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Yesterday there was 8 inches of snow on the ground. Today there is none. I don't think I've seen snow melt so fast. I think the fact that it rained last night helped that. I had to bike home in the mess, I was rather wet by the time I got back.
Day 5, Monday, Paris: This morning we went to the IMF/World Bank office in France. The guy from the IMF showed us a movie and talked a bit, but overall I found him rather uninteresting. That and he dodged every question we asked. The World Bank lady was much better.
Sad to say that lunch today was at McDonalds. But mainly just to avoid the hastle of searching for a place. We had a 2 hour lunch break though, so I tagged along with some girls who went shopping for a while.
After lunch we went to the OECD, which is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Basically, it's a self-described thinktank, that gathers statistics and has lots of meetings where nations discuss economic issues. We had 3 speakers here; 1 dutch, 1 american, and 1 australian (random, but he talked about debt relief and aid, I had the most questions to ask of him). The dutch guy was fairly interesting, the american basically just said how awesome the US is and how much money the OECD saves taxpayers. :P
So then basically, we hopped on the bus and rode to Brussels, which we didn't arrive at until like 10:30.
Day 6, Brussels: More meetings. This day was brutal. 3 meetings in the morning at the Comission, one on Cohesion (that guy had a sense of humor so it was a good presentation), one on the Environment and climate change (boring. he was a bad speaker, and the environment is like my least favorite topic anyway), and then one on competition policy. We ran over by like half an hour and were late to the US Mission to the EU. There we talked about what they do, then had a second speaker who was also not very good on the environment again. I don't know why we talked about the environment so much, none of us are here studying it. By the time mr. boring finished, it was like 3 in the afternoon. And I hadn't had lunch yet. We walked back to the hostel, where I quickly changed and went to a place around the corner to get doner kebap. Doner kebap is basically lamb in a Turkish pita with vegetables and a white sauce. This place also put french fries in the pita, which makes it even better.
Some things about the hostel- not so nice a place, but I've stayed in hostels about the same quality before. Not so clean, shower down the hall, you know. The only thing that bugged me was breakfast. I'd never seen a hostel breakfast so structured. You got in line and were allowed only 1 cup orange juice, 1 bowl corn flakes, 1 piece of cheese, and 5 pieces of toast. If you wanted an extra of anything, you had to pay. :P. They had a bar as most hostels do, and the lounge area was pretty nice at least.
So anyway, after a very late lunch, most of the group went on a city tour. The guy that was leading us was pretty cool. Gave us some good tips on where to get the best deal on chocolates. Had a waffle once the tour was over, (which was fantastic by the way. Much sweeter than a regular waffle. They sell waffles at stands like they did crepes in France. and I probably had just as many. lol) This one was with creme. But anyway, yes, I walked around the city for a bit, then headed back to the hostel to chill for a little while. Went to dinner pretty late, around 9 maybe, at a Turkish place, where I had Turkish pizza. The bread is long and shaped like a canoe, and on it it had minced meat on one side and egg (cooked a bit like scrambled) on the other. It was huge, I couldn't finish it. Good though. Left there around 10, chilled in the hostel lounge for a bit again talking to people, then hit the hay.
Day 7, Wednesday: Meeting at the Council of Ministers. Met with a Greek guy who'd been working there for a while, and had dealt with our program before. I think he ran model EU. He explained the basics of the Council and we asked him a number of questions as well. Finished there maybe, oh, 11:30, went back to the hostel, changed, and headed downtown once more. There really wasn't that much to see in Brussels, at least not within a close distance. I wasn't overly impressed with the city, but probably coming from Paris tainted me a bit. Spent a good chunk of the afternoon shopping with some girls. I bought Craig David's new cd. I don't think it's been released in the US. I haven't been able to listen to all of it yet, but it's pretty good so far. I also got an undershirt which I needed for my dress outfit, if I wasn't going to wear my suit jacket. And a scarf because I'd forgotten mine in Freiburg. It snowed quite a bit in Brussels, mostly the night before after dinner. Bought a couple chocolates just to try, including a praline, which is Belgium's specialty. Also had another waffle or two, one plain, one with powdered sugar. Had doner again for dinner (if you ever get the chance to try doner, I highly recommend it). I really don't have much more to say about this day, it wasn't very exciting. Well there was the point at like 1 am when some of the program girls came in the hostel drunk and were singing really loud. I was partly amused, and partly annoyed because I had been asleep when they woke me up. I laugh at the fact that they were scorned for it.
Day 8: Still in Brussels and at this point I was ready to leave. Met with Greenpeace. See? More environment. We had some time to kill before leaving, so basically we had lunch, walked around for a littel bit, then went to a cafe to order one last waffle. We sat in that cafe for like an hour. It was cold out and we really had nothing else to do. Left at 4-ish to go to the airport. There we flew Virgin Air (rather a cramped plane seating wise) to Berlin. Getting out of Berlin airport was quite the experience- our instructors couldn't quite figure out which train to get on to get into the city center, where our hotel was. The hotel here was pretty nice, the rooms were suite style.
I shall spare you Berlin for the moment, pictures will come later as well.
Day 5, Monday, Paris: This morning we went to the IMF/World Bank office in France. The guy from the IMF showed us a movie and talked a bit, but overall I found him rather uninteresting. That and he dodged every question we asked. The World Bank lady was much better.
Sad to say that lunch today was at McDonalds. But mainly just to avoid the hastle of searching for a place. We had a 2 hour lunch break though, so I tagged along with some girls who went shopping for a while.
After lunch we went to the OECD, which is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Basically, it's a self-described thinktank, that gathers statistics and has lots of meetings where nations discuss economic issues. We had 3 speakers here; 1 dutch, 1 american, and 1 australian (random, but he talked about debt relief and aid, I had the most questions to ask of him). The dutch guy was fairly interesting, the american basically just said how awesome the US is and how much money the OECD saves taxpayers. :P
So then basically, we hopped on the bus and rode to Brussels, which we didn't arrive at until like 10:30.
Day 6, Brussels: More meetings. This day was brutal. 3 meetings in the morning at the Comission, one on Cohesion (that guy had a sense of humor so it was a good presentation), one on the Environment and climate change (boring. he was a bad speaker, and the environment is like my least favorite topic anyway), and then one on competition policy. We ran over by like half an hour and were late to the US Mission to the EU. There we talked about what they do, then had a second speaker who was also not very good on the environment again. I don't know why we talked about the environment so much, none of us are here studying it. By the time mr. boring finished, it was like 3 in the afternoon. And I hadn't had lunch yet. We walked back to the hostel, where I quickly changed and went to a place around the corner to get doner kebap. Doner kebap is basically lamb in a Turkish pita with vegetables and a white sauce. This place also put french fries in the pita, which makes it even better.
Some things about the hostel- not so nice a place, but I've stayed in hostels about the same quality before. Not so clean, shower down the hall, you know. The only thing that bugged me was breakfast. I'd never seen a hostel breakfast so structured. You got in line and were allowed only 1 cup orange juice, 1 bowl corn flakes, 1 piece of cheese, and 5 pieces of toast. If you wanted an extra of anything, you had to pay. :P. They had a bar as most hostels do, and the lounge area was pretty nice at least.
So anyway, after a very late lunch, most of the group went on a city tour. The guy that was leading us was pretty cool. Gave us some good tips on where to get the best deal on chocolates. Had a waffle once the tour was over, (which was fantastic by the way. Much sweeter than a regular waffle. They sell waffles at stands like they did crepes in France. and I probably had just as many. lol) This one was with creme. But anyway, yes, I walked around the city for a bit, then headed back to the hostel to chill for a little while. Went to dinner pretty late, around 9 maybe, at a Turkish place, where I had Turkish pizza. The bread is long and shaped like a canoe, and on it it had minced meat on one side and egg (cooked a bit like scrambled) on the other. It was huge, I couldn't finish it. Good though. Left there around 10, chilled in the hostel lounge for a bit again talking to people, then hit the hay.
Day 7, Wednesday: Meeting at the Council of Ministers. Met with a Greek guy who'd been working there for a while, and had dealt with our program before. I think he ran model EU. He explained the basics of the Council and we asked him a number of questions as well. Finished there maybe, oh, 11:30, went back to the hostel, changed, and headed downtown once more. There really wasn't that much to see in Brussels, at least not within a close distance. I wasn't overly impressed with the city, but probably coming from Paris tainted me a bit. Spent a good chunk of the afternoon shopping with some girls. I bought Craig David's new cd. I don't think it's been released in the US. I haven't been able to listen to all of it yet, but it's pretty good so far. I also got an undershirt which I needed for my dress outfit, if I wasn't going to wear my suit jacket. And a scarf because I'd forgotten mine in Freiburg. It snowed quite a bit in Brussels, mostly the night before after dinner. Bought a couple chocolates just to try, including a praline, which is Belgium's specialty. Also had another waffle or two, one plain, one with powdered sugar. Had doner again for dinner (if you ever get the chance to try doner, I highly recommend it). I really don't have much more to say about this day, it wasn't very exciting. Well there was the point at like 1 am when some of the program girls came in the hostel drunk and were singing really loud. I was partly amused, and partly annoyed because I had been asleep when they woke me up. I laugh at the fact that they were scorned for it.
Day 8: Still in Brussels and at this point I was ready to leave. Met with Greenpeace. See? More environment. We had some time to kill before leaving, so basically we had lunch, walked around for a littel bit, then went to a cafe to order one last waffle. We sat in that cafe for like an hour. It was cold out and we really had nothing else to do. Left at 4-ish to go to the airport. There we flew Virgin Air (rather a cramped plane seating wise) to Berlin. Getting out of Berlin airport was quite the experience- our instructors couldn't quite figure out which train to get on to get into the city center, where our hotel was. The hotel here was pretty nice, the rooms were suite style.
I shall spare you Berlin for the moment, pictures will come later as well.
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