Poor food and breaking your personal smoking ban...

They could have at least built the political heart of Europe in a place with decent food. Ok, in the spirit of Eurocratic diplomacy, I’ll take that back, except that so far apart from a couple of notable exceptions the cuisine has not been the highlight, although the beer menu is making up for it, strawberry beer in a bottle and the popular ‘Maes’ (pronounced Mass) being the current flavours of the week for me.
Don’t get me started on the cereals though: what looked enticing from the packet, ‘Croq Miel’ turned out to be a homeless man’s version of Corn Pops. This has led me to consuming an inordinate amount of fruit, as well as Actimels, in order to compensate for a lack of proper ‘petit dejeuner’: there must be so much ‘good bacteria’ in my gut that they will be out campaigning for human rights and dancing with Hare Krishnas soon.
So far I can rely on two things. One, that no matter what day of the week it is, Benny Hill will be on Channel 8 at some point in the evening, dubbed by probably the same guy that dubs Homer Simpson and, two, that I will find a way to embarrass myself in French class. This time, while playing a game of trying to describe a word to a classmate who would then attempt to guess what the word was, which was etre amoureux (to be in love), I mixed up the words for girlfriend (petite amie) with little girl (petite fille), insisting to him that he was etre amoureux ‘avec la petite fille’.
Work has become busy very quickly. The start of the week was quiet with people returning from a long weekend due to public holidays, but if you happen to be a stagiaire with a boss loaded with responsibility then you have every chance to get involved. Some if it has been particularly interesting and painful simultaneously, like trying to summarise three hundred pages of environmental conventions, but you get a feel for the kind of trade measures and compliance mechanisms that exist at the European level by doing it. I had my first meeting at the European Parliament last week, in a conference involving NGOs, European MEPs and other Commission members. It was certainly a room full of passionate people, who all want to influence Commission policy and put their issues on the political agenda. So if you represent the Commission, they all want to hear what you have to say.
In order to become a proper EU civil servant, a functionnaire, you have to go through a year or two’s worth of exams (the concours), so you’ve got to be committed. Some people find contracting work while they take the exams, and if they pass them they make the ‘reserve list’, which enables them to apply for listed vacancies at the Commission. Right now I’m weighing up my options, and it’s a bit early to tell if it’s something I definitely want to do. Not to say that I haven’t been enjoying the trainee’s lifestyle, in attendance of another drinks party on Wednesday in Place Jourdain, a very lively area with a number of shishah bars open until 5am. Unfortunately, some of my more conscientious colleagues decided to postpone that particular visit. I must have had some dodgy food that night as I woke up at 5.30am with a slight stomach upset. Preferring if necessary to vomit in the street rather than my bathroom, I ventured outside of my apartment building wearing nothing but my old man style pyjamas. Wretching with no results leaning next to a small tree, I looked up to see a taxi pulled up with a bejewelled woman in leather stepping out, entering my building and leaving an overbearing trail of perfume behind her. I’m not sure what we made of each other, but at least the rest of the neighbourhood was asleep. After finally going back to sleep I woke up smelling cigarettes everywhere. Noticing the balcony door open I was about to go out and start cursing whoever was out there having an early morning smoke, before I suddenly realised I had broken my six month absence from Marlboro Lights the night before. Well, that’s what happens when you hang around with young Spaniards…