Yesterday I got a refresher course in how to deal with being lost again. Ageing (that is how they spell it in Europe) boomers spend a lot of time trying to ensure they have not forgotten anything or the specifics of how they are going to implement their plan. Have you noticed that aging (American English) includes more planning and there is less openness to spontaneity. I decides what I am going to do, then I plan how I will go about it.
But I do not want to be “lost” this morning. I have 3 or 4 things to do, then I am heading back to work at home. Thus this crumpled map I am sharing with you is supposed to be my guide.
You can see from the map that my furthest point was the market then off to the stores I want to check out which are bounded by the canals which I’ve labelled my 1600, 1700 and 1800. Let me give you the full plan.
I was headed to the Noordermarket in the Jordaan area. Then I’d intended to walk back along the canals to the Nine Streets area so that I could look into Dutch consignment shops. This area lies beween three canals. The 3 streets cross perpendicular to the canals. That gives you 9 streets. Then I was to meet a Dutch painter-friend who manages a non-profit children’s circus.
Everything went well. Caught the trams and transferred to a train to head east because I live in the area called the Oud Zuid (Old South). At the Noordermarket I would have to say the usual stuff was present. Everything from fabric to fresh vegetables but nothing unusual. But in this part of town I began to see a more diversified Dutch public–women in Muslim dress and people of color.
From this map you can see my trip was mapped out for the morning. But maybe you can also discern that Amsterdam is not an easy city to navigate until much later in the day I discovered, you understand the water that surrounds the country.
There is the Amstel river and several different riverways, canals, lakes etc. The canals run around the city. This makes it hard to figure out which way streets are running. To make matters worse on one side of a canal a street name may be one thing and yet a different name on the other side of the canal.
Each canals documents the Dutch having reclaime the sea to make land for its people at different points in the country’s history. So I was told if you look from the city center outward, the first canal was built in 1600, the second in 1700 and the third in 1800. That is a simplified explanation and I am working on a more complete understanding. But you can see for yourself that the streets run more like a slice of pizza than on angles.
Bottom line I walked until my haunches ached. Great for my heart but a pitstop for coffee was necessary. Finally my friend called and I gave him my location. He was there on his bike in five minutes. Turns out I was on the wrong side of the canal looking for street names. If I’d just crossed over the canal rather than stick to the side of the street I was on I would have been home free.
This tendency to try to solve a problem in the same way that I might have had I been home did not serve me. I was within a block of my destination at all times. But I went about finding the locations using my American logic. Reminder: more flexibility needed in thought processes and maybe more occasions to get lost so that I can practice.
Sometimes even when you prepare yourself in life, you may still get lost. How do you cope with this feeling?
roycrosse says
Getting around can be trying on visitors in any City, even when you think you know the way. Don’t blame Patricia, it happens. But I do think as we grow older the tendency to fault age for our mishaps gets easier.
Keep on trucking, or Canaling?
r.