Language: the true foreign land

So this is where my five years of flashcards and conjugation tables becomes real life. Yes! Finally! But let me tell you, it is quite different and most definitely exotic. When Argentines speak sometimes I can barely understand them. They don’t pronounce the words in full and on top of that they speak rapidly with intonations I have never heard before. However speaking is even harder than understanding. Some phrases come out smoothly but most of the time I find myself stumbling for a word or needing to visualize my conjugation table in my head mid sentence. I have just come to realize how language is an incredible barrier between people.  
First of all, the moment I open my mouth it is clear that I am a foreigner, already giving me a certain identity in interpersonal relationships.  Second of all there is absolutely no way of understanding someone like you understand someone of your own culture, because even if you are able to speak their language you do not speak the same cultural language. There is significance in different intonations, word choice, body language, interpersonal norms etc. In our own country we are all used to just being humans, but here we are something else—we are a different type of human because there is a clear and obvious barrier between us. We are not from here.
When moving to a different place I would say that language is most definitely what marks the ultimate barrier. When I moved from San Diego to New York the consistency of the American English made the difference far less drastic between the suburban San Diegan that I was and the upbeat, jaded, coffee drinking New Yorkers.  In addition, as a daughter of Israeli parents who has fluent conversational Hebrew, when I go to Israel, which is wildly different than the US, there is less of a barrier between me and Israelis just because of the consistency of the language. I think this is the reason why people want to learn new languages. It gives us access that we can otherwise not get to a whole other type of population.
Right now I am a strange mix of tourist, student, and inhabitant of the city. I am able to speak and understand them about 60% to 70% but never able to communicate truly. However the truth is that through my broken but improving Spanish I feel as if I am slowly but surely beginning to access this foreign place.