Today, as I was reading A Room with a View, I was reminded of my love of travel and of how it makes one feel simultaneously like an insider and outsider.
Something special happens when you come across a new place, previously undiscovered. You can't help but notice the inherent newness of the place in relation to yourself, yet it's been there all along, existing right under your nose without you ever meeting it. Sometimes it's a place, like Italy, much older than any other place you've visited before. Going somewhere unknown illuminates certain things yet undiscovered within you, what lies dormant but now, with the light of a new culture, may be drawn out by a a dalliance with different set of standards and priorities. Things that society or others viewed as less than important suddenly become paramount. All at once, you're thrust into a position, whereby observing a new location, new people, a foreign dialect, you, too, become an observer of yourself, both within and without. Florence instigated all of these feelings within me.
