EU Take 2

Today was a nice relaxing day. Three friends and myself journeyed over to the European Parliament, which was in session, and it was a neat experience. We arrived around 11am so the chamber only had several people from each political party. They were all discussing "EU policy approach to the ITU World Radiocommunication Conference 2012" so it was nothing heated or anything you would see on a TV show but interesting none the less.

What I thought the most interesting thing was in the chamber was not the people making the decisions, although that is obviously the most important, but the translators. There were only four in each booth but between the four they knew all the languages. I suppose being from The States this blows my mind. I even flipped through every channel just to listen a bit to each language and all the translators were so fast. I think this would be one of the coolest jobs you could get. This was just one of my observations that astonished me.

Another thing I noticed is that a few of the countries had small flags from their country where they sit. This is interesting to see where each country sits but it almost defeats the purpose of a European identity. These people, mainly the British from what I could see, are almost separating themselves. One of the goals is giving a European Identity to all of Europe to unify but just from these little flags I feel like you can see that they will never feel like we do as unified Americans. That was just a thought that popped into my mind when I saw the flags.

Besides being envious of the translators that can speak many languages it was a great experience that not many people can say they have had. I am glad I woke up early and made the journey.


-Tyler Underwood