Ridhima, I miss you!!

Do you ever stop by here anymore?

Love,
Thu

Lobbyists, Tintin and European Commission visits...

The drive to Brussels from Strasbourg took far longer than it should have. Our driver was a certifiable Hari Sadu. I remember how on the trip to Strasbourg he yelled at Mads because he thought Mads had dropped boiled egg on his seat, when actually it was Alex. The Rules of the Bus were as follows:
1) No Food.
2) No Drinks.
3) No using the microwave.
4) Stops at overpriced pit stops every two hours.
Oh well, you cant have everything, I suppose.. It was kinda cool the way we drove through three countries though - France, Luxembourg and Belgium.

Brussels was a lot busier than Strasbourg. A lot of other parties to visit other than just European Union buildings. Our group was divided into two groups - staying at 2 different hotels - Manhattan and Arlequin. Hotel Manhattan where I was staying was a dingy old city hotel, two-star (you will see why this is relevant soon) which was in the red-light district and across the street from a strip club, which served us a stale roll for breakfast every morning. Hotel Arlequin where the others were staying was a three star, modern swank building, with a roof top breakfast lounge to envy. I think it is needless to say that we Manhattan people were jealous.

Anyway, the first day we arrived, we had a lecture by a Danish journalist who filled us in on the basic "wassup" with the European Union and how the future of any European Constitution hinges on Ireland's ratification of the Lisbon treaty. It was interesting to watch how the American students ask questions sometimes. Felt to me like they were challenging the speaker all the time.

The next morning we did a quite a bit of sight seeing the next morning. We walked everywhere from the Royal Palace to the Cathedral to the Tintin museum. That was fun. In the evening, we met a lobbyist for the Danish Shipowners Association who had prepared a powerpoint but unfortunately the hotel didnt have a projector so we had to imagine all his slides. And after that we went to Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office which had really good cookies. But not before Ole got us lost... :) That was really exciting for the Hong Kong students and understandably so.

In the evening, we all had a dinner in a restaurant on the restaurant street. Meriam had managed to in her adorable French get us a good deal so all 44 of us filled their restaurants. I sat next to Andrew and across from Oliver and Beth. And we participated in what was the Beth Challenge - getting Beth to talk to us. And she did. We got to know about her life, her hobbies, even her love life. And I am eager to see the beach in Hong Kong because a lot seems to happen there. Hmm.. I must explore this.

The next day was a meeting with the American Chamber of Commerce. None of the speakers there were even American - one was British and the other was Italian but they did a good job teaching us about lobbying the European Parliament. That was a very good presentation, indeed.
We loafed around for a bit after that. Thu, Meriam, Jessica Tou and I had the best hot chocolate ever at a place close to the Danish Embassy there. The speaker at the Danish Embassy successfully managed to put all of us to sleep with his exact literal translation of Danish proverbs into English.

On our final day, we visited the European Commission which was really cool. The chairs on which we were seated actually had microphones next to them with translation functions. We actually got to talk to some from the department of External Affairs on the EU's stand on Tibet and David and Jessica grilled him on the EU's stand on Taiwan. That was an awesome moment. The EU has no real foreign affairs policy. Its all just talk.After that was over we had some free time to pay our homage to the chocolate shops and Belgian Waffle. But before we sank our waffles into any waffles, we went to see the Atomium and by we, I mean, Awika, JTou, Thais, Sofia and I.. Sofia was too cute because for some reason she couldnt stop smiling. The Atomium was cool, especially considering it was built in the 1950s. After that we headed to Manneken Piss, or as someone famously said, "That little piss.." because the waffle shop next to it is supposed to have the best waffles ever.. And it was true. I had one with white chocolate sauce and dark chocolate sauce. yum..

After that we went to buy chocolate from this cute chocolate shop where the Belgian lady got very excited when she found out I was from India and she told me how much she cried when she saw Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. Bollywood gets everywhere. Just outside the shop was a little bazaar of sorts and it was a charming experience buying perfume from a perfumer actually from Grasse who was selling his perfumes in big vats. And they were really good and cheap too. He really knew his stuff. I made him smell the cherry blossom one that I liked and he was able to suggest a perfume that I really loved.

Nothing much after that. Just the trip back home, which was fairly uneventful except Justin and Andrew lost money gambling on a slot machine in the middle of Germany at 2 in the morning. After getting back on the bus though, Andrew and I started what came to be known as the Kelvin Challenge - similar to the Beth Challenge. It wasn't as successful though. The rest of the night was merely a musical chairs games of seats on the bus. Eventually though we reached Copenhagen, and there were teary goodbyes and hugs like we would never see each other again. A feeling of fellowship. Perfect.

Off to Germany for tequila flavoured beer

Our study trip to Brussels and Strasbourg was perhaps the best first bonding experience we had in the GLOBE programme. We departed from Solbjerg Plads at midnight on the Saturday for Strasbourg and everyone had come prepared with their pillows and blankets. I suppose I was one of the only ones in our entire GLOBE class of 44 that was excited about the road trip to Strasbourg - that 14 hour long bus ride. As I told Razz (Rasmus) as we drove out of Copenhagen, who I ended up sitting next to for the whole trip, "I want to see what it feels like to drive on the Autobahn. I wonder how fast we will go." Razz burst my bubble though just by saying, "How fast do you think we can go in a bus?"Anyways, as the trip got underway, the back row got progressively more drunk and our part of the bus swang between more chatty and less chatty. Finally though, I think a lot of people had dozed off when we stopped near the Danish-German border to refill the tank and a lot of disoriented GLOBErs got off wondering which planet they were on, let alone which country.

Our next pit stop was at breakfast time inside Germany, where for the first time, Meriam uttered the historic words of "Geghocten Aeg" which means boiled egg (I think). The rest of the bus ride was pretty uneventful. We watched a Danish film called The Flickering Lights and I finally understand what they mean by dark humour. I dont think I could get the humour in it. In my opinion, the highlight of that trip was crossing the bridge over the Rhine from Germany into France. After having heard so much of that historic river, I think that was really awesome.

Strasbourg is a really small town in the historic French district of Alsace. The reason we went there was because that was where the European Parliament was at the time. So we actually got to visit the European Parliament building which was awesome and talk to an MEP.

Jessica, Yvonne and I also visited the Strasbourg history museum with Ole, which was nice. It was great to go with him because that just meant that none of us had to read any of the signs. He just told us the history and we talked about our own family histories. It was a cosy time.

Another more social highlight from the trip was the night we were chilling and walked all the way to Germany to buy beer. Really not that far. In fact it was closer to go to Germany then it was to go into town from where our racy (literally, as it was called Hotel F1) hotel was. We sang, bought tequila flavoured beer, ran down hills, gave each other nicknames and chatted till 2 in the night. It was glorious and it was people from all three schools. Truly, an international feeling

S for Shameless

Hari Sadu, a new social phenomenon in India and latest endearing nickname in my house, is the protagonist from the advertisement of an online job portal in India. What does it mean to be called a Sadu? Well, 'sadu' in Hindi means grouch, but Hari Sadu has personified grouchy, uptight and taken it into the 21st century. Also available with uprades. This time in Bangalore, I could see huge billboards showing a desktop with an error message that reads 'Hari Sadu Virus ver. 2.5.' Naukri.com has not only created a good ad but an iconic figure for middle class India.

Scavenger Hunt

The Holiday

I had the good fortune to catch a dreadful cold, flu, fever, cough (you name it, I caught it) after an awful two weeks of hard work, hard partying and emotional roller coasters. It is the best holiday ever. I suppose I consider it a holiday because it came at a time when I wanted it the most and so it is appreciated so much more. And this is all I am going to go into the whole sickness-is-the-body's-way-of-telling-you-to-relax routine. After all, I don't want my blog about the holiday to be boring.

I have been lying in bed all day with all my to-do lists surrounding me. Watching all those little post-its trying to be stern and remind me of all the tasks that I have not completed yet, I can't help but chuckle to myself. I have a feeling that in a little while I will no longer be able to control the giggles and it will blow out to full-sized maniacal laughter. Though now, the post-its are trying to talk some sense into me. They tell me that I should concerntrate on the tasks that are less cumbersome, tasks that I could accomplish while lying in bed. I wonder where they picked up the fine art of negotiation. But no matter, I can ignore them for a while longer.

Lying in bed all day, legitimately, without feeling guilty has its joys. For one, you discover and understand the nuances of your pillow and sheets much better. It came as a great surprose to me to find that the left side of my pillow is more comfortable to use as a teddy bear than the right side of my pillow which is the more firm, no-nonsense side. It positively reeks of army like discipline - the right side because if you sleep on it for the whole night you jump up early in the morning with a pain in the neck.

The other joy that I have discovered is cough lozenges. I think I may have a new addiction. I dread to count how many I must have popped in the last hour. A little later on I may indulge in a little arts and crafts and try and see what innovative things I can build with 50 lozenge wrappers.

The most fun though has been watching the sky change out of the window over my head. Glorious fun. I predicted that clouds would be rolling in from the west by mid-afternoon long before the TV weather man even got there. For now though I am enjoying the clouds.

This flu has also given me time to rediscover my iTunes library. Somehow the word library conjures up images of an old, long-forgotten, dusty, wood-paneled room with book reaching up to a very high ceiling and creaky wooden movable staircases that you use to get books from the very top shelves. OK, that was a rather rambly side note. The good thing is that I can always blame any ramblings to fever delirium. Anyway, to come back to why I mentioned my iTunes library, I just discovered a song called Life, more specifically Life (High Quality) by a Eurotrance group called E-Type and I can't help but think lying here in bed doing nothing and eating lozenges all day that it is very appropriate.

Proof

Finally, after months of bad conscience, it is scientifically proven that I am without guilt! It can now be shown that I am not a lazy person, who doesn't have interesting things going on in my life to share with the world... I can assure you that my silence in here is by no means a sign of that. No, I am just a girl with a blog, who doesn't blog - it's a Thu-thing.

Now how did I get this amazing insight?? It came to me yesterday, when Ridh and I were working on a project. Project equals research and research equals academic databases and no success in academic databases equals random search on google... After some hours of deep concentration, even google search becomes useless. That is, until you get the fantastic idea of googling anything that comes to your mind. In this case, Me, Myself, I, was what popped up in my head and I had to see how much truly valuable information there is in cyberspace. A search on my full name returned 1 (one!) hit. I guess I have to realize that I am not the most popular person in the world, but hey, this one hit was very useful!

It gave me the link to a blog I had 3 years ago when volunteering in Vietnam. Well, a blog is maybe too much said. There was a test post before I even left for the adventure and a post 4 months later, when I was about to return from it. Nothing in between - and this is definitely not due to the fact that there was nothing to tell. So this is my proof... I'm just not blogger-material!

But thumbs up for Ridh for trying to turn me into one :-)