One cold day in 2015, I created a rift in the space-time continuum of Google Street View. You can witness it yourself! If you don't care about the story, scroll down to the gallery. Otherwise, keep reading...
The Great Google Street View Adventure
It all began one fresh autumn morning when I saw the iconic Google Street View car pass through the quiet streets of the small town where I live. It went down Boulevard 34, toward the lagoon, quickly down a street that ended a few blocks later. And I said to my uncle: "Hey, dude. I'm pretty sure the Google car is going to come by again in seconds, because I bet my life it's sweeping the town. Back and forth. Shall we go in front of the bakery to get immortalized?" My uncle agreed and we went out, stood on the street, and seconds later the Google car came by again. You can see the result of that encounter here.
But then I felt a bit guilty. I'm married to a woman I love with all my heart and with whom I like to share these silly things; I didn't want to leave her out of the joke. So I grabbed my bike and rode home as fast as I could: "María, María," I shouted when I arrived. "Grab your bike and follow me! No time to explain!" And María grabbed her bike and followed me. On the way, I told her about the situation — that the Google car was sweeping the city from boulevard to boulevard and that I wanted it to take a picture of us together. She loved the idea, so she gave me a kiss and we stood on one of the boulevards, keeping watch for our prey. Here, in the distance, you can see me on my yellow bike, keeping watch. And here too!.
Fortunately, the car didn't take long to appear. It came out on 30th Street and turned into 28th. Obviously, it was going to come back on 26th. All calculated. And since we had time, we even allowed ourselves to find a nice corner, with shade, and arrange the bikes so they would also be in the shot. Look how nice we look!.
What does all this have to do with a rift in Google Street View's space-time? Well... we were blinded by ambition. We wanted more, more, moooore. And then, with the car's pattern identified, in a very small town, it was easy to locate the car coming back. But this time... this time we wanted to appear head-on, riding our bikes. And we intercepted it on 24th Street, riding against traffic, hugging the curb, both with ear-to-ear smiles. But of that, I have no online evidence — there is absolutely no photo on Google that testifies to my presence there, even though I was there Luckily, I'm a cautious guy, and I saved an image of the now-inaccessible historical mode, in which we can be seen from a distance (going against traffic).
In the first months when the first mapping of Navarro was online (from April 2015), the map jumped about 40 meters from the photo view, right in the space where Google crossed paths with us, completely erasing us. And it's noticeable that the result (that ugly jump in space) didn't sit well with Google HQ, because the following month the Street View car returned and mapped that area again. When the historical archive existed, navigating that area in April 2015, for those few meters the software forced the view of the May map and there was no way to access the April ones. In other words, they deleted me from Google Maps.
I remember with painful detail how the driver's face changed when he saw us coming head-on. Before seeing us, he wore a calm and serene smile, delighting in the amazed looks of pedestrians at such a strange contraption in such a quiet town. But when he saw us... poor guy... his eyes filled with fury and frustration with a hint of "ugh, damn it." And he even had time to give me a facepalm. Yes, a humiliating and well-deserved facepalm, directed at me. So I take the opportunity: Google driver friend, if you're reading this, I apologize profusely. I don't know what I did, but I would never do it again.
Of course, I have some theory about what happened, why Google completely erased me from its map. It must have to do with having ambushed it against traffic, I suppose. What do you think it was?
The Gallery
