Life as an Intern

I finished my second day interning at the European Parliament and I must say it isn't quite as exciting as I imagined. The parliament is a lot less modern than what I thought. Our ID badge pictures come out in poor quality resolution and my colleagues still use internet explorer.

My office is rather small. I work in a room with my supervisor, Pesska, and in the adjourning room is my MEP (member of Parliament). She is quite nice, but it doesn't seem like either my MEP or my supeviser really have any idea what they want me to do. So far, I've been to a committee meeting on investment in green energy and I've written about the effect Obama's presidency will have on foreign policy in regards to Europe. It isn't the most exciting, but I have to remember it is only my second day.

Working with all Finnish people can be a little difficult too. We had lunch today with some people in our group and some Swedes that live in Finland (I guess they are a small minority) and they spoke in Finnish 90% of the time. I felt a little left out. I wish I was working with an English speaking country so at least I would understand what they're were saying. I feel like my supervisor's directions are poorly directed partly because he doesnt really know what he wants me to do and also because it's hard to explain it in english. I hope it gets better. This is not really making me that excited for politics, but I guess like anyway, an experience is what you make it. Once I get settled in a little more I think it will be better.

I'm really starting to become frustrated with the language barriers (yes there is more than one barrier). Even something as easy as asking for milk becomes a whole ordeal because chances are the person working in the grocery store doesn't understand or speak english and I don't have that big of a vocabulary in french yet. This is why I'm taking French. But really, French only helps me half the time because the area my school is in (and the school where the classrooms are located) are in Dutch, and at work all I hear is Finnish.