London, Glasgow, Pittsburgh. Can I go back to Pittsburgh now?

Had an amazing time in London. Did touristy things with Liz and Juliet, and then Judy when she arrived after several days in Paris. Tower of London was by far my favorite. Also, standing in the middle of traffic on Tower Bridge. In no particular order:London Eye, National Portrait Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, Kensington Park, Hyde Park, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, The Strand, Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus, Covent Garden, Camden Markets, Portobello Market, Tate Modern, British Library, Metallica concert at the O2 arena, warehouse club in Shoreditch!

WE SAW A FOX IN SHOREDITCH AT 2AM! =D It came out, paused, then darted across the street into another alley. IT WAS AWESOME -- I grabbed Liz's arm and screamed, "WHY ISN'T MARYANN HERE?!?!"

Went to Glasgow for a day with Liz and Juliet. Lots of fun, lots of walking, lots of rain. Though it wasn't a hard rain, so it didn't muck things up. Lots of orgasm-inducing accents. <333! And haggis! Which is perfectly fine -- tastes like sausage, people! =D The night we stayed there happened to apparently coincide with the night that Metallica played in Glasgow, so we ran into many groups of guys wearing Metallica tour shirts. It was great! Our hostel was attached to a bar that ended up staying open til 3am, so that was great too. ...until we were woken up at 9:30am by the fire alarm! (But then I got to see cute Scottish firemen, so maybe it wasn't so bad.)

I had gotten very little sleep just before London, and after stepping off the plane, I basically jumped right into walking around for several hours, then later that day flying again to Scotland, so after the first couple days I was beat. Bypassed jet lag completely as I usually do (as I don't have a regular sleep schedule normally anyway), but slept a good 10 hours the night after we got back from Scotland. Then I was good to go for the rest of the trip, as I don't think I went to sleep earlier than between 3-5am on any night thereafter.

So the day I flew back to NYC was a Thursday -- arrived at JFK at 10:30pm, picked up Jim's car at my parents' house, went home, repacked a smaller bag for Tekkoshocon, and then drove over to Canarsie at around 1am to pick up Anna, Sean and Rymel, then to Pittsburgh. We were on the road by 2am, and arrived in Pittsburgh around 9am. WHEW! Even though I got about 4 hours of sleep on the plane, I'm still kind of amazed that I was able to do that.

I HAD AN AWESOME TIME IN PITTSBURGH. Yes, chances are, if you're reading this, you've already heard me rave about it. I think it's beautiful -- I've never seen such a cool combination of mountainous region and urban cityscape. AND THE BRIDGES! So many of them! And several of them are YELLOW! OMG, they're cute. And the inclines! SO MUCH FUN! And the roaming around empty school buildings at 2am! Long hallways with repeating sconces and huge spiral staircases! And the basement at Bartko's house is AWESOMELY CREEPY! I had an awesome time being creeped out. His whole house is actually kind of creepy. SO GREAT! =D

Also, can I just say, I love tequila?

[edit: I just realized, there were way too many exclamation points in that last paragraph. I apologize.]

And then I zipped up my hoodie, but the zipper got stuck, and I struggled with it for a bit and then

Yuenglings in Hoboken are $3 -- ALL NIGHT! As in, not only at happy hour! How awesome is that? I tried a tequila that had an interesting smokey flavor. In tequila, at least, I prefer the smooth flavor of Patron, so this was not my thing, but it was cool to try. It was kind of odd going out drinking with two guys who were 10 and probably 20+ years older than me, but it was all good. Cool conversation and lots of fun! Finishing it all up with a double shot of Jack was a particularly nice way to end the evening at 3am.

Also, MONK'S, I LOVE YOUR SPICY CHICKEN WINGS! They're amazingly spicy. Which means most of you would all die if you ate them. SO AWESOME! <3 I cannot wait to go back when I'm in Philly again next week!!!

Caught up on Supernatural last night. (Don't worry, no spoilers!) OH EM GEE. Episode 17 is full of win, though I wish we could have had a few more minutes of playing dumb before the revelation. The beginning of episode 18 is FUCKING AWESOME! FANSERVICE!!! I was absolutely DYING with laughter and SQUEEEEEEEE! There was SO MUCH squee, you would not believe it!

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