First Week of Work

At present the Parliament isn't quite as picturesque as the photo would suggest... It is currently undergoing some serious construction. As the European Union expands, so too does the Parliament's office space it seems.

Those of you who are actually reading this will no doubt know why I am here... But if not, my three months in Brussels has been made possible by the fact that I received an internship position with the European Parliament for this period of time. At present, I am working for Roberts Zile, the Latvian MEP (Member of European Parliament) for the Union of Europe for the Nations Group and roughly halfway through my time here I will be transferred to Andres Tarand, Estonian MEP for the Socialists.

They say that having a good relationship with the MEP's Assistant (basically a full on, all-purpose position - researcher, PA, secretary... sometimes even a cleaner!) is key and therefore I think I have struck gold. Guna is lovely - friendly, patient and extremely helpful. She lets me hang out with her friends and she has even invited me to Latvia at the end of the month. Needless to say, so far, I'm pretty stoked.

For my first week I pretty much got free range of what I wanted to focus on, and on my second and third days I got to go to some ITRE (Committee on Industry, Research and Energy) hearings. Was really interesting to see how things work and I found it pretty cool how everyone speaks in their mother tongue - so we're all plugged into our headphones listening to it all in OUR mother tongues too. Each week involves different activities and is coded as a different colour accordingly. Apparently the week coming up is going to be a busy one... But I guess I'll find that out in due time.

Have yet to get lost - will give the credit to Guna's guidance, however, and not my infallible sense of direction (which is not, in fact, infallible). Fridays seem to be "wrap up loose ends" days and so, once I'd written up some notes on the hearings, my first week at work came to a close.

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