Week One, Day Two

I might condense the rest of the week into this post because I'm jetting off to Sweden & Norway (thank you US Government) for a week and I want to get everything out while it is still fairly fresh in my head.

One thing that you should know is that I am a student here in Strasbourg. I take 11 classes, and while I am quite comfortable skipping them during plenary weeks, sometimes I just can't. So imagine my disappointment when I find out that French president Nicolas Sarkozy is coming to the Parliament on Tuesday morning (!!!!!!!!) and I have to be in my International Business Negotiations class to give a presentation. I wanted to cry.

I told my professor that I needed to leave class early, but it didn't mean much and I didn't get to the Parliament until well after Sarko was done speaking. I guess his big point was the economic crisis (not surprising), which I wouldn't have minded hearing about but Mr. Sarkozy is such a GOOD speaker, captivating, animated, and that is why I wanted to see him. No matter, I did seem him briefly in passing in one of the hallways which was prettttty cool.

So, the day begins here. Cork and I got asked to sit in on an intimate meeting on SOS Democracy. Okay, cool. Until we were sent off with no room number - only that it was in the Members' Salon. Okay, well, that can't be hard to find, right? Wrong. We were certain that we had a good lay of the land in this massive building (yes, I work there, yes, you can be jealous!). But we didn't, and evidently neither did anyone else. Thank god the meeting started WAY late (it was set to begin at 2.30) and Cork and I burst in around 3.20, and they hadn't started the meeting yet - this did not make it any more comfortable. One of the MEP's was glaring holes into us. Sorry, England. It's day two, our bad.

Our second stop of the day was a committee on the WTO. I wish I had something interesting to say, but really, they were just trying to figure out where to have their big 2009 meeting.

Another long night, until midnight, working on speeches and projects.

I'll wrap up Wednesday and Thursday tomorrow before I hit the road.

Be great, see you post-Scandinavia.