Between my friends, I am known for being terribly bad when taking leadership for map directions. After months of not knowing that the blue dot indicates the right sides and taking them left, right, up, left again, left, right ten times before arriving at the desired destination, I’ve gained some very hangry complaints and the final sentence “Do not let Sabina take the Google Maps.” So in my day-to-day life, this duty, which I luckily do not really enjoy, has been taken off my shoulders and passed on to a better-oriented guide. Nevertheless, this week it all changed. This is an apology to Google Maps.
I am in Stockholm with my parents who came to visit their only daughter from very very far away. My dad has not left his side of the globe for over 15 years so the pressure for making this trip as good as it could be was on. He is extremely organized yet he does not even know how the app, thus my nemesis and I met yet again. Before even warning them about my bad fame on orientations and after having walked for literally five minutes to the right side of a bus station, he mentioned that I was incredibly good at taking the leadership with directions, a comment which clearly surprised me. He was saying how even fifteen years ago, finding the correct paths with public transportation in a new place took three times longer than with my little Google Maps, even with the terrible skills of the person managing it.
As the day carried on, it seemed to be that it was the redemption and amnesty day between Google Maps and me. In a very typical Scandinavian autumn manner, it started pouring down in the pitch black 5 pm afternoon hours and the neighborhood paper map that a man had kindly given to us, sadly ended up drenched in the sidewalk. Yet in a way, it did not even matter because as he was explaining the directions, neither of us was registering the information because of the comfortable cushion of Google Maps that we all know I had in my pocket. It felt weird knowing that our whole approach to maps has changed so much and our capacity to retain and understand the streets has drastically shifted.
Yet, even if I do blame the app for making me so unskilled with directions and realize how it is all a very paradoxical circle, I realize how incredibly amazing it is to have such a tool when traveling. If used correctly, it saves us all so much time. I will probably keep getting lost with even the most simple directions, but that does not take out the fact that the directions are indeed bluntly simple.
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