June 22-Colin Davis

Today we went to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. This morning we had lecture and one of the things I learned was that King Henry VIII was “crazier than a s*$@- house rat.” This came up because we were discussing the fact that basically two generations of the royal Stewart family in Scotland were angry and did not want to be on nice terms with Henry VIII. James IV of the Stewart’s died in the battle of Flodden Field and for some odd reason James’ body was given to Henry and no one knows what happened to the body. After that event everything with the royal family just hit the fan.

After lecture we had three hours or so to eat lunch and do whatever, unfortunately I was the boring one and just took a nap but lucky for me it was the most delicious mid-summers nap in Scotland that I have ever had. We had to get on the bus to go to Parliament by two o’clock and my alarm ended the nap.

Once we got to the bus stop we needed to get off at, we then hiked through town to parliament and we have been walking soooooo much that by the time we were at the Parliament building my tendons felt like steel cables. After this trip my legs will be more powerful than a work mule. When Dr. Long went in to buy our tickets she told us that our reservations had been moved back to four o’clock instead of the planned two-forty. So we all got to cruz around on the Royal Mile, which is called that because the Edinburgh castle is at one end and the Holyrood palace is at the other end, which is right across the street from the new parliament building. However, since our tour started at four and we all got to cruz around Dr. Long suggested tea. So I went with her and a few other students to have scones and tea. This tea was the BEST cup of tea that I have EVER had, and I am a tea drinker I really do love tea. After the tasty tea we trucked it back to the parliament building.

Once inside the Parliament building we promptly started the tour. Our tour guide was this little old Scottish lady that had an all purple outfit with earrings that were purple thistles and I really wanted to touch them because they looked extremely soft. We started off looking at the model of the architects design and the tour guide told us that he wanted it to look like a harbor with boats anchored in the bay. And the different boats were the offices for the ministers that vote for the laws. This new Parliament building was opened October 9th 2004. This building was a competition of the architects to see who had the best design, kind of like the competition for the design of the new ground zero area in New York. The winner of this competition was a Spanish architect named Enrich Miracles. Unfortunately a few days after the final plans for the building were approved Enrich Miracles passed away. His design was finished and has many different hidden meanings inside of every part of the building. The main lobby on the personal only side had vents that were designed in shapes and some say that the shapes look like the main land of Scotland and some say that the shape is the Queens flag that is flown only when she is in Edinburgh. I personally thought that it looked like binary code, that would be awesome if it was and typed in and it was the answer to life. Also in the same lobby the roof was raised and warped to look like leaves to symbolize how the Scottish people have grown and blossomed from the ground up. We walked around more and into the voting room and what I noticed that the fronts of the podiums for each were curved and swayed into the same design that you can find everywhere throughout the building. There was a mace, as they called it, and it was more of a saber and it was sold silver with a golden ring and carvings at one side of it. The nice old lady ended the tour in a room where the ministers of parliament propose laws and discuss them.

After the tour I walked to the bus station and took the bus up the hill because my tendons still felt like steel cables. After I got off the bus I walked down a hill with a whole bunch of shops on it and then I came to them! IT was the Edinburgh version of the Exorcist stairs. Long, dark and a single standing street at the bottom. Those stairs are so scary. I hope that I never have to walk down them but if I do I am so totally going to have been drinking so I won’t be so scared. Hopefully the adventures in Scotland won’t bring me along those stairs.