Bwog decided to revisit days of study abroad programs past and sent resident culture arbiter Alexander Pines to RoomHop Emily Hyatt’s (CC’14) beautiful, villa inspired EC Townhouse single. 

“Basically everyone thinks I have a gay Pace University flag,” Emily says when I walk in, indicating a slightly singed rainbow flag with “PACE” (pronounced pah-ché) printed across the center. “Pace means peace in Italian and in Italy it’s not only a queer pride flag, but it’s also indicative of an anti war sentiment. They’re commonly found hanging out of windows and you can see a lot of them in the streets. Of course, they’re even more prevalent in queer spaces,” she adds before telling me about spending last semester abroad in Bologna, Italy. Walking over to one of the walls, part of which is covered with an incredibly meticulously crafted collage of photographs, she admits that they’re from Instagram. “I screencapped ’em on my phone, printed them as four by sixes on the printer at home, and cut them into squares.”

Hanging next to the collage is a pair of Italian-themed posters. The second is is a vintage-y looking map of Italy with several color coded tacks. “The red ones are places I’ve lived for a longish amount of time,” Emily explains, pointing to tacks in Bologna, Venice, and Varese. “The white tacks are places I’ve visited,” she said, gesturing to a flurry of tacks speckling the map.

Large posters for Bologna Pride 2013–“Bologna has the best Pride festival in Italy!”–and Il Cinema Ritrovato give the space an urban, hip feel that nicely plays off the very homey aesthetic of her bedding (made complete by strings of carefully placed Christmas lights that give off a pleasant, warm glow).

I notice the large (and fully functional) record player atop her dresser and, seeing my questioning look, Emily happily produces a stack of records spanning Fleetwood Mac to Tony Bennett (with, of course, the Beatles and several jazz classics in between).

Overall the space is incredibly cozy, from the translucent, powder blue curtains to the impromptu blanket turned tapestry (“the best thing is that if I ever get really cold in the winter, I’ve got an extra blanket hanging on the wall”) to the small collection of Emily’s artwork arranged throughout the walls–she’s majoring in visual arts. Like Emily, the room is friendly, warm, and incredibly tasteful without being pretentious. After sitting me down and explaining several of the stories behind the array of photographs, Emily puts on the Rumors album, pours me a cup of tea, and offers me her head massager.