housekeeping

A quick summary of my next three months. I'm staying in London and Paris for two weeks with my mom (traveling around Europe has sort of been a life thing for her as well, so we decided to kick two birds with one bucket). Then I'm traveling to Tuebingen University and Rostock University to take classes for about a month. Afterwards, I have about a week in which I'll be traveling alone, probably up to Sweden or something, before meeting up with Emma in Prague. From there, we'll travel for roughly 5 weeks around Europe before she leaves from Brussels. I'll travel by myself for a week or so before flying back to Boston from Paris.

So there you have it. Everything after Germany is sort of up in the air, but we'll see where it takes us.

About the hostel we're staying at in London:
The wifi is worthless.
The snores of the man in the bed next to me clock in at 90 decibels. It's astonishing how one person's nostrils can keep twenty-three other people up the entire night.
If you consider Wonderbread and butter to be food, then breakfast is technically included.
You have to hit a button in the shower every 4.5 seconds to keep the water running.
The room I'm sleeping in doubles as a sauna.
And most importantly, it's very cheap.

I think one of the advantages of having backpacked through South America this winter break is that my standards for hostels are now incredibly low. I'm now a happy camper as long as 1) the roof isn't leaking, 2) there aren't any tarantulas 3) I don't have to iodine droplet/UV light water before I use it. Needless to say, London easily satisfies all three rather easily, meaning I've been quite cozy.

Also, props to my mom. She'd said from the start that she'd do whatever I'd originally been planning to do, and true to her word, hasn't bat an eye at anything yet. Then again, as she reminded me, her generation grew up in China with dirt floors, well-water, and chronic food shortages, so I guess this is tame by comparison.