overhaul
i have no idea why you cannot comment. hopefully this problem will be solved shortly. but that reminds me i promised a new post about driving and directions. since friend kathleen brought up the ridiculous rumor about women being bad at reading maps... well. here it goes. it all began with mapquest. i had heard about mapquest not always being right. but i trusted it anyways when i drove over to my friend michelle's school. and sure enough i got there safely and we spent a nice day in her classroom watching "napoleon dynamite" (which sucked) and petting her dog dhali. i have never gotten lost with mapquest. i did however drive 20 miles too far when this self same michelle gave me directions over the phone to her horse ranch. i eventually found my way there and we had a glorious day riding the dry hills of southern california with a view of the pacific islands...
mapquest also helped when mon cheri picked me from cologne train station. at least his way there was easily found. unfortunately he had only printed out one way, thinking it would just be the opposite direction driving back, like instead of right you just turn left. well, it wasn't quite that simple, of course. it was our first test, since we had just met, on how to find our way, not freak out and stay calm. i was reading the directions but also it was all in french and even the names of german towns were frenchified. "that's the problem with us french" he complained, "have to make everything french!" ah well, no comment ;) i mean, i don't wanna holeheartedly agree, you know! also my limited to nonexistent knowledge of the german geographic landscape didn't make things any easier. did we have to drive in the direction of aachen or dortmund or what? we had to drive east towards france, but which town lay east of cologne? ha, i had no clue. and we had no map. eventually, after driving through countryside, fields, past giant windmills and what looked like nuclear reactors, we found the autobahn and were on our way to belgium. yey. then the trouble with the toothache began, but that's another story...
then this happened to my sister and her family. they had rented a car to go visit my cousin in winterberg, germany. after years of family strife, everyone had finally met up again at my father's 65th birthday, a wondrous occasion. after this, they had decided to stay in touch and drive down for a visit. mapquest had other plans for them. led them on an eight hour detour to stuttgart instead. haha, they asked people for the way to winterberg and they would just shrug their shoulders. funny, some time ago my dad said, oh yeah, winterberg is famous everywhere (for skiing). "no," my brother in law mused, "not in stuttgart". :) shortly after midnight they finally arrived at their destination and had a lovely day after...
so here we are again some time later. my sister again, with me this time. mapquest. mapquest. tell us the way to bielefeld. to some hotel where we were to meet all of my cousins ( nine in all ). and bloody mapquest got us there, with only a minor fuck up. a street that didn't exist. so of course we passed it. but we turned around a little while later and found our way to the meeting place. that was the best part. seeing everyone again. cause for me it had been some 16 years...and yet, this is another story. what pertains to the matter at hand is this, that we drove out from the hotel into the city center to have coffee and dinner and drinks and talk talk talk. i went in the back of my cousin kerstin's car with her brother giving her directions since this is the town he lives in. we were chatting in the back seat and once in a while he'd tell her, "go right here, left there" whatever. and me. and usually have a bad sense of direction. when it's not me driving i have not clue about east west left or right. but the next day proved my excellent skills when in need. after hangover breakfast we all decided to drive back into town, to pick up one of the cars we had left there, since we all took a taxi back to the hotel the night before. so mind you, i had been sober only one way, and in the back seat chatting no less. as my sister and i tried to follow kerstin's car with the man inside who knew his way we soon realized that it was impossible. she took off like the wind. far ahead of us she sped down the hill. but i remembered that we had to take a sharp left to go up the hill instead. "are you sure" my sister questioned doubtfully. yes, i was. then it all came back to me as if in a film rewound. up the hill then a left. then right at the light on the corner with the restaurant that would have cost us 50 euros a pop. hell yeah! sure enough, we arrived at matthias' car, but there was no kerstin. all we could do is wait. then anke remembered her cell phone. they had called already. kerstin had gone the wrong way, turned around, gone back to the hotel and were then going to meet us. how is this for a GREAT SENSE OF DIRECTION?! fuck mapquest.
so that's the story. phew. this took me all day. i should get rid of msn... :)
mapquest also helped when mon cheri picked me from cologne train station. at least his way there was easily found. unfortunately he had only printed out one way, thinking it would just be the opposite direction driving back, like instead of right you just turn left. well, it wasn't quite that simple, of course. it was our first test, since we had just met, on how to find our way, not freak out and stay calm. i was reading the directions but also it was all in french and even the names of german towns were frenchified. "that's the problem with us french" he complained, "have to make everything french!" ah well, no comment ;) i mean, i don't wanna holeheartedly agree, you know! also my limited to nonexistent knowledge of the german geographic landscape didn't make things any easier. did we have to drive in the direction of aachen or dortmund or what? we had to drive east towards france, but which town lay east of cologne? ha, i had no clue. and we had no map. eventually, after driving through countryside, fields, past giant windmills and what looked like nuclear reactors, we found the autobahn and were on our way to belgium. yey. then the trouble with the toothache began, but that's another story...
then this happened to my sister and her family. they had rented a car to go visit my cousin in winterberg, germany. after years of family strife, everyone had finally met up again at my father's 65th birthday, a wondrous occasion. after this, they had decided to stay in touch and drive down for a visit. mapquest had other plans for them. led them on an eight hour detour to stuttgart instead. haha, they asked people for the way to winterberg and they would just shrug their shoulders. funny, some time ago my dad said, oh yeah, winterberg is famous everywhere (for skiing). "no," my brother in law mused, "not in stuttgart". :) shortly after midnight they finally arrived at their destination and had a lovely day after...
so here we are again some time later. my sister again, with me this time. mapquest. mapquest. tell us the way to bielefeld. to some hotel where we were to meet all of my cousins ( nine in all ). and bloody mapquest got us there, with only a minor fuck up. a street that didn't exist. so of course we passed it. but we turned around a little while later and found our way to the meeting place. that was the best part. seeing everyone again. cause for me it had been some 16 years...and yet, this is another story. what pertains to the matter at hand is this, that we drove out from the hotel into the city center to have coffee and dinner and drinks and talk talk talk. i went in the back of my cousin kerstin's car with her brother giving her directions since this is the town he lives in. we were chatting in the back seat and once in a while he'd tell her, "go right here, left there" whatever. and me. and usually have a bad sense of direction. when it's not me driving i have not clue about east west left or right. but the next day proved my excellent skills when in need. after hangover breakfast we all decided to drive back into town, to pick up one of the cars we had left there, since we all took a taxi back to the hotel the night before. so mind you, i had been sober only one way, and in the back seat chatting no less. as my sister and i tried to follow kerstin's car with the man inside who knew his way we soon realized that it was impossible. she took off like the wind. far ahead of us she sped down the hill. but i remembered that we had to take a sharp left to go up the hill instead. "are you sure" my sister questioned doubtfully. yes, i was. then it all came back to me as if in a film rewound. up the hill then a left. then right at the light on the corner with the restaurant that would have cost us 50 euros a pop. hell yeah! sure enough, we arrived at matthias' car, but there was no kerstin. all we could do is wait. then anke remembered her cell phone. they had called already. kerstin had gone the wrong way, turned around, gone back to the hotel and were then going to meet us. how is this for a GREAT SENSE OF DIRECTION?! fuck mapquest.
so that's the story. phew. this took me all day. i should get rid of msn... :)
posted by marinkel at 2:25 PM
2 Comments:
For the love of Jove! What a bloody mess. You better know some directions by the time I get there. Now the husband is prattling about going to Germany in October. I told you he wants beer and sausage. Sigh! We don't know what we are doing from day to day, much less October. Good grief.
ok, missy. now you must tell me what you want. beer and sausage is in munich. and oktober fest is in september. don't ask me why. germans... anyway. no way in hell i'll be there. i'm eatin' baguette and fromage these days... if you know what i mean. goodness gracious!
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