A few weeks ago, we had the rare privilege of going to Malta!

"MALTA! Cool!! ...Where's Malta!?"

That's what my mom, my brother, my boss and roughly 6 of my friends said when I told them we were going. Truth be told, I hadn't heard of it either until Alisse and I booked a flight there. It's off the southern coast of Sicily, nestled in the Mediterranean. It's a confusing island of Italians, Greeks and Northern Africans. It's only 122 square miles, its one of the smallest countries in the world and its also one of the most Catholic countries in the world (apart from... say... the Vatican). We went for Alisse's birthday, the lucky girl!

Essentially, we played on the beaches, ate gelato and visited ancient cities for five glorious days! Here are just a few scenes from Malta:

It was just the most amazing experience! Malta will always be among my favorite islands!

Love,

Heather

Even Now

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

Scotland is just a dream! This was taken in the Trossachs Mountains, overlooking Loch Lomond. How much more beautiful can it getl? I think the answer is none, none the more beautiful. Tomorrow night we leave for Italy and I couldn't be more excited!

Belle of the Boulevard

I'm sure you've heard of them.

They're only the greatest thing to hit this part of the world since Kilts.

I've spent hours listening to Scottish music, trying to find all the good songs and only the good bands. While some artists might have great names (We Were Promised Jetpacks... they win time and time again) and others might have altogether fantastic one hit wonders (Young Ned of the Hill by the Pogues)... There has only been one band that has performed so consistently well that we still play them here in casa del interns. 

A few good facts:

They're identical twins

They were born in Leith, Edinburgh.

They own a football team. Who we say play. Who's anthem is one of their songs. Which song we sang with 500 other overjoyed fans.

 They were in Parliament mere weeks ago... but they didn't stop in to say "hi" 

Who are these glorious gems?

And I'm smitten.

Think you've never heard of them?? 

Yes. Yes you have.

Here's to Scotland's finest.

Heaven Here

Have you ever been to a magical bluebell forest?

There is one in Stirling, Scotland, if you'd so care to go. Saturday was the most amazing day in the existence of all the cosmos. Should anyone want to replicate such a day, here's the recipe:

Start with a very dodgy orange bus:

Don't let the man in the kilt scare you, his name is Donald and he's oh so friendly.

Next, add the coastal town of Queensbury. This is an essential step that can't be skipped. Why? So all the asian tourists can get off and take pictures of the bridge. 

Oh yeah... and me too. 

Next step, return to the bus where you will be enchanted by stories of William Wallace and his dashing escapades. Try to forget that William Wallace was not a highlander, but really a middle-class intellectual from Glasgow. Don't worry, the real Scottish superheroes come later.

Add just a pinch of inspiration, but don't overdo it. And get off and tour the sites where William Wallace somehow discovered blue body paint.

is that too much?

Then throw in a generous amount of pure Scottish glory

The result should look very green at this point

Add hairy "coo" (cow, for those of you who don't speak Scot) to taste. 

Let them do most of the tasting, actually. For those of you who wondered, 

hairy coos are particularly fond of white bread.

Get back on that bus, because Donald has some stories to tell you. Today you get to learn all about Rob Roy! The original mobsta gangsta with a fresh side of red hair! Rob Roy stole cattle from all his neighbors then promised he'd stop only if they paid him. What a lad!

When your day has boiled over from straight up awesomeness, be sure to sprinkle in the Monty Python Castle, and your most favorite person in all the land.

With bonus hairy coo hats!

Finish by pairing the end of the world (that's right, ladies and gentlemen, Rapture has arrived) with the World's End Pub.

The lovely English boy who offered to take our picture got too excited when we told him it was the end of the world and there was a bar right there... hence he couldn't wait for us to smile.

but we really were there

Garnish with shots of Smirnoff! It's the end of the world after all! Just kidding... but really. That's what everyone else was doing.

And there you have it! The makings of a perfect day! But, don't try this at home. Perfect day is best made in entirely unfamiliar surroundings :)

Love,

Heather.

Alisse. After the end of the world.

So Impossible

For the past week and a half, I've been on a van. And, of course, that van was always filled with balloons. Always.




And I've been doing this:




That's right. I've been holding a lot of balloons. All week. Who is that man, you might ask?


That is Alex Salmond. He is the recently re-elected first minister of Scotland. Personally, I think he's really awesome. He's working under the big idea that Scotland needs to be independent from Britain.

It makes sense.
This is a country where they have everything. The electricity works, the water runs, they have jobs, personal liberties and yet... at the end of the day Scotland has little power over their own taxation, over many of the laws which govern their nation and they have almost no say in the EU.
Many of the Scottish people are terribly afraid of the idea of an independent Scotland because of what happened to Ireland and especially their economy. But what the SNP is saying is "we can do it". I'm all for people who say "we can do it". And on Thursday May 5th, the people of Scotland also said "we can do it!"

They voted approximately 70 SNP members into the Scottish Parliament. That's a majority portion of parliament, which has never happened before in the history of modern Scottish Elections. In fact, majority parties aren't supposed to happen. But the SNP did it, because the people voted them into power. And in about 2 or 3 years, we hope Alex will (after taking measures to stabilize the economy and improve education) introduce a referendum that allows for Scottish Independence. And I personally hope the people of Scotland say, once again, "we can do it"

Also, is it too early to start making William Wallace references?
Yes? okay. We'll wait a few years.

But I'm so proud of the SNP, particularly these wonderful people

Whom I've had the singular pleasure of riding many many miles in a van with. They're great guys and really hard workers. Sometimes they sing and that's not always lovely, but who can blame them for being so happy?

Okay, enough of the campaigning.
Actually, there's not much else to talk about... because that's really all we've been doing! Haha, we haven't had much time for tourism, but I can say that I love love love Scotland, its so beautiful and green and fun. I love the ward here and I'm deeply impressed by the YSA kids, they're always friendly and so so so strong in the gospel. And I love Alisse! Who couldn't adore a roommate like this?

 

She's absolutely the very best! We have so much fun together and I'm infinitely glad that I'm getting to know her.

Also, bonus pictures of Scotland that I found whilst looking for a picture of Alisse:

Am I one lucky duck or what?! All of these are just from the city of Edinburgh alone. I LOVE Scotland so much!
P.S. If you wanted to eat fresh baked rye bread with homemade strawberry vanilla jam and cheese, a good place to do that would be on a hill underneath a castle while the sun shines down on you.

Much Love!

Heather.

Get Me Right

Last week, His Excellency Hem Heng, Cambodian ambassador to the U.S., gave a particularly uncomfortable lecture. I felt confident going in to his lecture because I knew about Cambodia, I was, at the very least, aware of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot’s reign of terror. But, the longer I sat there, the more uneasy I felt. I had no clue how much the United States had supported the Khmer Rouge, financially, politically, militarily. And here this man, who had lived through the Cambodian enslavement, was telling me that the United States was a main supporter, but nobody stood up and told him he was wrong, meaning, he must be telling the truth. It’s just that I, being particularly uninformed, had never known just how involved the U.S. became in Pol Pot’s killing spree. As I looked around me, I saw that the girl next to me had no clue what the Khmer Rouge was and instead was drawing pictures of the US bombing cattle in Cambodia and I realized that maybe the rest of my generation was just like me, wholly unaware. That’s about when I started feeling particularly uncomfortable. How many other situations have we (as a country) been in where we steamrolled over other countries, over other people, to put ourselves in a better position?

As the “most powerful country in the world” the U.S. exploits quite a lot of situations, we stick our opinions, our noses, our guns into places that they simply do not belong and we get away with whatever we’d like to do because other countries are less powerful than us, and thus have less say. Granted, we do our best to help countries that are revolting, starving, dying, but the fact is, we also do a lot of harm. Our politicians are intrusive, decisive and outright rude sometimes. Is this the way that our country would prefer to be? Do we as the citizens want a government who financially supports a dictator in Egypt simply because we need ties to the US, or should we start saying no? Should we start standing up for ourselves and saying “NO. I do not want other people in the world to suffer simply because I am part of a country so enormous that it does not know its own boundaries” Here’s to facing things that make us uncomfortable, to politicians who misrepresent the people, to a military that exploits, to a president who makes decisions that we the people would never make. Here’s to saying no.

Start with this one:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/world/asia/17pakistan.html?ref=us

Standard Lines

A week ago visiting professor Gideon Aran spoke at the Kennedy Center, commenting on the 9/11 attacks ten years after.

September 11th stunned America. We sat back, dazed and most of us wondered "how... why did this happen?" Lucky for us, the media was right there to soothe our insatiable curiosities and tell us exactly why America was under attack. A few years later, we learned to live with the facts and accept that Middle Easterners were all brainwashed to hate us because they didn't have a democracy like we did, they believed in people like Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein was limiting their ability to think correctly. Oh, and something about Al Qaeda too.

Not so, says professor Aran. He suggested that we collectively fell to the biases of the media and the politicians who desired to create a force and reason for retaliation. But in all reality, the reasons for Al Qaeda attacks were much deeper rooted in Middle Eastern history and U.S. relations with the Muslim people. Professor Aran emphasized the idea that the timeline for causation was almost endless. Where does the hate begin? How do we know which events to pinpoint?

To me, his musings highlighted a need for better history education. We live in the present and we plan for the future, but the past gets overlooked as quickly as it becomes the past. The human race as a whole marches forward, on to bigger and better things, hardly ever looking back - until something happens that sends us reeling. Suddenly Libya is in flames and we have no clue how it happened.
It is essential to know causation in order to find a solution.

History is essential in every field because it shows us what worked, what didn't and why. In the advances of science we build on the professionals before us who tested theories. In art we look at history to reflect upon social moods and means of expression. In political science we observe difference interactions between states to figure out why China is the way it is.

It is necessary to be well-versed in history so that when you have an opinion on the war in Iraq, your opinion counts for something. When you talk about the revolution in Egypt, you understand truly what is going on. When you joke about Kim Jong-Il, you know exactly what you're saying.

And in life, we need history to know where we're going next.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/education/30advanced.html?scp=12&sq=education+history&st=nyt