Take me to your leader

You know that episode of Star Trek: Next Generation (and by "you" I of course am only speaking to the super cool people out there who watch this television gem, i.e. my dad and my siblings) where Captain Picard goes to walk through one of the doors on the Enterprise and because of some glitch it doesn't work immediately, ruining his seamless and smooth move from one room to the next. Well I can tell you it is just as disconcerting as Picard makes it look. Computer? Computer? Hello....computer?

Imagine a set of doors without handles or metal plates with the word "push" above them, at the exit of a pharmacy. What would you do if they did not respond to you tapping your foot on the rubber mat in front of them? Stare dumbly at them for 30 seconds? Explain to the expectant queue behind you "Oh, well in America doors open on their own."? Excuse me, I have recently landed in your strange country, will you please take a deep breath, hold my hand, and slowly and patiently remind me--you're not in Ohio anymore. You know what expression I never want to see on a fellow human's face again--the pained smile that clearly means "Oh my God, I'm talking to a complete idiot, back away slowly."

My pride demands that I blame it on N. Ireland though, and not me. Perhaps expecting all doors to open on their own is my problem, but expecting some logic to pedestrian traffic is neither unfair nor am I the only foreigner who wants to run through a crowded Belfast sidewalk yelling "Pick a flippin side!!!!!!!!!!". In Sydney, like Belfast, cars drive on the left and thus (crazy crazy) pedestrians walk on the....LEFT! Now, I know that picking sides has led to some 800 years or so of conflict in Belfast, but I think it would be ok and noncontroversial to sit down and figure this issue out. They say you can't have it both ways, but in Belfast you can, and let me tell you nobody wins.