EU Open House
On May 9th, I went to the EU Open House. The EU Open House is an annual event to celebrate Europe Day. On this day, we can visit different European embassies. The embassy we went to was the French embassy. The French embassy housed both the French and German embassies, so we got to see both of them at once. I heard that the line was going to be long, but I didn’t expect it to be as long as it was. The line was so long that it took a left and traveled all the way up a large hill to the gate of some random person’s house. Luckily, the line moved fast, and we got into the embassy in about 45 minutes.
The first thing waiting for us was a large fountain. I couldn’t tell what was in the middle of the fountain, but the design was cool. Upon entering, we could see the history of how the US and France first connected. The person who was mainly talked about was Lafayette, a French military officer. I had heard about Lafayette many times in Hamilton, but I never really knew about his history. There, I found out that he first came to the US when he was 19 to help the Continental Army. I also found out that he was very rich at the time. That made me wonder why he even considered fighting in a war in the first place. A funny thing I saw was that the Continental Army didn’t have enough funds to get Lafayette a boat to sail to their aid, so Lafayette purchased his own boat and got his men to sail to their aid instead. If I were that rich, living a comfortable life in France, I wouldn’t even want to go to war, especially if they didn’t even have the funds to pay for my trip.
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Inside the embassy, there was a movie theater. In the movie theater, they were playing World Cup highlights from 2014 and 2018 because those were the 2 years that Germany and France won. After watching some of the highlights, I followed the crowd into another room. In the new room, there was a long line, and I considered joining the line just to see what it was for, but when I walked to the front, it was just giving out bread. It might’ve been good bread, but I didn’t feel like waiting in line just for some bread. After this, I kept following the crowd until we were outside. Outside, there was a live performance of an assortment of people dancing and singing in German and French. I sat on the top of a small hill watching. There were also many activities there, like this ball throw. My sister got a mug for throwing a ball into a 3-point hole, which was the smallest and hardest one.
As I walked around outside, I noticed another building. In front of the building was a large sign that said, “No food or drinks of any kind,” so I thought it was some kind of temple or church, but I was very wrong. It was the place to renew your passport, and everything was formal, so when I walked in, everyone stared at me. When I walked out, I found my dad, and he bought some pastries, like a chocolate croissant that tasted very good. When I walked back into the main building, I saw people spinning a wheel for a question, and if they answered it right, they could get a prize. The question it landed on was, “What are the 6 founding members of the EU?” I had no clue, and neither did the person who spun the wheel, but at least I knew 2 of them, Germany and France. Afterwards, I searched it up, and the 6 are Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Luxembourg.
It was fun and relaxing walking around the French embassy, and I learned about Lafayette as well as the founding members of the EU. The pastries were good, and that made me wonder if the bread would have been good too, but it probably wasn’t worth standing in line for 30 more minutes. The weather was great, so being outside was comfortable, and I got to hear different types of German and French music, although accidentally walking into passport renewal wasn’t fun at all. When we left, I looked back and saw the fountain and recalled all the events, from good music to good croissants, and left satisfied.
