I’ve spent the last couple hours trudging through the first two chapters of Around the World in Eighty Days. No, I’ve never read it. And, no, it isn’t so hard that it requires an hour a chapter.

But I’m reading it in French, to help me bone up on the language. The daily pieces have been accumulating from Daily Lit in my RSS reader for a couple weeks now as each day I postponed starting. It was on my list of possibilities for today, but I probably wouldn’t have pulled them out quite so soon if it hadn’t been for Sarah’s mini-challenge to take on an hour’s reading in a foreign language.

That said, after reading each of the first two chapters in French, I then read the English version. I sort of summarized in my head what I thought was going on (mostly descriptions of the two main characters and their habits) first and then went to see if I’d gotten the gist. I’m pleased to say that while some vocabulary words have me reaching for pen and paper (yes, I’m keeping a list), that I do generally grasp the material.

Lord help us if I had to grasp it being spoken, though. Really must get on that…

I also made some bread (in the breadmaker) and have some apple cider on the stove. One cannot live on words alone!

I think I’m going to read for another hour (Neil Gaiman, maybe?) and then put the iPod on and listen to a book for a while. I’d like to get up to the Bethesda Row Arts Festival, since the day looks lovely and autumnal and sticking the ear buds in seems like a nice way to be able to combine the two goals. I’m listening to Little Women via CraftLit, so I might pull that out, or maybe a fairy tale or two from the Fairy Knitting podcast…