A lazy Sunday

I apologize to my regular readers for the lack of update last night... I was too absorbed in Our Mutual Friend to have any time for posting. My entire day essentially consisted of sleeping in for the first time since arriving in London, followed by reading Dickens in various locations around and near the college.

I first tried reading with Janet on a bench in Regent's park, but the weather proved chilly and my attention distractable. There were simply too many people-watching opportunities all around me to get absorbed with a novel. I never fail to be amazed by the multi-cultural make-up of London. Sitting in a single spot on a single bench for a couple of hours, I must have heard five or six different languages - not to mention different dialects of the same language! I've also found while here that British people have difficulty distinguishing between American and Australian English, Australians have difficulty distinguishing between American and British English, and Americans inevitably have trouble distinguishing between British and Australian English. All that doesn't even touch on Indian English, which I find even more difficult to understand, and which is widespread throughout London.

... Back to reading in the park though. Janet and I spent more time watching children play football (No wonder European countries do so well in the World Cup! They breed them to play football around here!) and spying on a wedding party than actually reading Our Mutual Friend. After a while though the weather got too cold to stay outside all together, so we moved into the refectory for some caffeine and a quiet indoor reading spot (which is quiet in between lunch and dinner).

After dinner we went out to read some more (along with Whitney and Margaret) in a local coffee shop, that we were then kicked out of at 8pm for closing time.

I read some more before bed... until my eyes couldn't stay open anymore... and then read the last 20 pages of the book this morning before class. Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend (all 800 pages of it) complete.