London Captain Jersey Chasing.

You know how one of the scariest things in life is a blank word document? Or maybe you don't. I guess it may not be a universal fear, maybe just an English major thing...or just an MJ thing...but blank word documents suck. Everything about them sucks. You have all the words in the world, but you have nothing to say. It's blank. And white. And stupid. And you just keep seeing the curser blinking at the paragraph indent and it makes you cringe.  Imagine a person incessantly poking your shoulder, or even worse, a Facebook poke, its annoying and all you want is for it to go away immediately.  Well, as I'm trying to write about my past weekend in London, this blank word document in front of me is the most brutal thing conceivable. It's definitely a Facebook poke; stupid and I want to punch it in the face. I can't decide if it's because I'm still too exhausted to form words, mentally drained from finals week, or have so much to say that I don't know where to even start, but for some reason this past weekend is surprisingly hard to write. Maybe it's a good thing I'm going home in eight days...I don't know if I'm much of a blogger in general.

I figure that I like London too much to even know what to say about it.  It's like having a middle school crush.  You know when you liked someone in middle school and you'd see them in the hallway by their lockers and you'd blush and mess up all your words. You never could articulate exactly what you liked about them, but still, you put hearts around their name on the back of your trapper keeper and promised to love them forever.  Well apparently I have a middle school crush on London town, which I guess there are worse crushes in the world to have, so I'll struggle through it.

From our hostel, to the booze cruise, to eating an orange (thanks Joshua), London was a trip of firsts.  Erin, sitting next to me is now demanding that I start with our hostel experience...because for me and my bougie friends it was definitely...well, not so bougie. "Write about how much I HATE hostels and how I am NEVER staying in one ever again." Ok Queen Betch, I will just for you.

Hostels are like staying at summer camp...but without the summer, and the camp...and the fun. Creepy Brazilian men sleep in your room, the pillows don't have pillow cases, your feet are constantly dirty, and there isn't even a wine opener. That's not living. Even typing this out, I know the boys are going to roll their eyes and hate us for this paragraph. Yes G01, we know we're princesses, but you have a pink hair dryer in your room (ahem, Logan), so are we really in the wrong here?  But really, hostels should not be a thing.   I will probably be bougie till I die and I'll stick with hotels and apartments and other bougie places of the sort.  But the nachos were good there so I guess it wasn't all a complete loss.

Besides the hostel, my middle school crush called London treated me extraordinarily well.  Out of all of Europe, I haven't seen a city so eclectic and alive as London.  It was the beauty of an old European city integrated with the youthful vivacity of the New York streets...with a British accent bonus to top it off.  Between the out door markets, the flashy night life, and extremely diverse foods (for the first time in three months I finally had chinese food, thank god), London really has everything you could ever ask.  It's almost ironic that I chose the most Americanized city to visit the weekend before I go back to America, but I really wouldn't have had it any other way.  It was the best last trip we could have asked for.  With my orphans and G01 Direction at my side, this group successfully conquered three countries in three weeks together, London being the finale to the greatest study abroad experience I could've ever imagined.

While everything about London was amazing, from the pub crawl where...

1. Catie and Morgan crowd surfed in a pub.
2. we danced on couches and poles.
3. I was forced to carry Sharkbait from pub to pub.
4. Erin got head butted
5. the bougie betches (and JRodge) decided to take a cab because they got sick of walking
6. and Bait tried to sell me for 20 pounds

...to all the touristy sights where 

1. we learned all about art (thanks to Tammy and Dave)
2. took hipster phone booth and Big Ben pics
3. learned without a doubt that London only has one eye
4. had the best burgers and oreo shakes imaginable.
5. and joined a space suit crew (still no regrets about this.)

...the real highlight is, and will always be, the Booze Cruise. 

Cheers to the Booze Cruise and the captains that organized arguably the best night abroad ever imagined, you all deserve to be sailer jersey chased after that one of a kind experience known as the junior-year freshman dorm party. For one night, we dressed to the nines, looked like a wedding party, and raged on a barge while passing underneath the London Bridge...so I label that as a success.  I don't even think I can put in to words the visual anomaly of such classy looking 20 to 21 year olds reverting back to their freshman year debauchery phase, but it was unreal and we loved every minute of it. So many DFMO's, so much Blink 182, and so many captain hats circulating around the dance floor, made for a night we can (hopefully) remember and put down in Smick/Domer history. Between the unbelievable view of the River Thames at sunset and the tuxes, dresses, british flag sunglasses and bow ties donning the dance floor, a prettier picture really couldn't have been painted. So cheers to classy pictures, paparazzi, cosmos and appetizers, dougieing, arrests (the greatest story known to man) and the elevated surfaces that made up booze cruise 2013. May you go down in Facebook album tag history (you're welcome for the documentation). 

Now sitting here, procrastinating through finals week, facing many blank word documents, and trying to recover through the shambles i've put my body through for three months, I couldn't imagine my last trip any other way.  I already miss my middle school crush named London and the boys that made it so memorable. I'm jealous that you guys have a couple weeks left abroad while I'm currently facing the challenge of trying decide whether to pack or wear my spacesuit on the plane ride home, but we'll see you all soon enough. Can't wait to take on our fourth country together, America we're coming for you.

Now it's time to sleep through my last religion class, suffer through hell week, take on the no carb left behind challenge and eat the twelve euro gelato at Giollitis. Get ready for the last week of the best semester of my life with my forever love, Roma.