2008-05-24 48 2

Sat 24 May 2008 in 48,2: 48.1266480, 2.5475331 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Something is actually wrong here. When I looked up the location yesterday, I found it to be in Fontainebleau (actually Avon, a neighbouring town). But today the applet shows a spot in a field far to to the south of Paris and far from any significant inhabited place, and those for yesterday are on a railroad on the right bank of the Marne next to Meaux (east of Paris); I can't find the Fontainebleau place any more.

Anyway, the coordinates that I (Ilia) had were about 48.4003N, 2.7226E. When I saw that it was in Fontainebleau, I told myself that I had never been there and that it was a perfect occasion, so the cost of the train fare did not deter me from going there. The weather was not very nice, rather grey and cloudy, but I enjoyed the trip nevertheless. First I saw the castle of Fontainebleau; there are a lot of flowers there, and a few peacocks just walking around on a lawn in the backyard. Then I have had a rather pleasant hike through the forest; I even found wild strawberries (not yet quite ripe though), that I thought were not very common in France. But I found myself an hour before the meetup quite far from the place, so I tried to cut through the wood (where I had quite some trouble finding my way, which added considerably to my pleasure from the excursion). Finally I arrived to the coordinates a mere 10 minutes before the meeting time, under intermittent rain (fortunately, I had thought of bringing a raincoat!). The spot turned out to be in the middle of a driveway that Google Maps did not show (the photos are upcoming); although it was not strictly private, I judged it better to wait at the nearest road junction, from where I could see people going to the true location anyway. I was standing at the corner, dressed in a Mathematica T-Shirt, and doing my Rubik's cube, so I think that any geohasher could have fairly easily guessed why I was there! I waited maybe for half an hour, but did not meet anyone. Is it because I got the coordinates wrong, or because there are no adventurous-minded readers of xkcd in Paris ?