First I want to talk about what is going on France and then I will talk about my one day trip to Strasbourg. So as hopefully many people back home know, French President Sarkozy traveled to the US in an effort to boost relations between the two countries. He was given a warm reception (standing ovation) when he gave a speech to the US Congress. You don’t even know how much that makes me happy. He was able with President Bush to set aside their countries’ differences on Iraq and be able to reaffirm their agreements with regards Afghanistan and Iran. As it seems now, France doesn’t want Iran to get nukes just as much as the US. President Bush also met with Chancellor Merkel from Germany showing that he is in fact on a mission to rebuild our country’s image in the last years of his presidency. I can’t tell if he’s trying to desperate get out of the abyss he dug himself or trying to at least give the next batch of Republicans a chance at beating the Democrats. Second, I have to restrain myself when I say this but the #$@#in French transport workers are striking AGAIN tomorrow and this one which is a direct challenge to President Sarkozy’s reforms, might last for a longer time period. Now it is not only including the transport workers but also later, electric workers, teachers, students, and even opera students. The worst part is that Sciences Po is not participating in the strike, so I still have to go to class including to tomorrow’s French Test. Thirdly, soccer in Europe is insane as shown through the riots that are going in Italy due to the one soccer fan being shot in his car from across the highway by a trigger-happy policeman. And now the Italian superstars are threatening the public that they will leave Italy because in the past years it has been one thing after another that has caused problems and tainted the sport that brought Italy World Cup glory in 2006. How is this relevant to me, I went to another PSG game on Saturday and it was relatively safe, but some of the supporters are very hard-core. I never felt scared there or even in Istanbul for that matter, I guess it’s just really bad in Italy. Oh and I lost my ticket as I was outside the stadium, don’t know if I dropped it or somebody stole it out of my pocket. Luckily our names were on the tickets because we bought them from the PSG store on the Champs Ellysees and was able to get it reprinted. Best game I have seen so far in France in that it the home team got one point instead of losing.
Now on the train to Strasbourg. Had to get up really early for what would be a very long day. The train ride was only 2.5 hours long which was nice and short compared to what it used to be of 4 hours. When we arrived in the morning, we had a few hours to walk around before we had to go to our first stop, the Council of Europe. A group of us just headed off into the old town in search of things to see. Luckily the weather was different in Strasburg than it was in Paris in that it was sunny and beautiful although it shared the cold temperature. Regardless it really brought out the ambience on architecture of the region (Alsace Lorraine). Now with that Strasburg has been under the German flag many times before hence the city looks kind of like Belgian cities where you have two languages (French and German). They had beer halls and other buildings that looked like the German cliché Americans know from movies. Our main point of interest after stopping a local bakery for some Quiche Lorraine was the principle cathedral of Strasbourg called Strasbourg Cathedral. We didn’t actually get to go inside but it seemed larger and more magnificent than Notre Dame in Paris. Its rustic color and dominating stature among the other buildings built not in the 21 or 20th centuries gave an ambience that I really appreciated needing a break from Parisian life. After walking around and seeing more of the city. I started complaining that I was hungry and wanted to try some local dishes. I was very happy when I found Choucrout or Sauerkraut on most of the menus, well that’s because its actually a dish of the region. What makes it even more special for me is that I haven’t eaten it since I left and we won’t be able to have it for Thanksgiving because my host mother vomits every time she smells it. So when we sat down I order that dish along with a local beer of Alsace to really immerse myself in the region. I wanted to try the beer with its proximity to Germany because it always seems to get better as you travel East in Europe, well at least from France. My dish also came with different sausages and meets so let’s just say I had one of my favorite meals in Europe because it reminded me of Czech and Polish American food that I have back home. We had to hurry back to the station after the meal in order to make it on time for the Council of Europe that has no time to spare if we were late…
Now for people who don’t know what the Council of Europe is (I didn’t really know until I came here), I am going to explain. It is an organization compromised of 47 nations of Europe and yes that includes all of the bad ones that are not in the European Union and all of the small city-states. Now when I say bad ones I am including Russia and most of its former colonies in Eastern Europe where clearly there are still vast problems with Democracy. It was founded in 1949 after World War II to be another body to promote democracy and help end wars in Europe. What it has developed into now is a body that mainly deals wit human rights issues. It has an international human rights court that anyone living in the jurisdiction of the organization can appeal to. This also refers to me a non-European citizen if I was say arrested by the French police for no reason. We saw and took pictures of the parliamentary branch of it as walked by the court that looks like a launch pad for spaceships. Nevertheless the council building looks like something out of the 1950s and its budget difference with the European Parliament across the channel clearly shows. One of the students asked what did our lecturer think will happen to the council in the future. And he said as long as they have the human rights under their responsibility then it will stay alive. You could clearly see that he is being optimistic. Most people both European citizens and even politicians don’t even know what the Council of Europe is, which to me is really sad. What is more sad is that Russia is welcomed into a democratic organization that looks after the basic needs and rights of human beings. I mean when you have elections with two candidates: Putin and Putin, is it really a democracy that promotes liberty? Most people exercising or who wanted to exercise their liberties are doing so in Siberia…
Our second stop was the European Parliament, which I have to say was one of the most beautiful and modern buildings I have ever seen in my life. Just look at the pictures above and you can see the difference between the budgetary constraints of the Council of Europe and the European Union yourself. What’s also ironic is that there are 27 members in the latter and 47 in the former. Anyway you walk into the EP and like my friend says it looked like the Roman Coliseum. After checking our coats and going through another metal detector, which by the way considering we were all Americans they didn’t care when we beeped, we went straight into the beehive to view an opening session of parliament. What surprised me was the lack of parliamentarians for maybe 20% were actually there.
A few observations on the session: 1) you sit down and immediately told to be quiet and listen to the speaker who is usually speaking in their native language. What you must do is pick up your headphone and flip to the channel of English which is terribly translated for you throughout the session. Unlike in the Council of Europe there are no official languages (English and French) and every single language of the EU must be represented. What a miracle. 2) For the majority of our stay we listened to one-minute speeches about issues the members were bringing up in their respective countries. Poland was bitching that a few polish names were left off a monument for the train bombing in Spain. Italy was being criticized with its harsh policies of deporting Romanians for the suspicion of being criminal and for having harsh conditions for the ROMA or gypsies. Italy later defended itself in a grandeur tirade by stating that the criticisms were hypocrisy due to the treatment of gypsies around the rest of Europe and even in Romania where I am sure the conditions are worse than Italy. Britain kept saying that the EU was nailing more pegs into the coffin of British sovereignty, which I was delighted to hear when you learn about that so much in school. There were other speeches and tirades, but those were the most interesting to me. It got to a point where my professor who is Italian showed me the list of parliamentarians and one of them having a last name of Mussolini. He explained to me that she was the grand-daughter of the dictator and had actually been a soft core porn star under a different name before her political career. I can’t even imagine the implications of that if she was an American politician. Oh wait…maybe Hillary has another life that we don’t know about…you know to kind of get back at Billy Boy…haha I am trying to decide who is the better woman…Where is Condy when you need her?
Our session was followed up by a Slovenian lecturer who gave us more regurgitation of what we have been learning in our classes but was surprisingly interesting. Two things that struck me about him was his comment on the conflict of American aggression (Iraq) and that he wished weapons would just go away. Now I agree that there needs to be peace in the world, but human nature always gives weapons defensive utility. After his arousing speech, we hurried back to the train for Paris. Too bad we couldn’t stay longer because apparently President Sarkozy was giving a speech before the Parliament. We actually saw them preparing for his reception and press conference blasting the French national anthem. Too bad, I would have really liked his hard-line approach and get the European Union moving away from its current stagnant nature.
Now on the train to Strasbourg. Had to get up really early for what would be a very long day. The train ride was only 2.5 hours long which was nice and short compared to what it used to be of 4 hours. When we arrived in the morning, we had a few hours to walk around before we had to go to our first stop, the Council of Europe. A group of us just headed off into the old town in search of things to see. Luckily the weather was different in Strasburg than it was in Paris in that it was sunny and beautiful although it shared the cold temperature. Regardless it really brought out the ambience on architecture of the region (Alsace Lorraine). Now with that Strasburg has been under the German flag many times before hence the city looks kind of like Belgian cities where you have two languages (French and German). They had beer halls and other buildings that looked like the German cliché Americans know from movies. Our main point of interest after stopping a local bakery for some Quiche Lorraine was the principle cathedral of Strasbourg called Strasbourg Cathedral. We didn’t actually get to go inside but it seemed larger and more magnificent than Notre Dame in Paris. Its rustic color and dominating stature among the other buildings built not in the 21 or 20th centuries gave an ambience that I really appreciated needing a break from Parisian life. After walking around and seeing more of the city. I started complaining that I was hungry and wanted to try some local dishes. I was very happy when I found Choucrout or Sauerkraut on most of the menus, well that’s because its actually a dish of the region. What makes it even more special for me is that I haven’t eaten it since I left and we won’t be able to have it for Thanksgiving because my host mother vomits every time she smells it. So when we sat down I order that dish along with a local beer of Alsace to really immerse myself in the region. I wanted to try the beer with its proximity to Germany because it always seems to get better as you travel East in Europe, well at least from France. My dish also came with different sausages and meets so let’s just say I had one of my favorite meals in Europe because it reminded me of Czech and Polish American food that I have back home. We had to hurry back to the station after the meal in order to make it on time for the Council of Europe that has no time to spare if we were late…
Now for people who don’t know what the Council of Europe is (I didn’t really know until I came here), I am going to explain. It is an organization compromised of 47 nations of Europe and yes that includes all of the bad ones that are not in the European Union and all of the small city-states. Now when I say bad ones I am including Russia and most of its former colonies in Eastern Europe where clearly there are still vast problems with Democracy. It was founded in 1949 after World War II to be another body to promote democracy and help end wars in Europe. What it has developed into now is a body that mainly deals wit human rights issues. It has an international human rights court that anyone living in the jurisdiction of the organization can appeal to. This also refers to me a non-European citizen if I was say arrested by the French police for no reason. We saw and took pictures of the parliamentary branch of it as walked by the court that looks like a launch pad for spaceships. Nevertheless the council building looks like something out of the 1950s and its budget difference with the European Parliament across the channel clearly shows. One of the students asked what did our lecturer think will happen to the council in the future. And he said as long as they have the human rights under their responsibility then it will stay alive. You could clearly see that he is being optimistic. Most people both European citizens and even politicians don’t even know what the Council of Europe is, which to me is really sad. What is more sad is that Russia is welcomed into a democratic organization that looks after the basic needs and rights of human beings. I mean when you have elections with two candidates: Putin and Putin, is it really a democracy that promotes liberty? Most people exercising or who wanted to exercise their liberties are doing so in Siberia…
Our second stop was the European Parliament, which I have to say was one of the most beautiful and modern buildings I have ever seen in my life. Just look at the pictures above and you can see the difference between the budgetary constraints of the Council of Europe and the European Union yourself. What’s also ironic is that there are 27 members in the latter and 47 in the former. Anyway you walk into the EP and like my friend says it looked like the Roman Coliseum. After checking our coats and going through another metal detector, which by the way considering we were all Americans they didn’t care when we beeped, we went straight into the beehive to view an opening session of parliament. What surprised me was the lack of parliamentarians for maybe 20% were actually there.
A few observations on the session: 1) you sit down and immediately told to be quiet and listen to the speaker who is usually speaking in their native language. What you must do is pick up your headphone and flip to the channel of English which is terribly translated for you throughout the session. Unlike in the Council of Europe there are no official languages (English and French) and every single language of the EU must be represented. What a miracle. 2) For the majority of our stay we listened to one-minute speeches about issues the members were bringing up in their respective countries. Poland was bitching that a few polish names were left off a monument for the train bombing in Spain. Italy was being criticized with its harsh policies of deporting Romanians for the suspicion of being criminal and for having harsh conditions for the ROMA or gypsies. Italy later defended itself in a grandeur tirade by stating that the criticisms were hypocrisy due to the treatment of gypsies around the rest of Europe and even in Romania where I am sure the conditions are worse than Italy. Britain kept saying that the EU was nailing more pegs into the coffin of British sovereignty, which I was delighted to hear when you learn about that so much in school. There were other speeches and tirades, but those were the most interesting to me. It got to a point where my professor who is Italian showed me the list of parliamentarians and one of them having a last name of Mussolini. He explained to me that she was the grand-daughter of the dictator and had actually been a soft core porn star under a different name before her political career. I can’t even imagine the implications of that if she was an American politician. Oh wait…maybe Hillary has another life that we don’t know about…you know to kind of get back at Billy Boy…haha I am trying to decide who is the better woman…Where is Condy when you need her?
Our session was followed up by a Slovenian lecturer who gave us more regurgitation of what we have been learning in our classes but was surprisingly interesting. Two things that struck me about him was his comment on the conflict of American aggression (Iraq) and that he wished weapons would just go away. Now I agree that there needs to be peace in the world, but human nature always gives weapons defensive utility. After his arousing speech, we hurried back to the train for Paris. Too bad we couldn’t stay longer because apparently President Sarkozy was giving a speech before the Parliament. We actually saw them preparing for his reception and press conference blasting the French national anthem. Too bad, I would have really liked his hard-line approach and get the European Union moving away from its current stagnant nature.
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