Do NOT try this abroad

It's not really fair to try to convince you that everything over here is easy as pie. You'd be silly to believe it, anyway. I've been twelve timezones away from my home for a whole month, I speak the bare minimum of the native language, and for awhile, I didn't have a cell phone. If only Dave was black, I'd have 90% of a comedy screenplay written. But Hollywood or not, with these ingredients, something was bad was bound to brew. Let's turn back a few pages, right at the part where I thought I knew Taipei City like the back of my hand...

I had received an email from Julie, my agent, with the time and location of my initial interview so she could begin pimping me out to the best schools in Taiwan as soon at possible. 3:00 pm? Keelung Road? Section 1? XinYi District? Shoot, that's right near Taipei 101, and I had been there once in my life. Not to mention I'm practically best friends with a guy who knew a guy whose brother dated a girl's cousin whose grandfather worked for the friend of a civil engineer that helped design the road system in Taiwan. All that means is that I was ready to brave Taipei City without a map. Word of advice: do not try this abroad.

I got off the subway, came up from underground and surveyed the scene. After a few weeks in Taiwan, it turns out that I have an above average sense of direction. I gauged the wind and started walking in the estimated direction towards my destination. I checked my watch; and because I planned to have a time cushion, I had about 25 minutes until my interview. Strolling along, confidently making lefts and rights at seemingly appropriate places, I started to get a little nervous. I had a few street names stored in my memory that I knew exactly what to do upon seeing them, but it had been 10 minutes and I hadn't seen any of them, which was a problem. I looked around and saw that I was in the shadow of the tallest building in the world, looming above me in all its collosal glory. At the next corner there was a map.

Aha! I was walking the wrong direction! I walked in another direction for a few minutes before I started to get the feeling that I was still not headed the right way. It happened to be that I was at the base of Taipei 101.I knew the compass direction from Taipei 101 to my interview, but an unfortunate fact about Taipei is that it glows. That is, there is always a very thick layer of smog and/or rainclouds covering the sun, giving the city a fluorescent light effect. No shadows, no distinct source of light. I found another map on a corner. Within the next 10 or so minutes, I had graduated from a casual, confident walk, to an "oh no, I have 2 seconds left to cross the street" sprint. The occasional map on the corner was like finding pit stops in The Amazing Race, and I said a silent prayer before approaching each one, hoping that the "You are Here" bubble was closer to Julie than the last one. The minutes ticked by, 3:00 came and went, and frustration and panic ensued, accompanying an already existing large amount of perspiration, fast running, and a cornucopia of curses (FYI- there is an automatic 2 points added for every use of the word "cornucopia" in everyday conversation).

Naturally, I blame two things other than the stupidity of not bringing a map: Keelung Road stops being Keelung Road for awhile. It turns into another road that brings you to a place that is not Keelung Road. What's up with that? And the other thing: North is not always "up" on the maps on the street. I was used to reading maps that followed a universal, logical pattern, so I was making lefts that should have been turn around, go 3 blocks and make a rights.

Sure enough, I made it to my interview, and only 15 minutes late at that (Julie was very understanding*). Let this be a lesson to Taiwan-goers: always write down the address in Chinese, always carry a map, never say "near a 7-Eleven" as a serious point of reference, and never assume Up is North.

*considering she told me her office was on the 13th floor and the elevator only went up to 12. Talk about a panic attack to interrupt the sigh relief when I found the building...