I'm Lost

After leaving the Red Light District to head back to my Hostel, I got lost. And by lost, I mean really, really lost. I am generally known among my friends for having a very good sense of direction and usually knowing where I am and how to get to other places. It is generally something I pride myself upon so it is embarrassing when I get so lost. When I was doing all of my skiing and hiking in Colorado I never got lost (except for that one time on Hahn's Peak. But that was more being confused by looking for a trail that wasn't there than actually getting lost.) European cities are pretty tough to get around. London is pretty confusing because of the weird angled streets and the labyrinth like tube stations. Dublin was tough because of the lack of street signs, but I could manage in those places and at least walk in the right direction despite not necessarily knowing what street I was on. Amsterdam was by far the worst. Many of the streets curve subtly such that you think you are walking in a straight line, but are actually curving so you end up walking in a different direction. You can see by the route that I took on the map, that I had no idea where I was going. I really thought I was walking south for most of the way. I had the same map you see here with me, but it was in black and white and I was trying to navigate with the canals. I couldn't tell where the canals were on the map I had, because of the lack of color and it was dark outside. Eventually I figured out what was going on and made it home successfully. This would not be the last time I was lost in Amsterdam though. It seemed like anytime I went somewhere I ended up making a few wrong turns. The similar looking Dutch street names didn't help either.