Right now I'm in this little laundromat that has an internet cafe built into it. Being surrounded by glass, plus the combined effects of dryer heat and the hot Italian sun, I feel like I'm in an oven. But that is beside the point. The point is I am in Europe and that's awesome.

After I found my hostel in London on Sunday, they told me I couldn't check in until 2 p.m., so I wandered the area and came across Notting Hill and Kensington Palace Gardens, and some playground that was so cool that there's a sign telling adults they can't play on it unless they're with an actual kid. It was a big pirate ship. Like a real one! Anyways, London was cold and rainy, which didn't energize me a whole lot, plus I had to haul my gigantic backpack up six flights of narrow stairs. The hostel I'm staying at here in Rome is the same thing (but the stairs are marble ... much nicer). So I checked in to the London hostel, took a shower and slept. I was awoken by a French guy and a guy from Tallahassee talking in my room (yes, theirs too), and later went out to dinner at a traditional English pub with two guys from FL and 2 girls from Melbourne, Australia.
Later, I wandered around some more, finally went to bed but couldn't sleep because some guy was snoring really loudly, then "woke up" at 2:30 a.m., got in the taxi and onto a shuttle that took me to the airport this morning where I flew here to Rome. Today has been amazing. No freezing, rainy London weather, I happened upon the Colluseum (I really did. I wasn't actually looking for it) and went into the Basilica de Santa Frensisco or something. Rome is incredible. Every building I walk by I feel like it's the oldest building I've ever seen. And the traffic... phew! No worries. I've only almost been hit 3 times. ;)

Some things I noted/thought about on the plane into London:
-Exactly how long is the movie Zathura!?!?
-From in the plane, it seems like the white caps in the ocean never go away. I don't get it.
-I always thought airlines skimped on the food. This is not true. However, getting too much of that stuff does not aid the fact that it is still bad food. Do us all a favor next time and use that rock hard "biscuit" with the egg-like stuff for something more practical, like for throwing at Roman pigeons.
-Airplane bathrooms are not so cool as I used to think they were.
-Clouds will always fascinate me.
-My kneecaps went numb from the position I was sitting in. That was the weirdest thing.
-After waiting for the restroom and seeing the luckies in business class, I have decided it is worth the extra billion dollars. No, really.

That's all I got! Oh, except that I taught an old Brit a new word: squash. I used it in reference to fitting my whole name on a line on my landing card, and he stopped me short and said, "what was that word you just used? Squashed? Is that like "squeezed?" Cute.

I am falling asleep. But yay for meeting up with Andy tonight!