I thought that I am person with a pretty good sense of orientation, until when I got completely lost in the English Garden in Munich. It was in the afternoon, about 5pm, but it was completely dark already in Munich. After walking in the downtown area, I thought I’d check out this Chinese Tower in the English Garden as the last thing of the day. By the time I found the Chinese Tower, I have figured out my map does not show the roads in the park correctly, so confidently and foolishly I chose to navigate according to my own sense of orientation. It turned out to be a disaster.

At first, I decided that I should get outside the park by the nearest route, so I cut through the woods to reach near some traffic lines. I even congratulated myself for having found such a “shortcut”. But this shortcut turned out to be very long one. For about a hour, I walked all by myself, either along the paved road or wandered into  in the middle of woods, feeling less and less sure about where I was. To make things worse, it started to snow and got really cold. Because it was a less traveled track, no body was around, except me. At one moment, I saw some hope when a runner was running towards me. I tried to catch his attention by saying “excuse me”, but he just kept running, only waving out a few words as he passed by me  “I am on this work-out”. I was mad. At some point, I got near a highway, which suggests this is the end of park. But the question is which end?

I followed the light in the woods, and after another few turns, I found three men who were just about to drive their van away. I ran toward them and asked me. Goodness, it turns out that I ended up at the side of the park exactly opposite to the one I had intended. Instead of walking out of the park from its west side, I somehow ended up at the east end of the park. They directed to the nearest bus station, and I took the bus then the subway back to my hostel.

Have a compass all the time!!