After a crazy first week of meeting everyone, getting settled in our home stay, going on multiple interviews all over the city, and visiting Antwerp, Ghent, and Brugge I thought that the first day of work would be a nice change of pace. Finally I would be settling into a routine of work, well I was wrong from the get go. Right after I arrived at work my boss said that we would be attending a trade fair in Kortrijk to check out the exhibitors and determine if any of them would be a good fit to join Agoria. Then we drove back to the office for an hour where I set up my internet connection, got my security badge and was given a huge stack of reading. After that we went to a conference given by the Royal Higher Institute for Defense. Here I listened to the Minister of Defence of the Republic of Indonesia speak about strategic threats in Asia. This was followed by a reception where I met the Defense minister for Belgium as well as many other higher ups. What a whirlwind of a first day.

Over the course of the day a couple of things became clear to me. The first is that I need heels. I know this sounds like a small detail, but difference in height was very obvious. Of the few women that I met all were wearing heels and the men were all very tall. If I am going to continue to meet individuals in the security field, which my boss, Dany, has assured me that I will, I defiantly need the heels. They are more formal as well.

The other thing is that I need to take a crash course in Flemish and French spoken language. Most of the people that I have met in the past two days speak Flemish, French and English and can easily switch between the three. Many of the conversations that I listened to yesterday were in all three languages. If I want to come back here and work after grad school this is going to be a must because I like to be able to participate.

Last of all, I need to make a stack of business cards. These connections are going to be incredibly important when I begin looking for jobs.

After the first day, I am quite excited to see where the rest of this internship will go. Even though security issues aren't my area of expertise, the way that this organization is set up - as an intermediary between business interests and government - is exactly in my area of interest. I hope to apply what I learn about the structure to the rest of my studies in international organizations and diplomacy.