Je parle en français!

Two days of Brussels have been very, very good to me. Wednesday morning, we spent about twice as long in line at NATO security thanks to some confusion with the group ahead of us. By the time I finally got through the metal detector, the guard was standing so close to it that he set the thing off. Once we finally got inside, the presentations--by an American diplomat and a NATO representative who hapened to be American--were quite good, and we learned lots about the organization's 21st century role in the world, which seems to have little to do with Russia and more to do with overlapping with the EU as a world security/peacekeeping force. The downside (besies the long wait) was that all we got to see of the building was a random conference room-- no offices, no big fancy meeting chamber or anything, which was kind of disappointing. (Amusingly enough, I think our security clearance may not have been high enough.)

After a quick lunch in the city's Europan Quarter, we got to wander around the European Parliament for a while (the building was practically abandoned, as the members are in Strausborg for the week), including watching a few (albeit uninteresting) votes (by a different committee that was using the space). We had a bit of downtime at the hotel (very necessary after that early morning), a lovely group dinner (several people enjoyed actual mussels from Brussels), and more wanderings, which took us to the famous Café Delirium, holder of the Guiness World Record for the number of beers it has on tap (something like 2000 kinds, all local Belgian microbreweries).

Today brought two of the more interesting presentations: one by cabinet member of the Danish European Commissioner's office (ask me questions about the EU agricultural policy!) and one by a higher-up in the eschelons of command surrounding the EU's foreign policy, which, as I said, seems to overlap quite a bit with NATO's. In between, a fez of us did some serious walknig and sightseeing, which was way more fun during the day, and we feel like we've really been able to see a lot of the city. Plus, I got to bust out my high school French over lunch, and I'm remembering a lot more than I'd expected. (Someone should tell Mr. Warsaw for me...)

I should hop off the computer now-- there's a bit of a line. Tomorrow's our last day here, so my next update will likely be from Vienna or Prague...stay tuned!