--- title: Left long enough... author: George Mandis date: 2014-05-13 tags: post, post, argentina, photos, buenos aires, pretty thoughts ---

Left long enough most objects by the water will begin to resemble one another. Or so this brick & mortar remnant, posing as a river stone on the shores of Rio de la Plata in Buenos Aires, would have me believe.

2013-02-23-17.26.27

Other things I learned while traveling last year:

A falling star in Zanzibar looks just the same as one in Athens.
Nobody can agree on where to put eggs in a grocery store.
Nobody quite cuts hair the same way either.
Always be skeptical of the cab driver (or anyone, in general) that approaches you first at the airport.
Family is family, even when it's family you didn't know existed until that day (I haven't written this properly but there are shades of this story in a post about my grandfather).
Never turndown a homemade meal.
The only prerequisite for making Zanzibar soup is that all your ingredients must be found in Zanzibar.
Travel, adventure and exploration is all in your mindset and less-so the place you're in. I could genuinely write as much about the 7-Elevens in Japan and trying to find bubble-wrap in Kenya as I could about visiting Machu Picchu (Okay, I could probably write a little more about my weekend excursion out of Lima to go visit Machu Picchu. Like how I lucked into finding someone who showed me where to get the multiple tickets I'd need and how a landslide made our train back about four-hours late.) or Hagia Sophia in Istanbul(Did you know there's another Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki? I was lucky enough to see that one too.).
Those shoes in this picture are going to last me forever. Eighteen countries, ruins, lava fields, sandy beaches, muddy roads and countless cobblestones — hardly any wear on the soles.