X-Men, Phoenixes, Coffee, Repeat

So, the weekend, once again. In some respects, it's been pretty uneventful. Kevin's
grandparents arrived in Nottingham on Friday, and they quickly whisked him away to London for the weekend. Emily's parents also have arrived. With part of the flat gone, it's been fairly quiet. Additionally, the internet has been quite dodgy lately, so that has hindered a lot of people's entertainment. With that in mind, the 7 of us left decided to (shudder) spend quality time together and watch X-Men II on Friday night. Anna made a ridiculously good cake/baked thing, we opened up some wine, and hit it up. Saturday proved to be equally boring. Charles Dickens' Hard Times is next on the British Novel reading list, and I inefficiently battled my way through 50 pages throughout the day. I skipped out on baseball in an attempt to curtail the cold that stubbornly refuses to completely leave. Anyways, it was a lazy day. Hilary didn't change out of her pajamas until 7:00 at night. Ryan and I finished up the final riveting episodes of season 1 of 24. On to the next! After that, Emily reappeared, and the whole lot of us (minus Kevin) hit up the much inferior sequel, X-Men III. I'd recommend the second.



Before leaving for England, many people told me about how appealing the British accent was to the opposite gender. Check the last post to see my rant about the British accent, and how it lost its appeal to me. Either because of that fact, a certain affinity towards "ginger" hair as they call it here, or most likely good old mutual attraction, me and the flame haired phoenix pictured above (not the X-Men Phoenix also pictured above) are now dating. Emily's her name, she's 5'1, likes art, is quite gorgeous, lives in Decorah, and enjoys long walks on the beach. Many church readers will most likely be interested in the following fact, which is a pretty good general indicator as well. She knows of, and has a toleration of the "Star Wars issue" (which in reality, has stayed quite contained this year. Sign?). It's a good situation all around I feel, and I'm looking forward to more fully experiencing the study abroad experience with her, no doubt. So from a personal standpoint, it's been quite the weekend. Feel free to e-mail with any queries, comments, yada, yada, yada.

So, that's life right now. Today saw the momentous fulfillment of a long desired goal in England. I've visited all 3 major chain coffeeshops (not in one day, that's the next challenge).


1. Starbucks- This is my usual haunt. I even have a regular table at the one I frequent most on Clumber Street. It's sort of become a Friday afternoon ritual for me and the lady to hit it up.






2. Costa Coffee- A few weeks ago after researching for my Paideia paper on evangelicalism, I hit it up.






3. Caffé Nero- Today, me and Ryan hit it after taking a tour of the Galleries of Justice (a Nottingham museum to prison history)







Check out that wild photo/blog formatting. Good times in England, nuff' said.