I am dreadfully sorry I couldn't write an update sooner. I hope my lovely photo helped to tide you all over.
Let me give you a rundown of all the things I have been doing instead of blogging.
Starting with....
Last week Tuesday:
I went to a friend's birthday party. It was held at a quiet little cafe off Place Jourdan. I met a nice Swedish couple. The guy was good at magic tricks like making coins disappear. Everyone was laughing at me because I had such an astonished look on my face.
Wednesday:
I accompanied my boss to a reception held in honour of the new US ambassador to the EU, Boyden Gray. Leonard Leo, the head of the Federalist Society (a very important DC legal group) was there as well. He is looking to start a chapter of the FS here in Brussels.
So first, there was a reception at a nice belle opaque-ish hotel. My boss had a little meeting with Leonard Leo ahead of time. I got to sit in. That was about a half hour. Knowing myself to be but a lowly intern, I decided I ought to just listen. I did get to make the blitz by supplying the name of some organization that my boss was talking about but couldn't remember what it was called. (It was related to the International Criminal Court, a topic on which I spent 4 months writing a 40 page report. So of course I am a mini-encyclopaedia in this area).
So then, there were some drinks. I had my standard white wine. Then Boyden gray and Leonard Leo both made some remarks about their respective work took some questions. It was in the "salon bleu" of the hotel and there were about 20 people.
So that was already fairly exclusive but then we were invited to the dinner. It was a seafood place since Leo is RC and it was Ash Wednesday. There were 7 people there and I sat in between Leo and my boss who sat next to the ambassador.
The ambassador looks like a thinner Charlton Heston with black eyebrows. He talks a lot. You let him get started and he doesn't start. He spent half the dinner playing with his blackberry.
I really liked Leonard Leo a lot. He home schools his kids so we talked about that. As I mentioned earlier, he is trying to start a chapter of the federalist society in Brussels but it needs a name. So team, what would be a good name for it? (And no, "Brussels branch of the Federalist Society" won't work as the word "Federalist" has a different meaning over here!)
The dinner was good. We got 3 glasses, one for water, one for white wine and one for red wine. The white wine was very good. The red was so so. They also gave us tiny little bowls of water which I guess were for cleaning ones fingers but I decided not to venture that way for fear of embarrassing myself. There are too many stories about people doing the wrong thing with those bowls of water. We also had escargot on the table but I decided not to venture that way either.
The coffee I had for dessert was fantastic. The restaurant was gorgeous. Lots of dark wood and deep orange silk curtains.
Thursday:
I took off of work and went to Brugge with my friend Sarah who works on the same hallway as me. I really shouldn't go to places like that with people who don't share my interests. She was really only interested in shopping. I am just so glad I got to go to Brugge last year and saw most of the sights. Otherwise, I would have been very frustrated. But I got a very sweet white blouse.
That Sarah. I don't know. I guess I don't really go with her at all. She is very modern and not at all Christian and lives a life that is, um, somewhat different than mine, but there is something about her that touches me. Despite her modernity, I feel like she has something very innocent. She really wants to do the right things.
In Holland, they always talk about "normen en waarden" and me like that more than just "values" like they say in the US. It's all about your normen, what were brought up to view as normal. To me, sleeping around and getting drunk is not normal. It's not the way it should be and it's so sad that so many people my age have grown up with a twisted view of reality.
Well anyway, so we went to Brugge and came back at around 8 and went back to the parliament and I was going to write you an email when Sarah comes and says we should go out to dinner with some friends of hers.
I shouldn't have gone but I was too tired to resist (always a bad sign)
I know one guy because he works on my floor and 2 Americans- a guy and a girl. The guys were sooooo awful rich, overly self-confident, thinking themselves super handsome. (I don't just randomly take to hating guys like that. I couldn't stand to work in politics if I did. They made comments about my gender that can't be repeated on a family blog. That kind of sent me over the edge)
So, I sort of scowled my way through dinner. It was Thai food and quite good but I couldn't really appreciate it very much.
Friday:
I hadn't managed to wipe the scowl off my face yet, plus I had a lot to do so I took to locking myself in the office. I briefly ventured out for a pre arranged lunch meeting with a girl from my church. It went well. She is not the sort of person one has to feel self-conscious before. It was also so good to talk to someone with a positive mindset.
After that, I even felt up to joining the Canadian intern next door for a cup of tea. He is applying to replace my colleague who is leaving. I gave him a breakdown of the competition. I have been promoting his application to my boss.
Saturday:
I went to Grand Place! I finally made it. It was of course wonderful. It really is just as amazing as all the hype. My tour guide book had a breakdown of each of the guild houses on the square and how the decorations on the facades incorporated symbols of the guilds trades etc which was fascinating.
The whole grand place was bombed down in 1695 by the French and was rebuilt. One building had also burnt down 100 years before and been rebuilt then too so that building had a giant phoenix on its roof.
The haberdashery guild building had Sinterklaas on his horse on its roof. No, he wasn't there too deliver gifts, he moonlights as patron saint of tailors. Very interesting.
There was a couple having their civil ceremony at the town hall which is the most beautiful and most prominent building of grand place. They were on the balcony getting photos taken. Inevitably, the Japanese tourists below started snapping pics.
A guy who I think was the bride's brother, who was on the balcony too, started goofing off waving dramatically like he was a royal personage. I giggled to myself about it for the next hour. It made me think of my younger brother Nick-he would do that too.
A colleague had told me that there are second hand bookshops on rue du midi so I went there and yes indeed, there were loads. So I have got a huge pile of books including "Villette" by Charlotte Bronte. It will be great fun to reread it from the perspective of this being like her blog of her stay in Brussels.
I also got a French course with cds. I picked it because it billed itself as "the French course for people who want to quickly move past the basics and start learning the language." I thought that sounded like me. All the other ones seemed geared towards how to order in restaurants. Some were all CDs and no book. That sent a shiver down my spine. No book! How awful!
I have already been practicing very hard.
Je m'appelle Emma. J'ai vingt-deux ans. Je ne suis pas mariee.
Oh yeah! I will be writing this blog in French soon.
So yeah, I got lots of books and my French course. I saw grand place. I would call this a successful day. I also...took the metro back.
I am prodigiously proud of myself for not getting on the wrong train even once. My trip even involved a transfer.
Sunday:
I went to church in the morning. I met a girl named Liz who is Belgian (Flemish) but working on immigrating to Canada since she claims she is "ashamed to tell people she is Belgian." gracious!
Spent rest of the day sleeping and studying French.
Monday:
Nondescript.
Tuesday:
I had a very nice dinner with Sarah and my roommate Kasha.
I whipped up pitas, salad, yoghurt cucumber-ish sauce, fried mushrooms, feta and olives. And of course wine. I got this nice kind of salad dressing. Its dill spice and you just add lemon juice and olive oil. It was SO good. I also found this fantastic Dutch spice called Aromat in the grocery store here. That really is the best stuff, anything you put it on tastes good.
I thought the evening was a huge success. Conversation flowed effortlessly. The food turned out great if I do say so myself:) I am usually very critical of my own cooking. I made so much I figured I would have a lot left over but both Sarah and kasha ate a lot. It went fast.
Then we made some tea and Sarah had brought some chocolate cake and we watched "The Stepford Wives" with Nicole Kidman on Sarah's lap top. I love that movie! It was the perfect end to the evening.
I now wish I had invited more people. If I was going to take the trouble anyway. Oh well...now I know. Next time: if am going to have 2 people over, I might as well have 5.
We have agreed to do this again soon so then I will get my chance.
It's especially easy when you are my age because I don't feel self conscious that my silverware doesn't match.
Wednesday: Happy international Woman's day!
The morning got off to a bad start. I couldn't find my Parliament ID ANYWHWERE. It was quite upsetting... I tore the house apart looking for it. My colleague was running late that morning so I couldn't ask him to check if I had left it on my desk in the office.
Well he finally got to the parliament and I met him there and he got me a visitors badge so at least I could get in and yes, sure enough I had left it on my desk. I really didn't think I had done that as I never take it off. So well...I will have to be more careful in future.
Oh well. After that, I was able to start enjoying Woman's day. There was a conference going on where a lady from my church was speaking. She was supposed to start her talk at 12:30 but when I got there, she was already done. The conference was running...early. EARLY! At the European Parliament??!!! The wonders will never cease.
After that, I had coffee with another man from my church who works at the US mission to the EU. We had a fascinating talk. He also knows all the various personalities populating the parliament so it was interesting to get the perspective of an informed outsider.
Then in the evening, I went to a going away dinner for my colleague. It was me and 10 men. I was the only girl. Very odd. Somehow, it seemed even odder considering that it was international woman's day.
There were 3 members of the parliament and 7 parliament staff. One guy I met looks exactly like Dylan Thomas. Today I heard that he has quite a drinking problem too. Isn't that interesting???
There were lots of jokes about how much everyone hates the leader of our delegation and how one of the MEP is trying to become the next Secretary General of the United Nations. (He's apparently got a good shot so I need to make a point of meeting him soon)
I felt like I had infiltrated the Bear garden (for the initiated: that is the men-only club where all the politicians in the Anthony Trollope's political novels go for a drink after voting on legislation at Westminster) Well, Female or not, I had been invited and it would be wrong of me not to go to my own colleague's farewell party. I was a little out of it most of the evening, as I had ordered a cosmopolitan and it was so good that I drank it...a little too fast.
Yeah.
We were all packed into a tiny little side room of the restaurant. The glimmer of candles provided most of the illumination.
The food was wonderful. I had onion soup, a sort of a phyla dough goat cheese type pastry, the aforementioned unfortunate cosmopolitan, and nougat ice cream with coffee.
Then a whole bunch of us piled into a car driven by the guy who sat next to me at dinner. Knowing that I would probably be driving home with him, I had plied him with water all through dinner to balance the wine he was drinking. I trotted out all the statistics I know about water being important for one's health etc. Enfin, I got home safely. So think I can claim that my first ever experiment with intoxication prevention was successful.
I'll end there. Bonsoir!
