Uncategorized | newyorkerabroad

We all had known each other about 2 hours before this photo

Today officially marks one week for my time in Valencia. After days of no sleep, some sleep, forgetting to eat, trying to adjust to the hot climate, all while searching for apartments and beginning my new internship, stress may have been they key emotion to have popped up during these days.

But throughout this entire experience one common thread knitted this hectic experience into a beautiful acknowledgment – how precious the kindness of strangers truly is.

From having multiple men and woman helping me with my oversized luggage, to the grandmother offering me food and magazines to read on my train ride to Valencia, to the tour guide taxi drivers, and the amazing and delicious welcoming dinner I was invited to by my new landlords—it has truly been some great moments to cherish.

I can’t honestly say I have received the same treatment from New York City strangers—not saying it doesn’t exist, I’m also no stranger to NYC,–but there must be a reason why I am in total awe at how nice strangers have been in my new city.

It’s an incredible human experience—being kind to one another. We all are stuck in our own world, our own troubles, but just the simple kindness from another human that comes to us for no particular reason is something to value.

I want to say travel is a factor that defiantly instigates that.

Those people who saw a tiny girl struggling with 3 bags helped to carry or lift them onto stands, the taxi driver who spoke of his city with passion to the new habitant he truly wishes an incredible stay, and the chef who made an incredible lunch for this newly arrived flatmate …all these small experiences made my chaotic, frantic, and rollercoaster of a week an incredible first week in retrospect, with much restoration in human kind.