For I have known them all already, known them all: 

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; 

I know the voices dying with a dying fall. (Eliot, “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock)

STRIPES is a coffeehouse on Ulica Kushlanova, down the street from the Institut. It’s clean & well-lit. Big windows. NO SMOKING: yay. 

Franck espresso. Dance music on the radio; some Euro dance music station. Bob Marley right now. No hip hop, praise God. 

They apparently serve food, but I haven’t tried it. 

The cappuccino is bitter. Average foam. Everything about it is average. It’s cappuccino for times when the setting–a good place to work, read, talk–matters more than the cappuccino.