I have decided it is finally time...

...to join the inane dribblings of millions of other people all over the world who have decided to write down what they ate for tea to a yawning, uninterested cyberspace.

Reason: I have been vraiment crap at keeping in touch with people since I dove head-first in the unrepenting acronymic utopia that is the College of Europe. This is because I have been spending so much time trying to figure out my CAP from my CFSP that I have been neglecting JHA (Justice and Home Affairs: i.e. all of you).

Anyway to start us off, today we had the opening ceremony of the academic year. I thought it was quite fittingly eurocratic that we had the "opening" ceremony 10 weeks into term. As Claire wittily pointed out, "at least we can get down to some real work now that the academic year has started".

The opening ceremony was held in the Hallen of Bruges, which is the building here in the picture. It's a really old (even by Bruges standards) building with a oak-beamed ceiling etc - very medieval. The day was full of pomp and ceremony, with the college rector (there he is!) giving a typically trilingual (French, English, Dutch) welcome and then exhaustive history of the life and times of Nicolas Copernicus (the patron of my "promotion" - we can't be normal and just have a yeargroup, we have promotions instead - who knows why... but then Cambridge wasn't exactly normal either. Why did weeks begin on a Thursday anyway?). Did you know he was the figure who moved us from a geocentric to a heliocentric view of the universe? So did I.

After that we then had a speech from the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker about "the need for Europe". It was a very pro-European discussion about how we need to ratify the constitutional treaty and how we need to make advances in the establishment of the AFSJ (Area of Freedom, Security and Justice) - bread and butter stuff at the college. We were all very glad that he saw a "need for Europe" - after all, no Europe = useless degree and no gravy train.

Afterwards we went to a reception where we had the best and most abundant canapés ever. Teach Firsters will know what I mean when I talk about quality canapés - well I had 26(!!) of them in total and felt a bit sick afterwards. But I was so excited that it was good quality, non-canteen food, that I just couldn't resist. People here seem to be novices in the art of the socialising/canapé eating balance... I had a couple of trainees and in the end we developed a quite cooperative - pouncing at each new tray we saw and bringing back three of everything to share.

I fear I have painted a slightly atypical of college life here... I promise to bore you with accounts of 3 hour law lectures in French and the varieties of ham and cheese served at dinner in my next post