My friends told me to carry sunscreen before I left for my first European trip in the summer of 2018. “I live in Delhi,” I told them, “I think I can bear the heat of a European summer.” This was the foolhardy confidence of one who had never travelled, of the frog in the well.
Arriving in Vienna, which was overrun with tourists, on a late July afternoon, I found myself sunburnt and dehydrated into lightheadedness. As I waited for my Airbnb host to arrive and let me in, something near my feet caught my eye.
Embedded in the pavement