Vienna
The Kurdish opposition was marching through one of the main streets and chanting anti-Iranian regime slogans. He followed me from the protest down a back street and called out. I stopped and he showed me a map and asked if I knew how to get to the destination he had circled. Weird he didn’t have Google Maps like almost everyone else in the city, I thought. It was only a matter of time before the city elders would carve out a separate pedestrian lane for tourists whose eyes were fixed on their phones.
I explained to him I didn’t know how to get to where he wanted to go. I wasn’t from here. “Where are you from?” he asked. “America,” I said, wished him luck and was on my way. He called out again and caught up alongside me. “Where are you from?” he asked again. “Argentina?” I walked off without answering him, eyeing my way back to the main road.
