From day one of learning what traveling or living abroad/new place was all about, I gave myself a promise: once in a new place - I would always give up my comfort zone and allow myself to investigate the new environment to a point of being able to crack the code of most local traditions and language specifics. There is nothing more fulfilling and intellectually stimulating than to experience the unique dimensions of other cultures’ realms, n’est pas?
I’ve woken up a number of times in my life in other countries and towns, not knowing where the hell I was. Especially in my early twenties, when I’d grab a backpack and go anywhere that would vaguely resemble my most recent dream, most likely, based on the new National Geographic cover, or book I just read. I’d say waking up in a bunch of different towns in China was the most bizarre. I suppose, not knowing what’s going on, or how to go through seemingly regular daily experiences - is what makes me the happiest. The weirder, the better.
Being disoriented in someone else’s culture is one of the last things in the world that can effortlessly make humans so very interesting, wonderfully alien and beautiful.