Lost in the Clouds...

Soooo... I was trying my best to make myself go on a nice jog today since the weather is finally sunny again... but began procrastinating and realized all the things I need to do before class at 5 (therefore, there would be no time to get them done in addition to going on a run and showering beforehand!). I have class at 5pm, which is about 20 minutes from my apartment, then dance class from 8-9, which is 45 minutes from my apartment/20 minutes from my class. Also, a bunch of people are meeting up for Tara's birthday at 10:30... so now I had to decide to go to class completely prepared for the rest of the night since there will be no time or point in walking back home in between any of that. Good plan? Haha. So, anyways, now I have a little time I can spare to write another post since I have been so behind lately.

To get back to the "funny" thing that I said I wanted to write about in the previous post, it has to do with my awful sense of directions. The first story happened a couple weeks ago. A few friends and I had been walking around the el centro (literally, "the center" of the city, where there's a lot of shopping and more touristy things to do) and after going to Corte Ingles (basically a huge department store that also has a supermarket) for a few things, we realized it was getting late and we needed to start heading home. It was about 8:30, and everyone lived in the opposite direction from me. I knew that there was a "back way" back to my house from el centro, and I thought I understood where I was going, so I began to walk. I then got confused, so I called my roommates to check for directions, and it sounded like I was going the right way... or at least I thought I was. I kept walking for awhile, but then started to get worried that I was not heading the right way. I tried finding a big street or something and tried to inconspicuously look at my map (to try to avoid any trouble). I couldn't even find the street for where I was (when I finally found a street sign...since they're so hard to come by around here!). I kept trying to get up the nerve to ask someone for directions, but was so nervous that I stupidly figured that if I followed someone, I might end up getting to a bigger street (kind of like you, Dad, when you said you would follow people home after work to find back ways!)... I was wrong. Completely, utterly WRONG. When I finally gained the courage to ask a nice looking middle aged lady (while we were stopped at a crosswalk) for directions, she looked at me in disbelief when I told her where I was trying to go. She told me that I was about 40 minutes or so by foot from my street... I started off maybe 20 minutes or so away! She did her best at directing me back to a bigger street, and told me that after I reached a cathedral that I would have to ask someone else for directions again (since all the streets were so small and windy... the city doesn't seem to have been built very logically at all). Once again, it took me awhile to get the nerve to ask for help, so at first I tried to figure out where I was on the map by myself. After I failed, I finally found a nice looking older couple. They began discussing which route they thought would be the best/easiest for me to understand amongst themselves. When they couldn't completely agree (and I think also after noticing that I was really confused...), the man told me that they would just walk me back to my street. I was in shock, but so thankful to be hearing those words! As we were walking, he tried to explain which plazas we were passing by and which streets we were on (too bad he didn't know that I wouldn't remember any of that...) and after a few minutes passed, Carmen called me, asking me where I was (they were already eating dinner, and Molly had told her that I had gotten lost)... when I told her I was in La Macarena (a neighborhood far away from our house), she also couldn't believe that I had walked that far. But, eventually, thank God for the couple that helped me, they led me back to my street and I walked the rest of the way home! (Only, say, 40 minutes or so late for dinner! Haha)

Now, you probably all read that story thinking how retarded I was, but you should be proud of me for this next one... at least a little bit, haha. Yesterday afternoon, when Maeve and I were leaving for La Bachillera, where we teach Spanish kids English, neither of us were in the mood to go. But, we reasoned that none of the other kids that volunteer were very reliable, and if we didn't go, then we weren't sure if anyone would show up. We left a couple minutes later than we should have, so we were in a bit of a rush. To get to the school, we have to take two different buses. We got the first one in a reasonable amount of time, but when we got off the stop to get on to the next one, we panicked when we saw the time. Normally, we cross the street and take the "6" the rest of the way, but when Maeve noticed that the next bus stopping at the stop that we had just gotten off of, she thought that we should get onto it. I wasn't sure about that, since there are both line and circular bus routes. She reasoned that we could either wait at the other stop until the other 6 came, or take this one now. I didn't agree with the decision, but I'm known as the one with a bad sense of direction (for good reasons, I guess)... so she said that we should hop on. After riding the bus for about a half hour, she realized that I was right, this probably wasn't a circular route. Instead of ever reaching La Bachillera, we had to ride the whole bus route almost back to our starting point so that we could take another bus home... the 2 hours that we normally would've taken to travel and get to the school, we spent on the bus. At least we now know to never take the bus in that direction again!