Lost and Found

´Oh man, not again´, I thought to myself as I was walking around Salamanca and realized that I had no idea where in the world I was. I don´t understand how that happens! I start off on the right path that I know takes me to where I want to go, but then somehow I take a wrong turn or don´t take a little zig that I need to. I am left lost, frustrated, sweaty, and staring at my map! That´s what I get for being overconfident and not using my map in the first place.

We arrived to Salamanca last Wednesday, so I´ve been here for 5 days and have managed to get lost almost every day, sometimes twice per day! This is not normal for me. Usually I have a very good sense of direction, and that combined with scoping the area out on my runs usually leaves me in good shape. The difference here, though, is that the streets are very confusing for a couple of reasons. The first reason being that the streets are not set up in a nice parallel and perpendicular orientation. Nope. These streets are set up with no rhyme or reason making it very difficult to know if that street currently parallel to me is going to stay that way, or make a sharp turn, or even simply end. That´s where I´ve tended to get into trouble by assuming that a parallel street will take me to the same place.

The second reason that the streets are confusing is because sometimes their names are not the same as the names on the map, and believe me, I´m not just looking at the wrong part of the map! Often the street names are not clearly marked, and if they are marked, it is intermittent instead of at every intersection. The street names here are not found on little green intersection signs like at home. Instead they are on plaques that are attached to the sides of buildings about 1 floor up from the street itself. Therefore, if there are windows or something blocking where the street sign might go, then they just don´t put one there!

But thank goodness for my map that is now ripping apart from so much use. I don´t feel dumb at all having to use a map sometimes thanks to the numerous other tourists that are blindly walking around the city. I have been very surprised by how many tourist groups I´ve seen so far. People are here from China, France, the U.S. and more. I guess since Salamanca has the oldest University in Spain the architecture is quite a draw. The streets get pretty crowded, but it makes it a bit easier for me and my blond hair to blend in.

Since I´ve already met my ´lost´ quota for the day (yup, got momentarily lost on the way back from the gym to my house, and then again took the round-about way to get to a computer lab!) I´m going to stick to the tried and true route back home. Hopefully soon I won´t be writing about getting so lost, but rather about all of my good ´finds´!