🇺🇾 Five Days in Uruguay: Why Does This Place Feel So Familiar?

I have been in Uruguay for only five days, and something very strange has happened to me.

I have the feeling that, somehow, I have always belonged here.

I know how strange that may sound, especially because I had never been to Uruguay before. I did not grow up here, I did not spend years learning about the country, and I did not arrive with a detailed picture in my head of what everyday life would be like.

And yet, since the moment I started walking through the streets, I have felt an unexpected sense of familiarity.

As a Cuban, leaving Cuba and arriving in another country is not something you do without carrying a lot of questions with you.

What will I find?

Will I adapt?

Will everything be completely different?

Will I feel like a stranger?

Coming from a country where shortages and economic difficulties have been part of everyday life for so long, you naturally arrive somewhere else expecting to be surprised by many things.

Of course, people can tell you about their experiences. You can read stories, watch videos, look at photographs and hear what life is like from people who have already emigrated.

But none of that is the same as actually being there.

I arrived in Uruguay at night. The next day, after having a place to stay, I went out to begin something very important for me: my documentation process and the steps necessary to regularize my situation in the country.

And that was when I started noticing this strange feeling.

I was walking through places I had never seen before.

I was in a city I had never visited.

I was surrounded by people and routines that were completely new to me.

And still, many things felt incredibly familiar.

One of the things that caught my attention was going into stores.

There are products and varieties of products here that, because of the shortages in Cuba, are simply not available in the same way in everyday life there. I expected to walk into these stores and feel completely amazed by everything I saw.

But that wasn't my reaction.

I noticed the abundance. I noticed the differences. I noticed the prices too — and believe me, Uruguay is an expensive country compared with what I am used to.

But I wasn't shocked.

Instead, I had this strange internal reaction of:

“This feels normal.”

And honestly, I still don't know why.

Maybe there is a psychological explanation.

Perhaps when we hear enough stories about other countries, our minds slowly create an image of what life there might be like. Then, when we finally arrive, some things feel familiar because we have already imagined them many times.

But that doesn't completely explain my experience.

I only have two friends here in Uruguay.

I never spent months calling them and asking them what life was like here. In fact, one of them didn't even know I had arrived until I was already in Uruguay.

The other person who has helped guide me is connected to my sister, but most of what I have asked about has been related to my legal situation: what documents I need, where I have to go, and how I should begin the process.

I didn't come here with someone giving me a detailed description of everyday life in Uruguay.

That's why this feeling is so interesting to me.

Maybe there is nothing mysterious about it at all.

Maybe our brains are simply better at adapting than we realize.

Maybe after living with so many limitations for so long, arriving somewhere with more availability of everyday products doesn't necessarily feel like entering another world. Maybe, at the end of the day, people everywhere are still doing many of the same things: working, shopping, walking, talking, solving problems, making plans and trying to build a better life.

Or maybe there is another explanation that I haven't discovered yet.

And this is where I would love to hear from you.

Have you ever arrived somewhere completely new and felt strangely as if you had already been there before?

I would genuinely like to know if anyone else has experienced something similar.

For now, I don't want to idealize Uruguay.

I know it is expensive.

I know starting over is not easy.

I know I still have many procedures to complete, many things to learn and a completely new life to build.

But after only five days, I can already say something honestly:

I like Uruguay. A lot.

And I have the feeling that this is only the beginning.

I want to start sharing my experience here, not only showing the places I visit or the things I discover, but also talking about what this country makes me feel.

The good things.

The difficult things.

The unexpected things.

The moments that make me laugh.

The moments that make me think.

And perhaps even the things that today feel completely normal but, after living here for a while, may become part of a very different perspective.

Because emigrating is not only about changing countries.

Sometimes, it is also about discovering who you are when everything familiar is suddenly far away.

So this will be my first entry in what I hope will become a little diary of my life in Uruguay.

I don't know exactly where this journey will take me.

But I am here.

I arrived.

And I am ready to discover it, one day at a time. 🇺🇾💜