This is my travel journal from my study abroad trip to the UK and France. The names of my teachers and classmates have been changed for privacy reasons.

DAY 7 - May 26
               So the drug war has been going on for a while now. A memorable example was when the English got the Chinese addicted to opium so they could get silver from China to buy tea from China. I started reading a novella on my Kindle and I was skimming the prologue, when I came to the bit about opium and I thought “Hey, I learned that in class or somewhere!”

               I haven't watched much TV while I've been here. Partly because I haven't spent that much time in my room, and partly because I don't know any of these programs. Well, I've been able to find shows like American Dad, South Park and a few other American shows, and a couple of British programs that I already know. Sometimes I watch the shows I haven't seen. I found cartoons, old stuff, and reality TV.

               There was this one documentary thing about pregnant women with unhealthy habits. I saw another where this guy examined the heads of Apple addicts and found out that Apple products stimulate the same regions of the brain as religion. Also, there's Nanny 911, which makes me question the parenting skills of Americans. (Okay, if you don't want anyone telling your how to raise your kids, then why the hell did you go on Nanny 911 asking for help?!)

              What I've found odd so far is that these channels seem to only broadcast for a portion of the day. When they're not on-air, all you see is a blank screen saying when they'll be back. In the US, channels broadcast at all hours, but they air different shows depending on the day of the week and the time of the day. Time slots in which more people are likely to be watching TV get all the good, high-rated programs. When few people are watching, stations put on crappy filler stuff.

               For instance, some channels will broadcast infomercials from 1am-6am, or do reruns during school/work hours. And there's usually nothing new on Friday nights because lots of people go out then.

               Worked on our group projects today. I'm not entirely sure what we're supposed to be doing. At least I recovered one chapter of the documents I lost. All I need to redo is Chapter One now, and that shouldn't take too long.

               Then we got to go visit the Scottish Parliament to watch them in action! It's a cool-looking building, don't know when it was built, and it's very modern. It's mostly stone, light wood, and glass. Mom would not feel claustrophobic. There was a polar bear outside (probably a robot) and a woman holding a sign, but I never got to see the sign. Going in, we had to send our jackets and bags through an x-ray machine just like at the airport and step through a metal detector. We did not have to take our shoes off, like at Heathrow. (Hint hint, American TSA.)

               I took a few pictures of the visitor's center, but none during the session because it's not allowed. They had some pretty strict rules. Well, not strict exactly, but strictly enforced. The rules were just basic, common sense things: no talking, no breaking stuff, no disrupting the proceedings, and if what you're thinking of doing would get you arrested at the airport, you're to assume you're not allowed to do it in Parliament. My high school graduation had more restrictions than that.

               [Note to all you UK people- keep in mind that this next bit is told from the perspective of an American from the Bible Belt with a cynical view of her own country's politics.]

               We were just in time for the closing statements. Most of it went over my head, but I learned something very interesting about Parliament. Well, about politics in the UK in general- An American politician would get eaten alive in this system. During each MSP's speech, the other MSPs would grumble, jeer, cheer, approve, and do all sorts of things. They're also allowed to interrupt and throw down challenges that the speaker has to answer right then. That is, come up with an acceptable reply right at that moment. American politicians rely too much on scripts to do that.

               And while I didn't get many of the jokes they made, I could still tell when someone got burned. It was like oral sparring. Our whole class was actually leaning forward to catch everything, and several times we got to see someone get verbally bitchslapped. We wanted to vocally express our enthusiasm, but that would have gotten us kicked out.

               The speakers we heard were for the Labour Party and I think the Liberal party. I'll check that one out. The speaker in the middle was Nicola Sturgeon from the Scottish National Party. I know her name because she just appeared on the news as I was typing this. No, really. The TV's right in front of my face and I looked up and went “Oh, hi!”. She was even wearing the same outfit as when I saw her earlier today. (Convenient, right?)

               After that, we were on our own to do whatever. I took a quick look at the gift shop and was not surprised to see whiskey available. We wandered up the Royal Mile and I went with the group that I thought was going for food. Apparently, we were going shopping first. I don't mind going shopping. I'd rather have explored the city center more. That, and my patience with shopping runs out pretty quickly for a girl.

               What we did next was horrible.

               We went shoe shopping.

               Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I enjoy shoe shopping about as much as I love getting punched in the face. In fact, here is a list of things that I would rather do than go shoe shopping:

• Take a standardized test. 
• Coach t-ball. 
• Go to the dentist. 
• Pluck all of my leg hairs with tweezers. 
• Get a mammogram 
• Contract an exotic disease, because then I would at least have some mental stimulation before I died.