Luxemburg, Äddi!

Three months ago, I arrived in Luxembourg. In spite of the dark and cold, January was actually a great time to set up camp. What better way to start the New Year than in a new place, doing new work, meeting new people, gaining new experiences, and all in a country that had a new Prime Minister for the first time in 19 years.

 

Luxembourg's colours and beloved Red Lion

Since day one, work has been a healthy combination of challenging and interesting. With the Embassy being quite small, I have been able to gain an insight into what each member of the team does, and to help out with a large variety of tasks and projects. The working day has thus been wonderfully varied, which is always a bonus. Furthermore, I’ve been able to learn more about the UK’s engagement in foreign and EU affairs, and I feel better acquainted with how the FCO and its many missions operate. Until seeing it in action, such a complex machine is quite hard to visualise, but my understanding of it has certainly begun to solidify. It has also been fascinating to see how the small country of Luxembourg has been coping with the changes to its administration, and how it has been responding to regional problems, national developments, and international crises. You could perhaps say that the Embassy has been the lens of a microscope that is trained on a selection of slides exhibiting some Foreign Service cells, EU molecules, and Luxembourgish DNA.

Luxembourg doesn't quite have a green glow yet, but maybe when summer comes...

 Developing a deeper understanding of Luxembourg’s administrative skeleton has been great; discovering its flesh – that is to say the populace – has been equally charming. Luxembourg is a great place to go, regardless of how many people you expect to know there: there is little anonymity and people are extraordinarily welcoming. Someone I met here said that everybody is nice to everybody else because they never know when they are going to meet again! Ostensibly cynical though this may be, there is some truth in it. In a place like London, all odds would be against a second meeting, but here in Luxembourg it’s a veritable likelihood. Furthermore, the variety of people I have met is astounding. There are people from all over the world and all walks of life, and it has been wonderful to see how they all come together in this brimming melting pot. 

If this pot is Luxembourg, what's inside is the most varied meal anyone's ever had

A recent addition to the Luxembourg creuset was Father Michael Lapsley, a South African priest, in town to launch the German-language version of his autobiography. During his book launch, he spoke of his experiences campaigning against the apartheid regime, before and after receiving in 1990 a letter bomb that blew off his hands and caused him to lose one eye. His story was compelling, to say the least. He addressed issues such as disability, trauma, and healing, and said he was grateful that the letter bomb had taken only his hands, leaving his greatest weapon, his tongue, perfectly intact. He propounded the need for individual independence, but also for individuals to be interdependent, and explained his understanding of forgiveness and justice, and how the two can be reconciled, in his view. It was an exceedingly thought-provoking event.

Fr Michael's autobiography, in German:  Mit den Narben der Apartheid: Vom Kampf für die Freiheit zum Heilen traumatischer Erinnerungen

And that same sentence could be re-applied to so many of the experiences I’ve had here; my mind has been kept happily scurrying. Just this week, I had the pleasure of meeting and attending a talk given by British rower, Steve Williams, OBE, two-time Olympic Gold medallist, and four-time world champion in the men’s coxless four. He was not there to promote his sport (the many descriptions of excruciating and constant pain could entice no-one but an extreme masochist); his focus lay elsewhere. Lots of what he said was about self-motivation, but he spoke equally about how to be a good team player, and a significant proportion of his talk was centred on being a good leader. Really, it spoke to everyone in some way; even if it did nothing to convince anyone that it would be fun to get up at 6am for an icy row, this indomitable athlete used his personal sporting anecdotes well in order to transmit some universally applicable mantras.

Steve Williams and his two Olympic Gold medals

Now, three months on from all the newness, it’s time for me to leave. The time I’ve spent here in Luxembourg is one I won’t be forgetting. Firstly, because I feel the skills I’ve learnt will stick with me for a long time, and secondly, because it has been such an enjoyable experience. Not just because of events like those elaborated upon above, but because of the work itself, its varied nature and fascinating substance, and because of the environment in which that work has taken place. The Embassy staff have been as welcoming as the Luxembourgers themselves, and working with them has been a treat. I’m really very grateful to have had the opportunity to intern here.

United in Diversity

March has not only seen a rise in temperatures, but also the dawn of Luxembourg’s presidency of the UN Security Council, and what a month to start. Luxembourg’s first action was to hold an emergency meeting on Ukraine during their very first day in office, and it has been all systems go ever since, what with the Benelux Foreign Ministers' visit to Kiev, and a heavy existing Security Council agenda. As a result, there has been much interaction with the Foreign Ministry, which has provided me with a remarkable insight into diplomacy. The best way I can describe this is that it reminds me of a wicker basket being woven, but where each individual twig is being woven by a different country: all weavers have the same goal (to create a basket), but each has a slightly different idea about the pattern. It’s all about the weaving process: how they work off each other, communicate, cooperate, compromise, and deal with clashes. At any rate, even if that made no sense, take my word for it that it’s fascinating.

Diplomacy in its figurative form. Image credit: prestigewicker.co.uk.

As well as this more politico-centric activity, the Embassy has been kept busy with its first Consular Outreach Reception, which took place on the second Tuesday of the month. It was a great event: firstly, it gave me the chance to understand the role of our consular services in far greater detail, and secondly, the Embassy was able to celebrate some extraordinary people, such as volunteers at homeless shelters and leaders of groups for women in distress. Not only did it allow our consular team to establish contact with local support groups, schools, hospitals, police forces, and charities, amongst others, but it gave all these the perfect opportunity to meet each other as well!

Networking. Image credit: ekaterinawalter.com

To further consolidate the Embassy’s relationship with local organisations, the Ambassador has also been to visit two of the local schools, and I accompanied her: one was an international school, where the Ambassador gave a careers talk to some keen sixth-formers, and the other a Luxembourgish school, where pupils in their first year of learning English wanted to learn more about the Ambassador’s role and be inspired to work hard at their English. They were using vocabulary and grammatical structures that were astonishingly advanced for the short length of time they had been learning; the teacher informed me that their grammar had been grounded the previous year by a course in Latin, and I suppose their exposure to an abundance of English media and American television must aid their language retention. Still, it was impressive. And it underlined another positive facet I’ve noticed of Luxembourg: that it seems to be a great place to bring up children; certainly, the advantages they’ll gain from such a fabulous education in languages are innumerable.

Image credit: worldnomads.com

These bonds with Luxembourgish professionals, which the Embassy staff work so hard to establish and nurture, have even proven themselves useful for one of my assignments. Part of my remit over the past few months has been to plan a commemorative exhibition about the bilateral relations between Luxembourg and the UK during the First World War, and recently the planning process reached the stage where we were ready to go to external organisations and enquire about potential artefacts we might be able to borrow. Amongst those organisations contacted were the national archives, the city archives, the photo archives and the Military History Museum in Diekirch, a town north of Luxembourg City. The particularly great thing about this stage of the process was that I got to visit all these places and rifle through their fascinating material myself. My now extremely high expectations of Luxembourgers’ charm were not disappointed; everyone I met at each of these institutions was intrigued by our narrative and eager to help. It will be exciting to get the chosen material together in one room later this year.

  

National Military History Museum in Diekirch.

 On the subject of historical war, I should mention that Luxembourg has been playing host to a home-grown cinema hit. The film, Heemwéi – Eng Odyssee (translation: Homesickness – an Odyssey), is the result of a seven-year independent project that cost just €25,000. It was realised by a team of volunteers, amateurs and local professionals in Luxembourg. Having wanted to watch it since its release in January, I finally did, and was duly impressed. The film revisits Luxembourg’s ambiguous WWII history, where the line between friend and foe was exceptionally vague. There is nothing sensational or condemning about the story; the depiction is realistic and gritty, and this translates into a thought-provoking production. I found it an interesting window into Luxembourg’s relationship with its past.

For, although Luxembourg is an extremely modern place, full of innovation and enterprising, it does still retain a link with its history. This I was fortunate enough to experience last weekend (the second weekend in March), when each commune held a traditional – in fact pagan – ceremony to cast off the throes of winter and welcome in the spring. This ‘Buergbrennen’ took the form of a gigantic cross-shaped bonfire, accompanied by much food, drink, and merriment. The one I attended was lit by a troop of intrepid children and run by the scouts, and it burned rather spectacularly. Bonfires in other communes were even supplemented by fireworks and music. Essentially, it was nice to see that, in spite of the patchwork nature of Luxembourg’s population, a healthy native community spirit has remained intact.

Buergbrennen in Beggen.

Since being here, I’ve been struck by Luxembourg’s diversity; in more recent weeks, the interwovenness of this diversity has really made itself apparent. It is not a school canteen, where the groups and cliques are distinct. Here, old sits with new, locals sit with expats, people of various professions happily share a table. Luxembourg thus seems to have successfully implemented the ostensibly paradoxical motto of the European Union: ‘United in Diversity.’

February: The Month of Flying Time.

At the Embassy, life is perhaps best analogised by the Luxembourgish weather. One minute, there is rain, the next snow, then glorious sunshine, followed by some fog, and rounded off with a bout of gusty gales. The temperature is as changeable, too. But whereas this might be a bad thing for holiday-making hikers trying to travel light, it’s great for an intern drinking in new experiences. It isn’t just the workplace that’s varied, though; it’s the ‘extra-curricular’ stuff, too…

This bright sunshine followed a solid two-day stint of downpours.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a great event put on by Delano, an English-language magazine, in celebration of its third birthday. The event was named ‘Spice It Up’; everything was Indian-themed, including the canapés, and all guests were invited to have a bindi drawn onto their foreheads. The venue was one that I would perhaps cringeworthily describe as ‘cool’, and it was a terrific place to meet new people and fill more gaps in my overall understanding of how Luxembourg works. As I moved through the crowd, evidence of the smallness of the world came in the form of my meeting two people with connections to my home-city of Manchester, which was unexpected, but welcome! A friend then introduced me to another guest, telling me that ‘he’s a magician!’ I, having been so used to people telling me they worked for a bank, insurance company or law firm, didn’t really take this assertion seriously, and made the poor man perform a trick to prove himself. He obliged, and produced a coin out of thin air. Bravo. It was only afterwards that I found out he was the internationally renowned magician, David Goldrake, who goes on world tours and is essentially the Luxembourg equivalent of Derren Brown. Oops.

The following week was the week of Valentine’s Day, and the English-speaking Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg put on, appropriately enough, Love Letters, a play by A. R. Gurney. We were invited. The play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama back in 1990, but in spite of its credentials, I must admit that I was not sure I was going to like it. Fifty years’ worth of love letters between two people, and only these two characters on stage at all times? It sounded so mushy. Fortunately, it was anything but! It was funny, moving, and engaging, and the production was simple but effective; the acting was understated, but sincere and convincing. In all, a play deserving of its renown.

Flyer for the Actors Rep production.

On Valentine's Day itself, there was an event held in the centre of town, which some Embassy staff, including myself, attended. It was called '1 Billion Rising for Justice', and was staged almost simultaneously in hundreds of cities across the globe. Organised by the American Women's Club of Luxembourg, it was done in conjunction with the global campaign, One Billion Rising. The campaign’s name comes from the appalling fact that one third of all women on our planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. That’s one billion women. These V-Day events, which take place on a yearly basis, give people the opportunity to raise awareness of this deplorable statistic, and to fight to end such widespread violence against women. Unfortunately, the weather on the day prevented a fantastic turn-out, but there was still a substantial number of attendees gathered in Luxembourg City centre. There were signs, music, photographs, and even some Zumba to rally the troops! The aerobic dancing was definitely welcome on such a cold afternoon. And it was good to see so much support for such an important issue.

A t-shirt on display on the day. Many were wearing them as well!

Last week saw my greatest challenge since starting at the Embassy. I agreed to give a quasi-motivational talk about London to a cohort of insurance salespeople; the company was planning a staff trip to London in celebration of hard work. My speech was meant to provoke excitement and give them a flavour of what they might expect from the UK’s capital. There was one complication, which only came to light once I had agreed to do this for them: the speech had to be in French. I speak French, but conversing and giving a speech are quite different things, and I had no previous experience of the latter. Fortunately, though, it turned out to be a worthwhile endeavour and an excellent experience: not only were my hosts delightfully encouraging despite my evident nerves, but I did not spontaneously combust mid-sentence, which I figured was the worst that could happen. Afterwards, conversation was facilitated by Guinness, which was served to further excite the employees to want to go to the UK and sample more British Ale [sic: I felt it was polite to refrain from mentioning that, actually, Guinness comes from a little place slightly west of Britain…]. What’s more, I then received a beautiful vase of flowers in the post after the event, which was a lovely surprise, and also served as yet further confirmation that Luxembourgers are an absolutely charming bunch of people.

Luckily, London is fab, so the content of the speech was easy.

And now it’s March! I can barely believe it; into the home stretch now. The speed at which these past two months have evaporated before my eyes certainly supports the old assertion that ‘time flies when you’re having fun.’