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Hej,

So after a long week of class, I could not wait until the weekend.  My weekend was packed with social events.  On Friday, we had guests over for dinner, then on Saturday, we had a large banquet for my host brother’s football (soccer) league.  Sunday was the big day, with a birthday party for my host father’s 90 year old grandmother.  I was not sure how the day would go, considering everyone there speaks Danish and I do not know many people at the party.  I was nervous, but excited to see what the party would look like.

    

I have to say, this party may have been the most fun that I have had on my trip thus far.  We sang Danish birthday songs that family members custom-wrote for Inge (the birthday girl).  There were speeches and plenty of “skål” (cheers) moments, which included shots of schnapps and other alcohol.  We ate traditional Danish food, including rugbrød (rye bread), herring, frikadeller (meatballs), and roast beef with remoulade and crispy onion.  For dessert, there was cake layered with white cake, fresh raspberries, marzipan, and whipped cream.  The design on the top of the cake was none other than a Danish flag.

   

After our lunch, there was time for dancing.  But this was not just any normal dance for a birthday party.  A special dance instructor came in to teach us a traditional Danish dance that royalty used to do in the olden days.  He apparently was at Inge’s 80th birthday, and he made the promise that he would be back to dance again in 10 more years!  So I did not plan on participating in this dance for two reasons: 1. I don’t know Danish, and 2. I don’t dance.  But, who do you think was pulled up to dance anyway? Me.  So, with the help of my danish dancing partner who translated and explained everything for me, I danced a traditional Danish dance, called the Lancier (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Pq4B-7zv0).  It was traditional for royalty to dance it, but it is still taught in schools today, and high schoolers are expected to dance it at their gala, which is like our prom.  I laughed so hard, mainly because our group could not get it right, and we were either behind the music, behind the other groups, or we just fell apart in general. It was honestly so much fun though, and I recommend dancing lessons to anyone and everyone.

I hope you all had a great weekend at Mercer, and I hope the last few weeks of the semester are not too stressful!

Tak for din tid,

Bethany

This past week was filled with endless Chinese classes and a lot of character memorization. Every day I have class from 8:30 until 12 and it is conducted entirely in Chinese. As I mentioned last week, I am only allowed to speak, read, and write Chinese (with the exception of family and school related tasks). I am currently living in an apartment with two of my classmates. It’s a lot of fun because we get to cook all our own meals, make our own schedules, and speak Chinese together. It is just the right size for the three of us and my erg (it takes up nearly the entire living room)!

I am including some more pictures from Shangri-la and Tiger Leaping Gorge because I still can’t get enough of it.

<3 Elizabeth

Tiger Leaping Gorge!

The tiny swing bridge we had to cross to see the rick where the Tiger leaped.

On top of Snow Mountain with some friends

Hiya everyone, hope you all are doing well what with all the craziness going on. It certainly has been an exhausting week for me.

On Sunday I decided to go out and explore Edinburgh a bit; I wandered around, up and down the streets, poking into some shops I’ve been meaning to look at. I ended up meandering over to Dean’s Village, a neat little neighborhood over in Newtown overlooking the Leith. It’s a quaint little place, with buildings that seem almost fairytale-esque. There’s admittedly not much to do over there, but it is very pretty.

Tuesday, as you all well know was Election Day. And man oh man what a crazy day it was. I went on a run at 7am (sunrise here up north in Scotland…) and was rewarded with this beautiful sunrise.

Runs in Edinburgh are always worth it; the city is beautiful, especially in the morning when no ones awake yet. Not too mention that there probably are few places in the world where you can casually run around a volcano!

That evening, after finishing work and a quick nap, some friends and I went to a pub to watch the election coverage. Now, I need to remind you that Edinburgh is five hours ahead of the East Coast, to say nothing about the West. We’re about eight hours ahead of there. So, the coverage already started pretty late. What with the results being completely unexpected and a very close race, we ended up staying until 5am (What can I say?! We’re Poli Sci students!) I won’t say anything here about the politics itself, but needless to say everyone was in a bit of a daze at work the next day.

Thursday was a bit of a change from my usual routine of researching and writing things for my MSP. We had a group of people from the Forth Valley Sensory Center come in for a tour of Parliament, sit in on First Minister Questions, and meet with my boss. I was very grateful for the chance to meet all of them; they were delightful and very funny people! I also had the opportunity to go on their tour with them. I was grateful I asked to go because in addition to the usual stops on tour (and believe me, I’ve been on enough to know the routine by now) we got to go onto the floor of the debating chamber where all the MSPs and presiding officer sit.

I was also very lucky to get an extra ticket to FMQs; usually they’re booked up to months in advance and people in Parliament are send out emails every week pleading for extras. They seemed especially rowdy this week, with all the questions either being about the National Health Service or Donald Trump (Yes, really.) If you want to read about it click here.

The guests from the FVSC met with my MSP over lunch after that. I think one of the most valuable things I’m learning about politics from this internship is about how everything they do is for their country. They aren’t called the National Scottish Party for nothing! For these people the most valuable things you can do is to meet and listen to your constituents. My MSP and his staff do so much to try and help their people; it clearly must work because from the first time to the second time he was elected my MSP doubled his majority. For the Scottish National Party as a whole, half of voters voted for their party, giving them a near majority in a system which is designed to discourage majorities. So, clearly, they must be doing something right.

I like to think I played my part by getting my visitors a photo op with the First Minister herself 😉

Today I got to go to my first rugby game! I like to think I understand it pretty well; it’s a lot like football but paced like soccer and with some unique rules, like how you can’t throw forwards. The game I went to see was Scotland VS Australia! It’s a bit of a rivalry as Scotland had a tough loss to Australia a couple years ago. They had another tough loss today, unfortunately, losing right at the end of the game by just one point. Despite that, I had a really great time, and the atmosphere was really fantastic! Where else but Scotland do you have pipers in the crowd playing the national anthem to rally fans before halftime?

As you might be able to tell, it’s packed! I wish I could include a video of the singing of the anthem, because it’s really something special. And, I might be biased, but Scotland definitely has the best national anthem. If you ever needed to know anything about the Scots, just know that their anthem is all about how they will rise again against the English just like they did back in the day against King Edward II, who national hero Robert the Bruce soundly defeated in the 1300s.

Anyway, that’s all from me for this week. Warrior women, good luck at your race this weekend! Talk to you next week from balmy Iceland 😉

Cheers xx

Kim