For the second day i take a tram to the Parliament.
Only today i toke the B and forgot to step out on time, so i pass Wacken and end at River de L'Aar tram sation, so i have to go back with the B tram to Wacken and walk the last station to Parlement Europeen station. Waiting would be longer because this last part is about 4 minutes.
At the European Parliament i arrive at the PRESS entrance / nr 2. Where a big que is waiting to check in. I take of my belt, put my mobile-phone, and all things in my pockets in the plastick square boxes that have to go through the scanner.
At 9:05 i am inside the building and in the PRESS ROOM i see the other Dutch Journalist who was sitting on a wrong place, where another female journalist from another country reserved the seats with her group.
We walk downstairs and at B11 and B09 we take place.
I am sitting at B11, open the explorer screen in front of me.
The plenary briefing link is http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/agenda/briefing/2017-10-02
strange to see 2017 in this screen, while it already is 2018, but probably it shows a year back on the information of the recent documents.
Actualy it is the wrong link and it is wrong on all computers because of a fault in thi page named localhost/
Suddenly my wifi code on my mobile phone doesn't connect to the username/identifiant : visit0207
password/ mot de passe : 1sm0X
So i get a A4 printed page at the PRESS desk from a very friendly woman,
it shows i have to try the other Wifi.
Centre de Presse PE Strasbourg
and connect by filling in my firstname, lastname, emailadres.
After doing this my screen shows the following : connected .
On 11 o'clock i have a meeting at the Plenar Meeting thanks to sending an email to all Dutch speaking MEP's and receiving a whatsapp message with a confirmation from Nick Janssens (representative) for Hilde Vautmans / ALDE BE
..
the podcast ...
Luister naar Hilde Vautmans ALDE BE European Parliament Strasbourg van EUIA PRESS EUIAOJ PODCASTS #np op #SoundCloud
I wake up very early, check some documents i toke from the first day and see the MEP's list with emailadresses. I try to find out all Dutch speaking people and select them with a pen. After filling all email adresses in my emailbox on my laptop, i sent them a written mail about my situation and request a moment of 2 minutes for an interview.
3 people reacted, 1 is an opportunaty and appointment on Wednesday 11 o'clock
The others are an excuse not to make an appointment this week.
1 or 2 adresses i tried to sent i didn't write right, so i had to sent them again.
I TAKE THE TRAM TO THE PARLIAMENT. costs 3,30 Euro for 1 retour ticket.
In the morning i follow the
Together with the other Dutch journalist i meetup in the press center.
we visit a plenair meeting. I feel tired of not much sleep.
A short while we listen to a dialogue and see the votings.
After an hour i go my own way and later we meet again in the press room.
in the midday i walk around the building and film some more.
See the video.
Sleeping in a hotel, at about 5 km from the location of the European Parliament.
The first day i walked this distance in the morning and late back in the evening.
The 10 km did me good, because i was feeling tired from a long day at an imense location with so many people and so much opportunaties.
The European Union is big, work is always in progress, the Commission and the Parliament are 2 different things and there are a lot of cases going on.
So many representatives from so many countries, and as a beginning journalist it is like swimming in a big ocean without knowing where the coast is.
But it also feels like a day at the beach on an island,.. because everything is clean here and well arranged. There is a big facilitation for the press and the press room is so good that the first day is like a dream. Laptops where you can print your declaration forms, internet, the online streams, access to internet but only the right pages from the EU, EP and EC with live video content.
Then there is the desk, with information, the daily wifi login code on a small paper and so many printouts to read in all the European languages.
Isn't this a waste of paper and can't this be 100% digitalized?
It is a must to provide information to the people and there are always ways to make it better, as a journalist i am willing and able to work on this for the next 4 days.
Hoping that my notes, recordings and publications can help future journalists.
The first day flies and in the evening i get a chance to interview 3 people in Dutch for the soundcloud channel from EUIA PRESS, the platform i try to innitiate for beginning journalists and for all journalists to get together, find stories and work together on research and covering stories.
How can it be that in a big organisation like this nothing goes wrong?
Probably there are many things going right, and a lot of things can be better, but it seems like a perfect day. Only one thing is making it difficult for me,..
that's my energy, because i already was a bit sick, had an aching throath and was very tired from a flue and some sleepless nights.
My first night in the hotel wasn't a problem, but the second unfortunately sleepless and restless from some bad food.
The vegan bread from the cafe at the Parliament was great, for only 2,70 Euro you get a big bread with salad on it and avocado. The coffee for only 1 Euro is a bit to much for me, so i try to drink a lot of water, but there aren't many facilitations for free water in the Parliament so i had to buy a bottle.
Fortunately Strasbourg has a lot of shops and supermarkets, but the first day is a disaster, because after 21:00 all shops are closed and i walk out the parliament on 21:00 and had to walk for about 45 minutes to get to the centre.
Why did my hotel ask for Tourist Tax again, after i payed it already, is there some corruption in this industry
Why don't they use scanners in the European Parliament, so i can get my files in one online cloud and drive map and sent this for the declarations to the right person, so i don't have to run around the whole building from office to office.
My traveling expenses where payed by the European Parliament,
a journalist could get a rembourse of 2 days, while visiting 2 days of Plenair Meetings.
2x 180 Euro - 360 Euro and 171 Euro for my flight ticket is 531 Euro.
