“What’s the most exotic country you’ve ever visited?” someone once asked me.
In an instant, I was back in India. Humid air thick with the scent of spices. Stray cows roaming freely. Tuk-tuks speeding by, honking nonstop. A flowing, vibrant, chaotic crowd all around me: a world that, to a European, feels endlessly exotic.
And then I remembered a giant billboard at the Mumbai airport. A travel agency, promoting the most exotic destination in the world for wealthy Indians: Croatia.
“There is nothing more wonderful than a rocky seaside!“
As a Hungarian, I had to smile. Croatia has always been just next door; it’s a place I’d visited dozens of times without ever thinking of it as anything special. And yet, there I was, standing in their ordinary, completely in awe of it.
The puzzled look on the face of the person asking the question pulled me back to the present. They were still waiting for my answer.”
Well… it depends,” I said.
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