What's with this weather?

LONDON, UK -- Seriously... we had not had two days of back-to-back sunshine since last November, and London decides to grace us with a week straight? I could get used to this! It has been in the low-40s and sunny for a full week now, and while I was busy with schoolwork and couldn't exactly take advantage of it for awhile, yesterday I did manage to spend some relaxing time outside.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to take a walk outside, for maybe an hour or so, and that walk turned into a 6-mile hike way out west on the Thames, past the Eye and Parliament, past the MI5 headquarters and even all the way to the MI6 headquarters. Then I finally started to get chilly, so I crossed the river at the Vauxhall Bridge, and stumbled upon one of the very few London museums I was interested in seeing that I had yet to visit, Tate Britain. It essentially is a combination of the National Gallery and Tate Modern, with all sorts of British art from the past 500 years. Like almost every museum in London, it was free, which is great, and I probably spent an hour or so walking through the galleries. After heading out of there, I walked through the Victoria Tower Gardens, which in my opinion might be the world's greatest location for a game of Ultimate Frisbee, past Westminster, and through the South Bank back to Southwark, where Bankside is located. Overall a nice long walk and it was nice to see some new places!

Today the sun is out again, so I'm thinking of taking another walk, though probably not that far out. I also need to get out and do some grocery shopping anyway. Tomorrow I am giving my little 3 minute dissertation proposal presentation which I'm sure will go well. This week should be relatively busy, but more for fun reasons than for crazy work-related reasons like last week. After class tomorrow I'm planning on booking all of the Italy hostels - should come out to 3 nights in Rome, 2 nights in Florence, and 2 nights in Naples. Just need to figure out what order to do that in and where to book, depending on prices and location and the room layouts, of course. After that, Thursday we are going to book our Italy rail passes and make reservations on certain trains, so we're guaranteed seats and yeah, that should be it as far as pre-trip bookings go! Also Friday we have a guest lecture for my Politics of Policy Advice class, but I'm not sure exactly what on (the National Audit Office, maybe?).

Other than that, Charity is back to London for work come late-March, so I will be excited to see her after I get back from Egypt. Speaking of Egypt, I set my budget after making an itinerary in the last few days. We'll see if this holds true, but for now hostels, immigration fees, trains, transportation to/from the airport and to/from the Pyramids, museum fees, and national park fees, plus breakfast each day (but not including lunch, dinner, souvenirs, or the flights to/from Egypt), the grand total comes to just $155 for the 5 days/4 nights. If that holds up, needless to say, I will be a very happy traveler!

Well, I am off for now - definitely will be back to watch the Blackhawks play Detroit in a few hours. It's a breakfast game at home - get up and turn on the TV! Finally a good time for me... prime time in London for the game. Here is hoping they play like "gorillas in a cage," like they did on Friday night against Vancouver (and as the Russians termed the Canadians after they were whooped out of the Olympics by them a couple of weeks back).

LET'S GO HAWKS!!!