July 26, 2012

Indirect and Incorrect Directions

Today I am sharing one of the biggest challenges I faced while on vacation, getting directions. Now as many of you know, I am QUITE directionally challenged, but as a complementary match to this weakness, I have the gift of patience and optimism (which helps A LOT when I'm lost). This is not merely a tale of getting lost, no. This is a life lesson in trust, discernment, and being aware of surroundings. 

1. Our GPS, Magellan, has always been faithful. It has taken my friend and I on many road trips, and it always gives us the most direct route, it always gives us a lovely chime when it is time to turn, and most importantly, it always reconfigures a route for us when we make a wrong turn. Well, not on PEI. I don't know what is wrong with the satellites, maybe they were on vacation too, but GPSs do not fair well on the island. It tried to take us on all of the back dirt roads, it was unable to tell us of any gas stations near by, and best of all, it kept telling us to make right turns into the ocean. We resorted to using a French map that we had picked up at the Acadian Museum in Miscouche. 

2. After driving around the city of Charlottetown for 20 minutes looking for a place to park, we decided to break down and enter...(dun dun dahhhhh) a parking garage. It was a hot day, and we were just having bad luck with the one way streets, so we caved in and payed to park. That was easy. The hard part was finding the parking garage. A lady on a bench told us that it was 1 block down and to the right. (It was not, but we found the garage). Once inside the garage we looked around for 10 minutes, only to discover it was the WRONG parking garage, and apparently Charlottetown has not one, not two, but THREE. Oh dear. We entered the post office and asked the worker specifically where the Fitzroy garage was. He told us it was down the street and on the right. (It was the wrong garage). Eventually we found the parking garage...AND the car. During this long, hot adventure, we did get to see a lot of the residential areas of the city, which were quite beautiful. 

3. One of the things I was most excited about for the trip was getting an Old Time Photo done. Even though we were able to find the studio, we noticed the price increase to 60$ for one photo, and abruptly left the building. My second choice was WAX WORLD, and boy was I ever excited! So with little help from GPS, we made our way to the town we knew it was in. Once there we pulled into the PEI Dirt Shirt Shop to ask directions. I excitedly asked the girl at the counter (who was preoccupied making a friendship bracelet). She informed us that the wax museum used to be there, but it wasn't anymore, and that it did not exist. I was devastated. I asked her, "So you're telling me, there is not one wax museum on this ENTIRE island" and while chewing her bubblegum she said, "yeah". We left. We drove down the road and found an information center with brochures for WAX WORLD. Say what?!?!? After a 10km drive down the road, we arrived at Wax World, and one of the first figures that greeted me, was JP2. My FAVOURITE pope! (John Paul II). I was just a little excited. 

You're probably thinking, "oh my word, that vacation sounds so frustrating". To be honest, it was at times, but because we were determined, and because we kept moving forward, we eventually got where we wanted to go, and all the obstacles made it all the more enjoyable in the end. And you know what? Life's kinda like that too. We are able to really appreciate the highs in life, because of the lows. Perhaps the bad times are really blessings after all. 

Until next time, I leave you with....
JP2 and I

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