The Clock is Ticking...

It's officially 10 days until I move to London...

Not that I'm counting or anything.

Though nearly everything is done in preparation for the move (except the minor details of laundry and packing), I'm still waiting for the most important component of my smorgasborde of travel documents-my visa. It was delivered via FedEx to the British consulate in NYC on Thursday (contrary to popular belief, I did NOT put this off until the last minute like I do every other crucial thing in my life; there were just a lot of steps that had to be taken on a specific timetable before it could be sent to the Big Scary Important British People in New York) and now, I just have to sit, wait, and chew my nails like a good little neurotic. I should start doing my laundry, sorting through things, throwing away half my possessions so I can actually fit everything in my suitcase, etc, but I'm almost afraid to-like I'll be all packed and ready to go and then the consulate will deny my visa because I have bad handwriting or something. God forbid I infect the British with my terrible penmanship. But you never know. With my luck, I'll finally receive my visa 3 hours before my flight takes off, and then realize that I haven't packed anything at all and will have to spend the entire year in my underwear, undoubtedly burning the retinas of all those who are forced to look at me in my lack-of-laundry-induced buff. On second thought, maybe I should start packing...

There is a good side to all of this stress, however...granted everything actually gets done on time, and the silly Limey's foolishly let me into their country, I have an 8 day trip to Italy planned with Jon, one of my closest childhood friends (well, teenager-hood, anyway). We have tentatively sketched out a trip to Rome, Positano, and Venice. I keep trying to tell him that Venice smells like sewage, but he has this half-baked notion that it's cool or something. I suppose I owe it to him...God only knows how many boring museums full of insignificant artifacts discovered by dead archaeologists I'm going to drag him through. Poor guy. I mean, I can't wait to go drool over old tombs and stuff, but if I were even relatively normal and/or non-nerdy, I wouldn't want to travel with me. But I digress. We arrive in Rome on Sept. 5, and then on the 9th we're heading over to Positano, then up to Venice on the 12th, back to Rome on the morning of the 14th, back to London that evening, then back to the States he goes, as I continue on into full-on geekdom for the duration of the school year. I sure hope we enjoy this little foray into world-travelor-hood, because it's the last one I'm seeing for a while...I'm considering giving up my place in the graduate dorms and setting up a pop-tent in a corner of the library. God knows it will be more convenient that way.

Anywho, that about sums up my rambling and undoubtedly riveting debut blog...for the 3 people who might actually read this thing, I promise I'll update it when I actually travel somewhere more interesting than Maryland. In the meantime, stay out of trouble, and keep your fingers crossed that I get my visa in time to travel, lest I be stuck waitressing at Denny's for the next 60 years...