Busy Days

These past few weeks have been crazy and busy, but so much fun. We are starting to realize that we only have a few more weeks left and we are trying to make the most of the time we have left here in Edinburgh.

Last Monday Julianne and I went over to the other intern girls's house to order a pizza. We were a little nervous after our burnt cracker Pizza Hut travesty, however we ended up getting a really good veggie pizza from Dominoes that was almost like American pizza. It even came with fake ranch. We ended up hanging out and talking for awhile. It's really fun because we all get along really well and we can talk for hours about Scottish politics.

For instance, during a debate last week, the presiding officer was trying to get everyone to settle down and she was saying, "Order, order" and it got really quiet and then one of the Labour MSPs shouted "You're out of order!" and then ended up getting suspended from the debating chamber for a day.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, but it was easy to forget because we did not have the day off and no one mentioned anything about it. I'm bummed I missed the Turkey Trot, but we had a pretty good Thanksgiving anyway! On Thursday during work we went to FMQs. After work, we went to Nando's and then to class. 

After class, some of us went out to our typical pub, the Green Mantle.

Friday my research paper for class was due at 5, so I spent the whole day at work writing a ten page paper about wind energy in Scotland. I'm a big fan of renewable energy, especially when politics overlaps with the environment. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, I had emailed myself the one page I had done before Friday from my email into a temporary folder on the computer, so when I was saving it periodically, I was saving it to the temporary folder. Unfortunately, that meant that at 4:40 when I exited out of my ten page paper to email it to my professor, the file disappeared. I spent the next two hours on the phone with IT trying to recover the file and googleing how to recover temporary files, but it was gone. Luckily our professor is really nice and when I emailed her to tell her what happened, she gave me an extension until Sunday.

On Saturday Julianne spent the whole day cooking for the Thanksgiving party that we were hosting. Everyone chipped in and we had the groceries delivered to our flat. To get out of her way, Frances and I went to Starbucks near Princes Street to get seasonal coffees, watch the city life, and I restarted my long paper. We walked home a different way than we usually do so that we could stop by a Tesco's for ingredients Julianne was missing and to get pastries for a late lunch and I was reminded that I live in a foreign country. It's easy to forget when you stick to one area.

Saturday evening everyone came over for Thanksgiving dinner at our place. I like hosting events at our apartment because it's nice to have people over and also we got to keep all the leftovers and have been eating them for lunch for the past few days. The dress code was onesies, but only about half of us wore them. My room is the dining room, so that's where we ate our stuffing, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, turkey, and green beans. There were eleven of us. I invited Erik and his roommate who were sympathetic to the American's abroad during Thanksgiving dilemma. It was a lot of fun, but we are still cleaning up from it. 

Monday was one of the interns birthdays. Work on Monday was fun because we can take extended lunch breaks since there is usually less work to do and there are hardly MSPs in Parliament. So we got coffee and sat around talking before going back to work. After work, Julianne, Chantelle, and I went shopping. We went to a cute boutique that sold pins and necklaces made out of antique maps of Edinburgh. I bought two button pins that I really like. The lady kept getting confused because I kept calling them buttons, but to her they're badges. For Lori's birthday, we went to Amicus Apple, a really classy restaurant in Edinburgh. 

Tuesday was a long day as well. Some of the local councils in Scotland charge for music lessons. My MSP was speaking in a debate about that on Wednesday and needed me to write a brief and a speech for him. That was probably the most exciting thing I've done so far. It was difficult for several reasons. One being that the Scottish call music lessons 'music tuition' which confused me for a bit. Also, my MSP wanted to talk about two areas that he represented and one charged for music lessons and one did not, so I was unsure which way he wanted to argue. I ended up just including both. I also worked in a music joke. My MSP really like to play the bag pipes, so after work he showed Josh and I all the different parts of the bag pipe and then played us a few songs, which was really cool. After that, we went over to the other intern girls's house for pizza. They're names are Lori, Laurel, and Oriel so collectively we call them Loriel. We discovered that Domino's does a Two for One Tuesday deal, so we devoured two pizzas.

This Friday we have a day off for St. Andrew's Day, the patron saint of Scotland. Also the Christmas Market in Edinburgh opens up this weekend, so we are going to go check out the light show and the slides and the ice skating rink and go shopping! It should be a really fun weekend. Next week, Julianne and I are leaving work early on Wednesday to go to Glasgow for the Mumford & Sons concert. We are then flying from Glasgow to Barcelona on Thursday and we will be there until Saturday! I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully it will be sunny so we can get a little bit of Vitamin D. I saw the sun today for like a minute and a half and I couldn't tell if it was just super bright or my eyes were not used to sunshine, but it was a little painful. The sun rose at 8:15 this morning and set at 3:47. It was actually pretty sunny today, however, since I leave for work at 9 when the sun's not really up and leave work at 5. I don't see the sun much. However, I do really like walking around Edinburgh when it's dark out and all the buildings and the castle is lit up and I'm listening to my iPod. It's really a great city.

I miss you and hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Wind, Rain, Snow, and Shine

We hang out with the Scottish interns more and more. They've been telling us every week that it's going to get darker earlier and colder and we don't believe them because it's hard to believe that it could get darker earlier than 4 o'clock or colder, but it does. I've taken to wearing my onesie around the flat everyday because it's so cold. But even as we were shivering walking home from Waverley train station yesterday in the pitch black at 5 o'clock yesterday evening, my roommates and I were talking about how we don't want to leave and all the stuff we still want to do here and how we love it here so much. 

Monday after work, Oriel, Julianne, and I walked from the Parliament building up the Royal Mile, around the castle, to Usher Hall. Quick word about fashion here for those curious - almost anything goes here fashion wise. You can be super trendy or really quirky and it's really fun. The only two things that don't really go here are anything too slobby and anything not super conservative. This is interesting coming from Santa Barbara where I wear yoga pants and sweatshirts every day or tank tops and running shorts with running shoes or flip flops. So to work I mostly wear high waisted black skirts with black tights, oxford shoes, and sweaters. On the weekends when I'm not in my onesie, I'll wear boots with jeans and thick patterned sweaters. And then on top of everything you always have to wear at least one coat, if not two, a scarf, gloves, and a hat. 

Back to the interesting stuff. We went to eat at Nando's and then we got in line for the concert. We were there relatively early, so we were pretty close. There were two really tall people standing in front of me, but it wasn't too bad. Ed Sheeran is unbelievably talented. Besides being a lyrical genius and incredible with the guitar, he has a great stage presence and really interacts with the audience. He does all the music himself, so when the song is more than just him singing and playing guitar, he does all the beats and the background music himself on stage and then puts it on a loop pedal. It was absolutely incredible. For the encore he did this one song fifteen minute song that was crazy amazing. He rapped really fast for most of it, then sang, and did crazy guitar solos, and even tripped twice on stage and kept going. If you would like any recommendations for his music, I really like his acoustic stuff, so my favorite I think is "Give Me Love" (I do not recommend watching the music video however), but one of his most popular songs is "The A Team" which is also very good. If you'd like to see him do some crazy loop pedal vocals, check out "Wayfaring Stranger" and if you'd like to hear him rap, listen to "You Need Me, I Don't Need You". He is very talented though, and I'm very glad we went. They call him the "ginger genius" and I see why for sure. 

This week at work I wrote two motions and worked on a project for my MSP about city names in the region he represents. Other than that, the week was full of a lot of mochas, baguettes at the cafeteria, checking BBC news, discussing independence, and making Scottish politics jokes.

We are trying to maximize our time here, so we hopped on a train yesterday morning to Stirling. With out student rail cards it was only 6 pounds round trip. We got lunch at a pub and then explored Stirling Castle and the graveyard nearby. It was sunny, then it was windy, then it snowed, and then it rained. 

View from the castle

Stirling was very cool and I'm glad we went. Our plans for the next few weeks include a very expensive Mumford and Sons concert in Glasgow and a weekend trip to Barcelona. We also want to check out the Christmas market here, we're going to have a Thanksgiving dinner party here, we have a SNP Christmas Party, my friend Jacob's coming to visit me, and more! 

Happy birthday Grandma Donna! Also, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I wish I could celebrate at home, but I'm very thankful to be here!

Fun > Vitamin D

One thing that's really fun about everyone here is that everyone's always down to do something. I think I have a day to relax and catch up on Facebook and whatnot, but everyone's always throwing out suggestions for stuff to do. Which is great, because I feel like I'm really taking advantage of my time here! I hope so at least. 

Last weekend was our intern Halloween party. It was fun to dress up and hang out with everyone and play Halloween themed games. 

I went as a hippie!

The day after the Halloween party several of us worked up the motivation to hike Arthur's Seat. We couldn't have picked a prettier day to go. We made it all the way to the top, and the views of Edinburgh on this clear day were spectacular. 

Reppin school spirit on the top of Arthur's Seat

Monday was Guy Fawkes's Night. Some guy named Guy Fawkes tried to overthrow parliament in the 1600s so people celebrate the fact that he was unsuccessful. Fireworks go off for weeks before. On Monday the fireworks would go for a few minutes and then stop and sporadically start up again and they went the whole day. Julianne and I had gone shopping after work and we went to Primark and got fleece onesies. They're great because it's so cold here, but the only problem is that I never want to change out of it into my work clothes. So we wore our onesies while all of us watched V for Vendetta, which I had never seen before. 

My roommates and I watched the fireworks from my bedroom because it was cold outside

 

Primark Onesies

This week at work was pretty slow work wise. We finally finished up the newsletters. I also wrote one motion and one brief. The motion was about a Youth Project that received funding from the Big Lottery Fund. It was located in my MSP’s region and he wanted me to make sure I got it lodged before any of the other MSPs from that region or constituency, which I thought was interesting that he specified that he wanted to me to make sure to claim that topic for a motion before anyone else. The brief I wrote was about prison reform. My MSP wanted to ask a parliamentary question about the economic effects of building a new prison in his region. It is a women’s prison built as a part of recommendations made by a commission to improve the treatment of women prisoners and decrease the chances of someone becoming a repeat offender. 

The coolest part of the week was being at parliament for the election. I spent a lot of time at work on CNN playing around with the interactive maps with the swing states. Everyone at the parliament was extremely interested in the outcome. It may be because I am surrounded by politicians and people interested in politics, but people seemed to care a lot about the outcome and overwhelmingly supported Obama. All the parties, including the conservatives, support Obama. I checked the polls constantly and everyone discussed the issues and the candidates leading up to the election. 

That evening we tried to go to a North American Association event at the University of Edinburgh that was having lectures and coverage of the election, but it filled up very fast. So we went to a pub for a little bit, and then to one of the permanent intern's apartments to watch CNN. My plan was to only stay up until Ohio got called, but I thought that it would get called by like one or two my time, and it definitely did not. We all ended up going home at that point, still in suspense, and Julianne and I ended up staying up until 5 am our time to hear the results. We were watching it on BBC which had about a fifteen to twenty minute delay on the receipt of information, so we kept refreshing the internet at the same time. Julianne said suddenly "Obama got Ohio! He won!" So that was very exciting. 

Mondays and Fridays are relaxed days since the MSPs are in their constituencies and its only the interns in the parliament, so we get to dress down. On Friday we explored the debating chamber. 

Where the SNP MSPs sit

We went dress shopping on Friday as well for the Thanksgiving event and got to walk along the Royal Mile and Waverely bridge. This is one of my favorite views of this city. This was also at around 5 o'clock I think. 

That's the castle to the left

On Friday night, some of the interns went bowling. It was quite the adventure getting there as it was on a complete opposite side of Edinburgh that I have ever been to. I've gotten to explore the fringes of the city quite a lot this week. On Wednesday I had to go to the post office depot to pick up my Ed Sheeran tickets because I was at work when they got delivered and couldn't sign for them. I had to take a bus out to East Edinburgh. I kept asking the driver when to get off the bus, and when he told me I couldn't understand him so I just sat there for awhile until I finally figured out what he was saying. I wandered around aimlessly in the misty Edinburgh evening until I stopped the only person I saw to ask for directions. She was very friendly and walked me to the post office, which I never would have found on my own because you had to take like five left turns to spiral into the business park. It was an adventure to say the least. 

Bowling was very fun though. I haven't been in forever and I am really bad at it, but so was everyone else. Our game had a special twist on it as well because the computer kept being spastic, so sometimes people would get three or four turns in a row, or get strikes when it should have been a gutter ball. The gutter balls were especially impressive though considering we had bumpers. It was a great craic as they say though and I'm glad we went. 

Last night we had the UC wide EAP Thanksgiving event. We got lucky because it's hosted in Edinburgh. We dressed up and walked over to the Hub yesterday evening at 6 (it was already pitch black outside). The Hub is on the Royal Mile near the castle and it's this very old venue where really classy events are held. There were 200 UC students there who were studying somewhere in the UK or Ireland who had traveled to Edinburgh for the weekend. We checked our coats, which wasn't that exciting but I always feel really fancy when I check my coat. We waited in a long line to get in and when I got up to the front to get my name tag I realized the girl checking people in lived on my floor freshman year. So that was nice to see her. My name tag had my name, my school, and my program. We mingled for a bit and I ran into someone who I worked with in Santa Barbara, which was also cool. We ate dinner in the big hall. I sat with all the people from my program. We got turkey, stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes, green beans, bread, and chocolate pie. It was all very Thanksgivingy foods, but it was done in a Scottish way, if that makes sense. It was all very tasty food, but I would imagine it would be like if someone from Mexico ate at a Mexican restaurant in the United States. Technically it's Mexican food, but it has an American spin on it. 

It was also interesting because my program was definitely the most subdued. We talked about it and we think it may have something to do with the fact that we're working 40 hours a week instead of just going to uni, so we felt like we had to act more mature because we were working instead of students. It is nice though, because everyone in my program is pretty close, so it was fun to hang out with everyone. On the contrary, the other group of people I was associated with that night was the UCSB group, which was the most rowdy. At the end of the night someone even started an "Ole, ole, ole, ole, gauchos, gauchos" cheer and many a Santa Barbarans joined in. I am the sole SB rep in my program, so it was interesting to be surrounded by people from my school again. It's also funny because university stereotypes were very apparent the whole night. I did very much like being associated with the interns though. We were a small group but we have a pretty cool program I think. 

The best part of the night was definitely the ceilidh dancing (pronounced 'kaley', I don't even know what to comment about who decided to spell it like that). It is pretty similar to American folk dancing, even though it is traditional Scottish. It's not exactly the same, but it involved a lot of do-si-do ing and hooking arms with your partner and spinning them around. We danced for a couple hours and no one really knew what they were doing so everyone ran into each other a lot and spun at the wrong times and made up their own dance moves, but it was a blast. 

7 of the 9 UC Interns next to the Scottish Turkey

We stopped by one of the permanent intern's apartments super quick on our way back, just to say hi, and it was completely unnoteworthy save for the fact that in the very short time we were there we saw an MSP playing beer pong, which was pretty surreal. We all caught a cab home together, which felt like a very city like thing to do. 

This morning I woke up and had an English breakfast. Eggs and beans on toast. It's a very delicious meal that I have gotten hooked on. 

Today was a lazy day. One thing that people warned me about was how early it got dark here during the winter, but I still wasn't prepared for it. It is a very unique experience having the sun set by 4 and it be pitch black outside by a little past 5. It's definitely something to get used to. Your perception of time gets all screwed up, too. Every night we start getting ready for bed and then we realize it's only 7. That may have something to do with still adjusting to the 40 hour work week, but it's also hard to tell what time it is when it's dark all day. Edinburgh in the Fall is gorgeous for the few hours it's sunny all day though, so it's worth being Vitamin D deficient. 

The view from my bedroom window

I have some really fun stuff planned that I'm looking forward to. Tomorrow I'm going to a concert in Edinburgh with two of the other interns. We also have tentative plans to go to Stirling, as well as an intern Thanksgiving coming up. I would like to make one more trip before I head home in 6 weeks, these past two months have gone by unbelievably fast, but I'm not sure if anyone else wants to do anymore traveling, so we'll see. Even if I just spend the next 6 weeks in Edinburgh, I'd be really happy because I love this city. I really do like traveling and being constantly on the move though, so it would be nice to see some more cities. I at least want to check out Glasgow at some point, and hopefully the Highlands too! 

Going to see Ed Sheeran tomorrow! :)

 My chocolate addiction has been exacerbated by the deliciousness of Cadbury chocolate and its availability at my work. The chocolate also helps me get through the long work day, along with multiple cups of coffee. 

Amazing chocolate

In other news, today was spent attempting to clean my room and do other householdy tasks. So I didn't end up actually doing much today except procrastinating on all of that. I did get a load of laundry in. We have a washer in our kitchen that has the capacity to wash about one sweatshirt at a time. Technically it's a washer/dryer combination but it doesn't actually dry, so we hang our clothes from the ceiling to dry them. I find it somewhat amusing, especially when rouge socks jump down from the drying rack and attack someone on their way to the bathroom. 

I guess it's more environmentally friendly?

I'm looking forward to this week, and I hope everyone's Novembers are going well. Also, a very special happy 90th birthday to Grandma Kathe! I loved the pictures and I hope it was a good one! 

Lots of Parliament Work

Last weekend Kathrin came to visit. On Thursday she joined us at the pubs after class after spending the day in Inverness. On Friday she had lunch with us at the Parliament and I gave her a quick tour. Friday night Kathrin made us spaetzle and it was delicious. It's definitely my favorite German food. On Saturday Julianne and I went with Kathrin to the Scotch Whiskey experience on the Royal Mile. It was kind of like a Disney ride. You sat in a barrel that went around a track walking you through all the steps of making whiskey. On Saturday night we watched Hocus Pocus in honor of Halloween and ate gluten free brownies. On Sunday, after Kathrin left, Julianne and I went Halloween costume shopping and ended up coming back with chocolate instead. We are celebrating Halloween with all the interns this weekend.

On Wednesday for Halloween, Julianne and I met up with another intern, Laurel, and we went to the Royal Mile. We bought 50p witches hats from Tesco's and went to see a pagan fire parade. It was interesting and kind of spooky. They burned a bunch of fire and people dressed in pagan costumes came up to people in the crowd and screamed in their face.

A typical day consists of me waking up, making a chicken and cheese sandwich to bring to work for lunch and drinking a cup of coffee. I get dressed in my business clothes, which is usually a black high waisted skirt, black tights, black oxford shoes, and a tank top and a cardigan. Then I bundle up in my coat, hat, gloves, and scarf. I walk to work up London road, through a side street, and to the Parliament building. I use my special parliament badge to get in the side door and then go to my office. I sit at my desk, check my Facebook and email, and get started on whatever tasks I have for the day. Usually that consists of checking BBC News a lot, writing motions or briefs, and occasionally getting tea. At 12 all the interns meet up to get lunch in the cafeteria together. I usually buy a Cadbury bar as well. Then I continue working on tasks until around 5 when I go home. I then usually cook, clean, check my Facebook, go grocery shopping, or do whatever we're doing that night if we meet up with the other interns. Thursdays are long days. We work, go to class, and then go to a pub. I usually leave around 8:45 and get back around 10:30. It's fun though. 

It's starting to get dark around 4. Everyone warned me that would happen, but I didn't realize how hard it is. I rarely ever see daylight because I work through the few hours that it exists. 7 pm feels like 10. It is definitely an adjustment. And also, I didn't realize how cold it would be. I still don't understand how it gets so cold. In my coat, scarf, gloves, and hat I still am shivering walking around Edinburgh.

I still love it though. It's really fun and Edinburgh's such a great city.

    Over the past two weeks I've written two motions. One was about a famous explorer supporting tourism in my MSPs area. My MSP represents the West of Scotland. This area used to be very prosperous due to all the factories it had, but a lot of the work done there has now become obsolete and unemployment is very high. My MSP is trying to promote tourism in his area to help the economy. I also wrote another newsletter this week that my MSP will distribute to his constituents. 

    My favorite task so far was writing a column for a newspaper. It was a five hundred word weekly column about ‘A Week in the Life of an MSP’. I got to write from the perspective of my MSP about the meetings he attended, the events he went to, and the speeches he made that week. It was really fun and I hope that I get to write the column again in the future. 

    One of the speeches my MSP made this week was about scouting youth organisations. I wrote up a brief about scouting in his area for his speech. When he sent me his speech to edit, I noticed he used some topics from the brief that I included, which was cool to see. 

    We went to First Minister’s Questions again last week. I was glad we got to go because I was curious to see what it would be like the week after both the SNP conference and the agreement reached about the referendum in 2014. (Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland and David Cameron the Prime Minister of the UK agreed a couple weeks ago that the referendum would be one question and have to take place before the end of 2014). Some of my favorite parts of FMQs this week were when the party leaders insulted each other using American presidents' and American president candidates' slip ups. Alex Salmond called the Conservative Party leader Mitt Romney because of a statement she made disregarding 88 per cent of Scottish people. 

    One thing I also really like about work is how updated I stay on current events. I get emails every day with press releases from other offices about events happening in the political world. Also, I read BBC every morning and my MSPs local news websites to stay updated on important news in Scotland. To give myself a break when I am working on long tasks, I will also check world news. I am glad I get the chance to be exposed to and read so much about current events. 

I started off this week working on distribution lists for my MSP. Which are basically just excel spreadsheets of contact information. The end of last week and the beginning of this week were spent packing up, moving, and unpacking my MSP’s office. We moved from the third floor to an almost identical office on the fourth floor with a slightly worse view. Because the two MSPs quit the SNP recently, they decided on principle that their offices could not be in between two SNP offices, so quite a few MSPs had to shuffle around offices.

I also wrote another motion this week. This one was about a new housing development in Kilwinning. Party loyalty is a lot stronger here than I expected it to be. In fact, the motion I wrote ended up getting attempted amendments from the Labour Party saying how their party was the one that initiated the housing project.

On Tuesday I watched the Labour Party led debate which made a motion to have an inquiry about Alex Salmond lying about seeking legal advice about whether or not Scotland would join the European Union if it became an independent state. It was very vicious and had a lot of yelling. All parties were arguing about the accusations that Alex Salmond, who was not actually present at the debate, lied about both EU membership and whether or not Scotland had to join the Euro. While the Labour Party and Conservative Party, who did most of the opposition arguing, had a valid point that Alex Salmond should not have lied, the SNP had good arguments to counter them as well as point to EU legislation stating they would not have to join the Euro. My MSP also made a speech, which was fun to watch. It got repetitive after a while though, but it was very interesting to watch. The opposition also made the good point that Scotland needs to be informed on all issues, good or bad, in order to make the best decision possible for Scotland when they vote on the referendum, and that requires them not being lied to. However, the SNP made good counter points explaining their actions as well as pointing out what they are doing for Scotland. It was clear that the party lines were drawn very distinctly and that the Labour Party and the SNP, despite their relative closeness on the political ideology spectrum, strongly disliked each other, and surprisingly the Labour and Conservative Parties were teaming up against the SNP majority.

On Thursday I wrote several briefs. Now that I have figured out how to write them, I like writing briefs. The first one I did was on the Institute of Directors, a group that helps directors and also lobbies for their issues. My MSP is attended a debate at their conference on Friday and he needed a brief of what their political views were on some issues. The Institute of Directors was very anti taxes and anti regulation as well as pro private sector growth and pro business. My MSP asked for additional briefs on two topics that I mentioned in the first brief. So I wrote two short briefs, one about 4G coming to the UK for the first time this past week and the other about the Air Passenger Duty. The Air Passenger Duty is a tax on passengers on flights that is reducing the number of people travelling to Scotland, which is affecting their tourism industry.

I tried to show initiative my first week back by creating a newsletter for my MSP for the month of October. This has turned into a drawn out two week project that required me constantly looking for another thing to write about. Once I finally finished the newsletter today we had to do labels and envelopes. Yesterday we had to copy and paste about 300 address from an excel spreadsheet onto a label printer sheet. Then today we labelled and stamped several hundred envelopes. After printing all the newsletters, we tried to use a machine to fold and stuff the envelopes for us. Unfortunately it was broken and it ended up eating and shredding several of our envelopes and newsletters. So we ended up folding and stuffing and sealing the envelopes manually.

Earlier this week I also faxed my absentee ballot in! It's very nice to be back and get settled in Edinburgh.

It's fun working in the parliament and keeping up with politics and making jokes about the Labour Party.

Hope your Halloweens were fun!

Current favorite song: "Below My Feet" by Mumford & Sons