Strange things happen in Belgium

Well I'm finally home (in Paris that is) after a grueling six weeks of traveling (with no internet!), researching, and hobnobbing with bigwigs at the European Union institutions, and I must say it is delightful to be back on my little apartment in the Marais. Except for the climb up five flights of stairs with a lot of luggage and crap. But anyway, everything but my back muscles have forgotten that part and they will eventually also forget.

If you didn't know, I was lucky enough to go to a conference on the European Union sponsored by the Belgian FB commission, and it was an amazing trip! There were a few people from each of the countries that has a FB commission in Europe (35 of us total), including recent college grads, PhD students, professors, and journalists. I'm not much of a person for groupiness, but I jumped in with unusual enthusiasm, into what we later dubbed "EU Summer Camp." It felt like summer camp because we spent 10 intense days together, many of which were filled with long hours of briefings from EU officials (and American 'diplomats', but I will get to that part later). Fortunately there was much alcohol, waffles, and steak frites involved in this summer camp. My roommate Robin is an amazing photojournalist who became a super friend within a matter of minutes (we both picked Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robot as our wedding dance song - who else in the world would do that? Of course we never danced at our wedding so it's up to Robin to make it happen). I hung out with the journalists, who are all in Germany this year, quite a lot because they were super awesome. I also made many new Facebook friends, which is always awkward.

Anyway. This post will be enormously long if I go into all the details of the trip, but I will list a few of the highlights:

Tour and briefing of the European Commission - they make decisions, I think. Still not quite clear on their function.

A glimpse of Luxembourg (we were only there for about 24 hours, most of which was spent indoors in a weird suburban office park). I won't go into detail here because the case we watched at the European Court of Justice was so boring even the judges were falling asleep, and oddly enough the briefing at the European Court of Auditors turned out to be the most exciting part of the day!

Getting yelled at and called "anti-American" by the American Special Envoy (used to be Ambassador, but was of course a recess appointment who was never confirmed so lots his ambassadorial title) to the European Union - more on this in a later post.

Briefings and lunch in the NATO cafeteria (with wine!)

Very strange meeting at the SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Powers of Europe) headquarters

The best part about the trip was just hanging out with everyone, drinking beautiful Belgian beers and eating way too many plates of "frites" and Belgian waffles (so much better in Belgium!). I also had a jolly time finding weird things in various places - many strange slogans and inefficient security measures, just to name a few.

The EESC (European Economic and Social Commission):


Who knew Europe needed a bridge to reach "organised civil society"?

This is the level of security outside the European Commission. Unfortunately anyone decently skilled in long jump will be able to breach this barrier - I wonder if they are training the terrorists for this?


This is the air freshener in the bathroom of the College of Europe. Better tingling through technology!


Some piccies of Bruges. I will try to borrow a picture from Robin of chocolate breasts in a shop window.






Finally a table tent that I stole from the cafeteria of the Shape headquarters, which looked from the outside, and the inside, just like East High School and apparently functions in much the same way. Who knew that the Allied Powers of Europe enjoyed musical theater so much? Although we did hear in one briefing there that one of the best tactics to establish friendlier relations between the US and Europe is to engage in collective humiliation. Ah diplomacy! (PS - sorry it's sideways - I can't figure out how to make it normal).


I'll post some pictures of Brussels as well in the next post when I also comment on my "anti-Americanness".