Brussels to Amsterdam

The days are going by incredibly fast packed with meetings, walking and lots of FOOD! Hopefully the walking will balace out the Belgium Waffles, Mussels, Beef stew, Chocolate, and Double fried Fries with curry sauce. I have my fingers crossed that I make it through the whole 24 days with my pants still fitting!


I could do a whole blog on the food and drink, but in between the many bites we have had the privelege to talk to interesting people and discuss European issues of the day. To finish up Brussels, we visted NATO and learned about Russia relations, operations in Afghanistan and the new NATO strtegic plan that will be coming out soon. Tuesday was all about the European Comission, EU and the European Parliment. Our lunch was at the Parliment hosted by European Fellow Alumni and Parliment representative, Ivailo Kalfin. Also joining us were Parliment representatives, Filip Kaczmarek, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and Michael Theurer. Both Filip and Jeanine were also GMF Alums.

A smaller group of us headed off to Amsterdam on Wednesday and are having a wonderful time. We are in the beautiful Ambassade Hotel right on one of the canals which has a brownstone, victorian style with extremely steep steps covered in a red velvet carpert up to my third floor room with great views.

We arrived around lunch and quickly sat our bags down and headed out with the few hours we had before our dinner meeting. We found Goodies, a cute café that met our criteria of finding something containing veggies and was not fried with heavy sauce. Not sure if our huge sandwiches and soup qualify for “healthy,” but it was all good! Around the city, there are people on bikes everywhere and they are not playing around - you will get run over if you are not careful! The streets around us are filled with adorable brownstone boutiques where I have already used my negotion tactics acquired in China last year.

Our host, Bram Boxhoorn, started the adventure with a dinner with European Fellow Alums. This was a delicious dinner with wonderful company. I had the pleasure of sitting between Rene van Rijckevorsel, Deputy Editor and Marike Stellinga, Economics Editor, both for Elsevier magazine. We had an interesting conversation on the topic around the law that allows people to work part time in a higher level position.

Today we discussed Immigration and Integration; Issues on Dutch identity around prostitution, euthanasia and soft drugs with film director Eddy Terstall; and neigborhood revitilization and community development in the Red Light district.

Tomorrow....The Hague all day with possible chance of snow - thank goodness for my La Candienne boots!

City of Brussels

                                                            Brussels Palace

Yummy Easter Chocolate

Antwep City Hall