Anyone who knows me knows that I sort of have a, well, an obsession with Ireland. (I know all of you that know me well are laughing in agreement right now.) The green pastures, the castles upon castles, the pubs, and the Irish people themselves. I mean, who could resist! Michael, Chris, and I (all interns) went to Dublin for the weekend and it was marvelous, or shall I say, enchanting! After work we took a flight into the city, but after bus rides to and from airports we didn't get to our hostel until midnight. Luckily, Dublin is the city [View Full Entry]

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Well, it's official. My internship is half over. I can't even believe it! I feel like I just got here! Though I have two extra weeks in Europe after my internship, I can't believe my time here is going by so quickly. This was another great week in Brussels. Since it was only a 4 day week because of President's Day, the week went by very quickly. On Wednesday a couple of the other interns and myself attended a conference on the Lisbon Treaty at the EU Parliament with 'stagiers' (the cool sounding European word for 'intern') from the EU Commission [View Full Entry]

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In honor of Valentine's Day, President's Day, and most importantly our three day weekend, Rachel, Michael and I went to Amsterdam this weekend. Since I've been here, this is the first place we've visited that I hadn't actually been to before. So, as you can imagine, I was incredibly excited. The trip, unfortunately, did not start off too well. We left Saturday morning and as Rachel and I walked halfway to the metro stop to the train station, she realized she had forgotten our tickets to some of the museums we had already purchased. We had to run back to the [View Full Entry]

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Since I've now been in Brussels for over three weeks, I'm getting pretty well settled in. I'm deep into my work at my internship and am pretty well settled into our apartment. This weekend was an off weekend for our travels so we just stayed in Brussels and got caught up on laundry, our directed studies, and whatnot. In light of my rather uneventful week, I decided to give you a closer look at where I'm living now. As you may have noticed, I tried to give you a quick virtual tour of my apartment, though I'm not sure if the [View Full Entry]

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This weekend my roommate Rachel and I took our first trip to a surrounding city. It was our first venture out of Brussels since we had gotten here two weeks before. Now, anyone that has been to Brussels knows that it is an incredible city. But anyone who has been here also knows that after a little while, you need out. The bureaucratic/ business nature of the city is enough to make anyone want to get out for a little while, especially when you consider that Paris is only an hour and 20 minute train ride away. So, that's what we [View Full Entry]

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I made it through my first week! It may have only been a 4-day work week for us, but it was full of briefings, intense work, and celebration. As I had mentioned earlier, Tuesday was my first day. I couldn't even believe it when I walked in and was shown to MY office, fully equipped with my own computer, telephone, and satellite TV. When I worked at the campaign headquarters in Chicago, there would have been about 7-8 people working in the amount of space that I now have to work in! So, you can imagine my excitement after realizing this [View Full Entry]

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Well, I made it! After all of that traveling, I made it to Brussels last Friday. The past three days here have been full of unpacking, exploring the city, and meeting the other interns, all of whom I love! Rachel, who is also an intern at the USEU (US Mission to the European Union), and I have an apartment in the chic Ixelles area of Brussels. We can see the European Parliament Building and the Cinquantenaire Arch from the front windows of our third floor apartment. Though the view is great, it's quite a trek up the 6 flights of stairs [View Full Entry]

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Tomorrow I will set out on my long journey for Brussels, Belgium. After a 3 1/2 hour drive to Denver, a 3 hour flight to Philadelphia, a 2 hour lay-over, and a 7 1/2 hour flight across the Atlantic, I will arrive in Brussels for the internship of my dreams. For the next three months, I have been given the incredible opportunity to intern for the U.S. State Department at the U.S. Mission to the EU! This will actually be my second trip to Brussels. When I visited Brussels for the first time in the summer of 2007 on a study [View Full Entry]

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