Further explorations in a Wet City

Committee on the second day was unfortunately not improved over the first day, there were a number of no shows, no doubt related to the social the night before.  Our group did their best to move discussions forward in a productive way in their committees, but some delegates were simply there to goof around.  Their behavior really ticked off my students who had worked so hard to be prepared and professional.  

Several of the delegate earned nicknames:  Marajuna Man was a high school student from Poland who had matching pants and tie with giant canabis leaves on them.  And Salmon Suit Guy was a delegate from France.

I arranged to meet up with another faculty advisor from the US and we spent the day exploring/shopping.  I had several different kinds of scotch that I had been instructed to find, so we began with that quest.  It was funny to go into the different whisky shops.  Not being a drinker, I’m not very familar at all with descriptions of the tastes of different whiskies.  But each salesman would engage us in a detailed conversation about their different makes and such.  One went above and beyond in being helpful by giving us directions to a specialty chocolate shop that I wanted to find.

I was told the was a shop out near my B and B, so we decided to head that direction.  We found the chocolate, along with some really nice cafes.  Had lunch, then set off for the Polish grocery store that I had discovered on the first day.  My family has a few Polish food items that they love, and it would be fun to bring those back for them.  We were successful in our hunt.

We took the bus back toward the university and decided to spend our last few hours before the end of the conference at the Scottish National Museum.  It is a wonderful museum!  We opted to go through the Scottish history exhibits, although they had a lot of other choices, including a cool kids musuem section.

We returned to the University for the closing ceremony and my students were about to explode with frustration from how their committee work had degraded over the course of the day.  They had a Chair pretend to be a delegate from Haiti and bring in a sack and ask for donations on the floor of the General Assembly.  Completely disrespectful.  At the closing ceremony, one of the staffers made a comment about just ‘winging it’ the whole time and it ‘turned out ok’.  Not the kind of comment to instill confidence or a desire to return.  The only redeeming outcome was that 4 students won awards.  Excellence recognized, even in an environment that was not what we had hoped.

University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

Having scouted out the good cafe at lunch near our B and B, we decided to return their for a delegation dinner.  It was great to debrief and unwind.  I didn’t know yet if the castle or palace would be open for sightseeing the next day, but went to bed with my fingers crossed.