I have a habit of getting lost!

I have a habit when visiting new places of pointing myself in a direction and walking until I get tired...then hopefully finding my way back to where I started. Some people do tours...I do adventure walks. I pick up a few match books or pens with the hotel name on them just in case I need to ask for help and don't know the language and off I go.
Well I hit it again...at three different times and in three different cities last week while on business. Two of the times ended up...shall I say fascinating...and one of the times was...well I should have just turned around a bit sooner!

My first walk was in Madrid Spain. After a day of business I didn't really feel like going to bed so I decided to go for it around sundown.
The center of Madrid has these amazing back alley streets that wind up and down hills and in every direction past bars, restaurants and really interesting shops. The streets however also tend to curve ever so slightly off a straight line so that you can easily go from traveling due east to due south while thinking your going in a straight line. It's always challenging but that's half the fun!
I started this tour on a side street about a block from the hotel and walked for an hour or so following it through the city. A few blocks past a poster for a concert by the band MANA (on my right) I decided to follow a flowing crowd moving toward an open square where people were gathered for an early evening drink and watching a juggling busker earn his tips for the day. I hung for a bit enjoying the quaintness of the scene then veered down a side street that ended up curving hard to the right and downhill. After another thirty minutes or so of walking I decided to use my natural directional instincts and point back toward the street the hotel was located on. Well...an hour or so later later I passed another MANA poster (on my right) and continued walking another block or so when some of the shops started looking somewhat...uuu...familiar. I quickly realized it was the same MANA poster I passed when I started my walk. I had somehow circled in a giant arc and skillfully found a way back! A short skip and a jump and wellah... back to the hotel! This one worked out just fine...due of course to my natural male directional skills. Yeah right..

Three business days and one country later in Paris, I was getting dressed for my second adventure walk of this business trip. I decided to walk from the Monmont area of Paris to the Eiffel Tower...which I estimated from looking out my hotel window to be maybe 3 to 4 miles away. It was rather chilly out so I made sure to put my hat and gloves in my pack and again picked up some match packs from the lobby just in case. As I exited into the jungle of buildings and backstreets that quickly rose to swallow my view of the Eiffel tower I decided to take one extra precaution...I asked the concierge if he had a map of the city and he did.
It's usually difficult navigating with a map in an inner city area however Paris has street names placed on buildings at pretty much every major intersection. The first hour or so was a bit difficult as none of the roads went in the direction I wanted to go. I followed the map as much as possible which helped a little but some of the smaller street names were not on the map. Unfortunately it was also a cloudy day so the sun wasn't visible as a point of reference. I decided to use instinct and veered directly left down a side street which brought me into an open square with a huge church at the center. I ended up finding the church on the map and before long I located my position and had a solid sense of direction again. From there I walked through the shopping district and on to the Tuileries. After a few moments of rest and putting my gloves on due to the cold I headed down the road to toward the Arc de triomphe and then cut over to the Seine river. I stopped for a picture of the river with the tower in the background then sat for a moment to rest. The temperature was dropping quickly and even though I could see the tower I realized my estimate of the distance from the hotel to the tower was really far off. You know...some things in life you think are big but when you see them they turn out to be small...like Robert Redford. Some things you think are likely not so big end up being REALLY BIG...like the Eiffel Tower turned out to be. Yeah it looked close enough to walk to...that's because it's so dang BIG! After 2 plus hours of walking there was no reason to do anything but just keep going. Forget the fact that I still needed to get back but now the distance and the cold had decidedly dictated that the matchbook from the hotel would be shown to a Taxi driver by the end of this adventure just to get back. Or would it?

Well this isn't a book it's a blog so I'll say yes...as you can see from the photo I finally made it, and while standing under the tower freezing tired and hungry one of my traveling companions called my cell from the hotel and said we should meet at Notre Dame! I grabbed a Taxi and headed over. They all know where that place is even if you don't speak French so that part was easy. We went through the Cathedral then did a whirlwind tour of the Louvre, to see the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and other UBELIEVABLE HISTORICAL WORKS OF ART...dang (still walking by the way) and then back to the shopping district where I decided...hey...I'll bet I can walk back to the hotel! DOH! Up the streets and alleys past the Opera house through the music district, past the Mulin Rouge and finally...I DID IT! Just shoot me but what the heck...this is what I do!

Now...I said I did 3 separate walks....well Frankfurt Germany is a place you can easily get lost in and guess what....yep.