First week of work!

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Bonjour et Hello,

Hello et Bonjour,

So my first day of work was June 1st. It was a holiday. I love Belgium!!! I finished unpacking and then cleaned up some more stuff before heading back to Uccle to pick up some stuff I had left out there. Afterwards, I followed Elaine’s suggestion that it was only a 10 minute walk back to town. It was not a 10 minute walk to downtown. Try a 30 minute walk! It was a sunny day, so I didn’t mind it too much. I was wandering around, and two streets met (I’m not ripping off Robert Frost, honest) and Laura and Christine were suddenly in front of me but they had not seen me yet. I was just behind them when I heard Laura say that she wished I was there so I could give them a tour of town. And lo and behold I did appear unto them. We lazed in the park for a while and then wandered past the cathedral and my favourite toy store in town to the Grand Place where we had some food. I took them to the Galerie St. Hubert, but then I left early because I had to et some sleep before my first actual day at work!

It’s also a very short walk to work for me, lasting about 7 minutes or so to the Canadian Mission to the European Union. You can officially refer to me as a “diplomat” now. I work in the Health and Social Affairs Department with Bob, Rita and Liam. They are all great people! I essentially do research on policies relating to my department, write policy briefs for Ottawa and I get to attend conferences and organize things such as roundtable discussions. I really enjoy what I do. The only downside is that I work in an office that I affectionately refer to as “the bunker”. It’s called that because it is lacking windows. However, I share it with another intern named Christine and between us we make the day as entertaining as possible. I can’t tell you everything I’m involved with, seriously, but I do see a lot of interesting things and I am learning a lot!

Things I’ve learned in Brussels:
-Security devices were designed for people under 5’8”. For everyone over that height, they are referred to as “back-pain creators”.
-Everywhere claims to have the best Belgian fries and I have yet to find a place that is really stunning.
-I’m really disliking everything being shutdown on Sundays. It makes line-ups even longer on Saturdays!

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