I’ve been home for a week and it still hasn’t set in that I will not be returning to Trinity College next semester or that I’ll walk back to my apartment building and have dinner with all my friends again. It’s a bitter sweet feeling to know that chapter has ended and another one is about to begin.

Well, I’ve been home for over a week now and today is Christmas Day. So Merry Christmas all! My sleep schedule is still all wacky. I don’t know it I would say I’m jet lagged, but everything is a bit weird regardless of what word you want to use. I start feeling tired around 1 or 2 pm and some days I get so tired I feel sick by around 8 or 9 pm. I know I just need more time to adjust, but it really is not a fun way to spend my first bit of time back home. However I am managing and people are patient with me.

Well, I’ve been home for over a week now and today is Christmas Day. My sleep schedule is still all wacky. I don’t know it I would say I’m jet lagged, but everything is a bit weird regardless of what word you want to use. I start feeling tired around 1 or 2 pm and some days I get so tired I feel sick by around 8 or 9 pm. I know I just need more time to adjust, but it really is not a fun way to spend my first bit of time back home.

Over a week has passed since I’ve returned home to America, but my time abroad couldn’t feel like any more of a distant memory. Though it has only been a week, I feel as if I’ve been home for quite a long time now. Many people advised me about the reverse culture shock that would occur when I arrived home, and I half expected there to be a rough reintegration process, but oddly enough I feel right at home as if I never left the area for China in the first place.

Since September, there have been kids gathering fuel for Halloween fires in Dublin. During a hall meeting, we looked out the window to see a few, 10 years old at most,  dragging pallets out of the lot - partly a community garden, partly cracked concrete and meter-high grass - across the street from us.

By the time night fell on Halloween, a tower of kindling stood in the dog park nearby. After dark it turned into a tower of flame about twice as high, casting light over the whole street.

In this last segment of my three-part series on spring break in the southern hemisphere, I wanted to share some of my favorite pictures and memories. 

New Orleans/Mississippi

A few days ago, I left Milan and flew back to North Carolina to spend winter break with my family. For me, this was the end of a seven months’ adventure abroad, so I knew coming back would be a strange feeling and require some getting used to. Leaving Milan was sad. I had to say goodbye to the city, everyone I had met and spent time with in the past 4 months, and my host family. But, for every downside of leaving, there was an upside of going home.

The Viennese and I especially agree on one certain thing: coffee is much more than a beverage. It is a way to wake up in the morning, a way to catch up with friends, and (for some) a necessity for any good day. Vienna’s coffee culture was one of the many things that drew me to this beautiful city. Since the beginning of the semester, I have been strategically visiting different coffee shops each week in a hunt to find the best. Listed here are the best coffee shops I have had the chance to visit while living in Vienna.