I am not lost. Everything else is

Okay.
I have a tiny problem finding my way around. M and I jokes (actually he jokes, I just laugh along as if I find it funny) that if I ever got to Italy in the first place, it was probably because I took a wrong turn somewhere. And that it took me 15 years to come back to Denmark because of my missing sense of direction. Haha, very funny.
Anyway. I don't really see this as a problem*. Or maybe I just learned to live with it. Fact is, it is sort of serious. Take two turns right and one left in rapid succession, and now go back to where you started from. I can't. Well, I can if I draw little lines and figures in the air with my fingers and really really concentrate, but it makes my day and feels like a huge victory. So it is *that* serious.
If I go for a walk I decide on one of two things to do. Give up trying to find my way around, just enjoy the walk and then necessarily have to ask people for directions to get back to where I started from. Or simply move in one direction only and walk straight so that I can just go back. If I have to stay alert and remember landmarks it is just not relaxing. I got used to this and I am not ashamed of asking people for directions. Often I will look up maps on the internet if I have to go somewhere new, and get a general idea of where I am going, but I know I will have to ask people sooner or later.**

Then things changed as I got a new phone for my birthday in July. Oooooh the wonders of GPS. It has changed my life. I don't use it with audio directions (turn left blabla) - it wouldn't teach me my way around just doing what the voice says. I simply use it as a mobile map and an indicator of where I am and where I am going.

So yesterday I had to go to the jobcenter a couple of km from where I live. I got there just fine, but going home afterwards I took what seemed to be a shortcut. And then suddenly Frederiksberg was lost. (I am never lost, I always know exactly where I am. Here!) I didn't think much of it as I had "landed" just in front of a Rema1000 (ooooh curious - oooh food, oooh grocery shopping...) So I park the bike, get in there, walk around, get back out and take my time to get home without GPS - yes, I don't know where I am but I have no hurry so I get home much later. Proud.
Then in the evening I remember something I saw in Rema1000 and that I want but didn't buy.  I tell M and he says "that's ok, we'll buy it tomorrow. Where is that Rema1000 ?". And he realizes (just a split second before me) that I haven't got a clue and couldn't find my way back there...



*well, okay, maybe once. A collegue offered me a lift home; we had been working late and there were no more buses at that hour. He asked me where to go, and I kept giving him the wrong directions. It took us an hour to get to my place, 3 km away from work...

**there's not always somebody to ask though. I remember that time I got lost on the intersections of an Italian highway, I kept taking the wrong turns and must have gone round and round (and bloody back and forth) in a loop for an hour before I managed to get out....

Comments

Leoparddrengen said…
My guess is it might have been the Rema 1000 on Rosenørns Allé, just by Forum metro station - it's the only Rema 1000 on Frederiksberg I know about (although there may be others).

By the way, yours is not the only post regarding GPS today...
Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 4:11:00 PM GMT+2
kyllyan said…
@leo:
uuuuh, I actually think you're right. I seem to remember seeing Forum there. Nice =)
Sunday, October 4, 2009 at 7:37:00 PM GMT+2
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