Voltage up.

Voltage down.

Simple. No additional headache.

Automatics had a bit of a bad reputation, for quite a while. They don't/didn't play well with our road layouts. E.g. they could be slow to downshift when climbing a hill, and kick when they did decide to play along. I believe they have improved a lot, but most people are used to manuals, and so more manuals are sold. This makes automatics more expensive and rarer.

I will say when I rented a car in Wales in the mid 2010s they had like literally 2 automatics and they were double the rate. It wasn't at all common there then.

In France they're only starting to get traction. They just weren't a thing until say ten or fifteen years ago. Top of the line cars had the option, but it was very rare. It's a matter of culture. We have an automatic now (wife is more comfortable with it), it handles gear changes shittily but it appeases my left leg, so we're even.

Now you killed it while lurching forward! Exciting!

While learning, don't touch the gas. Learn how to take the car out of neutral and into first using only the clutch. Then the whole process makes a lot more sense for when you need to do it faster.