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a blog with cultural bulimia.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

I heart Rio.

Rio is the most geographically beautiful city I have ever seen. Squeezed between the ocean and the rock mountains it has new, breathtaking vistas at every turn. I just realized this weekend that the way I feel when in Rio is the same way I feel in New York: I feel alive. In constant wonderment.

Few cities in the world become the symbol of a country and its people - they are defined as città-capitale or city-capital by Carlo Giulio Argan, an Italian Historian. They are the ones that, independently of being the enonomic or politic center of a country, are vital to the formation and preservation of a national identity. And that is Rio, in spite of its many painful problems.