I was backpacking in America, and ended up staying with this guy who'd originally been a backpacker himself. I was looking at the streets where he lived thinking, "The houses come right down to the streets," like I've had people tell me about New York, but the visuals didn't match all that well.
We pulled up in his car on the opposite side of the road to his house, and he did a squealy U-turn and parked in front of his place. He had to go to work, but I had to do some stuff so he just left me to it. Somehow I ended up driving the car.
I just couldn't grasp the concept of things being backwards. I know Americans and Australians drive on different sides of the road, and while this was at the forefront of my brain, I still was swerving all over the place because I couldn't think quickly enough what was left and what was right. The confusion then set in about the brake and the accelerator - was the brake on the left or right? I stepped on the accelerator several times when I meant to step on the brake, and as a result, crashed the vehicle (which was now a motorcycle).
The entire front of the bike came off and flew off somewhere, leaving me with a flimsy wire frame. I had to get the front back before this guy came back and found me, so I went to check his webpage (which was all about problems you might have when you're travelling). I clicked on a section entitled, "Oh no!" and the text read something like, "I suspect a lot of the problems backpackers have is due to lighting fires." I clicked through to a few different sections but no luck, there was nothing there about reacquiring front pieces of motorcycle that had blown off into the air and didn't return.
It had to be somewhere though, so I took the wire bike (which bent when I put my weight on it, so I had to walk with it between my legs like the way people carry scooters when they're not rolling around on them) and went out to look for the front bit. I walked down the street, which had somehow turned into Approach Road, and around the corner through the shops and there was a guy there working on assembling a big, impressive-looking motorcycle. As I looked at the front part, I was sure I recognised it, but I couldn't say anything because I wasn't sure.
