Home away from home

Written by Talia Dunyak

For the past four out of five years, I have been living abroad. One of the things that my friends and family from back home always ask is how I handle moving from place to place, flitting from city to city is how I manage to make myself feel “at home.”

To make a place a home is a learned skill, with the small things adding up. For me, it begins with a houseplant which then multiplies to many houseplants lining the windows of my flat. From there, the rooms slowly evolve with the addition of pictures on the walls, pillows on the sofa and trinkets on the shelves.

However, the first time it truly feels a home is when the first guests arrive, and the first friends enter. I have always found that bringing friends into my new space is the best way to make it feel like a home. Laughter, joy and comradery have proven to be the best cures for homesickness for me as I have continued to make and remake homes across the world.

With spring semester ending almost as quickly as it began, I wander the city streets of Budapest appreciating the warm May sun and the bright spring flowers. Looking towards the horizon of a new year and moving once again, I think a lot on how when my department moves to Vienna in the fall, in many ways I won’t have to make a new home for myself. The past year of classes, protests and community has helped me build friendships which I know will last longer than the time we spend together within the walls of the Nador street campus.

Because if nothing else, Budapest proved to me that you find home not in objects or places but in the people that you surround yourself with.