Searching for an address in Prague is a curious experience when you’re a visitor, as each building gives you a few options: is it the white number in the large red rectangle? Or do you want the white number in the small blue square? Why, well we’re on the subject, are they different, yet adjacent? The first rule of labels and semiotics and even a poor reading of linguistic philosophy is that you can’t have two different markers that represent the exact same item—though that’s probably not the best opening line if you’re lost in Prague.
It seems that you can blame the Habsburgs for affixing the large red rectangles to each structure long ago, without much regard to any reasonable sequence. The blue squares are newer, but they come with nice touch of marking only individual facades—so a corner building might have multiple blue numbers. Of course I noticed that there are letters, too, which must indicate something worthwhile, though nothing seems to go terribly wrong when they’re ignored.
How about the addresses in Manhattan? You might have noticed that the cross streets follow a fairly reasonable, orderly pattern, while the avenues appear to have come from an overly-ambitious and far too creative postal worker. From what I can gather, this is a peculiar story, where those with political power and preprinted letterheads resisted any changes as the city developed. Perhaps living at 500 Park Avenue does sound a tad better than living at 493 Park Avenue, though I’m not quite sure that I would have enough bravado to voice that complaint. Larger than my preference for a grander address is my preference to avoid the appearance of wanting a grander address.
On more than one occasion, I’ve stayed for a period in a modern, furnished, and addressless apartment, especially while traveling in countries that hurdled past some of the typical development steps: going from no phones at all to ubiquitous mobile phones; going from a cash only economy to one with mobile payments; going from an economy based on agriculture to one based on service, completely skipping the pesky industrial age with its smokestacks. And when you’re skipping steps, some of the antiquated aspects of the old model linger, such as the communal neighborhoods that were once addressless but remain so even though they’re now modern homes.
On more than one occasion, I’ve also given up a lengthy search for a particular address while traveling, but it usually takes awhile to cut through the carapace of stubbornness that I insist on wearing. In order to drop my completely unnecessary but forever-present armor, however, the trip must feel more exploratory than urgent, as I can’t be too invested in my original destination, and, most importantly, a substitute needs to catch my eye.
On one occasion, I remember trudging through narrow alleys and around a dizzying series of corners in Istanbul over the course of several hours—perhaps it was weeks?—before I finally picked a new destination, dismissing the very existence of the gallery that I couldn’t find until I wrote this sentence. I abandoned my hunt and walked into a bar, partly because it looked inviting, partly because the bar was at the bottom of a hill and the alternative was upward.
Asking for directions isn’t a problem, though it typically deprives me of any accidental discoveries. And if I’m not too rushed, nor too serious about the destination, asking for directions will simply make me more interested in conversation. My focus will shift and I’ll lose my desire to reach the destination. In both travel and conversation, the fortuitous is what brings a thrill, and that can’t be coerced or scheduled or promised in advance. Part of the enjoyment of a leisurely search is what’s unforeseen, and part of the enjoyment of a conversation is the unexpected path—to hear or to speak what you couldn’t predict.
The addressless can certainly trigger these moments, and, in some places, I’ve even discovered that directions involve actual people as landmarks. Travel far enough outside the standard motorways and usual paths and already photographed locations to uncover these situations. You can resist, and demand an official map, a concrete description, but you might be overlooking the most elusive and intangible aspects of your destination.
Perhaps the best way to traverse your barren, windswept town is from the fruit seller to where the local doctor eats lunch. When you demand a map, or squint at your phone and fight the harsh reflection from the sun, you might, alas, end up at the right destination—if geography is your only measurement. With those methods you’re sure to get coordinates, but you’ll never quite understand how, in some place, the real map is a hidden network of relationships and memories and associations.
I am reminded of Lawrence Osborne, a peripatetic British writer who has lived in several countries and set his novels around the world—because in each of his novels the reader slowly discerns that atmosphere and location and environment is as significant as character. In one interview, he gave a curious aside about how he collapses the distinction between location and character:
To me, place creates character, not the other way around. So the setting—the place—twists and reshapes the characters into a certain form.
This comes from a discussion of his novel The Forgiven, which is set in Morocco, and where location and its effects is what triggers and expands the narrative. And Morocco, I learned long ago, is a spot where a map does little for outsiders. Knowing an address, or even the proper direction, isn’t sufficient when navigating the bazaar in Marrakech, or when you’re trying to manage any of the winding, confounding roads in Morocco’s cities.
Regardless of where you’ve landed, however, travel will force you to concentrate. All of the assumptions that you usually make during the day evaporate the moment you step outside. Which is why travel exhausts so many people: every moment in a mysterious city demands a new decision. Nothing is involuntary when you’re surrounded by uncertainty. But that’s also why traveling can be thrilling and why, for others, it is life affirming, even energizing, to take a long stroll along a mysterious street while bombarded by the unknown—surrounded by languages that you can’t comprehend and following signs that you can’t read. Even the prosaic and dull and forgettable comes alive. Each step forward, each light switch flick, sip of water, triggers your focus. If you believe, for instance, that a staircase has one more step, discovering that you’re incorrect will jolt you into the present moment, fully alert to the flash of your sensations. And only on the most vertiginous of trips can you maintain that flash of alertness for the entire journey. To arrive somewhere that’s addressless, absent the language, unclear on your direction, is another method of waking from your sleep.
The Addressless
In the United Arab Emirates, no one uses addresses -- not even parcel deliverers. You just memorize landmarks. You're lucky if the road that runs by them has a name, most of the time you just mention the big roundabout, the third roundabout, past the sculpture, etc.
I actually did figure out what could be considered my address from the numbers on my building. Imagine them something like this:
WW-XX-YY-ZZ
WW was the area or neighborhood. Al Ain was segmented into a dozen or so. I was in the fourth, so 04.
XX was then the north-south parallel streets. I was on the second, so 02.
YY was the east-west streets, which I was like 28 or something.
ZZ was building number on that block, of which I was in the 08.
Funny thing, the apartment was also numbered AA-BB: floor, room.
So my address could have been stated as 04-02-28-08-01-04 Al Ain (or something like that. Memory inexact.)
Once I figured that out, I thought it very practical, EXCEPT literally nobody Arab, Western, or South Asian I was surrounded with could understand what the hell I was talking about. I'd even show people the little tiles with the numbers on their buildings and they'd just be like, "How did you even figure this out?"
I even tried telling couriers my address to see if they knew and it was immediately apparent they were having none of it. Dudes that has lived there for decades were like, "Nobody else is gonna figure out this system, dude."
My son will be leaving for Morocco in early June to study Moroccan Arabic as part of a summer scholarship. I should have him read your essay, as a primer for the joys of getting lost in the Bazaars.