Internship and Lille

As I crack open a delicious almond cookie and watch the rain fall outside my window from the comfort of my bed in this quiet, beautiful house, I reflect on the fact that it is so nice to relax . After a long day of classes and walking around, I've changed into my pajamas and I'm calling it a day. I finally have the time to realize, its been 10 days since I've posted! A lot of things have happened. Last week we had interviews all day tuesday and wednesday, which was exhausting. I found out last thursday that I got two offers for internships, one researching African Security with the Royal Military Academy and one with Wilfred Aspinal- my top choice!

side allegory: the funniest thing happened during my interview at the Royal Military Academy. The whole time I was feeling very nervous and uptight because, the RMA is kinda an uptight military place! The serious guy in uniform who was obviously of some high rank and influence said about half way through my individual interview ".. and I see here on your resume, the most important part... (long pause).. that you area hip hop dancer!" That was hilarious and definitely broke the ice.

It's kinda hard for me to explain my internship with Wilfred, but basically, he's a cute, old, British man who does consulting for the EU on environmental and energy topics because he also works with private construction companies and such that try to build more environmentally friendly buildings and such! Oh, and my friend Alissa and I will be working together! I think he chose us because we are both very outgoing, friendly girls and he said he needed people who could network. I'm interested to find out what we will be doing specifically, besides visiting hearings and conferences at parliament and such on relevant topics (which will be awesome!!) It's funny that Alissa and I will be working together because we had 4/5 of our interviews together! She's a great girl from Seattle who knows a whole song about the EU and also loves to sing and dance like me- needless to say, we get a long very well :)

This weekend we visited Lille, France. Today, I am limping because of the large and painful blister I have on the ball of my foot, in between my foot and my toes. This is gross, but I can't pop it because it's really deep.. ugh. I got this blister from all the walking and dancing I did in Lille in the same sneakers. Hopefully it will go away soon, or else I'm sure I will resort to stabbing it! Lille was fun, Ben and I made friends with the bar tender and his parents at a bar one night and we got un Beurre gratuit (a free beer) which was fun. The difficult part of the trip was doing things with 11 people. It was hard making decisions with such a big group, but it was fun to visit france -we saw so many people walking around with bagets the next morning! I also had a chocolate Crepe which was very good! I'm looking forward to visiting bigger cities though.

Today I explored "Carrefour," the belgian equivalent of Target, with Alissa. We were dismayed that they don't offer the kind of pocketed folders we were looking for. Instead they only had these kind of folders that are kind of like boxes.. its difficult to say, but it wasn't quite what we were looking for!

From the sound of it, people are returning in my house. I'm sorry this post was so random, its difficult to write after 10 days. Anyways, tomorrow I have my first day of my internship! So I will report back about how it goes!

How do I summarize the last 3 days? GREAT!

So! It is 9:08 am here in Belgium and I am sitting in the classroom alone because I was too lazy to check the schedule last night after a night of dancing and fun! So, this might come as a shock to most of you, but I am an hour early to school today! But let me reassure you that I thought I had overslept today and I thought I was going to be late for school- harharhar. Anyway, this is good news for my blog stalkers (kat and mom) because I have a wee bit of free time to blog! Wow! I realized this after I had already borded the metro- I considered going home but decided the 10 minute walk would be pointless. This morning Geraldine was the only one at breakfast with me, which was nice because it is really nice to talk to her about her boyfriend and other stuff she doesn't talk about in front of her parents. I told her I enjoyed talking to her and I told her if she ever wanted to come hang out with a bunch of Americans I would invite her sometime. She smiled and said that would be fun and that none of the other students had ever invited her or Alexi to hang out with the group!

I'm having a BLAST! Everything is going super, my home-stay, the group, the belgians! To catch you up, since I blogged last, I've had a grande tour of Brussels with Jerry- my favorite part was walking to the top of The Triumphal Arch! (I stupidly chose to walk to the top because Jerry said it was only four flights of stairs.. it was more! I arrived at the top panting to a group of composed students that took the elevator- but it supplied a good laugh for the others :) From there we could see most of Brussels- which helped my orientation of the city a lot! The Triumphal Arch was concieved by King Leopold II to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Belgium's independence in 1880. But it wasn't completed until 1905. On both sides of the Arch there are museums, one of old cars and the other of old planes! We went in the museum about the planes, it was very cool! It also housed a lot of old weapons- cannons, swords etc which was cool to see. There are a lot of old planes there- Its like a museum of the evolution of flight. That night I met up with my Belgian friend from AU, Paul Sturm, downtown at an Irish bar called the Old Oak which is near where he works near the fancy EU buildings downtown. (His parents are American but he grew up in Brussels, he studied at AU in DC until he graduated this spring and since he has moved back to Brussels.) It was nice to be with a bunch of English speaking kids in an English speaking bar for a change. His friends were very funny and we all played a trivia game at the bar and I was helpful with some of the American music and movie directors!

The next day we came to school (which is two metro stops away from the metro in my neighborhood - very convenient) to learn about our internships! We had individual consultations about the interviews we will be going on for our internships next week. I have five interviews and I really like the different places I'm interviewing. One is for a member of the European Parliament, another is an important consultant for the EU who consults about many things including Energy and Environmental issues. Another is called the Polar Conservation Organisation and another is the Environmental Policy center. The last one is the Royal Military Academy- doesn't sound as close to my interests but I hear it is very interesting as well! I have to do research about all of these organizations and people before the interviews so that I might impress someone and get an internship!

After that, my friends Supriya and Autumn and I decided to go exploring! It was super fun! we went downtown and sat by the fountain in the Royal Park (its near the Palace) for a while. Then we found the Botanique - a nice garden and beautiful glass building with funny statues all around. We went inside the building and I spied on cute musicians practicing and we found a schedule of a lot of indie bands- some I know like the Grizzly Bears-that are going to perform there! Then we took the tram- a train that runs in the middle of the street to the petit Sablon - which is where the "people who think they are cool" hang out. I saw many a cool person there- riding bikes and wearing Raybans. There are a lot of good cafes and antique restaurants. After walking around for a while we sat down and had a beer and talked for an hour or so. It was so fun!

That is a pretty good summary of the highlights of the last 3 days, and my computer is dying so I have to go! Peace and Love, Flo