April, a month for lounging.

Alright so the main part of term is over, I finished my essays and got everything turned in in a timely manner. What does that mean I've done the past four days? Played video games and slept till odd hours of the afternoon! I've slept like only a true college student at the helm of a month long break can. I've slept till 11 in the afternoon, 1 in the afternoon, 3 in the afternoon, and 1:20 in the afternoon, respectively. I mean this is impressive, I'm sure my family will read this and gawk (not our little Chris! (I'm the baby of the family)). But yes folks that's right, I've done nothing productive whatsoever outside of ordering a pizza online. This is something that people rarely get to do, and it mostly happens during those college years apparently, but I tell you all what, when it does happen it is friggin sweeeeet. But I guess nap time is over, no longer will I lounge around rivaling cats and stoners for "most time doing nothing". You see, tomorrow is a little preliminary warm-up trip for the great "Chris Thorburn vs Europe 2k7" marathon. I'm heading to Oxford to meet Charlie's family (the same Charlie who always starts fights and ends up losing them) and hang around there for the day. Then I come back Thursday to see some other friends in London before heading out to Rome in the wee hours of Saturday morning to meet my friend Bart for the first leg of our grand adventure.

I'll give a quick rundown of what my April is looking like:

• Saturday, March 31. Leicester to London (I'm here now) to stay at my cousin's apartment (Thank you Patrick and Clare).
• Wednesday, April 4. London to Oxford for some Chillin With Charlie (doesn't that sound like it could have been a 90's TV show? It's reminiscent of "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper").
• Thursday, April 5. Oxford to London to have dinner with my friend Alice who was an English exchange student at UT my freshman year.
• Saturday, April 7. London to Rome, no definite accommodation plans as of yet.
• Monday, April 9. Rome to Venice to see cool stuff. I'm a bit of a closeted art fan, but more about that later.
• Wednesday, April 11. Venice to Milan to do, well I'm not sure what we'll do here but getting to Milan is integral to us reaching the high point of our journey. Mainly we needed its airport.
• Friday, April 13. Milan to Malaga, Spain. We booked a room at a beach front resort and we are going to try and break my current streak for laziness. Seriously, beaches and beer is the theme of our 6 day stay. You could say that we had to resort to resort, get it? I know, it's a sucky pun.
• Lounge, lounge, lounge, eat, lounge, lounge, did I mention this was all inclusive? Lounge, lounge, lounge, whatever.
• Thursday, April 19th. This is where it gets tricky. I'm going to Copenhagen, but because EasyJet is bootleg and I couldn't figure out a system to link two flights properly I booked a flight that arrives in London at 1:10 and then try to catch one that leaves at 1:50 for Copenhagen. Sounds simple right? We'll see where my check-in luggage ends up before any opinions are formed.
• Monday, April 23. Copenhagen to Edinburgh for some serious party time. I'm really pumped about this part of the trip because I'll be staying with Phil, yes the same Phil who is a giant 6'7 child and was out of town for the last month of school. Seriously, where is this guy? Anyways, he's talked up The Burgh so much that I couldn't pass up visiting. Should be a smashing old time, muahahahahaha.
• Sometime in April. Edinburgh to Yorkshire for camping followed by a trip out to the Isle of Mann to hang out with Flipper and play video games or something. It should be fun and seeing as I've decided to adopt him and bring him back to America with me, it's kind of fitting that the child takes care of the parent for once before we get old and senile. Mom's of the world, I totally know how you feel.

Yeah so that's the gist of it. It's gonna be huge, epic even. I don't know what I'm going to do, probably die at the end of it. Sleeping at hostiles (thanks for the tip about it being spelled 'hostel' Greg, again my skills with the puns are limited and slight so that one flew over some heads) is scary, luckily I only have the do that a few nights this entire trip. I'm really excited about Rome and Venice seeing, as I stated before, that I'm a closeted art fan. I think I took Adam by surprise when we visited the Louvre and I showed him around like a bit of a tour guide. I don't know why I'm so impressed by great works of art, but damn it I am so deal with it. Here's a list of the top five, yes count em folks five, things I'm excited about:

1. St. Peter's Cathedral and The Vatican, don't be surprised if I come home a Catholic (I bought a rosary at Notre Dam, dunno why).
2. Sitting at a beach in the south of Spain reading my massive Alfred Hitchcock biography.
3. Being totted around Edinburgh by someone with the personality of Phil. I really can't describe this guy adequately. It's like my friend Dax back home, one of the craziest people I've met hands down, mixed with Robin Williams, Vince Vaughn, and one of the guys from Queer Eye (I'm not sure if I mean the hosts or the person getting a makeover... yeah it's that tough to pin Phil's personality), and to boot he speaks four languages so you never know what he'll randomly yell at you.
4. Eating Italian food, sorry England but the food here is not so great. You guys might have the whole "Greatest Empire the Modern World has seen" thing going for you, but apparently all that energy that went into spreading your customs missed out on all the great food those little countries could have taught you.
5. Seeing Denmark, everyone talks it up and I have a friend staying there so we'll see if its culture can cash the checks its fans are writing with their mouths.

Here's a list of what I'm not excited about.

1. Airports, hate em. I'd rather travel by boat.
   
2. Toting around 2 bags and a backpack. This wouldn't have been so bad if The University of Leicester didn't kick us out of the dorms completely for 5 weeks. Yeah, we had to move our stuff out of the rooms so they could put seminar people in them, get some hotels jerks.
3. Taking showers in weird places. I love showers as much as anyone, and taking them in weird places doesn't settle well with me. I get paranoid about some creep putting hidden cameras and stuff in there so I come out all tense instead of relaxed like I should. I blame television for this phenomenon as hour long specials about hidden cameras and perverts has made me paranoid.
   
4. Having to carry both cold and warm weather clothes, it makes my luggage heavy as hell.
5. Taking my computer to a hostile. I don't trust these places, too many horror stories. Avoid them all costs, I swear if my computer gets stolen from one I will come down with the fury of 1000 suns.... or something like that.

Anyways, I'll be sporadic in my updating as I won't be grounded for awhile. But I'll get to it. I also plan to read two books and write one paper during this month so that my last two weeks in Leicester aren't as hectic as they could be. Oh yeah one other thing, I didn't get to watch the Florida Gators win the National Championship last night but c'mon Ohio State! I've been sticking up for you guys all year and you let a Florida school beat you in not one, oh no my friends, but two National Title games in a row? Get it together, get a new AD and step up in a title game! You guys are going to reach the pantheon (In a negative manner!!!) of suck that only Judas, Benedict Arnold, and the early 90's Buffalo Bills have reached. I mean listen to me, do you guys really want to have your names and schools uttered in the same sentences as Thurman Thomas or Jim Kelly? I didn't think so. Lock it up.


Cheers,
Chris