Working hard

 I would just like to record that I spent all of today working. Yes, I know there will be sceptics out there, but I did. A day of meetings - but I found it strangely stimulating.

Brussels beer drinkers

Nevertheless, with the meetings over, the reports written and despatched, I went for a short walk back to that  lovely Grand Place. There are many exciting new things to see and new places to go, but sometimes it is lovely to return to places which carry fond memories. I have a couple of those in Brussels. One is a restaurant on the Grand Place, not especially distinguishable from the many others around it, where I have eaten each time I've visited Brussels. It is called 'Le roi l'espanol' - I can't tell you why - and has the usual outdoor terrace with striped umbrellas and beer drinkers; and an indoor fireplace with more beer drinkers, and some hot chocolate drinkers. I had Flemish beef (beef stew, cooked in, well, beer).



Another favourite placed in Brussels is a big English bookshop called Stirlings. I wandered in, just for a look, you know. I saw a selection of that excellent series of little books from Oxford called
'A Very Short Introduction...'  There was one on Nietzsche, which I thought I should get. I saw one on 'Twentieth-Century Britain', which seemed compulsory reading. Then I noticed that they were on a '3 for 2' deal (uh-oh), so found one on Bertrand Russell - written by A C Grayling, so I had to have that also. My name is Annette and I am a bookaholic.
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/category/academic/series/general/vsi.do

But my important purchases were a short book on The Parthenon, and one on Greek and Roman History -- because tomorrow: Athens!  http://www.grandebretagne.gr/

Hotel Grande Bretagne, Athens

But I don't want to leave today's post without adding this link to another blog http://cambodiasept2010.blogspot.com
which is being kept by my 16 year old niece, Scarlett, and her school group as they spend several weeks in Cambodia, teaching and working at villages in rural areas. The first few days were spent in Phom Phen, and you'll be touched by Scarlett's report on their visit to 'the bad Cambodia' - the confronting Tuol Sleng, an ex-school, ex-prison, that looks like the Khmer Rouge just left yesterday. To quote Scarlett (who was celebrating her sixteenth birthday that day):

       "The bus ride there was quite different from that morning. That morning we were all pointing out the window, taking pictures, waving to the locals, laughing at Bridget’s jokes and smiling very cheesy. This bus ride was different. There was silence. It was so silent that you could hear a pin drop. What we had seen before had shocked every single one of us. Most of us have stated that as we were driving all we could see was the pictures of those poor people in our heads. I started to cry as the thought swirled deeper and deeper into my head. We then reached the killing fields."

Good luck, Scarlett and your friends.

Brussels Bubble

Brussels

Today I spent my time learning lots of new words and phrases, some very evocative and others mildly puzzling. Examples include: ‘Brussels bubble’ (what is going on in EU government), ‘Directive retired’ (they couldn’t agree), ‘to give political value to’ (?), ‘flagging up’ (drawing to attention?), ‘doing legislation’ (interesting new verb), ‘shadow rapporteur’ (you don’t want to know), ‘trilogues’ (ditto), ‘balanced’ (you are ripping us off and we want compensation), ‘to screen’ (to ask questions), ‘horizontal’ (generally applicable – really!), ‘disappointing’ (the EU Commission is really, really pissed off), ‘we are making our concerns heard’ (we’re really giving it to them between the eyes), ‘avec with’ (Frenchman with slightly weak English), ‘awareness-raising’ (publicity), ‘does some software’ (e.g. Microsoft), ‘this wording is still between square brackets’ (draft), ‘we will await the decision and then take a position’ (job description for an EU bureaucrat).

Yes, I have been hard at work, since that is my reason for being in Brussels – to attend a work meeting, which today consisted of a program of presentations from EU bureaucrats, some quite high level. They work for a plethora of acronyms, such as DG MARKT, DG HOME, GAC, ICANN, etc etc. We had Heads of Units, Third Secretaries, even a Second Secretary, of many nationalities, but with a predominance of Hungarian and Polish. The reason for this is that in 2011 these two countries will each hold the rotating Presidency of the European Union for six months. One Hungarian Second Secretary could hardly contain her excitement.

Seriously though....I did learn a lot about how the European Parliament works (the European Commission, the bureaucracy, will remain forever opaque, I fear). The EU Parliament has 735 elected members, who divide up into seven ‘political parties’ and a few independents. There’s a complicated system of making decisions, which don’t need to be unanimous. Decisions used to be unanimous, but they changed that recently. With 27 countries now part of the EU, things were getting a bit unwieldy. Some might say they are still unwieldy.

Brussels, Grand Place

Last night I managed to take a walk around the nearby streets – Brussels may not be the most inspiring city in Europe, but whenever I see the Grand Place, with its gorgeous guild houses, I think it is the most beautiful in Europe. Unfortunately it generally has a stage or performance space of some kind in the middle of it. I’m told that there is an equally gorgeous square in Antwerp.

I also managed to find a moment to pop into a chocolate shop. There are so many, but I chose – by chance – Neuhaus, which claims to be the inventor of Belgian praline. I knew you would want a report, so I taste-tested a few of their delicacies. I can confidently say that this is the best confectionary I have ever eaten in my entire life, or am ever likely to eat, in this life or the next. Yes, they are gooooood.

A full day of meetings today, and another tomorrow, but in between a dinner. It is good to meet up again with my IP tribe, so to speak. 

Alicia with moules frites