Today has been a full day. Originally we didn't have anything planned, but we decided to join the other students in the chateau in a castle tour and a wine tasting. We learned all kinds of information on the bus ride up the mountain. For instance, Geranium is planted for keeping mosquitoes away since people in Strasbourg live near a river. Roses are used to protect vineyards from disease. They detect it and are infected to save the grapes from disease. Also, bac...

This morning after eating in the breakfast room of the Chateau, our group and the Brazilian students had class and discussed the sovereignty of the EU. The lecture was very good up until a dozen horn players started to play in the front of the chateau... And playing badly I might add. We were just glad that it was around 11:00am instead of a wake up call. After the lecture we met up with the Brazilian students and headed into town to visit a museum dedicated to ...

Today has been a long day of travel, but thankfully we had a private bus to drive us from Brussels to our appointment with the European Court of Auditors in Luxembourg, then to our chateau in Strasbourg, France. With an early start, we had to be packed, well-dressed, and finished eating breakfast by 7:30am. Then we had about three hours of travel to Luxembourg where we were able to sleep. The Court of Auditors in Luxembourg was really nice and offered us coffee,...

This morning our group had an appointment with the European Parliament in Brussels. For this meeting though we were accompanied by a group of diplomats from the Caribbean Islands who had just arrived from Austria. The parliament is basically the democratic part of the EU that if I had to explain it to someone, I would compare it to the US House of Representatives except the parliament has 754 members. None of them sit with the other representatives from their cou...

What a full day it has been already. This morning we had an appointment with the European Council and our presenter was from Spain. After giving us a brief history of the EU, she went on to discuss what the European Council does and how it differs from the Council of the European Union. While the Council of the EU is the primary lawmaker of the EU, the European Council exercises no legislative functions. The European Council is involved with meeting with the head...