Hello

Like Prince is singing on my iTunes at the moment: HELLO !

Simple and to the point: Hello! How are you all? I have now been in London for almost 2 months and I am still loving every minute of it. This weekend I had 2 visitors from Belgium, Emilie (flatmate last year and bf) came Friday til Sunday, and my mum came Sunday til Monday. The visits were very fun and I had the change to show of my recently gained knowledge of London and Emilie and my mum had a very good time. I took Emilie around the London Bridge area (Southwark, Tate, St. Pauls) and we had the obligatory coffee and cake along the way of course! Emilie was very happy she could have caramel shortbread again, her favorite cake she always had in Aberystwyth but couldn't find in Belgium! I of course had a chocolate muffin! Friday she joined me and some CCE students to an art gallery opening up in Hackney, really cool! We walked on an indoor, artificial and wobbly wooden pier over a white coloured lake - you had to be there - and we watched a Melrose Place installation including actors very dramatically practicing a scene from the show. The next day we went shopping to Spitalfields and Brick Lane - awesome of course! Saturday evening we were invited for a dinner at Sibylle's place with her flatmates. On Sunday my mum arrived and we also went shopping to Spitalfields to show her a shoes shop I discovered there the day before (both bought shoes ghihi) and walked around a lot, concluding with a very nice meal near London Bridge. The next day we also walked and went shopping to Regent Street. That was, in a nutshell, my weekend!

The days are filled with uni, uni work and research, and going to see a lot of things which is also uni work basically. For example today, Nada (an Egyptian girl from my class) and I went to the Whitechapel Gallery to see Sophie Calle's photography, the Institute of Contemporary Arts to see clips and photography by Rosalind Nashashibi and we also went to the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. Particularly this last one was extremely fun, very visual, abstract and touchable all at once. Especially when a canon shot a blob of red painted wax on to the museum's nice white wall!

So basically, London has much to offer and I'm taking up as much as possible!

Greetings, Camille

Hope you are all well!