Long story short: I’m (24M) American, and I’m visiting my long-distance Romanian boyfriend for the first time soon. In Romania, most cars are manual - including all the ones owned by my boyfriend’s family (I’ll be staying with them). I’ve never driven a manual before. His dad told me he can give me a quick lesson, and that I’m welcome to use their cars if I want; otherwise, I can rent an automatic. I don’t have access to any manual cars here in the U.S. to practice on, so I’m not sure what to do.
It’s quite hard for someone who haven’t done it before. It’ll take months if not years of daily driving for you to get good enough that you don’t need to constantly think about it. There’s differences between vehicles too, especially with how the clutch feels. I’ve been driving manual for over 15 years and if I jump into a unfamiliar car it’ll take me a while to get the handle of it as well.