If you want to test your willpower as an individual, you study abroad. If you want to test your willpower as an athlete, you study abroad in Italy. In a city, Milan, where every meal involves at least seven courses (il aperitivo, l'insalata, il primo piatto and il secondo piatto, il dolce, and il caffè), and every gym is €400 and up, it proved quite difficult to find the context and the space to work out routinely. Doing push-ups and footwork in the cramped foyer of my apartment, it wasn't until I found a field one month into my experience (the only one in Milan that you don't have to pay to use) that I finally felt comfortable in the city I would spend half of my academic year in.

Despite its near inaccessibility to play, soccer is a way of life in Milan, as it is the way of life in any given city in Europe. It wasn't unusual to share the metro with boys clad in bright orange uniforms, their matching cleats swinging from their hands. Train platforms came alive on game days, the tunnels swelling with the warmth of song, the only sound that could bring people together in this otherwise individualistic city.