i welcome the spring, my smile wide, my face aglow

officially spring break chillinnnnn

i'm lucky, because spring break officially starts on monday but my last class was today. that gives me two and a half weeks of pure, sunny, lazy european bliss. my soul is on fire.

currently i'm laying in a double bed, in a spare room, in the loveliest little house in england. my uncle lives in a town called bicester, about 20 minutes away from oxford, and he and his partner, dawn, were kind enough to let me use 75% of my spring break intruding in their lives. the other 25% of my time i'll be in venice. OH, I DIDN'T MENTION THAT? well i'll be in venice, saturday until wednesday. my soul is alight! while the thought of whipping out my intermediate italian makes me cringe before i even get started, i'm insanely excited about actually practicing. or maybe i'm just insane. but venice will be an absolute fairy tale, i know it! after venice, i'll be coming back to bicester for some oxford time, london time, and reading-in-the-garden time. there are chickens! home grown strawberries! horse manure! my soul just blew up.

 my uncle is actually the coolest person on the planet for many reasons, but here are two specific ones.
1. on the way from the airport, he asked if i had eaten dinner and i said no. even if i had though, i still would've been hungry come on nowwww. but then he said "well i really want a mcdonald's cheeseburger" and then i think i choked on my own excitement. MC BEAUTIFUL DONALD'S. i have been craving it something fierce, i don't know whyyy, but my not having it has made me antsy and hateful, so this suggestion was golden. we stopped about halfway to bicester and i got a big mac, which i never do. it didn't stand a chance.

2. when i was getting off the plane, i happened to look up and see what i thought were two incredibly bright stars. in fact, i thought "omg look at those incredibly bright stars!" turns out, they were jupiter and venus! aligned! visible planets! my uncle explained this on the car ride back; apparently this past week some planets have aligned in some crazy once-in-a-millenia type phenomenon. as we got deeper and deeper into the countryside, jupiter and venus got brighter and brighter. he told me how bright they were the other night in the view from the garden, and he looked and thought "now what made someone look up and say 'hm, i'll bet that's a planet.' better yet, how did they figure that out in like, 600 AD?" such. a. good. question. i'd like to think that the planets got together just for me, a special "welcome back" to england and family and love. obviously they didn't, but it is a nice thought. eh?

and ok, spring break won't actually be as lazy as i would like because i do have 4 novels to read (let's shoot for completely finishing 2), but it will still be so good. i can feel it in my soul.

xo nicole