Parliament

I was assigned to my MEP today... a tory from London... pretty classic no? Well, he seems to be interested in "the environment and health" so, I guess not TOO classic. He actually seems like a really charming guy... has to get elected somehow. I met one of the backroom strategy guys, and he already has this giant master plan for how their grouping will take over the parliament, how the parliament will take over Europe, and how the Conservatives will take over the UK. Should be an interesting couple of months. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bowis

Went to the Commission today ... "DG Relex" in the local jargon, meaning foreign affairs. It was awesomely long winded, but we had such good chairs, and jugs of water, and desks, and got to sit at the little desks that delegations sit at, so I was able to make it through without falling asleep once... unlike the tour director who fell asleep loudly and visibly, about 4 hours in. Ha ha. we got it on video, so we can never lose face on that front again. I don't understand how all of these people who have obviously given many MANY presentation before can be so bad at sticking to a simple deadline of half an hour, and that they don't understand that if you take five minutes to answer six or seven questions, its going to take half an hour to answer them. We have yet to keep to a single schedule.

At the parliament we sat in an extremely hot room that smelled of sulphur, so we were lucky that it was far more interesting.

Current scandals amongst the group - restaurants charge for water.