“It is so much easier to take pictures in a place that is strange. You are relieved of the burden of knowing anything, of having to distinguish between the obvious and the intimate.There is an openness in which you discover yourself and where you imaginatively are. That sense of discovery…”

Corollary: I love eating in restaurants where I don’t understand the language(s) being spoken around me. Conversations are soothing radiators of warm, comforting human companionship – absent the high-frequency buzzing irritant of everyday complaints, banal observations and uncomfortable glimpses into screeching, sadness and boredom.

I’m secretly hoping for a future Google Glass plug-in that performs real-time language translation from English to any dialect of my choosing (that I don’t understand, of course).