are like that, even in Australia."

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This post was brought to you by Crappola Granola

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It tastes like..."

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