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I am in Chicago right now, and after more than a week it was quite necessary to do some laundry. I had already bought extra stuff at the Gap in order to have a clean change of shirts/socks and underwear, but you can't go on like that forever.
The hotel I am in offers laundry service, but the prices are highway robbery in plain daylight. Even though I can expense these kind of things I hate to feel that I (or somebody, my customer) is being ripped off. And thus I asked the hotel concierge for a good laundromat nearby...
Well "nearby" is a flexible concept in Chicago. The Omni hotel is in the middle of the central district (or, "The Loop" as Chicagoans refer to it) and apart from classy shops, luxury hotels and swanky office buildings there is not much in the way of "real life" here. So he directed me to a Spin-Cycle franchise at 1685 N. Milwaukee Ave.
I went to Yahoo! Maps and looked up the zip code. I then synchronized the information from the Yahoo! map with my map of Chicago, and decided that I needed to proceed to the Logan Square station on the blue line (CTA).
After a comfortable train ride I got off and found myself somewhere near 2920 N. Milwaukee Ave!
And then it dawned on me. US zip code areas are BIG! Bigger than Dutch zip code areas. So the Yahoo! map had shown me the center of the area, but the laundromat was probably several miles south!
Lesson learned: when using Yahoo! Maps, enter the complete address instead of just the zip code! Using the zip code gives you the center of a very big area. The entire address is needed for a correct fix on how to get there!
(As a short explanation: In the Netherlands a zip code and a house number is a unique location index in the entire country. Thus the combination of zip 1112XC and house number 16 is enough to get a letter delivered. Therefore, zip code areas are small and routing to a zip will put you very close to where you want to be...)
Fortunately US cities are laid out logically and Chicago bus routes are predictable. I hopped on a bus going south across N. Milwaukee Avenue and after a couple of minutes we passed the laundry shop.
Which leaves me with just one hint for the Spin-Cycle guys: Include directions to your shops on your web pages! |
