Here are some stories about me getting lost in London, and how I amazingly managed to find my way towards the places that I was trying to get to without using Google Maps.
#1: The first day we were in London, Will and Hollis and I decided to check out the surrounding area. We walked down Bolsover Street and took a right on New Cavendish Street. We walked around that street and then walked down another, walking into alleyways, into stores, into pubs, generally forgetting where we had come from, and therefore not knowing where we were. We were too enthralled with this new city to care about that sort of stuff. How we got back to Bolsover? Sheer luck, to be honest.
#2: Trying to find the tube station to get to the Globe Theater. Great Portland Street Station was literally up the street, but I thought I had to take the one on Oxford Circle. Terrible mistake. I ended up splitting a cab with a classmate and barely getting to the performance on time.
#3: Late at night. Trying to find my way back to the hostel. My stomach was filled with fish & chips, and my head filled with confidence. Positive I knew where I was going, but boy did I end up lost. I was on Tottenham Street, a couple blocks over from where I was supposed to be, walking in the wrong direction. I asked a man sweeping the outside of his shop which way Bolsover Street was. He pointed me in the right direction, bless his kind soul.
#4: Trying to find the Laundromat with Will. We went in the wrong direction from the outset of our walk and ended up wandering into an office building, where we asked the lovely receptionists which way the Laundromats were. After exchanging a couple words with them, one of them asked, “Are you Americans?” We answered americanly, “Yeah.” They must have thought we were the dumbest people ever, because one of them was so bold as to ask us, “can you read a map?” before printing out a one-step Google Maps trail to the nearest dry-cleaner’s and handing it to us. We read that map well, probably to their surprise, and found the dry-cleaner’s. Not the Laundromat. Drat!
#5: Searching for the Meat Place in Soho that Steve showed us, me and some fellow FSA-ers ended up wandering around the area we knew it was in and straight up getting lost. We decided to split up and sprint up and down all the blocks we saw until one of us found the place. We all met back in a square somewhere after each sprint and eventually found it, but not before getting nice and sweaty for the restaurant.
