As the end of my semester abroad drew near, devastation about having to leave Vienna and return to the U.S. slowly crept in. I was heartbroken when I realized that I have no idea when I’ll even be able to return to the city that has become my home for the last five months. Every time my friend on my program would bring up her ongoing countdown of the days we had left, everyone else would hush her in an attempt to ignore the fact that we would eventually have to leave. So I developed a coping mechanism to deal with my grief and sorrow. I came up with a list of the things I missed the most about the U.S. during my time away to focus on the positives of returning home rather than the negatives of leaving Austria. Here is what I was able to come up with.

1. Free refills

2. Free water

3. Having ice in drinks

4. Not having to guess whether or not I should seat myself at a restaurant

5. Not having to use Google translate every second of my life

6. YouTube advertisements being in English

7. Not having to pay for public bathrooms

8. Spacious bathrooms and elevators

9. Having ten different types of cuisines available within one block

10. Kraft macaroni and cheese

11. Hershey’s chocolate

12. Target, Walmart, and Costco

13. Grocery stores being open on Sundays

14. Taking a huge gulp of water from a water bottle and not being taken by surprise that it's sparkling rather than still water

15. Driving my car

16. Not being paranoid that the person speaking German behind me on public transportation is gossiping about me

17. Not having to mentally convert the price of something into US dollars

18. Being able to pay with a credit or debit card without the store owner or waiter looking at me like I just killed their dog

19. Not worrying that I am horribly mispronouncing everything

20. Having the ground floor of a building be called floor 1 and not floor 0