The other weird part of my journey to the frozen north was the cab ride from the Minneapolis airport to my hotel, a generic major chain suite-type business traveler hotel located at 525 North 2nd Street, about two blocks from Game Infomer's office. Before I got into the cab, I handed the very young and none-too-bright driver the reservation printout with the hotel address right there at the top and said that's where I needed to go. He appeared mystified, and repeated the address back to me as he got into the drivers seat.

"Yes," I replied. "I think it's downtown."

"Ok," he said, doubtfully.

We started off on the highway leading away from the airport and after traveling a couple of miles, the driver retrieved an unmounted GPS device from somewhere under the passenger seat and started fiddling with it... while still driving. Thankfully it was midnight and there weren't a lot of other cars around as we lurched about the road. Eventually, he handed it back to me and asked if I could enter the destination. I got as far as punching in "525 2" before it spat back a bunch of address listings from which to choose. Apparently there is also a 2nd Avenue in the area, so I was careful to select the listing for 2nd STREET. I handed it back to the driver who seemed quite relieved, and the device began giving us directions in crisp British Received Pronunciation.

"Continue for 500 meters and exit left."

"Continue left."

"Continue left."

This worked very well until we exited the highway into the downtown area, where the driver proceeded to ignore the GPS completely.

"Continue 100 meters and turn right."

We pass the first intersection.

"Recalculating. Continue 100 meters and turn right. Turn right"

We pass the second intersection.

"Recalculating. Turn right"

After a couple blocks of this, we end up under an overpass at the Target Center, and the driver is completely confused.

"She is saying the wrong thing," he tells me, clearly baffled as to why not following the distinctly stated directions from the GPS has not brought us to our destination. Since it was very, very late and I was very, very tired and his English was very, very poor, I didn't feel like starting an argument by pointing out the obvious. He asked again to see my printout.

"Ohhhh... here is the problem," he announced after studying the paper and the GPS for sever tense moments. "You put 2nd AVENUE."

Again, I did not want to provoke a confrontation, and muttered something about it being all so confusing.

He punched some new info into the GPS and off we went again, passing many strip clubs and dive bars. This time, the driver listened to most of the GPS directions and only ignored a few, and suddenly there was the hotel.

Amazing how that works.