import simplejson
import urllib
import urllib2
from django.utils.encoding import smart_str

def get_lat(loc):
    location = urllib.quote_plus(smart_str(loc))
    dd = urllib2.urlopen("http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=%s&sensor=false" % location).read() 
    ft = simplejson.loads(dd)
    if ft["status"] == 'OK':
       lat = str(ft["results"][0]['geometry']['bounds']['northeast']['lat']) 
       lng = str(ft["results"][0]['geometry']['bounds']['northeast']['lng'])
       print "%s - %s" % (lat, lng)