not quite right
Pro tip: If you enter an address into Google Maps — such as Rua do Blahblahblah 23 — make sure you are headed to the correct place.
We were driving from Nazaré to Lisbon, which we’ve done in both directions several times. As we left, I entered the street address for our apartment into Google Maps*. We got in the car and headed off.
(* Because hell YES we always have SIM cards now when we travel.)
We were driving along, talking, and not really paying much attention to where we were. At one point, I noticed that our arrival time seemed rather soon, given how far we still were from Lisbon, but I shrugged and didn’t give it much thought.
Then Google Maps had us get off the highway in a place we weren’t expecting. At that point, we started to get suspicious. Moments later, we were driving down teeny tiny roads in a teeny tiny town that we had never, ever passed on the route between Lisbon and Nazaré. This definitely was not right.
I looked at the directions on my phone more carefully, then sheepishly told my husband that it appeared there was more than one Rua do Blahblahblah 23 in Portugal. And the one we were currently heading toward was not only not in Portugal, we were around 20 kilometers off course. Oops.
I reset our driving directions, taking special care to ensure we were truly headed to Lisbon. You’d think by now we’d know better, but honestly I think we were just a little too relaxed and complacent that day.
I know I’m not alone in this. Tell me about a time you went in the wrong direction.
😂🤣🤣 Just one time? Turns out there’s more than one rue de blahblahblah (great address) in every state in the U.S. as well. I’ve done that in my native language more than once! To get even more confusing there is Charleston, SC and Charleston, WV as well as Charles Town, WV… but the best way to get well and truly lost is to believe Drew when he says ‘no, I don’t need directions, I know where I’m going which is how we ended up almost in NM when traveling to Crested Butte from Boulder, CO.
Driving north in California from Anaheim/ Los Angeles, I (several times) instructed my husband to NOT go through Bakersfield because that was the longer route. Then I feel asleep... and woke up in Bakersfield. He cannot live it down, ever. That was in 1990, before GPS and cell phones. We were quite late in arriving at my cousin's home that night.
About 15 years ago on the DelMarVa peninsula, our GPS instructed us to drive on the Ocean City boardwalk. This was after it freaked out because it believed we were driving on the water headed to Chincoteague. 🙄