Viva la Union!!

I'm going home on Saturday, so my final post, next week, will be from the comfort of my home in Sunny Florida.

This last weekend was great. On Saturday, I went to Ann Menzie's home and she helped me make haggis, tatties, and neeps for some of the people from the parliament: Martin, Dom, Doug, and Miles. The neeps were probably the best I'd ever had. We tried something new, and put some squash in with them, and they were absolutely delicious. The tatties were good, but the haggis was overcooked because it waited too long to be served in the oven. Of course, the company was great, and we were semi-watching the christmas classics from 77-07; I had never heard of about 90% of the people who were on the UK chart at Christmas time over the last 30 years!!!

Saturday, I went to St. Andrew's: it's a very nice place. There's 3 long roads which make up the majority of the town. My friend Jackie and I ate lunch at the clubhouse for the golfcourse which was originally used in the 1500's where sheep were pastured to keep the grass short, according to club lore. Saturday night, I went out with Tom, Brenden and Alex. They met up some of their friends, both from their building and from their home college. Before not-too-long, I had a lot of them interested in playing a wonderful card game called: The Name of the Game is Mao. Its a really fun game based on rules that only the dictator knows and not being allowed to talk. It is very amusing and very addictive. Saturday night was wonderful, before I knew it, it was close to 2 am and my tiredness was showing in my sloppy card-play.

Sunday's sunday school lesson was really good: the instructor pointed out that its important to actively apply what we learn in church towards our weekly lives, which is something I had not put together for some reason, so thats this week's resolution. Silvia again had me over to dinner and we had chicken curry with rice and greens. It was good; then we hung out for a while andwatched a bad episode of x-files.

Monday however, was awesome! David Cameron came and gave a speech about the importance of the union between Scotland, England and the rest of the UK. It was really good! After, he went around glad-handing, and I met him!! I made eye-contact, shook hands, then putting my hand on his shoulder, I told him how much I enjoyed him giving it to Gordon Brown every week. Then he asked where I was from, and then, hearing I was from Florida, replied, "how do you like the weather here" to which I responded I was eager to get home. Tom told me later he half expected me to introduce myself as the senior intern =) But I didn't even introduce myself. The whole thing took less than a minute; he's the first politician I've ever met. But I really hope that he can someday overthrow the regime.

Reluctantly crouched at the starting line...

Taken from one of my favorite songs, that line accurately depicts how I feel right now. The weather has got me feeling unproductive. The last week has gone by quickly and I've kept busy. I've been working on a policy proposal for my class and I'm finding it difficult to express my opinion through my research coupled with a non-biased look at the pros and cons of the medical redress system in Scotland. I suppose that's the difficulty of writing, eh?

The weekend went splendidly. I went to the zoo and saw the rhinoceroses, the asiatic lions, the jaguar, the panther, and assorted other animals. There was supposed to be a penguin parade, but they didn't want to come out, the weather was kind of crappy. That night, St. Andrew's Day, I went to the Winter festival with my friend Megan. It's an olde German village, with gifts and snacks, and it really just has a good atmosphere about it. This weekend, we're going to go ice-skating if the weather's nice. Then, I went to my friend Brenden's place and had haggis with his roommates. I'm actually a fan of haggis, its got a little spice to it, but the texture and flavour are actually quite nice.

Saturday I went to a couple friend's to try to get my internet to work. Something happened a few weeks ago, and I couldn't use the wireless. So finally (after 4 hrs of playing with the internet), I got it up and running! YAY! After I went to dinner with some people from my church and went home and studied. My mid-term for my Modernization of Latin America class is this coming Thursday, so I've been studying pretty hard for it.

Sunday i went to church, then a nap (of course!) and went to Sylvia and Rox's for breakfast - at dinner time. Then we got the Christmas season started off properly with A Muppet Christmas Carole. I'm really starting to get ready for Christmas. I'm listening to Christmas Carols on pandora and just really enjoying the season. Last year, Christmas snuck up on me, but this year, I'll be ready. I just hope its ready for me to turn 24.

An Adventure

So thanksgiving was pretty good. I went to dinner at my friend Megan's friends' place. The food was excellent, there was more turkey, stuffing, mashed tatties, and pumpkin pie than I could eat! I was over there for a couple hours and then I headed towards the tun, which is a bar close to the parliament. I found Martin and Miles mostly drunk, and they proceeded to finish off a couple more bottles of wine. After that, Miles went home, but Martin insisted on having another round. The Tun was closing so we went up a road to the Canonsgait. Shortly after, Martin disappeared to the toilet and was gone for close to fifteen mins. After he got back, he was ready to go. A couple of the other guys in the bar wanted to call him a taxi, but he insisted he was capable of walking home, so I walked most of the way with him to make sure he was alright. And although he was definitely stumbling around, it was a ton of fun. We were singing Scottish folk songs at the top of our lungs through holyrood park and it was just a good time.

On Friday, I decided that I was going on an adventure, and showed up to the train station around 10 without a clue where I was going to end up or stay that night. I got a train to York and stayed the night there at a hostel. In the early afternoon as I was walking around the hostel, I found a brochure for the Yorkshire Dales, which is supposedly a national park. I found the trail to be under par - in fact, it took me the better part of the first hour of the day to find it out of Gargrave. After I finally got set on the trail, I encountered sheep, sheep, and more sheep. I almost got rammed. I came across a pack of probably 15 rams grazing a field in the middle of the trail; on my right, I had a river and on the left, a stone wall. I had no choice but try to sneak around the edge of them. As I was about half way, one of the rams looked straight at me. He hunched his body and then made as if to charge. My blood went cold. It was that same feeling I get when I see a cop's sirens light up behind me. Then, for some reason, he stopped and went back to eating. Relieved that I was still in one peice, I moved along. By this time, it was only about 3:30 and the sun was setting behind the clouds, so i did my best to make good time from there on to Malham, which was about 3 miles more. I pulled into Malham around 5:30 and showered, and generally relaxed and tryed to figure out where I was going to go the next day.

I settled on Settle. Because it was Sunday, the trains are on a reduced schedule, not to mention the construction on the track, it was my best shot of getting back to Edinburgh as it was the biggest town around - if anywhere had a train, it would be there. The first hour and a half to settle was a hard climb. At some points, the map showed a 20 deg. gradient, it was slow going for me because it was so steep, and although the maximum altitude was only like 550 feet, that seems rough when I just gained nearly 300 of it in an hour. The trail on Sunday was excellent, there were few muddy spots and those were easy enough to get around, so I was into Settle just a little after midday. Where I waited then 3 hours for the train to get back to Leeds to get to York to get home.

Crummy Weather and Sniffles

Well, the winter weather has started to get us, here in Scotland. It's been drizzling outside since early Saturday evening and the news doesn't suggest it will clear up any time soon. The weekend was actually pretty fun. I did a lot of homework. That is to say, I wandered around Edinburgh, and then wrote a paper about it. I also did the Literary pub tour, which is excellent! The tour exposes the oxymoron that is Edinburgh, showing the contrasts between its brightest literary figures and their life beyond the quill. I also watched the Scotland v. Italy match at a pub, Saturday night. It was awesome!!! We were singing, cheering, booing. It was great - very emotional, really; i almost cried when Italy scored their 2nd goal. After, I went to Sam's birthday party (I work with him) and i drank (coke or redbull) until nearly 5 am. Talk about a great night!

So I have the occasional sniffle, especially with the weather so damp and cold, but my flat is usually quite warm, which is nice, and my ankle is completely better, I think. I'm going to play on it this week and see. =D Anyway, although the flat may lack certain creature-comforts of home, it is safe and dry, and I'm grateful for that.

The last part of the term crunch has started, and now I am really kicking it into gear to get all my assignments, papers and whatnot completed. I'm feeling pretty good about my status right now. I think I'll get it all done and get good grades, but there's still a lot to do, and even more that I wish I could see if only i had the money to do it.

23 Local newspapers...What could be worse?

This weekend was great. I went to a friend from church's birthday party and did a little bit of dancing; While I was watching my friends dance the night away, I realized that dancing wasn't really my thing. A lot of people dance to relax, others dance to express themselves. I don't dance. It's not that embarassed about the fact that i can't dance, or don't have rythym. I don't dance because I don't like to get sweaty and I don't get anything from it. I personally think its pointless. Is that so wrong? Am i an unadventurous person? Not in the least. I love adventures. Everytime I get on a bus to an unknown place, its an adventure. Every time I start walking without any idea where I'm going, I'm going on an adventure. Why does not liking to dance make me less of person?
Anyway, I don't know the answer to it; I don't know why people like to dance, it frustrates me, but I just don't. I would choose watching a movie at mine or anyone else's first. Anyway, Saturday was one of those adventurous days. In the early afternoon, I left the flat. I didn't know where I was going to go, or what I was going to do, but I just got on the bus, and I rode for a while to see a part of the city I hadn't seen yet. I had no clue there was an ASDA so close to my flat!!
The night was great, I went with my friend Jackie, from Canada, to a "bake and date" with some of the YSAs from around Scotland to Dundee. I bid on cakes and finally won one for £11. That means that I had to take the girl who baked the cake out for that much money. The date was ok, we walked around and talked, nothing too exciting, but she was sweet and cute, so I was content. We ended up at Pizza Hut (the only place that does free refills in all of Scotland!!) and i spent a whopping £15...£4 more than Ihad too! I'm such a big spender. Anyhow, after walking back to the chapel in the rain, we went to the beach (I was silently hoping that it would rain harder) to set off some fireworks; not that i have anything against fireworks, but lately, its gotten really cold, and the beach was cold, so I didn't want to be there. I would much rather have been anywhere warm...a pub...my bed...florida...ANYWHERE.
Now, I'm at work, another day, more money lost. I have agreed to help another MSP who doesn't have an intern, and they gave me a crap assignment. They asked me to go through the following Newspapers:

Bearsden & Milngavie Extra Kirkintilloch Herald Strathkelvin Advertiser
Milngavie & Bearsden Herald Lennox Herald Clyde Weekly News
Clydebank Post Dumbarton & Vale of Leven Reporter Greenock Telegraph
Inverclyde Extra Paisley & Renfrewshire Gazette Paisley People
Barrhead News Paisley, Barrhead & Renfrewshire Extra Paisley Daily Express
Renfrewshire World South Glasgow & Eastwood Extra Helensburgh Advertiser
Ayrshire Extra Series Ayrshire World Series Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald
Largs & Millport Weekly NewsThe Arran Banner

I'll save you the effort. There's 23 of them. Yes, 23. And he has the gall to say, whenever's convenient, in your spare time, if you would sort through them and find any references to said MSP. These are not only local papers, there's nothing of import in them. I'm sure the community cares that such and such place burned down, but for the purposes of my research, I don't. You might ask, can't you use the internet? Well, I tried that. But here's the problem: they don't all have website. Yes, some towns in Scotland are as po-dunk, or more, as most towns in Alabama. If Edinburgh and Glasgow are Montgomery and Birmingham, then Paisley and Ardrossan are Daphne and Enterprise. Needless to say, who cares what goes on in Enterprise Alabama?! I surely don't. This is the most tedious, uninteresting task to date, and I can't wait to be done with it!

More non-Adventures

On the way back from the hospital today, to have my ankle checked, I'm pretty sure that the guy in the seat in front of me on the bus peed himself. Yeah, it was definitely gross. The bus smelled like nasty clinical nursing home, I couldn't wait to get off it.
Apparently, my ankle is on the mend, the doctor said that it's healing nicely and I should only be on crutches for a couple days more. The doc also advised that i stay away from 'the football' for a couple more weeks. Bummer.
I took a different way to the hospital, to see a part of Edinburgh I hadn't seen before. It definitely seemed ghetto. I was listening to my thug music because it seemed like it fit the neighborhood.
Saturday morning, I woke up and I really wanted to go on an adventure. Too bad I had those crutches, but at the same time, it saved me from spending more money. Which I will need if I am to go anywhere else - or buy a kilt. I'm seriously contemplating it. I want to get the sghian dubh (the knife that goes in the sock, pronounced ski-an-doo) as well, but the whole thing is expensive! It's about £375 for a decent kilt package, which is a ton of money, but at the same time, it should last me for the rest of my life. Needless to say, it'd be the most expensive pair of clothing I own.
I will go on another trip to the highlands probably not this coming weekend, but the next. I'm getting antsy in Edinburgh, enclosed by high buildings all the time. I need some fresh air.
So as you can tell, this week was normal. Nothing spectacular happened, and the crutches are getting in the way of my fun.

Photos are available here: www.flickr.com/photos/seanm23

The past few weeks have been awesome. I am going to try my best to update this at least once a week (or whenever I have some spare time and internet closeby). This last weekend, I played soccer (the football) with my friends from church and successfully fractured my ankle. Thankfully, the NHS was there for me. I didn't feel the pain immediately and got up and kept playing, although my play was not very good. After, we went to see the movie 'rendition' which is a great flick about civil rights and the value of torture for information. After the film, I went home and went to bed. In the morning when I woke up, my ankle was really sore. I kind of felt the pain come during my sleep, and I woke up with it throbbing. So I got on the bus and went to the emergency room. I was in and out in three hours. I'd like to see an American hospital beat that. So now I'm hobbling around on some crutches. I decided that I will take advantage of them and be a skiier for Halloween, using the crutches as ski poles.

I have had a lot of great adventures thus far. I went to lisbon about a month ago, and my mom and sister came to visit a couple of weeks ago. At that time, we went to the highlands: Inverness, Loch Ness, the isle of Skye, and Glencoe. The country up there is beautiful. I'd love to come back and do some hill-walking. I've met a ton of great people, and it is really nice to be over here this time of the year because the leaves are turning many different hues and the air is crisp and cool. Unfortunately, the days are getting dramatically shorter and the night is getting darker.