After it was all said & done, I still existed in Recoleta. My feet were still firmly planted in my “home,” even though most of my new best friends had left. It was a difficult feeling. To be so comfortable in a place, but yet swimming through the crowds without your anchors that had kept you afloat for the past four months. 

Without classes, without the daily weeknight gatherings, & more & more late night partying with local friends that didn’t start until 1a, I vowed that I wouldn’t get bored. 

So each day, I walked. I got Isis off to the dog walker, made my bed before the maid arrived, & set off. I would walk down Ayacucho until I couldn’t recognize the city. I would run into pitbulls, homeless begging for money, little boys who attempted to encircle me & beat me up (they probably just wanted my dinky camera). & I walked. & walked. Sometimes, I would stop at a kiosko for a Coca light. (Bombillas don’t work well with Coca light, have you noticed? Too much explosion.) & each corner that I encountered, I fell into a new sort of love. A new sort of appreciation for the city that I had scurried through, usually running extremely late to class, every day.

They told us never to look up. But how can you not? How could a person, born & raised in this city, never look up? Up is where the beauty lies.