Wëllkomm to Luxembourg

I jumped at the chance to take up an internship at the British Embassy in Luxembourg. What is not to love about living in the heart of Europe? Luxembourg is famously close to Belgium, France and Germany... But what about Luxembourg itself? The closer the dates of my internship approached, the more I realised how little I knew about Luxembourg and Luxembourgish culture, let alone exactly what role the British Embassy and British culture played in it. Hopefully this blog will help to answer some of these questions and give a flavour of life in Luxembourg and in an overseas diplomatic mission from the perspective of a 23 year old British intern.

I was excited to hear from Ambassador Walpole that the British Embassy here was extremely active and that there were lots of exciting local events that we would be part of as well as being involved with ministers coming over from the UK to take part in EU council meetings. However, when Alice mentioned that I would be surprised during my time here by the variety of things that Embassy did, I don't think I was even remotely prepared for what the first week had in store...

Aside from getting to know 'Team Luxembourg' this first week was a full on introduction to life as part of an Embassy. The first day was spent preparing for a unique and special event that would bring the British Embassy in touch with a wide spectrum of Luxembourgers. To celebrate the birth of Prince George of Cambridge, the Embassy had been in touch with the families of all babies born in Luxembourg on the same day to invite them to a tea party at the Residence. In total 17 of the 19 babies born on the 22nd of July were welcomed to the Residence with their families for an afternoon of photos, cakes and celebrations. The families all signed a card was subsequently sent to the young British Prince and each child was given a special commemorative Emma Bridgewater mug to mark the occasion- what could be more quintessentially British?

Beautiful Emma Bridgewater mugs

The event couldn't have been a better introduction into Luxembourg's famously multicultural society. Of the families present there were those of Portuguese, Swedish, Russian, French and Luxembourgish descent.

Ambassador Walpole with the babies!

Doing my first press round up the next day was exciting- it seemed as though lots of Luxembourgish press including the Wort, Le Quotidien, the Chronicle and ANGLOinfo had caught our 'baby fever' too!