Off to Dublin tomorrow!

Just headed to bed so that I can wake up early tomorrow and get ready to go to Dublin.

The last couple days have been nice, aside from my ferocious allergies. I've stopped wearing my contacts all together, and I think some of my neighbors may be able to identify me from my sneezing. Almost nothing is helping this get better, and I'm getting frustrated.

Anyways, yesterday we went to the Tower of London with my architecture class--Norm may be an old guy (who probably needs a hip replacement, he says) but he schooled us walking. Seriously, it was hard to keep up (made harder by the fact that he's deaf in one ear, so when we yell for him to slow down he can't hear us).

The Tower was impressive, to me mostly because I'm amazed that structures like that still even exist. And it's a little weird that it's just in the middle of the City of London, which is mostly modern glass-and-steel office buildings. Did you know that some people live there? The families of the yeoman of the guards apparently have houses within the Tower. I can't imagine anything more surreal than growing up in the Tower of London--asking a classmate to come over after school would be awkward at best.

We all went out to Sports Cafe again last night--pints are only £1.50 and there's no cover charge if you're a student on Tuesday nights. Needless to say, I didn't meet any locals, just more American students. Oh, except for the creepy MUCH older man who accused me of being the kind of girl who hangs around outside the men's bathroom (?), telling me he has a kid, and then trying to compare himself to David Bowie. I had help from my friend Tim, another student on Syracuse's program, to get rid of Mr. Bowie.

The rest of the night was uneventful, except for when BethAnn and I tried to get home on the bus with Tim--he suddenly turned around, made what I still maintain was a very ambiguous hand gesture, took off running down the street and disappeared. We ran after him, only to discover that he was in fact using one of the iconic red telephone booths to discreetly relieve himself. Classy.

Today was spent mainly getting ready for my trip--I bought a goofy looking little backpack because for some reason that seems smarter than my big shiny purse. We leave tomorrow at 9:15pm, so somehow between now and then I need to get my room cleaned and get packed. Oh, and do about a million other things.

I also just booked my flight to Copenhagen. In about a week and a half, I'm going with friends to Denmark and Sweden. Very excited!