The Contrast.

The city is beautiful in the fog. The mystery is alive and the imagination wide. As I sit in a cafe that is both strange and welcoming, the contrast of my location starts to sink in. Here is a city still fighting for its identity, plagued with contradiction and wide to the idea of a moment of solidity. This is a place of ongoing revolution, where people are strong in what they believe, and often even stronger in what they do not. There is a hardness that blankets the streets, but within this, hearts dictate the direction.

As my sugar dissolves slowly into my coffee, my hands shake, both from the excitement of being in a new place and lack of nourishment. This is a city where you can live off of carne and coffee, where sitting in a cafe for hours isn't a bother, it's expected, where pouring out your heart isn't revolutionary or deep, it is conversation. Here is where the language is sung rather than spoken and the phenomena of the streets are only surpassed by that of the people. The stares no longer matter, the danger, I now expect, what matters is how I feel; and here, where I least belong, I find myself feeling at home.