February 7, 2012

A day filled with planning.  I'm off to Rome tomorrow!  I had to talk with my group and figure out our whole itinerary.  Traveling is basically the most stressful thing EVER.  I can't wait for my family to come pick me up and for my dad to plan out all of our travels.  Now I appreciate him soooo much and all of his fantastic hour-by-hour excel spreadsheet with our days planned out.  So I guess I can rule out travel planner out of my potential occupations.

Vatican City, Rome

We sat around mapping out our travels, planning out how to get to the airport (apparently by the most confusing way we could find- we're catching a bus at 2:45 AM, have to transfer onto another bus at 3:00 AM, then take a train to the airport at 3:30 AM, fly through customs, and are on a flight to Rome by 6:50 AM (yep....look at all those nasty "AM's".  We'll see how I do...).  Then we'll land in Rome, somehow find a way (using a bus, train, or subway....hopefully) to the city, and just drink it all in.  We have tickets for the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Forum, the Pantheon, and St. Peter's.  We'll also check out the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.  I feel like we're just kinda throwing everything together and will end up flying by the seats of our pants.  Haha I've never felt this clueless in my life!  It was hard enough traveling to London and I feel like I've finally adjusted to life here.  Well, I came on this trip to get myself out of my comfort zone and do new things- I've definitely succeeded!

I also booked tickets with a group of 4 friends for FREAKING IRELAND!!!  Oh my gosh I am so so so so excited!!  If I could go ANYWHERE in the world I'd hands down go to Ireland!  Most beautiful countryside by far.  Sexiest accents by far.  Everything best by far.  So I'll start planning out that trip when I get back from Rome.

IRELAND!!!!

After all those crazy travel plans (and all this work for only 2 1/2 days in Rome!  I fly back Saturday and then will take a day trip to Brighton.  We meant to book tickets that would fly us home Saturday night but something happened and they accidentally booked them to send us home a day early.  I am sooo sad about it, but I guess I can't really do anything about it, and it will be fun to go to Brighton) I went with my friends to....Chipotle!!  Yes!!  They have Chipotles here in London!  My life is complete!  I have everything I could ever want here in London now :)  I guess I won't really have to come home now.  Oh, wait.  They don't have In-N-Out here.  Nevermind.

Oh my, hello there delicious...

The door leading into heaven

My, don't you look...delectable

Then we went to Ben's Cookies (my best friend here in London.  Buy three, get one free!  Which I always do, of course...) and stocked up for the night.  We've had a TON of homework, papers, tests, and reading lately on top of all our trips and planning for our trips.  I needed some good sugar in me to tackle Rome tomorrow.

Why are all the best things named, "Ben" in England?
Big Ben, Ben's Cookies, etc.
Ok, so just two good things so far...

Well, now I need to write my talk for this Sunday.  I'm still not sure if I'll pull an all-nighter, seeing how I'm going to need to get up just one or two couple hours after I lay down, so we'll just have to see what happens.  Rome tomorrow!  Another stamp in my passport!!