The most popular conversation topic in London, I’ve discovered, is without a doubt the weather. While the stereotype in the US is that the weather is a topic reserved for idle chatter between people who either don’t know each other or are prone to offend each other, this is serious business here in London. There’s the good weather conversations and the bad weather conversations which are usually fairly straightforward. But then there are there are the advanced topics of weather discourse where one might pull out stats and superlatives. “It’s rained for the last 37 days which has accounted for a total of 6.9 inches of rainfall,” one might say. “This weather is so muggy it feels like you’re walking through jello,” another might reply. Suffice it to say, weather talk is always worth a listen.

But while I may be won over by the conversation topic, I am certainly not feeling any warm fuzzies towards the actual subject of the conversation. July passed in a haze of dreary rainclouds while August was ushered in by a muggy mist. A few sunny days quickly gave way to torrential downpours which I became closely acquainted with during my mile-long walk through said rain this evening on my way home.

The joke is that a British summer looks something like India’s monsoon season and I would be hard pressed to argue. But while I may not have gone native in my ability to quietly gripe about the weather and carry on as if I were still in sunny California, at least I have gone native in my ability to speak about the weather like it was the most important thing on earth.