When the world is spinning a little too fast, and I need to get away, I usually head to the small coffee shop that is only about two blocks away from my house. It is a no-name shop, not one of your cookie-cutter conglomerate shops which you can find on any corner in any city in any country of the world. My shop is small, run by two sisters who share the work part time. On the outside it is unimpressive – a regular storefront in a 1970s era strip mall. The windows are covered with sticky see through vinyl which lets some light in but keeps the world from peering in at the regulars who hold up inside. .

             As I enter the shop, I am at first assaulted with the delicious aroma of fresh brewed coffee. While this shop offers the typical "double-tall-non-fat-half-decaf" specialty drinks we all know and love, the two sisters also keep several different types of regular drip brew around all the time, for the hard-core who like their coffee black and bitter. The smell is a mixture of Arabica beans, Colombian blend and Sumatran with a hint of Oriental Chai mixed in. If you go early enough in the morning, the smell of the baked goods that come in from a nearby bakery are mixed in with the coffee smells, and it is enough to make your mouth water. The shop is mostly in the semi-dark. There are a large number of recessed lights in the ceiling, but the owners deliberately keep it a little dimmer than usual in there, knowing that the regulars come in as much to ease themselves into another day with the delicious fluid as they do the atmosphere. Sometimes, a girl with a pierced lip works behind the counter, and adds her own aroma of patchouli and mint gum into the mix. Distracting, but somehow it works in this unconventional setting.

             The shop is small, maybe about 90 square meters total. There are a few tables with marble-esque tops and some bent wood chairs that would look more at home in an ice cream parlor than in this store.