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When I was 18 years old, my awareness of life, my awareness of myself, was divided into “before” and “after”. For some reason, I traveled only to my home country until I came of age, and in the first summer of freedom, I flew for a week to Istanbul, Turkey. For a person who had never before traveled outside his home country, this was a comparison of revelation. Almost Russified Istanbul met me warm, and I took such a sweet welcome for granted. I thought that would be the case in every country. My system of peace crumbled to pieces when, after a couple of months, quite unexpectedly, I was alone in New York. My childhood friends live in New York and I visited with them, hoping for a complete joint pastime. However, they were forced to leave for urgent matters in Boston, and I was left completely alone - the second time abroad, in another hemisphere, without knowledge of the laws of the city. And I still feel incredibly grateful that such a situation happened because my first trip to New York had a great influence on my formation as an individual, expanding the boundaries of my worldview. I was on the verge of shock from almost everything - from the multifaceted Central Park, from the huge dungeon of the subway - and how it differs from the museums of Moscow’s underground, from a different behavior to strangers, from China-town, from the bright colors of Times Square and, of course, from my favorite Museum of Natural History. By the way, museums in New York struck me at the very heart with their qualitative difference from museums in Moscow - free admission did not fit in my head (until I visited museums in Washington, D.C., and London). I will explain that in Moscow the policy of the state museums is completely different - the admission fees are high but even higher for foreigners, and there is no fun inside the museums, only reverent awe of the art. I was already familiar with the concept of a city that never sleeps because I live in Moscow. But real stone jungle, tall concrete buildings that hang over you and cover the Sun with you - this was new to me. I visited the United States twice, and each time I stayed the longest in New York. And I got into all kinds of adventures - for example, once I got stuck at night in the desert somewhere on the outskirts of New Jersey. But the very first impression of the city is special. I flew to New York for the first time and after an eleven-and-a-half-hour flight I still felt at home — wherever I went, there were queues, as in my native Moscow. After my first trip abroad, I was in several cities with a pronounced Western culture of behavior, and I had already got used to it. And every time I remember how I walked along New York avenues and realized that it is not always like home. I am glad that I had the opportunity to experience the culture shock of New York in proud loneliness. If I were with one of my friends, I would hardly be able to immerse myself so completely in another culture, realize the many differences and similarities between New York and Moscow. The main thing that I was able to get out of this journey was the path to myself, to my real self. At the age of 18, all doors are open, and you can become any person you want - I passed this training many times faster than I could without New York. The second insight from this trip, which came to me a little later, is that in every stressful situation there is a positive opportunity to improve life. Who are we without this opportunity?