Week one!

Week 1

DAY 1. 25 May 2008

· Train from Brussels with all the luggage

· Met frank in the train station

o He had run into the founder of the sort of alternative Nobel peace price

· Right Livelihood Award: by Jakob Von Uexkull

o Got a picture

o Were going to take the tram with all the luggage but luckily there was a half marathon so the tram was ridiculously late, we got to take cabs anyway

· Arrival at our house! Rue de Hennin 84!

o Welcomed by the mother and like 30 year old son, Frederick

o Set the bags by the stairs and all sat in the parlor for drinks and an introduction to our stay by Frank

· Went around and told us about our jobs a little more and what we would be doing tomorrow

· Also told us about the architecture of the house

§ 19th century aristocratic style w/6 meter across rooms with three rooms opening into each other long. Apparently it was always hard to get light into the center room

o Surprise visit from Brandon who used to live in the house, then studied in France, now back for internship at the Brussels embassy

o Moved the bags up to our rooms

· Emily and I got the biggest girls room just because everyone else passed it up

· Its really nice and clean!! The beds are comfy and the room tastefully decorated with a large table, 2 wooden chairs, and 2 arm chairs

· A place where there used to be a fireplace

· Full length mirror, which I haven't had all semester

· Two huge windows overlooking the rue

o Dinner at 7

· 3 course meal prepared by our landlady - amazing!

· Red wine from Burgandy

· Appetizer of toast with spinach and salmon… I don’t' even like salmon but I thoroughly enjoyed it!

· Main course of chicken with tarragon sauce and croquettes (like fried mashed potato things)

§ Made sure that everyone ate enough, and there was much to spare

§ Excused herself every time she left the table to go back to the kitchen to prepare the next course

· Desert of vanilla ice cream and fresh berries

o Jazz marathon - headed to grand place to see the festival where there were large stages constructed and a whole jazz orchestra was playing live. Dozens of little tables were set out in the middle of the place where people were sitting drinking and listening. We sat at a nearby café and ordered tea before heading back to the house to unpack and get ready for our big day tomorrow.

· MY THOUGHTS

o This house is so much better than I could have ever imagined, with the only exceptions being the cat (that I'm allergic to) and the cold shower that i just took , but I'm really excited about all of our jobs and being in this amazing city with so many intelligent and influential people.

o Really excited about tomorrow night - kofi annan and gorbechev or Frank's famous social!!

Day 2. 26 May 2008

So the last three days have been absolutely incredible. I'll try my best to describe how crazy my life is right now. Crazy - in a good way of course!

Monday, we all started our internships. The day started out taking the bus from our house to the Parliament where we met Frank, who was letting in a group of students from Azerbaijan. We had an introduction to them and we've actually been in contact with them quite a bit over the last few days. After this, we got our temporary Parliament badges and we started the round of dropping everyone off at their places of interning. I was first because we were already at the Parliament and other than Inna, I was the only one working there for the day. Yue works for an MEP as well, but she didn't have to work on Monday.

I was dropped off at my office and introduced to the assistant of Finnish MEP Sirpa Pietikainen, Kiti. Kiti is about 25 and has been really helpful and nice to me all week. The only confusing thing in my office is when people start speaking Finnish, but they have all been great with speaking English to each other when I'm around. I tell them that its okay and they can speak to each other in Finnish, but they're still really polite and speak in English when I'm around.

So the first thing we had to do was escort a bunch of people into the Parliament and around a little bit for a meeting. It kind of sucked for them because a lot of the parliament was closed off because of the Global Energy Awards that would take place that evening (with honored guests: Kofi Annan, Gorbachev, one of Gandhi's daughters, and performers from Italy and the US including Alanis Morissette. After being with the group for about an hour, one of the assistants came over to me and asked if I had been told who the group was yet, and I said no. He informed me that they were all famous Finnish athletes. One tall man he pointed to had won the gold medal in the Olympics 3 times in a row (12 consecutive years) for rowing. One woman was a champion long distance walker and another man in a striped jacket was a consistent top finisher in Hawaii's Iron Man competition.

I was definitely impressed and completely surprised that we had been leading around a group of normal looking people who turned out to be all so important. This was one of my first realizations of this: that famous/influential/admirable people can be people, too. I should not have been so surprised, because Frank had told us on our first visit a couple of months ago that so many powerful people walk around the Parliament but everyone there is from different places so no one really knows who anyone is (except Frank of course because I SWEAR he knows EVERYONE). I don't know if I'll every stop being surprised that the person I'm speaking with or running into is super powerful, though. I hope I don't!

So after leading them around a bit, I went to get my official badge with Kiti and was faced with Brussels bureaucracy. We had to have a letter signed by the MEP on official letterhead, etc. She was pretty angry because Sirpa was really busy with committee meetings and it wasn't going to be easy to get her signature again. I found her later in Committee and got it, nonetheless. Then I spent the rest of the work day researching some topics that Kiti gave me to provide information to Sirpa on. She wanted to know more about the EU-China Trade Dialogues and what the possible solutions to the aging European population are. It took me a couple hours, but researching for writing the EU Internal and External Security Proposal for the Model EU really helped prepare me for how to use the Parliament, Commission, and other official resources to find information and perspectives of the EU. I just finalized those reports today and gave them to Kiti.

I had agreed to meet Frank and everyone at 6 because we were going to see who would stay at the Parliament to try to see Kofi and the awards show and the concert afterwards, and who would go to his famous soiree. I ended up being one who stayed at the Parliament, but only one of the four of us got a ticket to go in (Yue drew the right piece of paper from the basket) and the other 3 of us were left to fend for ourselves for 2 hours until the concert. Luckily, the Parliament is so huge that events are happening all the time, so we managed to drop into a Western Balkans even that served a three course meal. We ended up sitting between an Italian from the European Central Bank and a Polish woman from the Commission and across from a Belgian Member of Parliament. For most of the evening, the comfortable language was English; but as the wine kept coming and the final course was finished, people were getting into more heated conversations with each other that didn't involve us three, so the conversations clockwise around the table were French, Italian and Dutch.

About that time we decided we would excuse ourselves and find Yue after the awards and see the concert. The concert was okay - it was an Italian singer. I honestly didn't really enjoy it that much. The Parliament hadn't decided to turn on the air conditioning yet so it was absolutely sweltering.

Day 3. 27 May 2008:

The next morning, I found my way by myself on the bus to the Parliament because everyone else had to go in earlier than I did. The day began with attending a Committee in International Trade meeting, which my MEP, Sirpa is a member of. It was a really big deal and the room was SO crowded, because the Commissioner on Trade, Peter Mandelson, was a guest speaker. By the time I got to the Committee it was already the question and answer questions, and people were asking a lot about Doha and also the Irish farmers and how the referendum about Lisbon is going to go if they don’t think they're going to get anything out of it. Big stuff. Plus, we only have 2 more weeks until the referendum. I'm nervous for the EU because I don’t think it will pass.

After the Committee, we all went back to the office and Kiti gave me my first big project. Sirpa was asked to write a column on trade that will be distributed to the other parliamentarians, the Commission and some NGO, and I"ll be helping her write it. So I had to figure out if I could attend a meeting on fair trade next week with the DG on Trade at the Commission (which I'm still working on, the Commission is not good at responding). It will still be okay if I can't go, because I did a lot of other research as well. So two days later, Kiti tells me that Sirpa might not even want to write the column on that anymore and gave me another topic. I showed her all the work I had done on the other topic, so by Friday I had outlined two complete possibilities that Sirpa will choose from on Tuesday and then I will write the final column for the 10th June.

Sirpa also talked to me for like 15 minutes and outlined her interests and activities for me so that I could be on the lookout for anything going on that she should know about. I actually wrote up a couple reports later, one on a recent foreign affairs committee meeting with UN Peacebuildling Commission representatives because Sirpa was Chairman of Finland's United Nations Association for 6 years.

After starting my research a bit, Kiti said if there were any committees I was interested in I could go, so I sat in on the development committee, which was interesting. They were discussing a type of fund that could be used to help with international crises (especially after the recent earthquake in China). Later that day I also met up with 3 Azeri students who study in Finland who came into talk to Sirpa. I ended up seeign them at all the later Azerbaijan events (Jazz-erbaijan and the Hilton Embassy reception), so that was really cool. When the work day was finally done I headed home, picked up an overpriced phone and cheap prepaid deal and went for a run around the lakes near our house before dinner and crashing!!

Day 4. 28 May 2008:

-World bank delegation on climate change- focus on developing countries and using loans and "encouragement" for environment friendly development

-researched ALOT

-foreign affairs committee with UN Peacebuilding Commission Representatives

-Azerbaijan Hilton Embassy event

-greeted the Azeris that I had met before and met a lot of new ones

-a man we met that works at the Brussels airport thought me, Anthony, and Brandon were Azeris and kept saying how much he loved our country's food and music and culture. Like we totally look like we're from Azerbaijan

Day 5. 29 May 2008:

Thursday, I sat in on two committees. The first one was incredible and the last one I was struggling not to fall asleep so I could take notes for Sirpa. The first meeting was again the Committee on International Trade and PASCAL LAMY was the key speaker!!! The DG of the WTO! It was really crazy because as anyone can see from the press articles that were published the next day, he was urging Europe to back down on some of its high demands and be willing to lower its own tariffs more by making comparisons to China and the US. He also made a criticism of the US Farm bill that just passed over Bush's veto in Congress and how its not good for the Doha Round, BUT he reminded Europe that if there is finally an agreement that comes out of Doha, it will override any previous legislature in any of the member states, so really no one has anything to worry about.

I think the US delegation from the Congressional Agricultural Committee took offense or something to his speech, because they walked out unannounced. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a planned exit because I thought the chair would have said something in the opening when he welcomed the delegation, so I've written a letter to the agricultural committee hoping they'll respond and tell me why they all walked out.

I later attended a temporary committee on climate change to take notes for Sirpa. I am not particularly interested in any environmental issues, but since working for Sirpa I've learned so much already.

Day 6. 30 May 2008:

Friday! So it turns out Fridays are generally casual because the MEPs don't work on Fridays. Kiti told me that Fridays are for catching up on all of the work that didn't get done during the week, which is exactly what I did. I finished the research that I needed to present column options to Sirpa on Tuesday, finished typing reports on Committee meetings and recent news issues with which Sirpa is concerned, and made sure I was ready to start fresh this coming week!