A Quest

Not all those who wander are lost.

-J. R. R. Tolkien

Last Sunday my mom posted two pictures to my Facebook wall. They were both buildings in Lyon and she gave me the goal of finding them this week (I think this may have been another one of her tricks to get me out of my apartment.)

 

On Wednesday I was driving home from dinner with a friend and we happened to pass by the first building. It was random and awesome, plus I was excited to all ready be halfway done with my quest.

Unfortunately the other building was not as easy to find.

I had no idea where to even start looking. How do you find a building when all you have is a picture?

Google was my first idea. I performed a whole collection of searches from "Cool architecture in Lyon" to "Twisted Building in Lyon France". Surprisingly, I actually managed to find the building on Google maps.

I then set off on my adventure. It should have been an easy adventure, one that would have fit in a Dora the Explorer episode. I started by taking the metro to the very end of the line. The end of the line also happened to be a train station, though, so it was impossible to leave. All of the sorties (exits) kept pointing me back to the train station. Eventually I had to walk through the parking lot and over a fence to make it out.

Once out all I had to do was walk south along the Saône River until I ran into the building. Easy enough, right? Wrong. The sidewalk I was on only went one direction -- north. This was on account of the highway that I was walking along. The only way to go south was to cross the highway and river and walk down the other side. Of course the only bridge was a 20 minute walk north of me.

But I was on a quest, and I wasn't going to be stopped by a silly thing like having to walk the wrong direction. I also decided to trust fate to lead me to the building, even if fate took me there via a sidewalk that was more street than sidewalk or via an abandoned tram station.

As it turns out, I wasn't actually walking along the Saône, I was walking along the Rhône. This means I wasn't going north, I was going south, and I ended up walking right to La Confluence. I then just had to follow the line of weirdly designed buildings until I ended up outside of this one:

It's true: not all those who wander are lost, and even if you think you're lost, fate will lead you to where you are meant to be. Even if where you are meant to be is just a cool building.