windy, rainy, tipsy and slutty...

but most of all: pretty amazing

hi ya everybody!

this is my first fully English blog message, so have some sympathy would ya!

and sorry that you haven’t heard from me earlier, but Internet in my room just kicked in after numerous of frustrating talks with my computer.

first I’ll give you a brief (or in other words: kinda boring) description of my situation here. I live in a flat at Alexandra Hall, which is a seafront residence. that means that when I step out of the building, I’m right in front of the beautiful sea. this flat has 7 rooms, of which there are 4 occupied so far, 2 bathrooms and 1 kitchen. there’s Emilie, also a communication sciences student, but one year ahead of me at the VUB. there’s Heleen, another VUB student, languages. and last but not least Daniel, a business student from the university of Hasselt. so far – let’s hold our breaths although I’m quite confident about the future – we all get along incredibly well. we cook in turns – those who know me know that I love AND hate this because this means that I only have to cook 1 time every 4 nights, but this also means that I have to cook 1 time every 4 nights for other people who actually can cook so that’s quite stressful! but it’s a good thing in the end. my first night cooking went really well, I was so proud of myself!
but so, that’s my housing. Aberystwyth itself is a small town in the middle of nowhere where sheep rule the world, with very charming houses, shops and amazingly enough a lot of great and different kind of pubs. of course, a lot of the pubs close at 11.15 or a bit later if you’re lucky, so that’s quite shocking to us who are used to leaving for parties at 12 at the earliest!
I signed up for 3 courses at the university which has of a bigger campus than the VUB. my courses are: film and cultural identity, classical Hollywood cinema and American popular television. and yes, I think it will be as cool as it sounds. those last two consists of 2 hours of just looking at films or television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Desperate Housewives and afterwards discussing them. honestly, how cool is that? courses start on Thursday, I’ll let you know how they are!
that’s it for basic information, here’s the good and juicy stuff J!

the title kind of says it all : ) ! as expected, the weather here is quit windy and rainy. our first night out we got back in completely soaking wet! we Belgians have no right of complaining. umbrella’s here, pure waist of fabric! of course, we didn’t care, we just got back in from our first home party with actual welsh and british people that we met 2 hours ago at the beginning of our little pub tour but who invited us to their rooms – after spending the entire day with international people who we didn’t even have to ask for their name since we were all tagged with cute little labels (not! we feared that we were gonna play name games but fortunately it didn’t come to that) we enjoyed this very much. our first contact with real locals was far from disappointing, really friendly lads and ladettes. of course – this is part 3 of the title – a couple of them spend more time on the toilet then reasonable and were handling their tipsy’ness.
when emilie and I decided to continue our pub tour and go out yesterday evening, just the two of us, our suspicion was confirmed: some locals just want to get wasted when they go out, and not just wasted ‘cause you might think that’s not such a big deal. let’s say you already see people incredibly pissed at 9 pm (= 21u)! and I think the tipsy people out rule the not so drunk people. so again, Belgium is hardly like that!
and then, the worst, the most incredible and unbelievable of it all: the slutty way of dressing. I want to make sure that I don’t offend someone by saying this. of course not all girls dress like this. but… a lot of them do and are nothing compared to what we in Belgium define as slutty. trust me on this one Belgium family, friends and everybody who wants to know: we have been surprised but most of all shocked. hotpants, miniskirts (and not like my miniskirts, they’re nothing compared to the british ones), tops that uncover more skin than they cover up, stiletto high heals, and god forbid NO JACKETS! I don’t understand how come they don’t freeze their ass off, but hey, if they can cope, good for them I guess! and just to say: we presume that if you would compare the average weight of locals girls compared to Belgian, there would be quite a difference if you understand what I’m saying… Inne was right when she told me said she felt like a nun when she went out in Oxford. I understand completely! Emilie even subtlety talked to some girls about this when paying a toilet visit, and they were very friendly: they said she didn’t look like a nun, only a little bit. but no way that I’m copying their style, I’m sticking to my roots!

I hope you enjoyed this weeks’ episode. feel free to respond. I’ll get back to you sooner now than the last time.

if anyone wants to contact me, my british phone number is: 00447942759872

good night, and good luck!

kisses,
Camille


ps: mussel, thx for my first non-parental phone call!