I can’t believe that it’s already 14 days ago that I left my homeland, Lebanon, to come to Paris. 2 full weeks have now gone by, with me trying to make it on my own, in every aspect of my everyday life. I’m so thankful that 3 of my friends came with me (they’re continuing their studies here as well) which is making things a bit easier to handle. I won’t go into the details of the move, or the woes that I’ve faced so far in this foreign city. I will only use this post to highlight an aspect I had never expected, but that definitely made my first weeks here more bearable and more interesting: Nokia Maps. This application is GODSEND, honestly!
For the past months, I’ve read several posts claiming that Google Maps outperforms Nokia Maps in many aspects but I haven’t had time to test this theory for the obvious reason that I CAN NOT use Google Maps: it requires an internet connection on the phone, and I still haven’t got a 3G mobile contract because I don’t have my “titre de séjour” yet (an equivalent to the american green card). Nokia Maps, on the other end, works with no connection whatsoever: just download the maps on your handset and you’re good to go. This reason alone makes Google Maps irrelevant and Nokia Maps invaluable to me, and ANY tourist coming to France and not planning on paying fortunes for data roaming. I know that 3G SIM Cards can be bought in other countries, but these are not available in France: 3G is tied to the contracts only.
Here is an explanation of how and why I’ve used Nokia Maps in my first weeks here:
Following my plane course
I was extremely tired on the plane but I couldn’t sleep a lot, because there was a kid next to me who was crying his heart out all the time. So in order to entertain myself, I decided to launch Nokia Maps as well as the GPS application on my N82. I had a window seat, so I was able to get a lock, and see my speed, position and altitude, which was pretty fun. I kept comparing the results to those that the MEA monitors showed, and I was pretty impressed to see that the values were differing by a mere 5% globally. My friends were speechless.
Making sure the Taxi drives us in the right direction
After a huge deal of time spent at the Charles de Gaulle Airport trying to get hold of some bags we had shipped one week before our trip, we finally got out to the Parisian streets. The taxi driver was honestly the nicest and most helpful guy I have ever met, but when in a foreign country for the first time, you can’t be very confident. So I used Nokia Maps to follow the taxi’s location from the airport to the Cité U (our dorms), which I had added as a Favorite a few days earlier. This way, I was able to learn a bit about the Parisian streets that we were taking as well as some local geography. I was also able to tell my friends that we got near the Cité U, which is inside a huge parc, as well as point (yes, POINT) the driver to the closest entry to our building inside it.
Discovering my university
I arrived here on Friday noon and my first university course was scheduled on Monday morning. I basically had to settle down EXTREMELY fast, as well as try to find my campus during the weekend so I don’t arrive late on the first day. Using Nokia Maps, I searched for my university’s street “Hélène Brion” and added it as a Favorite. Armed with a map of all transportation means in Paris (RER, Metro, Tramway and Bus… they like to complicate things), I decided that for the first time, I will try to go by Tram then do some 15mins walking. After I got off the Tram, I turned Nokia Maps on, and looked at the streets. I picked a path to walk and followed along. Nokia Maps followed me the whole time, and it was an amazing first experience. Seeing the names of each street as I got to it written on my phone’s screen as well as on the street’s building was a great feeling. Everytime Nokia Maps showed a turn, I saw it in front of me, everytime it showed a street cross, I saw it. I felt like I knew the region, although it was my first time there.
When I finally got to Hélène Brion street and saw my university’s building, I had a huge sense of relief. I FOUND it, and it only took me 30 minutes, my phone and a transportation map. I didn’t ask ONE SINGLE question in order to get there, and it was just my 2nd day in Paris.
Tourism
I’ve been told by a lot of people that they envy me and would do everything to come live in Paris. It’s an awesome city, no doubt about that. There’s so much history and culture around every single corner here, that you feel somewhat impressed and overwhelmed at times. But we didn’t let this feeling control us so during the 2 weekends that we’ve spent here, we decided to enjoy the awesome weather and go discover the amazing places we had read so much about and seen so much of on television.
Armed with Nokia Maps and the transportation means map, I played the guide for my friends. I searched for some locations on Nokia Maps, like the Luxembourg Gardens and the Eiffel Tour, as well as the nearest Metro/RER station to these. Based on our current location, I would pick the transportation path. Then, when we’d get off the train, I would use Nokia Maps again to direct my friends to the site we were planning to visit. It felt awkward yet definitely rewarding to tell my friends “now we’ll turn on the left, we’ll be on street X, then we’ll take a right turn and find the site”. At first, they were a bit skeptic, but time after time, they noticed that the software was guessing everything absolutely right, and started entrusting it and me completely.
Using this method and in 3 days only, we were able to visit the Luxembourg Gardens, Eiffel Tower (from the outside), Concorde Square, Champs-Elysees, Arc de Triomphe which we climbed, Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral (stupendous church), Louvres (just the outside place) and Opera de Paris (which was closed), check the pictures here. Pretty impressive, right? And more impressive when you think that it was our very first time in all these places, and we never got lost once. Well, we took the wrong RER direction once, but that’s because of the messed up direction signs inside the station.
Locating myself and finding the nearest metro station
Many times, we would find ourselves walking and walking and walking, and we would be very exhausted to go back to the train station we came from. So I would use Nokia Maps to locate our current position and see if there isn’t any closer train station. We used this method many times, and it saved us some walking so we would come back to the dorm with some strength left to clean around or do the laundry or the dishes (big green grin).
Finding Ikea and the Geant Casino
Since we arrived with nothing in our bags than clothes, we had to find a good mall to buy food and cleaning material, as well as a store to get some kitchen appliances. I had already heard about Ikea and I knew that the Geant Casino (mall) that we have in Lebanon is also found in Paris. So I searched for the words Ikea and Casino on Nokia Maps, which gave me by distance the closest ones to the dorms. Using the same method as the one for tourism, I was able to guide my friends to both locations in order to do our shopping.
All in All
After having spent 2 weeks in Paris, Nokia Maps proved its worth to me. I have paid nothing for extra licenses for navigation or anything: I’m using the Paris map free and as is, with my own sense of direction and it’s working perfectly well. From the first day, Nokia Maps made it to my active standby screen as a shortcut, as I knew that I would be launching it far too many times each day to dig for it in the menu.
Here, I only cited the scenarios I remember, but I’ve made a lot more uses out of this application, it’s almost frightening to think just what would I have done without it… probably asked a question every 2meters and got lost a few times, and mugged a few others.
