Ah, Friday. The day of rest.* The beginning of the weekend. The start of the delicate recuperation process from a hectic week. It is a day where one may sleep in late and rise at one’s leisure. Until 10 o’ clock rolls around and the cleaners come and one has to strip the bed by touch because one’s eyes are at the moment incapable of opening wide enough to actually see what one is doing, all while nursing what may just be a very small hangover.

But such is simply the way of life. Igor, surprisingly, does not mind, as long as he is carefully lifted out of bed and relocated to another bed, turned to his left side with the blanket covering seven-eighths of his body, without being disturbed or, worse, woken. Such are the sacrifices one must make, after all, for a clean and tidy living environment and a freshly made bed. And Igor is just the turtle to make such sacrifices.

Igor (and thus, by default, Heeseung as well, Igor supposes) has been in London for a full week as of 7:46 this morning (when he was, of course, blissfully sound asleep). So far, there have been no drastic changes: Igor has retained in his Oxford accent. Heeseung has retained her Buffalo accent. The flat, post-cleaners, looks nearly exactly as it did when they first entered. Heeseung has learned, however, that the number of sheep in existence in the U.K. by far outnumbers the number of people. Fascinating and life-changing.

Heeseung has also been receiving culture lessons, during which Igor is usually meeting with royalty (he hasn't yet met with the landed nobility, but that was simply because he couldn't fit them into his schedule until next month). Early in the week, Heeseung went to see a production of The Pitmen Painters, written by Lee Hall, at the National Theatre. It was a play about coalminers who become artists and in learning how to paint, they learned the meaning of art. There were parallel points regarding class and social mobility, but Igor disapproves of such topics and prefers if those kinds of points did not sully his blog.

The National Theatre. Igor doesn't understand why it's lit up blue and not green.

Heeseung also went to the Tate Britain and saw the exhibit: "Turner and the Masters", which contrasted the works of British artist J.M.W. Turner with those of the Old Masters as well as with with Turner's contemporaries, showing how Turner was influenced by those artists. Igor approves of how Turner turned painting into a competitive sport.

Igor has been terribly busy for the past few days trying to make Heeseung worthy to be seen with him in public. Although Igor is a turtle of great strength, he's horribly tired from trying to infuse Heeseung with culture, a task far greater than he had initially anticipated. (Igor is also bemused as to why Heeseung didn't just learn through osmosis long ago, especially when she had such an exemplary example in himself...)

After exerting so much energy training Heeseung, Igor has to make sure he eats well (a haggard turtle is a turtle not fit to be viewed). Luckily, minion 4 has been quite good about cooking dinner for Igor (the rest of the flat eats after he does, Igor supposes, though he's never bothered to check).

* according to Igor. Actually, every day is a day of rest and leisure, but, for Igor, it just so happens that Friday is especially so.