Buenos Aires. December 2011.
The instant I stepped into the subte (subway) on my first day in Buenos Aires, I felt a palpable jolt, a tingling excitement, as I stepped once again into an unfamiliar world; this time into a culture that shares some undertones to the one I grew up with, but is, at the same time, very different. Being surrounded by a language that is vaguely familiar but practically meaningless to me only adds to the sense of excitement. I guess part of the exhilaration one feels when traveling is that initial sense of being lost in unfamiliar territory. Interestingly, the exhilaration seems to intensify as one slowly finds meaning in strange new things. Buenos Aires has brought me such experiences of discovery! Indeed, it is ironic, that it is only when one starts to get to know a culture and becomes, in a sense, less lost, can one also begin to “lose” oneself in a new world.
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