1 - Introduction

Summary

Imagine this strange island you have just set foot on. The travel agencies had advertised it as the latest and most exciting place to visit, an absolute must for those who still want to explore the unknown. So, of course, you decided to visit this island and booked with your friends a three-week stay. And now you've arrived and are sitting in a cab taking you from the airport into town. The landscape looks beautiful but strange. For some reason you can't take it in at one glance. You clearly see the part right in front of you, but, possibly because of the tiring flight, everything in the corners of your eyes appears more blurred than usual.

In town you buy a map. They don't sell one single map of the island but offer instead a booklet containing on each page a little map which covers only a small patch of the town or of the surrounding countryside. ‘How convenient,’ your friends say and off they go to explore this new and exciting place. But you approach things differently. You want to figure out where the places of interest are. So you buy the booklet, seek the nearest café, take out the pages and try to join the little maps together to make a single big one. Unfortunately you don't succeed; the little maps seem not to match at the edges.