Citizen Reader

I did not do a lot of reading on this vacation.

Which only makes sense, really. I read for a living, and reading is my only hobby, so to take a true vacation, it only follows that I set reading aside just a little bit. But not completely. Although I am a terrible airport/airplane reader (I'm usually busy begging God for a safe trip, and no missed connections, which takes up more time than you'd think, or I'm looking out airport windows, because I find airports nearly as fascinating as subways), I did read an Agatha Christie on the eight-hour flight to London (it was Hallowe'en Party, which I thought was season-appropriate), and Agatha did not fail to take my mind off more mundane matters like my mother's concerns that our luggage would be lost, we would be mugged in London, and we would come home with a strange uncurable European type of H1N1.*

While in London and Edinburgh, I read hardly anything at all aside from my guidebooks and newspapers. After a full day of flying to London, we took the subway to King's Cross Station and hopped on a 5-hour train to Edinburgh, at which point we'd been up for many consecutive hours. We took turns passing out on the train, or looking at the scenery, so reading didn't really occur to me. We also tried to buy a different newspaper each day, and I enjoyed reading them all, although I can't say that the page 3 girl in The Sun did a whole lot for me. (Mr. CR pleaded innocence of the page 3 girls when he bought The Sun, and we'll let him think I believe him.)

Other than that I was kept fairly busy reading tourist signs and the informative plaques in museums (we went to tons of them: the National Gallery in Edinburgh, and the British Museum, National Gallery, and National Portrait Gallery in London--all awesome). Although, at a certain point in museums I give up reading and just look at the pictures, and that point came fairly early for me each time as our trip was also an exhausting one and just keeping on my feet was keeping me quite occupied much of the time. At one point I noticed that Mr. CR, god love him, was taking pictures of signs (like the one at Calton Hill, in Edinburgh) so he could read them later. That rather settled any doubts about him being the one for me. His interest in the written word is a glory to behold (although that doesn't stop me from teasing him about his need to read every sign he comes across).

Our way home was largely uneventful, although we were delayed on the last leg of our journey out of O'Hare, and a downsized plane meant there was some tension about who would get bumped from the flight, but luckily it wasn't us. To distract myself there I read George R. R. Martin's fantasy novel A Game of Thrones (the first in a series I've been wanting to read for a while) and Mr. CR plowed through Glen Cook's fantasy novels The Books of the South.

Tomorrow: Maybe a picture, if I can figure out how to transfer them from our new camera to my computer. Should be an adventure.

*My mother could have had a truly brilliant career in worst case scenario planning.