I blame Clooney

My whole life I never heard the word Nespresso, and then all of a sudden everyone was talking about it, gushing superlatives and telling us we just HAD to try it. Well, we are nothing if not susceptible to peer pressure, so we'd been chic and European (and engaged!) only about a week before we realized that what we needed to be even more chic and even more European was to BE those people talking and gushing about it. So we did a little bit of research, visited the Nespresso store, and brought home our very own machine (the CitiZ Slim in Titanium Grey, if you're wondering).

Don't know what the hell I'm talking about? Go here. Or watch this.

I am not a coffee drinker. I have always hated the taste of coffee, except in tiramisu form. The summer I was 14 I went through a brief misguided coffee-drinking period, in which (here's the peer pressure again) a girl I admired convinced me that drinking coffee was cooler. That was also the summer I became a vegetarian (that lasted 2 whole years!) and boycotted Gillette (that lasted only until I needed more shaving cream). I was not myself. Since then I have abstained completely from coffee, instead ordering hot chocolate or chai from Starbucks, relatively firm in my conviction that coffee tastes disgusting. Even though CameraMan is very much a coffee drinker, in that "can't get going in the morning without it, in fact don't even bother attempting a normal conversation with him before he's had it" kind of way,  I couldn't do it.

And then the Nespresso machine came into our home, and changed everything. A shot of freshly brewed espresso at a low Intensität, mixed with a generous pour of frothy milk and a spoonful or two of sugar, is a revelation. CM and I quickly developed our morning routine, standing together companionably in the kitchen, with him in charge of coffee and me in charge of milk…heaven. I'm working up to more intense espresso, less milk, and less sugar, but for now I could not be happier to have suddenly developed into a coffee drinker.

WienerLover had a few friends over yesterday for homemade pumpkin pie and Nespresso drinks (see, now everyone is doing it). His apartment was just about the coziest thing ever, with the smell of pie wafting through the air and the heat from the oven making us warm and toasty. And then there was my espresso with milk and sugar, which I haven't had since I left Vienna. I was suddenly blindsided by an intense wave of homesickness, for CM, for Vienna, for our life together, which we were just starting to figure out when I had to leave. I'm so ready to get back to all of it—only 2 more months to go...

On the bright side, I can now (belatedly) definitely cross this off my list:

86. Learn to like coffee.

In other news, after a lifelong aversion to mushrooms I just discovered I love them. I'm a whole new girl.

But don't get your hopes up, pickles. Your time may never come. Blech.