I forget where I was in September, but there was one city where I asked my GPS to take me to a grocery store and when I got there, I discovered that it was in a rather unsavoury part of town. I was very nervous and realised that software can’t protect you from taking a bad off ramp.

This was further evidenced tonight when I asked Google Maps to plot my drive from work to a downtown hotel where I will be meeting my friend tomorrow. It gladly obliged, helpfully telling me to follow Main and turn left at East Hastings. *cue in the horror movie music*

Yes, I am finally going to see downtown Vancouver tomorrow. And I’m driving there. At rush hour. My options were a forty-five minute transit ride from work to the hotel and a two hour bus ride home, or a potentially two hour rush hour drive and forty-five minute drive home. I decided that with what’s been going on in broad daylight lately, taking an unfamiliar transit route in the dark wasn’t something I wanted to do. Nor is going through the ghetto, even if it’ll supposedly shave ten minutes off my drive.

Wish me luck finding parking!

(All this intrepidness will be worth it for a sushi dinner with a friend I haven’t seen in six months!)