On Monday, I started the Backpack Across Europe Summer 2018 Reading Challenge. This reading challenge, hosted by the awesome folks over at The Reader’s Room, is all about exploring Europe via literature.

The challenge has rules, special events, and travel obstacles making it like a virtual board game with reading. As you know, I opted to “fly”* into Heathrow on Monday and my literary journey started with English author Emily Brontë’s classic Wuthering Heights.

Bonus for me that reading Wuthering Heights satisfied both the #BackpackEurope challenge and #GARbingo. (If you haven’t kept up, read about my #GARbingo challenge here.) And for the record, I’m 11(+ 2) out of 25 for the #GARbingo challenge.

Anyway, I digress.

So I spent the week in England reading Wuthering Heights. And this photo pretty much sums up my feelings about this book:

This book ranks right up there with my hatred of all things Dickins—seriously overrated.

If you’re so inclined, you can read my full review here on Goodreads, but I can sum it up in one sentence.

It’s very easy to see that this was written by a sheltered young woman who never left her house because that’s exactly how it reads.

And that is all I’ll say about that.

But while in England, I got 2 bonus points. In this reading challenge, you get points for visiting/reading a country. But there are also landmarks to visit, special events, and travel obstacles. Since this was just week one, there were no travel obstacles (although I expect that to change this coming Monday.)

But there was a special event—the Henley Royal Regatta. To “attend” the Regatta, you had to make a Pimm’s Cup, a staple drink of the Regatta and classic British cocktail (or you could make another cocktail or mocktail) and then take a photo with the drink and your book. Completing this special event meant an extra 2 points.

As you can see, I “attended” the Henley Royal Regatta and had a Pimm’s Cup, so 2 bonus points for me!

I actually got lucky as I just happened to check the challenge’s page and saw the special event. So this was a good reminder to check the challenge’s page multiple times each week.

Today, I’m taking the ferry from the UK to France. The next book up is The Island of Books by Dominique Fortier. And bonus, this book takes place at Mont Saint-Michel, one of the landmarks which will give me an extra 4 points.

I may be a slight bit competitive.

So that’s my status at the end of week 1. Done with the UK and now heading to France to visit Mont Saint-Michel.

Where are you this week? And what are you reading? Tell me in the comments below.