Which side of the street?

[Mnemjian]

On this block there is this bookstore and another bookstore right across the street. /BS

CM: Confused Man (on telephone)
Me: Me

Me: [says the name of the store in opening spiel]
CM: Are you the one on the left side of the street?
Me: Well... that depends on which way you're facing.
CM: No there's TWO bookstores I'm just wondering (Thanks for clearing that up Captain Obvious)
Me: ...Yes. Well. If you're facing North then we're on the left side.
CM: Which way is North?
Me:

[Bright_Star]

Which way is North? Well, it isn't "up"..lol.

[ShadowTiger]

Some people, including myself, often have no sense of direction. It's not like we all have a compass, internal or external, at all times. <(o_o)> All we can do is orient ourselves in terms of landmarks, which include streets. For example, I'd say "I came from third street and fifth avenue, and am walking on the right side of the street up fourth street, still on fifth avenue." It's far easier to imagine than a suble abstract concept such as "North" when you lack a compass to guide you.

[HYHYBT]

It depends on where you live, too. Some places have almost all the streets laid out in a grid, running straight north-south and east-west. In such a place, it's pretty easy to keep track of which way is which, especially once you've been there a while. If you live somewhere like, say, north Georgia, the roads meander all over the place. So you probably know, more or less, whether you entered town from the south or north, but once you start making a few turns and the roads curve around, you need either the sun or a compass. And unless the sun was blinding you when you drove by, you're not likely to remember from home. Heck, I've mostly lived in the same town all my life (well, not yet ) and my internal map is rotated 180° with what I think of as up being south, possibly because I formed the thing before learning the compass. If I think about it, I know which way is south, but it always feels wrong.

[Mnemjian]

I definitely understand getting confused about directions! I'm always happy to give directions, but this guy was on the telephone and I couldn't point for him. So it made me laugh

[Dips]

CM: Which way is North?
Me:

That's a great question to ask on the phone.

[Pagan]

If you live somewhere like, say, north Georgia, the roads meander all over the place.

Or our drunken donkey streets. There's one street in Las Cruces that runs into itself.

[telecom_goddess]

Some people, including myself, often have no sense of direction. It's not like we all have a compass, internal or external, at all times. <(o_o)> All we can do is orient ourselves in terms of landmarks, which include streets. For example, I'd say "I came from third street and fifth avenue, and am walking on the right side of the street up fourth street, still on fifth avenue." It's far easier to imagine than a suble abstract concept such as "North" when you lack a compass to guide you.

Yeah what they said

[Pagan]

Helps if you have mountains to the east. All you need to do is remember that east should be on the right....assuming that you know your right from your left.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Helps if you have mountains to the east. All you need to do is remember that east should be on the right....assuming that you know your right from your left.

For some people that's a bit much.

[bhskittykatt]

Fortunately, our downtown district has a nice slope down towards the waterfront, so I can typically direct people "uphill" or "downhill." Most people can at least figure that out...

Or our drunken donkey streets. There's one street in Las Cruces that runs into itself.

I lived in a neighborhood like that once. My ex-BF theorized that the planners had given a drunken monkey a pen and let it scribble on the map and that's how they planned the streets. BFF and I once thought about setting up a stand to give directions and charge 25 cents a turn...

[Sunsetsky]

I live in Colorado Springs. The way we tell our directions is "Mountains are to the west." And we figure it out from there.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I always liked the set of directions that included: "Turn right at the corner where the white house used to be."

[HYHYBT]

Along the same lines, the next county over, where my stepmom is from, you'll get directions based on "the pink house." It's still there, but hasn't been pink since the 80's.

[Magpie]

Left and right are hard! They change every time I turn around.

And here we have two streets that run nominally parallel in most parts of the city, but intersect three/four times (depending on how you count it).