should I stay or should I go

In reference to my post from June 16, about the implications of so many commissioners participating in this year's EP elections, for all those interested in following what's happening on the European arena, i.e. which commissioners remain in the Commission, which take up the EP, an almost resolved situation is presented in today's euractive article.

I guess all I need to do is complain a little;)

Ever since the last post about it being very cold in Brussels, it has been sunny, stuffy, even hot, for a whole week straight! amazing the powers of blogging;)

Ps. I've been adding quite a few restaurants to my right hand side list. Almost all of the ones I've visited so far have been great, some have been just OK, but still good, just not recommendable enough, none have been terrible:) That is another wonderful aspect of Brussels, the variety of food and it's quality:) Plus the service is usually just excellent, friendly, awake, aware, with a smile and ready to assist you - I know a few locations where this package is either incomplete, not present at all, or very very rare...;)
I absolutely recommend going to all of the places on my list, and if anyone will have a bad experience in any of those, I just won't believe it...:)

you need warmer clothes in the summer than in the winter...

Yes, this is by far the downside of Brussels:( No summer on the first day of summer is a bummer, even if I don't care so much about the weather. The weekend was really cold. I didn' know what else to put on myself. The thermometres keep lying! They keep saying 16 degrees. Yet it feels like 8. I don't exagerate. Being Polish I know how to dress for the weather, know how to deal with colder summers, and extremely cold winters. But we come badly equipped to deal with humidity, or with lying thermometres. When thermometres in Poland show 16 Celsius, you know you'll need a long sleeve, most likely a jacket if it's not sunny. But you know you won't need much more than that. Here 2 cotton layers, a coat and a scarf are not enough:( The local 16 is much more penetrating, be it the wind or the humidity, you just feel unprotected by what you wear:(
And I even chose Alaska for a honeymoon, so I really enjoy cold summers; but not like this. Not when dressing for the weather means still feeling cold.
In fact all weekend long I've been having Alaska déjà vus and didn't know why. That was the last place during summer when I felt this cold and so bulky from all the layers I had on LOL. Alaska was much more dry though....

the Eurocity in barbed wire

In preparation for tomorrow's summit, the streets around Schuman are taking on a new look. Stands and barricades ok, but barbed wire -? Is that really necessary?

understanding the current situation of the EU

It is definitely an interesting moment in EU's history. There are plenty of uncertainties and the more is uncertain politically and institutionally and dependent on some other uncertain, the more scenarios are possible for the coming months. I just read a very good article (The new European Commission) which explains just how complex is the current state. Anyone trying to get it all together will appreciate this piece:)

Perhaps a side topic, but definately related to the moment's unsettled issues, is something I have not paid attention to, i.e. the number of commissioners who participated in the latest EP elections, and the implications of this, in the event they got reappointed for commissioner. This section I'll just paste in directly, as it's really thought provoking...

Of particular interest this year, however, was the fact that a number of commissioners put themselves forward for June's EU elections as high-profile names on their national party lists. According to EU rules, if commissioners choose to return to their home countries to engage in active campaigning, they must leave their positions. However, if they simply attach their name to a party list, they are not required to step down.

As a result, a commissioner could, in theory, head an electoral list in their member state and gain many votes due to his/her high profile, then decide to not take up their seat in the Parliament, thus passing their seat to the next person on the list, all the while continuing to work for the EU executive. Indeed, this is precisely what happened as Commissioners Kuneva, Hübner and Reding topped the poll in Bulgaria, Poland and Luxembourg respectively.

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, president of the Party of European Socialists (PES), told EurActiv that "some commissioners will use their position to promote themselves as candidates. That is wrong, and the president of the Commission should insist that anyone who does so must stand down".

Strongly rebuking this practice, Rasmussen said although "commissioners are party-political," they "need to keep their official duties very separate from their political activities," adding that he "can name, shame and complain" if he believes "commissioners are abusing their positions or taking advantage of their president's party-political sympathies".

[via Euractiv]

[edit] Although, since I just read that Lewandowski was chosen for the Polish Commissioner I guess, at least in the case of Poland, there won't be dissapointed voters who will realise they have given their support to a person, who has turned down to represent them, and passed on the mandate to the next in line....who doesn't necessarly have to be bad...just wasn't the one voted for...
Let's see what happens in Bulgaria and Luxembourg.

3 things I love about Brussels

I could probably give a longer list, but the 3 I want to mention really make me happy. It's something I have noticed since day one, something that calms me and makes me think this city is special.

Number 1 - plenty of roses. everywhere you look there's a rose garden, either a public space, the entrance of an apartment building, the front lawn of someone's private home, often they just grow wild, next to a tree in the middle of a sidewalk. Additional plus, they smell. The ones in The Netherlands never smelled. God knows I searched and searched up and down the bloemenmarkt, and all the flower shops of the Jordaan...

Number 2 - brids singing. For the moment we live in a place not too far away from the Council and Commission, so it's not literally in the centre, but it's still central Brussels. It's a jogging 7 minutes away from the Berlaymont. Our windows do go out to an interior courtyrard rather then the busy street, but still, we are right on a busy road. And I hear birds all day long. How perfect:)

Number 3 - so many people jog. The Cinquantenaire is almost always filled with joggers. It gives me a feeling of a city full of people who care about their health and fitness. Plus they're omnipresence gives me a healthy peer pressure, not to be any worse.

For the moment those 3 suffice, for a 1st month's summary:)

Faces of MEPs

[via Gazeta Wyborcza]

Since I have to work on the html side of the previous post what I just found I'm posting to a new entry. The former one is already lengthy.
You don't judge a book by its cover, but I love seeing a face next to a name. If a face can be misleading, a name alone, even more. I think you can tell much more from a face than most people are willing to admit they do. Eyes further tell a wealth of information. I know this from personal experience and from some so far very limited reading. The study of interpreting human eyes though, I'm leaving for when I'm 65 - or perhaps by then I won't need psychology books to explain it all to me.
Malcolm Gladwell in his Outliers explained at a level for people with little science understanding, how many muscles there are in human face, how different combination of contracting together different muscles reflect an emotion, and how the observer, often unaware, reads (and acts upon) this information flawlessly. So yes, I think a face is important to see. Not for aesthetic judgement, but for a complete appreciation of the personality. Although, a face seen live (or least recorded in movement), tells much more, than one frozen on a photograph, it is always a step closer to full appreciation. So here are the faces of the new Polish MEPs.

European Election results & Polish MEPs

Gazeta Wyborcza included after Le Monde a really cool gadget, where you can see the European Election results by country and by political affiliation. Available in several languages as well. How cool.


I could just give you a link, but I'm worried it will soon cease to function, so I'll copy from the article of Gazeta Wyborcza as well, the results of the Polish elections to the European Parliament. You never know when you'll need this;)

Ostateczna lista europosłów

2009-06-08, ostatnia aktualizacja 2009-06-08 21:43

Frekwencja: 24,53 proc.

Podział głosów i mandatów:
PO - 44,43 - mandatów - 25
PiS - 27,40 - mandatów - 15
SLD-UP - 12,34 - mandatów - 7
PSL - 7,01 - mandatów - 3
Centrolewica - 2,44 proc.

Mandaty:

PSL
Andrzej Grzyb
Kalinowski Jarosław
Siekierski Czesław

SLD- UP
Lidia Geringer de Oedenberg
Adam Gierek
Bogusław Liberadzki
Wojciech Olejniczak
Joanna Senyszyn
Marek Siwiec

Janusz Zemke

PO
Piotr Borys
Jerzy Buzek
Róża Thun
Małgorzata Handzlik
Hibner Jolanta
Hübner Danuta
Danuta Jazłowiecka
Sidonia Jędrzejewska
Filip Kaczmarek
Lena Kolarska Bobińska
Janusza Lewandowski
Krzysztof Lisek
Elżbieta Łukacijewska
Bogdan Marcinkiewicz
Sławomir Nitras
Jan Olbrycht
Jacek Protasiewicz
Jacek Saryusz Wolski
Joanna Skrzydlewska
Bogusław Sonik
Rafał Trzaskowski
Jarosław Wałęsa
Paweł Zalewski
Artur Zasada
Tadeusz Zwiefka

PiS
Adam Bielan
Tadeusz Cymański
Ryszard Czarnecki
Marek Gróbarczyk
Michał Kamiński
Paweł Kowal
Jacek Kurski
Ryszard Legutko
Marek Migalski
Mirosław Piotrowski
Tomasz Poręba
Konrad Szymański
Jacek Włosowicz
Janusz Wojciechowski
Zbigniew Ziobro

Podział mandatów w okręgach wyborczych

Okręg nr 1 Pomorze:
Janusz Lewandowski PO
Jarosław Wałęsa PO
Tadeusz Cymański PiS

Okręg nr 2 Kujawsko-pomorskie:
Tadeusz Zwiefka PO
Janusz Zemke SLD.

Okręg nr 3 Warmia, Mazury i Podlasie:
Krzysztof Lisek PO
Jacek Kurski PiS.

Okręg nr 4 Warszawa:
Danuta Huebner,
Paweł Zalewski i
Rafał Trzaskowski PO,
Michał Kamiński z PiS-u oraz
Wojciech Olejniczak z SLD.

Okręg nr 5 Mazowsze:
Jolanta Hibner PO,
Jarosław Kalinowski PSL
Adam Bielan z PiS.

Okręg nr 6 Łódź
Jacek Saryusz-Wolski
Joanna Skrzydlewska PO,
Janusz Wojciechowski z PiS.

Okręg nr 7 Wielkopolska
Filip Kaczmarek
Sidonia Jędrzejewska PO,
Konrad Szymański z PiS
Marek Siwiec z SLD
Andrzej Grzyb z PSL.

Okręg nr 8 Lubelszczyzna:
Lena Kolarska-Bobińska PO
Mirosław Mariusz Piotrowski PiS.

Okręg nr 9 Podkarpacie:
Elżbieta Łukacijewska PO
Tomasz Poręba z PiS.

Okręg nr 10 Małopolska:
Róża Thun,
Konstanty Miodowicz oraz
Bogusław Sonik z PO,
Zbigniew Ziobro,
Paweł Kowal oraz
Władysław Włosowicz z PiS,
Joanna Senyszyn z SLD i
Czesław Siekierski z PSL-u.

Okręg nr 11 Na Śląsku:
Jerzy Buzek,
Jan Olbrycht,
Małgorzata Handzlik oraz
Bogdan Marcinkiewicz z PO,
Marek Migalski i
Izabela Kloc z PiS oraz
Adam Gierek z SLD.

Okręg nr 12 Dolny Śląsk:
Jacek Protasiewicz i
Danuta Jazłowiecka z PO,
Ryszard Legutko z PiS i
Lidia Geringer de Oedenberg z SLD.

Okręg nr 13 Lubuskie i Zachodniopomorskie:
Sławomir Nitras i
Artur Zasada z PO,
Elżbieta Rafalska z PiS i
Bogusław Liberadzki z SLD.

Źródło: Gazeta Wyborcza

sleepless in Bruxelles

It's late and I can't sleep. Tomorrow morning 2 (possibly more) apartment visits, so I'll have to wake up. I think I'm too excited to sleep. Under my skin I feel we're close to making a decision on the apartment. Just thinking that maybe we'll know soon where we'll live makes me too happy to sleep I guess.
The last apartment we lived in wasn't perfect, although it seemed so when we decided on it. Same story with the preceding one. This is what makes me worried and what perhaps contributes to insomnia more then excitement. I guess judgement on rented places is always weak... you can only notice so many things during a visit or two. The rest of the character of the apartment you can only discover living in it. Some later-discovered are just worse than others. For instance, the 2 last places had mice. Yes, I'm not kidding, real grey mice. Not every day, of course, but for me once in a lifetime of an apartment is enough... So I'll already be happy if our new Brussels home is a mice-free environment.
Many other things bothered us in the last 2 places, too many to waste time writing about them, but through these experiences a list got created, with all the apartment no-nos:) Things we in essence could have avoided had we known they'd cause trouble, or had we known they existed. 2 bad apartment experiences smarter than before, we approached this search with an extensive list of criteria. So demanding turned out to be our requirements, that many agencies remained silent after receiving the list haha. Whereas for me, those were just the basics that needed be satisfied for me to at all consider visiting the place. The very subjective do I like it, or do I see my things arranged here, or is it my style obviously could only be considered in the case an apartment met all the 'basic' demands.
I have seen very many places; most not satisfying the basic. But not satisfying 1 or 2 of them was good enough for me to contemplate it. All depended on which criteria was not met and how overachieving were the satisfied ones. Regardless my flexibility, all runner ups stayed as runner ups just for a short time. Whatever they failed in was usually just the beginning of other major drawbacks, often realized with a delay.
I have lived in very many rented places, well to me 7 is many, especially if I consider it was just during the last 8 years. Most places were found relatively quickly. I often found them towards the beginning of the search, continued to look some more and than realised the others were worse. A common mistake often made, I let charming places fool me, Charming is great, for a neighbour's dog, a postcard, or a weekend hotel. Your home, should be most of all safe and practical. The current narrowed down of runner ups is obviously full of charming places haha. I guess that's what charming is all about, fogging up your vision, keeping you hooked on something without letting you focus on the objective aspects. Keep your fingers crossed for a quick resolution; I've gotta move on to gym and job hunt.

Complaint about 24counter.com + my to do list is not shrinking:(

Which is why I have less and less time to blog. But since I just checked the flag and the visit counters, and they both seem to be reset, I had to write and complain about both! I have no idea what happened. but I see that my other blogs where I was using the same counters have been reset as well:( What a shame I had to loose confidence after more than a year of being a happy user. The 2 counters I'm talkig about are both from 24counter, although one tracks total hits, the other total hits by country. Has this happened to anyone else? The Brussels blog is new, plus I blog less frequently and the slow flow of visiters I was getting was absolutely normal and it satisfied me perfectly; it was a good solid start. But a blog I've had since February 2008, suddenly shows 200 hits -? Thankgod I can verify with google analytics which says over 14590 visits... talk about credibility and popularity of my blog going down the drain. I won't complain more. I'll try to fiure out if there's a way I can manually reset them according to the statistics of google analytics. In the meantime though, I do not advise anyone using these tools, as without notice or explanation they failed to work properly. Unless someone can explain to me what happened and the explanation is perfectly rational and soothing...

from St. Martin to Anguilla

Today is a 5th flip-flop day. It was very cold when I woke up. The chilly wind coming in through the window and the grey clouds beyond were a surprise, as I had checked the weather the night before. As soon as I was sitting I looked it up again and accuweather confirmed a high of 26 and full sunshine. Confused once more by the meteorology of my new home I dressed warm, but took flip-flops into my bag, just in case. Until 9.30 it was still cloudy and chilly, I was actually regretting not having taken a scarf. And then out of nowhere the heat settled. Ok, ok. It was not the Napoli, Barcelona or St.Martin heat. But it was very warm. So off went my mocasins, on came my flip-flops. I'm a bit picky about shoes, or rather I have very demanding feet. My shoes must be comfortable. Of course I love cool, pretty, fun and stylish shoes, so it takes forever for me to find a pair that satisfies all of the above criteria, once it does, there's almost no limit I'll go to, to get what I want;) Mine aren't any old flip-flops. These are bought in Cancun, made in Brazil, tested in the heat of Miami, St. Martin, San Juan Puerto Rico, Guadalajara, Mexico DF, Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Anguilla...Once I realised how wonderful they were, I bought myself more pairs in other colours, plus a few more for presents. I'm not much into boasting about brands, but if you want good quality flip-flops the Ipanema signed by Giselle Bundchen, are the thing to get. My well tested foot companion did not deal well with the Brussels heat haha. I did walk a lot today, partially because I had to run arrands, and partially because wanting to discover the city I took a few wrong turns. I just redid my route on google maps and the result is a bit over 11km; it felt like much more for the soles of my feet. When I jog that distance, I feel perfectly fine. Can't quite understand why I am in so much pain today. It looks far on the map, I did walk through 3 different neighbourhoods, but it is roughly the distance between St. Martin and Anguilla. No one's ever tried walking that of course, but anyone who's been to either, knows that the islands look like they're right next to each other, it looks like nothing. So why are my feet killing me!

4 days in a row of great weather...

yes, there is a spring in Brussels. friends talk about sunburns, no kidding. I still practice precaution in dressing (haha) but the days are lately gorgeous!