We went to pick up our rental car today, on the way there on the bus Chris asks me "Did you put the navigator in your bag?" I said "No? I don't know where the navigator is?" He said, "What do you mean? I gave it to you at the apartment?" I remembered him giving me something but I thought it was the mobile phone charger and put it on the dresser. Oops! Amazingly enough I didn't cop a spray for it!! Then Chris asks Jo and Pierre, "Did you bring your licenses?", and Pierre says "s***, no I left them at the apartment!" Jo had her Victorian license with her though which was good to at least get the car. When Chris told her that she was going to have to drive she literally went white!! I don't blame her - I would have died on the spot!! I kept telling her she would be fine and that I had full faith in her - I assume this helped because on the outside she was smiling but deep down completely shutting herself (I don't blame her).

We got to Budget Rental Cars, I would have walked straight past given that the building had Avis written all over it, and also because it was an office on the street - no yard as such where you would see cars, quite strange really. They didn't have the car we requested ready so we ended up with a Prius. This was fine for us as we thought better to get used to the roads in a small zippy car rather than a big Chrysler 300!! The lady, whose name was Georgia, was super nice. For some reason Chris kept calling her Barbara, he says she looked like a Barbara - not quite sure what the standard Barbara looks like??

Anyways, we jump in the car and we decide to go to Citadel outlets which was about an hour and a half away. The roads on google maps were all red so we were in for some traffic - once again this suited us fine so that Chris could get used to the roads. We head off and Jo follows. So the stress levels were super high, especially for poor Chris given that he had never driven on the wrong side of the road before!! I was super stressed because I had to navigate using the google maps which was super confusing. I noticed that Chris kept drifting into the right land which was my side. I'd tell him and my left hand would go straight up for the Jesus handle but there was no handle - just Chris' head!!! So I.quickly put up my right hand and squeezed that handle for dear life! As if it was going to protect me if we side swiped another car!!! We ended up going on to the freeway, there were so many cars and it was 2pm! Not even peak hour traffic!! The cats were going into other lands without indicating, they flew passed us, speeding like freaks!!! It was like being in a pack of ants where everyone knew where to go but us!!! It was super scary!

The kids would make noise in the back - just talking or laughing and Chris and I would lose it and tell them to shut up!! I said "Guys, do you understand what risk we have here? Your father has never driven on this side of the road before, I can't read a google map and cars are coming at us from all directions! New rule, when we're driving you all shut up! Not a peep or a sound! This is definitely a matter of life or death!!" With this they all stayed silent.

We stopped half way to get something to eat - and go dry my hands because they were so sweaty!! We ended up at Carl's Burgers. I ordered a Natural Burger - which was hormone and additive free, as opposed to God knows what was in the meat Chris and the kids had! It was really nice, it tasted like a whopper.

We got back on the road and made it to Citadel! I really wanted to kiss the ground Pope style but thought I shouldn't draw unnecessary attention to us. We spent a lot of time at Nike, the kids were happy with what they purchased, I bought myself some runners and a couple of t-shirts, etc. that I was happy with. We went to the Coach store - it was so big and so much to choose from, and compared to Melbourne the pricing was amazing but I couldn't decide what to get!!! I was there for an hour but couldn't make a decision so I thought stuff it, I'll wait til we get to another shopping centre.

We drove home still nervous and sweaty palmed, but none the less made it. Thank God.