Surprising Conversations

Lots of rain today! Love rain in the summer!
During tea today (our last formal tea here in Cambridge), yesterday's speaker, Corrina Conway, and today's speaker, Dr. Michael Akum, came to hang out with us and talk before Dr. Akum gave his guest lecture. Hannah and I got introduced by Dr. Kimbrell as "the serious students" (I'm slightly amused by that), and we got to sit in the corner with a few other people and talk to Professor Akum for a while. He was very entertaining and we got to ask him about his current research and interests, his recommendations for tomorrow's trip the the Museum of Zoology, and a few other things. I had originally thought it would be strange to talk to him before his lecture, but it turned out to be very helpful. We got a better introduction to him and his interest in the topic (evolutionary biology of animals, mostly centipedes right now!) before jumping into his lecture, which was interesting but harder to follow because I am less acquainted with evolutionary biology than with genetics. We stayed to talk to him after for a while as well. I've learned to follow Hannah up to the front whenever she has a question for a speaker, because her questions are generally very interesting and the answers they provoke insightful. I feel like between the two of us, we made the most of our time with him.
After class, Hannah went back to the room to work on writing assignments, but as I'm already finished with them (yay for being on top of my work!), I decided to take my book and ipod and go wander about the town to look for a place to read.
Wonder of wonders, I ended up back in the bookstore, Waterstone's, that Hannah and I had visited earlier in the week. I wanted to explore the second floor, as I had only been on the first floor the last time and had seen a staircase leading to an upper level. I had been impressed with what was on the ground floor, but let me tell you- I could get completely and utterly lost in that bookstore. Not only did it have a second floor, it had a third and fourth!
I proceeded to wander aimlessly about and ended up on the fourth floor in the history section. Dad- you'll be proud of me: I fell into conversation with a man in his fifties who was from Africa. He and his friend (also from Africa, but from a different country), seemed to just be hanging out in the bookstore, talking of nothing in particular, and they readily folded me into the conversation. They were interested in California, and immediately identified it as the earthquake place and Abba showed me that he did indeed have Hotel California on his iPhone.
One of the most interesting things about talking to them was their pace. The conversation kept moving, but it was a very relaxed and quiet pace. Things did not need to be said quickly, and both of them thought about things a bit before moving on. Moses would sit for a minute and think about the subject while Abba would look it up on his iPhone to find an article or website entry. It was pretty amusing to watch them.
I was almost late to dinner with Hannah because I was having a good time hanging out with them. They ended up inviting Hannah and I to lunch tomorrow, so we are going to go meet them at 12 back at the bookstore. I was really excited to have had an actual 'traveling encounter' like that. (lol) We'll be having lunch with them right before going to the Museum of Zoology with our class at 1:30, so I hope we have enough time.
Sorry- no pictures. I only had my phone on me because I left my camera in my dorm. I knew I was going to need it, so of course I left it. Sigh. I'll have it tomorrow.