Well, since my whole school got a link to my blog I figured it'd be a good idea to quickly post with suggestions regarding my site.

1. I'd suggest starting from the very beginnning. The stuff at the end is from my post-london travels to Dublin, Munich, Florence, and Rome. Click on the Link below to start at the beginning...

 http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=DPintheUK&nextdate=9%2f19%2f2005+12%3a31%3a24.53

2. If you study abroad I'd suggest using a xanga, myspace, or livejournal to communicate with family and friends back home. It's a lot easier than mass emails and you can post pictures on it.

3. If you're thinking about studying abroad, DO IT! The London Semester was great and I'd reccommend it to anyone considering it.

So yeah...I apologize for any material that is boring or depressing or whatever, I tried to keep it interesting for my family and friends while writing it, but I'm not sure how random people will take it.

Enjoy,

Danny

FOUR HOURS FROM NOW I WILL BE FLYING TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!

I cannot believe this day has finally come. It is a sweet day, not bittersweet. I have already said goodbye to my semester in London and my 2 weeks in Ireland and my travels came to a good end. I have nothing left to do but fly home and be happy to see everyone.

Thank you to everyone who tuned in my blog, I hope it was entertaining or at least worth your time.

Cheers!

The Christmas Rollcoaster...

Today has been a tough day with lots of ups and downs.

I started by sleeping in until nearly 1pm because I had been going full steam lately on the travelling and because we didn't get back from midnight mass until nearly 3am. It was wonderful.

We were gonna meet our friends from Munich at the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner but we couldn't get there. We thought the metro was open until 3pm but in fact it closed at 1pm!!! So we tried to get a cab but they were all insanely busy and we coudn't get one. Oh yeah, it was POURING down RAIN as we tried to find a busier street to hail a cab. If our Hostel was more in the city central like it was advertised, we'd have less problems. So we all were pretty aggrivated and crabby because we couldn't fullfill our plans and because we were soaking wet.

We ended up buying snacks and food at the only deli and convenient stores open in our area and playing cards with other english speaking people in our hostel. We had a great time playing a game of SPOONS. Since then it's quieted down a bit and we might watch some of JC's "24" dvds.

I can't wait to get home.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Here's some advice... Anyone thinking about missing christmas after a semester abroad ask your self what christmas is for you. Christmas for me is my family, feelings love and happiness, and relaxed and comfortable day. Attending Midnight Mass at the Vatican was a really neat experience but it didn't even come close to filling the void in my heart that just yearned to be home with everyone. Rome is a beautiful city but it's not where I'm supposed to be on Christmas.

Anywho, yesterday Kevin and I toured the Vatican and saw TONS of statues and great works of art that you couldn't even put a value to. The best part was the Sistine Chapel of course as I saw Michaelangelo's wonderful frescos, including God and Adam. Disappointingly though, we didn't get into St. Peter's because the Vatican was uber busy with people touring everything before it closes for the next two days. A little after mid-day we met Sydney and JC at the Colesseum and toured that with a tour guide which was kinda neat but expensive. We also dis some walking around Rome and met up with some friends we made at our hostel in Munich. We went to the Vatican around 9 because one of the Metro lines we needed to take closes around then. So we ended up standing in the cold for 5 hours until the end of Midnight Mass. It was really neat but it was all in latin and Italian except a few things. Around the Gospel time I got to move up and sit in the outside seating section since there were extra seats. Around communion time they brought out extra mass booklets and I got one, but it was kinda weird to see people grabbing for these things like animals during the most sacred part of the mass....After communion they sang O' Come All Ye Faithful in Latin and it was the best part of mass because I could sing along and I knew that all my friends and family were singing that song at about the same time back home. After Mass we waited a little bit but the Pope didn't come outside while we were there, which was sad. We would've waited longer but it had been 5 hours in the cold and we wanted to get a cab back to our hostel ASAP.

Today I slept in until nearly 1pm, it was great. No Santa here though, I hope he remembered me back home though. We're about to leave for the Hard Rock Cafe for our Christmas ''Feast'', Kevin won a free meal there the other night on our pub crawl, plus it's open today.

I really wish I was home right now, but it's not too much longer...

See you soon!

Merry Christmas!

I was wrong...I made a mistake...I will now admit that it was a bad idea to travel past christmas. Christmas is not Christmas without home and family.

Rome is cool. Saw the Vatican and Colosseum today and they were cool. Tonight I'm going to midnight mass.

I like seeing the stuff in Rome but I'm counting the minutes until I'm home.

Merry Christmas Eve