This morning we made it over to breakfast in good time, with long enough for a sit down meal. I ended up with the same food as yesterday but with a hot cup of tea and time to spare. During breakfast it was pouring off and on, but mostly on, so we piled into cabs and headed into town. Our first stop was Scottish Parliament where we met with a member of the Scottish Labour Party named Ken Macintosh. He provided some insight to what it's like to be in opposition, as well as some specific policies he would change. His party is actually in the process of electing new leadership and he is in the running for the position so it was very nice of him to take time out of his schedule to meet with us. He also gave us a tour of the Parliament building and his office. The building was designed with two themes in mind: openness and boats. Consequently you see a lot of class and natural lighting, and a lot of features shaped like the bottom of a boat. It's interesting to note that all the MP's offices are much smaller than those you'd see in the US. Each MP, regardless of rank it seemed, had a cubicle where an assistant or receptionist could sit and it was open/glass on the side facing the hallway. The member then had a slightly larger, but pretty much the same size, office right behind it. The reasoning behind this design is that most of a SMPs (Scottish Member of Parliament) work is done in the constituency and they don’t need a lot in Edinburgh. Also, most of the offices also have a little nook sticking out of the back wall and into the street. These contemplative nooks were designed by the architect and could provide a place for the SMP to sit and think quietly; I love them and want one myself. Afterwards, his office managed to secure some tickets to FMQs - First Minister's Questions - and I got one! It was so cool to watch and appealed heavily to the geek in me. Questions is when the government ministers of various departments and the first minister must answer questions from the other SMPs. It is a lot more rowdy than at home, with members cheering, booing, and verbal jabing at each other in the questions. I feel so lucky to have had this experience and now really want to try to get into the PMQs in London. Afterwards, we headed to Pizza Express which is a chain here that we wanted to try. Unfortunately the food didn't totally live up to expectations but it wasn't bad. The last lecture of the day was from a member of the SNP (Scottish Nationalist Party whose big policy platform centers on, you guessed it, Scottish independence) which was interesting if not just for the huge amount of politics at play. It was good to hear about the policies of the SNP (currently the majority party in the Scottish Parliament, the first party to hold a majority) from a member of the SNP because they are sometimes cast as 'nutters' by political opponents. Even if this guy wasn’t nutters he was still most definitely a politician and someone I would've like to talk to more about just because I found myself in opposition to a number of his arguments from an academic standpoint and it's easier to cut through the politics one on one. After this meeting we walked through the cold drizzle to get tickets for a bus tour. Since they were goods for 24 hours we figured we could use it to get partially home. Turns out, we were wrong but now we don’t have to go all the way back in tomorrow to get them. I ended up taking the public bus back. Did you know that even the bus seats are plaid in Scotland? This amused me to no end. I like taking public transport in a place because you really get a feel for the people and it gives you a sense of pride, you can fool yourself into thinking your local if you get good enough at it. Tonight we all went out for a group dinner on the Royal Mile which was a lot of fun. We don't do a lot non-stressful group activities but they're fun when we do have them and this trip has been a good bonding experience for a lot of us. Afterwards, we all went out to Whiski for a few drinks. They had a great Scottish folk band playing and it was great to just sit there in the amazing atmosphere - good music, good drinks, good people. Later we hit up the Edinburgh U Student Union for a little bit and overall had a good night.
No comments:
Post a Comment