If you type "Google" into Google, you can break the Internet. So please, no one try it, even for a joke.

I stepped off the plane from Amsterdam after 6pm on the 27th, checked in to my housing by 9:30pm and done for the night. By 9:30am I was out at Harrow meeting up with everyone from the masters program getting ready to load a good size truck with the boards, paint and other supplies to build the walls for our gallery space. We were loaded and ready to go by 11:30am and off to the gallery to unload and start working on the space. By 4pm I was out the door to get ready to meet my friend Paul, his flatmate and some others for some drinks. We tried out a few different bars near Marylebone where they gallery is and where Paul lives.

Saturday it was lots of painting in the gallery, so much fun times. It was a slow but steady process. Luckily since it was a bank holiday weekend so we had Sunday and Monday off.

Angela, Chantel and I painting away

Our ritual of lunch in the park to get at least a bit of sunlight

Sunday I met up with Jemma to check out what was supposed to be a beach at Trafalgar Square, the photo in the paper showed sand and everything, this was a very very sad concrete non-beach. From there we decided to walk to the river and down towards the Borough market and grab some lunch, only to have walked an hour to find out the market is closed on Sundays (what kind of market isn't open on a weekend). Finally we decided to take the tube up to Notting Hill and go check out the Notting Hill Carnival which was set for Sunday and Monday.

Sand sculptures along the Thames, a strange site indeed

I'm so glad we went on Sunday which was supposed to be the calmer day because that alone was almost too much for me to handle. There were crowds of people everywhere, we had trouble getting through some spots. Around the outside streets they had a parade going round with floats (flatbed trucks with lots of speakers and djs or rappers) and people dancing behind the floats covering spectators with chocolate or some gold covered liquid. Some of the floats were so loud they literally shook you too the core with their music. On the inside streets they had impromptu stands set up with more djs and rappers and crowds of people around them dancing. I've never seen anything like it. Notting Hill is an incredibly posh area and because of this many of the shops in the area closed for the weekend and boarded up their windows because this is an event known to get out of hand (this year there were 222 arrests, what an even number). We still don't know what it was for except something to do with celebrating the caribbean and african countries, we're just not sure what.

Monday I ran around a bit before meeting Jemma again in the late afternoon. We grabbed some drinks and snacks before heading in to Hyde Park down by the pond to sit and relax a bit and enjoy the sun. A nice end of the weekend before I had to get back to the chaos of the build.

Tuesday we began actually building the walls for the show. It was a lot of hard work and everytime I tried to drill something this one older guy kept coming and taking the drill from me and insisting on doing it, it got very irritating by the end of the day.

Wednesday was more of the same, building and such. Although this time my friend Angela and I got a drill and went to work and when they guy from before tried to take it from me and do it we told him no, we were good, and kept drilling. It was so great, to be able to build something like that. I left after the morning shift to go meet up with Mom and Dad who had just arrived. I dropped my stuff at the B&B before we went out to grab a quick late lunch at a pub around the corner. We decided to do a bit of walking after that. We went down to Harrods where Mom got some perfume she couldn't find in the states any more and we look at some dresses, none of which cost less then £300, one even being £7759. From there I took them in to South Kensington to show them around where Andrew and I lived. After that we grabbed a quick bite to eat at the restaurant of Ken Lo's daughter (Ken Lo is a famous Cantonese chef in Europe) before crashing out for the night.

Angela, Radi and I and our building skills:

The blue wall outside our flat

Thursday was the big day. I brought everything I needed for the opening with me knowing there would be no time to leave the gallery once I got there in the morning. We continued to build, paint and hang work while the technicians put up lights for us and we scrambled around doing I honestly don't remember what. The alumni and first year part-time students were coming by at 5:30pm, about the time all of us were heading to the bathrooms to get ready. We quickly changed and made ourselves up before heading out to socialize, not even being able to take a breathe between finishing the gallery and being out in it.

The night was wonderful and exhausting at once. There was constantly someone to talk to, many of my friends from the pub came by which just made me so happy that they came out of their way for me. My old flatmate James even came up from Brighton so he could come by. It was all very nice. Of course by the time we got out of there at 10:20pm I felt like I could happily face-plant into the pavement and sleep quite happily for a few days. Instead a bunch of us from the show hit up a few pubs together before dragging ourselves home by the last tube.

Morning of the show, 10am

Angela quickly washing paint off her feet

Evening of the show, 5:30pm, half an hour before we opened the doors

Me and Angela looking nice and dressed up

The gallery crowd

With Shelia, a painter who is one of my subjects for the project

The portrait I exhibited, sadly I could only afford to print and hang one of the 3

Friday morning I was up and at the gallery bright and early, not to build or paint this time, thank god, but to oversee the space and answer questions while people were looking around. It was a non-stressful day (even though our tutors were there marking us) and by the end of it the head of the department casually let us know we had all passed. With that weight off my shoulders I could no longer care about it all and completely relax. I met Mom and Dad by Oxford Circus to go see Sister Act the musical (not bad but I prefer the movie) and pop over to a members only whisky and jazz club for a late dinner, again crashing out pretty quickly.

Saturday I was, surprise surprise, at the gallery again. I popped out for lunch with Angela and one of her friends and then hung around until 6 when I ran by the hotel and over to Radi's to switch out suitcases before running up to The Duke to see Jemma working and my friend Matty for his birthday. It was a fairly typical Duke night, although Bev kept getting emotional cause I'm leaving soon, and it took a phone call from Mom reminding me we had to be up in a few hours to get the train to get me moving for the door because early Sunday morning we headed towards Ireland, which is the next blog, hopefully to come out before I head back to the states on Sunday...we'll see.