What good is a map if there are no street signs?

So...Jessi, Caitlin, and I decided to go to the children´s museum at the beginning of fall break. Seems like a good idea?!?! It was, just not at first. After a good lunch, we were armed with our map and plenty of time before the rain to head to the museum. We started walking. About 15 minutes later, we finally see a street sign and realize we are going in the wrong direction. No big deal. We checked out the map again and started heading back from where we came, embarking on a new route to our destination. Again, we found ourselves going in the wrong direction and found a little lady on the corner to ask. Of course, she wasn´t from San Jose. Go figure. We got the guts to speak spanish and ask directions, from sombebody who didn´t know. The next person we asked said the museum was really far away. Fabulous. We continued walking in, what we thought, was the correct direction. It starts raining. We realize, lo and behold, we are not going the right way, despite that at every street corner we pulled out our map to reevaluate. To no avail! Finally we figure out the general direction and walk confidently in the correct direction...only to find ourselves in Barrio Mexico, notorious for its prostitutes at all hours of the day (and night), and continuing on to Coca Cola, the specific area we were told never to walk through, as it is headquarters for the Chinese mofia (we found this out the following day). And its still pouring rain. OF COURSE. So, we continue to try getting a cab, but they are all full because it´s raining. Surprise surprise. Finally at this random gas station these guys whistle really loud and a taxi stops for us. Literally 3 minutes later we are at the entrance to the Children´s Museum. We sat down to rest, for after all, we had spent over 2 hours meandering through the more dangerous areas of San Jose. We didn´t explore the entire museum, as we were tired, but we did have a great time. And we took a taxi home, so no worries there.
-KH