This may not be a very big deal at all, but for me, it was a good example/reminder of how religious differences really do impact daily life in a pluralist city like London in a way that we aren't as aware of in Austin. The other night I met up with my friend Shila from UCL to go to dinner with some friends from her MA course at Imperial. We finally decided that we all wanted Nando's (a sort of nicer fast food restaurant), but the Nando's closest to uni is not Halal and Hazim (one of Shila's Muslim friends from Brunei) was not in the mood for vegetarian. Everyone tried to convince him to just not get the chicken but he wouldn't budge so after a lot of arguing, we ended up going to Pizza Hut instead. I got the impression that they have this argument on a regular basis which I found funny and also really weird! It was also cool to see some of what I'm studying played out in the everyday life of my friends..