"Welcome [deputy] Prime Minister. How are you feeling?" "Powerful."

A lot has happened the past few days and I wanted to give ya'll a quick update before I head out of town for the Royal Wedding!!!!

Saturday I headed out to work fairly early for a busy day of deliveries.  If there is one thing I've learned about Scottish Politics its that there is always a never-ending supply of leaflets to go out.  I truly feel like I've climbed every staircase in Edinburgh, but every time I enter the campaign office there's a new pile of envelopes waiting to go out.  The good news is that I'm going to have great calves after this experience considering the daily workout I get.  Saturday night Lindsey and I went out for hamburgers which was the perfect end to a long day at work. I don't think there's anything that cheers me up as much as a hamburger does.  Something to remember guys ;)

I had Sunday and Monday off so I spent most of the day working on my paper.  I was actually able to get a lot done on both Sunday and Monday and I'm starting to feel pretty good about my work.  The paper is currently 20 pages and 5000 words long so besides a bit of editing and some citing left to do the whole thing should be pretty much done before my mom and dad get here on May 8th.  Sunday night after a busy day of work in the library I headed over to Noah's for a fun night out.  We ended up at Brewdog which is fast becoming my favorite pub in Edinburgh.  I met a really cool bartender from Athens (Georgia) there Sunday which was super exciting for both of us, although I do think I made her neglect her job a bit since I was so eager to talk to her. 

Tuesday morning I spent the day manning the campaign office.  The office manning was more exciting than usual because my old boss Robert Brown stopped in to do some work for Alex and catch up.  I hadn't seen Robert for a while so it was so great just catching up and hearing how things are going with him in Glasgow.  After work I went back to my room for a short nap then headed back to the office for an evening of deliveries.  The deliveries went better tonight because I was walking in my new favorite part of Edinburgh.  The village is called Dean and its an adorable suburban area with a lot of complexes hidden in the woods and a little stream with a bridge running through the whole thing.  Very cute.

beautiful day in the meadows

Wednesday was one of the nicest days in Edinburgh yet (we're talking above fifty degrees here people!) so Rachel and I headed to this big grassy park right by campus called the meadows for an afternoon sun-fest.  I brought my laptop and managed to get a little work done before I succumbed to the sun and just laid out for a few hours trying my best to cure the epic pastiness that has occurred since my arrival in Edinburgh. Unfortunately I had to go to work Wednesday evening so I didn't get to spend as long as I wanted in the meadows, but still a very fun day.

Now today was the most exciting day yet.  I woke up really early this morning (like actually early, 7am!) to go to New Town to meet Alex and UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg!!! For those of you who don't know the UK deputy prime minister is basically the equivalent of the vice president.  In addition, since the UK currently has a coalition government Clegg is also the de facto leader of the Liberal Democrats one of the two parties in power in the UK.  Clegg came to town to campaign for Alex and a few other Scottish candidates and Alex insisted that he meet all of us hard working interns.  I only got to speak with Clegg for like two seconds but he was really nice and I think I may have ended up on the news so that's kind of exciting...

Tonight we also had our reception for our program since the official end date is April 29th.  Some of my friends are leaving this weekend which is really sad but I'll be here for another two weeks so I'm trying not to think of that inevitability.  The reception was super fun.Our professors all gave speeches and we got a chance to catch up as a group so all in all a great evening :)

The Group at the reception!

Tonight I'm headed to London for the royal wedding so I'll be sure to update ya'll when I get back!!!!

'No, JEW?' Not 'Did you?'...JEW eat? JEW? You get it? JEW eat?"

The outside of Alex's campaign office!!!!

This week got off to an exciting start on Tuesday because it was Postal Vote Day!!!  Basically a postal vote is like an absentee ballot in the states, however in Scotland anyone who wants to vote by mail can regardless of whether or not they're out of town.  So Tuesday was the day that everyone who signed up to vote by mail got their ballots. They can send these ballots in anytime from when they're received until polling (election) day.  So needless to say this was a big campaign day for us.  Alex wanted to make sure that everyone who got a postal vote also got a target letter from the campaign the same day.  Because of this I spent the entire day climbing massive amounts of stairs in tenements across Edinburgh delivering letters to mailboxes.  It was exhausting work but it was also incredibly exhilarating because it really made me realize just how close the election is. 
After my exhausting day of climbing every staircase in Edinburgh I headed home to get ready for our Passover Seder!! My program has a fair few Jews in it and we all decided that it would be fun to celebrate our Jewish heritage by putting on a seder for our friends.  I use the term seder very lightly though since it wasnt actually Passover appropriate.  We couldnt find matzoh anywhere (Scotland has approximately 10 Jews in the entire country so this wasnt that surprising), no one could find  a seder plate and I brought my grandmothers Kugel recipe as my dish which was certainly not Passover appropriate since it has noodles in it.  But still despite the reformness of the evening it was an amazing Seder.  Everyone brought something, be it bottles of wine or homemade gefilte fish (props to Daniel for that one) and we all got really into it, even saying the prayers and singing some of the songs!! I think all the non-Jews in the group really enjoyed themselves and after the seder we all went out together to finish celebrating the lovely Jewish holidays.

The amazing spread and the group saying the prayers!

One of the amazing buildings I've stumbled upon

Wednesday I took the day off to rest up from my busy Tuesday and just worked on my paper and chilled.  Then on Thursday I was off to another busy day on the campaign trail.  I manned the office in the morning which was busier than normal, so it was exciting to see a lot of the deliveries getting done.  Thursday night I went on deliveries myself in a really nice part of Edinburgh. It's always great seeing parts of Edinburgh like this that I would never have a reason to see otherwise.
Friday I woke up early, worked on my paper, went into work for a bit and then headed out to meet up with Lindsey and Rachel to get ready for our friend Hallie's "America" themed party.  I loved the theme but mostly because it was an excuse for me to wear my flannel and converses.  The night ended up being really fun and I definitely enjoyed meeting some new people and hanging out with my friends.  Some of my friends start leaving really soon (Lindsey leaves in ten days!!) so I'm certainly starting to feel the end getting nearer and thus trying to soak up every minute I have with them.

Celebrating America!

Today I had a long day at work so I treated myself to a dinner of hamburgers at a local restaurant.  I have the next two days off so I'm really excited to just sleep in and hopefully be really productive on my research paper.  I promised myself I was going to spend the entire day tomorrow at the library but we'll see how that goes...

Miss you all!

"Are you cops? No mam' we're musicians."

This is the end of another busy week, and its hard to believe its already April 18th.  I leave Europe on May 20th and Edinburgh on May 13th, so this means that I have less than a month left in Edinburgh and only a month and two days left in Europe! It's just so surreal how fast this entire semester has gone by and I cant believe in four short weeks I'll be back home in America...

This week was pretty much all about work, with some fun nights thrown in.  Tuesday, after Ryan left, I spent the day catching up on some work and getting myself organized for the week.  Then Tuesday night I headed out to Calton Hill for a photoshoot with Alex.  Calton Hill is a large hill right in the middle of Edinburgh with the national monument, observatory and some other cool places on top.  Surprisingly, I hadnt been to Calton Hill yet, and the weather was beautiful so I was really excited to be up there.  We were just taking a few pictures of Alex and the other candidates to send out in some campaign literature so I basically got to stand in the background and stare at some beautiful views of Edinburgh for an afternoon.  Not too bad for a day of work.  That night was Clark's 21st birthday so Lindsey and I made some guacamole (some very well-received guacamole I might add) as a present and then we all headed out to celebrate his birthday! 

Some beautiful shots of Edinburgh from Calton Hill

Wednesday and Thursday was all about work.  I went on deliveries, canvassed, worked in the office, and actually started doing some outside interviews and research on my paper which was a huge achievement.  Thursday night Lindsey's sister was in town so I went to dinner with them at a local pub which was very fun.  I tried traditional "scotch eggs" for the first time which were very interesting.  They were basically hardboiled eggs wrapped in bread and sausage.  I cant say I enjoyed them that much but still an interesting experience.  After dinner we all just headed over to Noah's to relax and listen to music which was very fun and definitely helped me recover from my long week of work.

Friday I had the day off work so I was able to meet up with Natasha for lunch in Edinburgh!! Tash has been in Paris all year so it's been a really long time since I've seen her.  It was great to just catch up, hear about her adventures and fill her in on mine.  She seems to be really loving Paris (who can blame her?) and gave me all sorts of advice on how to make sure the French dont get too mad at me when I go to Paris in May. However, considering that most of that advice consisted of speaking French I have a feeling that the Parisians arent exactly going to warm up to me when im there....

Saturday I had to work during the day, but it ended up being quite fun.  I was able to talk to Kevin (the campaign manager) more about some of the research for my paper, and I got a chance to see Alex in full force out on the campaign. It never ceases to amaze me how much energy Alex, Kevin and all the other full-time campaigners have.  They never seem to get tired and are always in a good mood.  It really makes for a great place to work and makes even the most boring days fun.  After work on Saturday I met up with Noah, Ross and Tasha to watch Blues Brothers.  Blues Brothers is apparently Noah's favorite movie and when he found out I hadnt seen it I think his sole mission in life was to make sure I did.  The movie was actually a lot better than I expected with great music, cameo's and one-liners (one of which made it to the title of this blog).  Definitely John Belushi at his prime, although I think I still prefer Animal House.

Literally the only one on my train to work, creepy much?

Sunday was once again another long day in the office labeling and organizing election material.  It was a little depressing being stuck inside on such a nice day in Edinburgh, but I did get to take a short break to take Alex's adorable son Finn out for a walk.  After spending thirty minutes with me Finn now wants to be a superhero and move to America, oops?

This week has been super busy, and I know that next week will be even more so with only 16 days left until election day.  However, I'm really starting to realize just how useful and meaningful this entire internship has been and considering how fast time is flying by, I'm sure pretty soon I'll be counting those ballots and hopefully hearing Alex announced the winner of Edinburgh Central!!!

"The freedom and simple beauty is too good to pass up"

So this week was very busy, but in a fantastically fun way.

The USC Findlanders and me fighting on in Edinburgh

Tuesday and Wednesday Sami, Jordan and their friends from Finland were in town so after work I met up with them and took them out to experience the lovely Edinburgh nightlife. All our usual pubs were empty since it was the middle of the week but we still managed to have a good night and I think everyone really enjoyed themselves.  I also got a chance to go to the library bar in Teviot on Wednesday night which is something I havent done yet and was very fun.  Traddies should definitely take note of the way the University of Edinburgh does on-campus bars because this one was pretty spectacular.

Thursday was a pretty stressful day.  I made my first big mistake at work when I misread some of my instructions and ended up mislabeling a day's worth of envelopes.  I of course freaked out when I realized how badly I'd screwed up and began apologizing profusely to everyone I was with, but my boss was very nice and made me feel a lot better about my mistake.  Just another instance of Scottish friendliness that has really colored my time here.  Its so much easier to be happy with your study abroad experience when you are surrounded by such nice people.

So after that little drama I was ready to put the week behind me. Fortunately, by Thursday night all the USCers had arrived in Edinburgh for the Highlands weekend trip.  We had another delicious USC sponsored dinner (this time at a yummy chinese buffet) and I got to catch up with Ryan and Shawn who I hadnt seen in a while, as well as meet some other USC students who I didnt know yet.  After dinner those of us from Edinburgh decided it would be fun to take everyone else out for the night so after a Tesco run, some confused directions and a little elevator trouble we all ended up at the Hive which I think all the other USC students really enjoyed.  Especially the ones from London who were shocked to be at a really fun club without having to pay an exorbitant cover-charge.  Overall it was a really fun night and I loved showing off Edinburgh.

Friday morning we had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m. to be on the bus by 8 a.m. which was a little intense and may have influenced the relative silence on the bus for the first part of our journey.  The way the USC highland trip works is that we are all booked on a tour bus for the weekend that takes us through the major parts of the Scottish Highlands, with stops at some of the cooler sites.  One of our first stops on Friday was at a whiskey distillery called Tomatin which was amazing despite the insanely intense smell of whiskey throughout the tour. I thought Shawn was going to die of joy.

Shawn and I with 35 year old bottles of whiskey at the distillery

No sight of Nessie!

We also stopped at Loch Ness which was pretty exciting, but not going to lie a little bit of an anti-climactic visit.  You can literally see everything you need to see in Loch Ness in about 15 minutes.  Its pretty much just a lake with a statue of Nessie out front where you take your picture and then go to the bathroom.  Not too exciting, but still a fun place to say I've been.  After Loch Ness we headed to Fort Augustus for the evening where we saw a highland show consisting of weapons demonstrations, a lesson in how to wear a kilt and a long lecture on why the highlanders are the best Scots alive.  It was interesting but felt a little overly theatrical. I'm not so sure it was a necessary part of our trip but still fun.  Our hostel in Fort Augustus was probably the nicest one I've been too.  Shawn, Erin and I all had our own room and I got to have a queen bed all to myself which was wonderful. They also provided us with dinner and a karaoke machine, which was very nice considering how much us Americans love karaoke ;)

Saturday morning we woke up early once again, but fortunately I got a a good night's sleep so I wasnt in quite the comatose state  I was in Friday.  Saturday we headed out to the Isle of Skye, which was a spectacular drive and was our first great experience of just how beautiful the highlands really are.  One of our first stops in the morning was at a castle on a lake in the highlands.  Although I'm a little castled out right now I still really enjoyed the tour as this castle was a lot less formal than many I've been too, and the tour guides did a very good job explaining the place in engaging and interesting ways.  After the castle we headed across the bridge and spent the day hiking through Skye.  If I ever doubted the beauty of Scotland (which I obviously didn't) Skye definitely put all those fears to rest in about five minutes.  The whole island is amazing with rolling hills, beautiful coastlines and amazing views.

Some beautiful shots of the Scottish Highlands from Skye

That night we all headed to the pub for our last USC sponsored dinner.  Dinner was good and there was also a live singer at the bar that night so we all spent the evening just dancing, hanging out and catching eachother up on our mutual abroad stories.  Overall a very pleasant evening :)

Me fulfilling my semester-long dream of feeding a highland cow

Sunday we spent most of the day retracing our steps back down into the lowlands but not without making a few pit stops to take more spectacular photographs.  Our last stop on the tour was probably the most exciting for me, we stopped to feed Hamish the highland cow.  For those of you who dont know Highland Cows, or what the Scottish affectionately call "hairy coos," are adorable, massive, hairy, horned animals that love to eat carrots out of your hands.  I felt like a little kid again feeding mine and thoroughly enjoyed the activity    Overall the whole highland weekend was amazing.  Since Scotland isnt that big we got to traverse a lot of the country over the course of three days, see some amazing sights, and just be outside in some of the nicest weather I've had in Scotland yet. 

We got back to Edinburgh around 3 and I spent the rest of the day showing Ryan, Shawn, Erin and Emin around Edinburgh.  We stopped at some of the main sites, and since it was Sunday we were also able to see some of the street performers, including this amazing guy who could swallow swords whole.  That was slightly disgusting but still really cool.  After dinner, we all met up again with some of my friends from Edinburgh since it was Rob's 21st birthday.  The evenings festivities were quite fun if I do say so myself, especially considering the fact that Sarah and Ana made cake and cupcakes that we all got to enjoy :)

I've got a very busy week to look forward to with less than a month left until elections and my paper's due date looming over my head.  I'm sure it will be a great couple weeks though nd I'm looking forward to seeing whatt else Scotland has in store for me.  Until then I hope you're all well!

Also happy birthday to the the best father in the world who turned sixty today!!! Hope you dont feel too old dad ;)

One last parting shot of the beautiful Scottish Highlands!

"Get busy living, or get busy dying"

This week has been sooo busy but in a very fun, can't believe its already over kind of way.

Tuesday I was lucky enough to have the morning off so I could recover from my lack of sleep in Amsterdam and then that night I headed off to canvass with Alex.  The canvassing was a little different this time because we were doing flats in the city which meant that we had to be  buzzed in before we could knock on the doors we needed to.  This was a little challenging since people dont always want to let you in when you say you have a few political questions for them, fortunately however I seem to be pretty good at convincing people to talk to me (maybe its the novelty of my American accent?) and was able to get into most of the complexes iI needed to.  Even though I only canvassed for two hours I was pretty beat by the end (some people seriously grill you) so once I got back I immediately headed over to my friend Noah's for some much needed chill time.

Massive box of deliveries

The rest of the week pretty much followed the same pattern.  Work hard during the day and then have fun at night.  I realized that its a lot easier to get through a long day of labeling, or deliveries or phone calls if you have something to look forward to at night so its been really great to be able to just hang out in the evenings.

It's the University of Edinburgh's spring break so most of my friends not on the parliamentary program are off traveling around Europe.  Its been a little lonely being the only one in my flat and I'm missing a lot of my friends, but its also been great because most of us interns have our flats all to ourselves and thus a lot more space to be loud and obnoxious late into the evenings. 

Enjoying one of our nights off!

This weekend was my first one without traveling or having people visiting in a month so it was really nice to just chill and get some work done.  I slept in late on Saturday, worked on my paper, went to dinner with Lindsey and Becca at my new favorite hamburger place in Edinburgh (seriously these things were incredible, definitely at American standards) and then headed over to Monica's for her birthday party. Sunday I had to work all day which was a little frustrating, but since the campaign does most of its intense work on the weekends or at night it wasn't too surprising.  There were a bunch of Dutch liberal democrats visiting Alex's campaign to see how it worked so we had to show them the ropes and take them on deliveries and stuff.  Fortunately they were all very nice and one had even studied abroad at UCLA the semester before so we had plenty to talk about! I managed to make it through the day without too much trouble and slept for a solid 10 hours Sunday night.  Definitely a wonderful experience.

The campaign work has really started revving up since there's only a month left until election day, but apparently this is unusual for Scottish politics.  Most of the people I've talked to have all commented on how early Alex has started getting out there and how much more work he's done then anyone before him.  Its definitely an interesting perspective considering how early American elections start.  For example, Obama just announced his bid for reelection today, a whole year and a half before the actual election! The Scots definitely couldn't handle that.  Regardless, its been tough working this hard, but I still really like my internship and feel like I'm learning a lot.  I just appreciate my days off that much more!