When you go abroad, you’re always given the advice of bringing some comforts from home with you. That may include snacks, blankets, stuffed animals, or in my case, my best friend.

I always knew I wanted to study abroad in Italy. I lived in Northern Italy for two years of my childhood and have family there. My family has always celebrated our Italian heritage, I was even named after my Italian great aunt. 

These two months in Wien seem to have gone by very, very slowly. I have received a lot of information, in a lot of aspects. I got to know lots of interesting people; I traveled to many places and countries all by myself; I also messed up a ton of things, and experienced a lot of interesting things as well. I would say it was a very productive time.

Coffee

I love coffee; I hate coffee.

 

Artisan shops run by twenty somethings

hair dyed; ears pierced; arms tattooed.

beans from Java. Are they marked

with blood? who has the power?

I love coffee; I hate coffee.

 

Starbucks on the corner. turn away

the black man waiting for his friend

who is welcome anyways?

approximately indie – do not subvert.

I love coffee; I hate coffee.

 

I’m on my fourth shirt and third cold shower by the time I start getting ready for the dinner party we planned at my friends flat. London—and the rest of England—bake under an unforgiving sun. My basement room turns into a makeshift oven, what does that make me? Mostly sweaty, but it would be cool if I became a nice sourdough or maybe a cake.