Strasbourg and the European Parliament

Today, we took a fieldtrip to Strasbourg to see the EU in action. They were just finishing up some last-minute discussions, and we got to sit in and put on the nifty translation headphones. It was kind of neat to see all different nationalities stand and speak so passionately, and to be able to hear it all in English almost instantaneously.

Before we went to the Parliament building, the buses dropped us off in Strasbourg, where we walked around for a bit, looked at the massive cathedral, ate lunch at a kebab place, and admired the huge drones of tourist groups and ugly souvenir shops.

The Parliament building was interesting--outside the front there is an abstract statue of two people "embracing" (or less lightly, having sex in a rather erotic position) that somehow is supposed to be interpreted as the "union" of European countries.... The only explanation for this we could come up with was, "Well, this is Europe...."

The building is kind of like a big arena; outside it looks like a cylinder, but inside it's a hollow oval shape, with windows looking inwards. We got to listen to a French representative talk about the basic principles of the EU, and we learned that she voted to keep Turkey out of the EU for now since she thinks it'd be better to strengthen the EU internally before growing again. The big room where all the representatives go is in this giant wood-paneled globe (it reeks of the 80s) inside the building. That's where we went to listen to the last of the discussion, which focused on North Korea's human rights issues and on pressuring China to pressure North Korea to fix these problems. It was an enlightening experience, and I was glad to have it.

Back at GTL, we had what was labeled a "BBQ, to celebrate July 4th" which really turned out to be an unorganized mess with not enough food for everybody (that's the general way events happen here so I shouldn't have been surprised). Anyway, I ended up with some free food at least, and now I'm getting psyched up for our Normandy/Paris trip this weekend!