"Why Does Congress Say One Thing and Do Another? Well, Tradition Mostly."

This week was my last week of classes so needless to say it was both very busy and very exciting.

Monday was dedicated to catching up on all the work I put off while Melanie and Johnni were here.  I also did laundry and realized that I pay less here to do laundry despite the exchange rate then I do at home without it.  There is something seriously wrong with that and I can't wait until next year when I can do laundry in our lovely house free of charge.

Monday night was definitely one of the  best Valentines day's I've had since my dad stopped buying me a box of chocolates at the age of 13.   Marchant, Libby, Kat, Molly and I all enjoyed a lovely night of red wine, dancing and chocolate.  It was all very romantic.

Edinburgh castle from the construction filled parking lot

Tuesday we had class in the morning and then walked over to the Royal Mile to go to the Writers Museum.  I wasnt that excited about the museum but it actually turned out to be really cool.  There were really neat exhibits with different things that Scotland's most famous writers owned.  My favorite was probably Sir Walter Scott's pipe. The pipe was literally two feet long and had an ivory mouthpiece with beautiful engravings all over.  After seeing that thing I  definitely better understood why people always say J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired by the Scots when he wrote about the hobbits love of pipe weed.....

Later that night a bunch of us in the parliamentary program met up to hang out at Lindsey's place.  It was really fun just to have a chill night getting to know everyone better.  I also learned my fun fact of the week about Scottish culture.  Scotland just started getting Krispy Kreme stores here like this year and all of the native Scots are obsessed and think that Krispy Kreme is the best thing to ever happen to them. I dont necessarily disagree, but it was still a little surprising that they were so excited about something that I've known about for years.

Foggy view of Edinburgh from the castle

Wednesday was our last day of class which our teacher celebrated by keeping us there a half hour late. Obviously we were all very happy with him by the end of that class.  Later that day we all went to the Edinburgh Castle, which is the massive castle that stands right in the middle of Edinburgh.  I hadnt been yet because it costs 15 pounds and since I new I was going with the program for free I just decided to wait.  The castle was pretty incredible and (since I've been to four castles and now consider myself a bit of an expert) in my personal opinion one of the better ones in the UK.  The whole thing is on this massive hill that overlooks the entire city, so when you're on the battlements you really can see all the way to the ocean. Its a pretty spectacular view.  The castle itself also has really nice exhibits, I got to see the Scottish crown jewels, the Stone of Destiny (Seriously thats its name! Its the coronation stone used in all royal ascensions. Pretty awesome huh?), a chapel dating back to the 11th century and a bunch of other really neat stuff.  Overall an evening well spent.

Despite all the exciting activities of earlier in the week the highlight was definitely Thursday when I finally got to meet my MSP!!! The meeting started off a little shaky since my MSP was nowhere to be found and because parliament is on recess this week there was literally no one in the normal areas to ask for help.  Fortunately however he managed to find me (turns out he was just meeting with the Scottish Secretary of State...can you say baller??) and we proceeded to enjoy a nice lunch together.  As I said before my MSP is Lib Dem Robert Brown from Glasgow, but it turns out im also going to be spending half my time interning for another candidate out of Edinburgh.  My other candidate is Alex Cole-Hamilton and he's a younger newbie on the political scene.  I like them both a lot, and I already know I'm going to get a lot out of my internship.

This weekend im dedicating myself to finals and work, but hopefully I'll still have some exciting updates too!

P.S.- I realize the title of this blog is neither positive nor about Scottish politics, but there were a limited number of political movie quotes to choose from and I always thought this Charlie Wilson's War gem was funny :)