Cav's Place

It’s always “fun” to try to piece together where the fuck I was after a failed “trip” through the city, but this time it was actually surprisingly easy to make a map. So now I’ll just tell you exactly what happened yesterday and rely on the marked spots on that map to make it easier to understand. Not that anybody’d be interested, of course, but I may want to keep this for my own reference and either way I really need to write something here, seeing that I once again failed to do so this week before today.

The plan was to go check out a book fair, which is taking place at Romexpo (2), but I started completely wrong, due to basing the whole “travel plan” on an obviously completely false memory when I left. You see, I missed this year’s summer book fair, so the last time I was in the area was last summer and my mind confused some things. I knew that I hopped off something to get there before, I knew that I could take the metro to get to Herastrau Park and also knew that the entrance to Romexpo was on the opposite side of a square from the entrance to Herastrau Park, which is the big green area with the trees and the lake in the upper-right part of that map, not including the sports complex on its left. From these three things, my mind became convinced that I just had to take the metro to Charles de Gaulle Square (1) and I’ll be there. However, the square I needed to get to was Free Press Square, which is right at the top of that map also has an entrance to Herastrau Park, but where the metro doesn’t go.
The result of that mess was that I hopped on the metro, switched lines at Victory Square (6) and hopped off one stop later, at Charles de Gaulle Square. I saw the park entrance and, since I knew that the Romexpo entrance was on the opposite side of the square, I started crossing those streets. Of course, when I got to the other side, I saw nothing of the kind. All that was left was to look around in confusion and keep making my way around until I found myself back where I started. Only then did I realize that the starting assumption was wrong, but still thought that I could reach Romexpo by metro, so was wondering whether I should just hop back in, use up another trip on my card for just one more stop, but get there quickly and without any risk of getting lost. Lucky I didn’t, because that would have taken me to the other side of the park, outside of the pictured piece of map and well to the right. Never been there before, so if I’d have hopped off there I’d have really been lost.
After deciding against that course of action, I tried to see the map in my mind and said all right, I need to go up and left, so let’s take it geometrically. Do I try to cross through the park? No, next to no chance of finding my way. All right then, go around, but what’s the priority? Left, probably, I told myself, picking the way to go according to that and eventually making my way to the Arch of Triumph (3), before which there was a sign saying go right for Romexpo. That made perfect sense, geometrically, so I thought it should be easy enough from that point forward.
Well, it wasn’t. When I looked, I saw Kiseleff Boulevard and my mind again made a wrong connection, with the Kiseleff Park, which is the green area with trees in the bottom-right part of that map. That should go to show that I was already in quite a state at that point, because I normally know where Kiseleff Boulevard is and where it goes, so if I think about it now it’s quite strange that I said to myself that I couldn’t possibly need to go there because that’s in the opposite direction of where I want to go, so perhaps the sign meant to take the second right, as you go around the square.
So I did, stared in confusion at the sports complex and, knowing that Kiseleff Boulevard was going right and thinking that I had to go in the opposite direction of that, I turned left at the first good opportunity (4), though I could have yet saved it at that point if I’d have turned the other way instead. The fact that turning left essentially meant that I was going back was obviously quite lost on me at the time, and so was the fact that I saw trams going to Free Press Square pass by in the opposite direction. Then again, since I couldn’t see what it said on the ones going in the opposite direction, I wasn’t sure whether they were going to or coming from it. Got the feeling that I really should turn back and go the other way, but was already in damage limitation mode at that point. It was starting to get a little dark and I just wanted to figure out where the fuck I was first, as I had never been in that area before, left of the road that connects the Kiseleff and Herastrau parks on the left side, and at that point nothing was familiar.
So I just winged it, trying to stick to major roads, which I clearly did, and keeping an eye for major intersections and metro stations. At some point I saw a sign pointing towards Victory Square, which was at least familiar, if obviously the wrong way, so I went the way it pointed until something just seemed all wrong and I made yet another very wrong turn (5). Also somehow managed to miss Ion Mincu Street, which borders Kiseleff Park to the north and which I knew. I remember noticing all other street names as I passed by them, but not that one. Maybe that “entrance” towards it has another name, maybe there was no sign or maybe a car distracted me as I crossed, but I somehow missed just the one street which could have told me where I was. That’d have prevented some more confusion, but as it was I kept going and then turned wrong… Again.
Still, I quickly became aware that I was heading the wrong way and that I should make a left at the first good opportunity, so I did that and eventually reached Victory Square and the metro station there when it was already quite dark. Then again, after checking the map I saw that there was a metro station straight ahead as well, if I wouldn’t have turned left where I did, but I had never been in that area, so I could have gotten all confused again before reaching it.

In the end, all’s well that ends well, but I really should be more careful about planning my trips! Not that it was the worst such “adventure” so far, that “title” probably going to the first time I made my way to Carol Park on my own, on foot. That resulted in me getting there well enough, but somehow getting lost in pretty much every way possible on the way back, making for a total of some six hours spent walking. For comparison, this only took a little over two hours, from the moment I went out the door and until I got back, so including the time spent on the metro. However, all of it happened under a constant light rain and the fact that it was quickly getting dark made it far more worrying than it would have been otherwise.