At the end of October, I took advantage of fall break to go to Chicago for an extended weekend. Most of the time I was there, I spent walking around  – on the shores of Lake Michigan, through the downtown area with its many skyscrapers along the Chicago River, and through the Millennium Park with its world-famous sculpture nicknamed “The Bean.” In Nashville I miss just walking around and discovering things because it is a real car city and not very suitable for pedestrians.

On the rainy (and windy) Saturday of my Chicago weekend, I was in the American Writers Museum, the only one of its kind. For a student of English literature, the visit was a must! There is a temporary exhibition on Bob Dylan and his controversial Nobel Prize for Literature from 2016, as well as typewriters owned by American greats like Ray Bradbury and Ernest Hemingway. Other sections feature James Baldwin and Gloria Anzaldúa.

On Sunday, by chance, I came across a small Mexican bakery with a large selection of vegan baked goods. I bought quite a few things because vegetarian and vegan dishes are, unfortunately, hardly sold in the southern United States. After a flight of almost an hour and a half, I was soon back in Nashville and at my desk.

The short break did me a lot of good because after that I to work hard for class. Unlike at Freie Universität, term papers have to be submitted here by the end of the semester, in mid-December, so they have to be written during the semester. That means, toward the end of the semester it became increasingly difficult to find a good balance between university and social life. Nevertheless, I made it to a concert in Nashville, the Music City, and took another short trip: to Boston.