How Many Member States in Euro Parliament? How many members?

[The answers are below.]

It seemed only fitting that we visit the European Union Parliament today, given we did a tour of Congress in DC and the Reichstag in Berlin.  I wasn't particularly impressed.  We walked in a group with out earphones in, connected to our own languages and listened to the very bland EU description telling us how great the EU is.  I learned something because I knew so little, and being in the building certainly makes it all much more real. 

This complex reminded me a bit of the huge skyscrapers/malls that sprang up in Beijing in the last 15 years.  Big, glassy, and not usually very attractive. 

We had a little vignette on the audio about this sculpture, but I didn't write it down and haven't been able to find it on the internet.  Through the window you only see a bit of it.  Another blogger who had a personal tour and much more to say, commented on the sculpture this way:

The other is an indescribable conglomeration of lengthy metal strips hanging down in an atrium. Either could be entitled, "More money than sense".

This is where the Parliament meets.  From the European Parliament website:

The European Parliament is the only directly-elected body of the European Union. The 736 Members of the European Parliament are there to represent you, the citizen. They are elected once every five years by voters right across the 27 Member States of the European Union on behalf of its 500 million citizens.

Since you (particularly US citizens) probably won't find much spare time to learn a lot about the Euro Parliament,  I'd just suggest you consider making an appointment with yourself on your calendar for an hour to just poke around on their website.

The car was parked near the entrance to the Science Museum.  It rained a lot of today, though not too hard.  Wednesday morning we're headed to a small town near Wuppertal to visit good friends I first met as a student in Göttingen, long, long ago.