Now for the stories of Brussels...
You would normally think that not being able to speak one language or another is the same thing. Well, I thought the same until I went to Brussels last week. Everyone around me was speaking French, and I have grown so used to not understanding German that French sounded incredibly strange. I was in Brussels for 3 days, and the language barrier was a bit less than with German, but it felt so weird to be speaking French.
Now, why was I in Brussels in the first place? The International Economics class from the Summer Academy was going to Brussels to see some of the European institutions. They needed someone to go along as a representative of the Summer Academy staff to organize the transportation and accommodations so...it was me and my co-worker without my boss. Overall it was a great trip with beautiful scenery. Brussels is truly an international city. I hear so much Spanish being spoken there...which was pretty nice because no one speaks it in Germany.
Day 1
Anyway, the first day we arrived there and we made our way to the hostel. We got a bit lost, and when we got there we had to assign rooms. My co-worker took care of this, but it kinda turned into a shitshow, which ended up in me having to sort the whole thing out. Ended up that one girl didn't have a bed because all the girls rooms were full. Lo and behold, I was tired so I moved to a room with 6 guys and gave the girl my single. Actually worked out really well because I got to meet some really cool Germans that I've been hanging out with since.
We had about an hour or two before we had to leave, so of course I went to do some sightseeing. Important thing to do in Brussels: eat a waffle. Now...I thought...waffles, I've eaten these before. Absolutely not. This was beyond heavenly. I wanted to cradle this waffle and take it home with me as a pet, so I could breed more of them and eat them daily. I will probably dump all the Brussels pictures into another post later today.
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| Excuse me while I go eat ten of these... |
After the wait we went to the Representation of Rhineland-Palatinate (the German region where Koblenz is) at Brussels. We had a slight overview of how German representations differ from other countries' regional representations. Because Germany is a federal republic, where each of the states has a lot of political control, the representations actually have a bit more political power than they would in a non-federal government. The representation was beautiful.
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| damn mirrors making me think there's another room... |
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| beautiful garden in the back |
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| who are those sexy people in that other room? oh, wait...it's another mirror! |
After this, we left to go to the hostel. I had another waffle and then we ended up going to the bar part of town. Prices were pretty much exorbitant, so I decided to go get food with the professor's 15 year old son and a couple of Germans. On my way to the place where we were eating, I saw a little shop with drinks in it. Mental note, made...
Second thing to eat in Brussels: fries. Belgians have a science about making fries, which I don't really understand but they tasted great. However, drinks were super expensive. What to do? I bought food, ran back to the little shop, got myself a beer for 1.50 that would have cost me like...2.50 at the place where we were eating. Economics, for the win. Now, we got back to the bar, and then some people realized that we had found really cheap beer at this little shop. Therefore, like 6 of us got up and went back there. We got some beers and just hung out there, then 1 more person joined, then 2 more. We started joking that everyone would show up, and lo and behold, 15 minutes later even the professor joined us (even if it was only for 15 minutes or so). The night finished with us going back, some people staying in front of the hostel drinking and me going straight to bed. Waffles and fries and that much walking make a man tired...along with a couple of Jupiler.
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| 1.50 for this, 1.80 for a Stella Artois. Woo! |
Day 2
Now, it's really cool when you get to wear a suit in a group of students who are all wearing jeans. Makes you feel like you're the boss, which was really cool. As I may have told you before, I was the one who had been in contact with the European Commission, planning our trip and the sessions. It was really great to finally get to meet the famous Judith Jakab who I had talked to via email and Skype multiple times. It was actually a pretty long day, since we had five hour-long sessions back to back to lunch to back to...you get the picture. Lunch was really good: two baguette sandwiches each (I managed to get three cause I'm awesome) and some Coke. The sessions were about 50-50 on the boring/cool scale. I felt like I was gonna die for a couple of them, but the others were quite good. And then there were the microphones...
You might be able to see that we have microphones every couple of seats. Well...they sounded like the announcers at a supermarket, so some of our students started having some fun with them in between sessions. It was hilarious, needless to say. He was saying it in German, but the effect was the same. Crazy how humor can break language barriers so easily.
Later that evening we returned to the same bar that we had gone to the day before. This time, however, we were prepared and we didn't even sit down. We went straight back to our little shop, got some beers and then went to walk around the city. Turns out that on that day there was a parade and show of sorts, so we stood around for hours watching the parade, talking and stopping at various little shops around town. We had fun...
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| Drinking legally on the street while sitting on a police car...classic |
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| We're quite the international group: Lithuania, Morocco, India, Germany, USA. Boom! |
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| Two of the girls in front of a dragon. Someone has a group picture with the dragon... |
Day 3
Welcome, everyone, to the European Parliament...
and to the hemicycle...
and the outside view...
Ok, you might be thinking "Cool, Parliament"...but seriously, the session could not have been more boring. Institutions everywhere need to understand that someone who knows a lot isn't necessarily someone who is good at speaking, especially to students! If you have a monotone voice, I would rather not hear you speak. Institutions like this need to be able to find better speakers so that they can keep my attention for more than half a second. Interesting topic + boring speaker = nap time. Boring topic + good speaker = amusement. The speaker makes a world of difference! Get better ones!!! And yes, this applies to everywhere, not just Europeans (I'm looking at you, US Capitol tour guides!).
[EDIT]: One weird thing to note about the Parliament. Representatives are not organized by country, but by political parties. I thought that was very interesting, especially considering there are like 5-6 parties. In the U.S. it's simpler because there are only two major parties in the Senate, whereas the House doesn't even have assigned seats. One would assume they're coordinated by country like the UN.
After that painful hour or two (or 100 days, cause I'm sure that's how long I was in that room) we got to go outside and take a group picture in front of the flags. Thankfully, there were better cameras than mine. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get a hold of these pictures. They'll be up when I have them. I got to say my goodbyes to Professor van der Beek, who was leaving for University of Illinois that day, where he will be until October. Maybe I'll see him if I go visit AIESEC Illinois, which I probably will. That same day we took our train, and we went on our merry way. I would be staying in Cologne for the weekend, and everyone else would be continuing to Koblenz. Great trip, good friends made, life is good...
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