Stanford is a Parallel Universe

So, I tried to meet my class at Stanford yesterday to see the Vik Muniz lecture. And I did meet them, after spending an additional hour completely lost. Some of my students got lost too-- only one of them got more lost than I did, though. I thought I was familiar with area-- I forgot that the minute I enter the Stanford campus I'm in a parallel universe-- a territory immune to Google maps, and one which has evolved beyond the use of old-school technologies like stop signs. We missed the show we had intended to see at the school gallery, but most of us made it to the lecture, which was quite entertaining and fascinating for being two and a half hours long. I would venture to say that there were more attendees from SJSU than from Stanford (I saw two faculty members from my school, plus one professor from our Philosophy department, in addition to my own students.)
Starved and brain-dead, we then made our way to the Peninsula Creamery, where we got diner food and shakes. It was 10 PM when I got home from this field-trip that started at 4 PM. Here is what Google maps showed me, versus the map I should have sought out prior to the field trip.



See, how the laws of nature apply up to the borders of Stanford, then it gets like a Borges story.