Hey Everyone!

So this week has been a little crazy and I know I haven't written about last week so here it goes. Get ready....

The Monday we got back from Paris wasn't too busy we all met under the Big Ben and had a lecture in the House of Parliament with an actual member of Parliament named Graham Brady. He told us how things are ran within the British government and we were given the opportunity to ask questions about the problems within their government, his thoughts on them and his ideas of how they are going to be fixed. He also gave us a little background on the Prime Minister. The current PM is Gordon Brown, there are 646 members of Parliament and 97% of Parliament are white. What I found interesting that I didn't know before was that the Prime Minister can declare war and ask the queen to dissolve Parliament and be open for national elections.

After are lecture in the House of Parliament we broke for lunch and met back at ULU for another lecture on the European Union with Dr. Gavin Dodsworth. I actually enjoyed this lecture because I felt that he related what we were talking about to our generation. He had a way of speaking passionately about the EU but was able to convey the message to us in a clear way. We learned that there are 27 countries in the EU and that it is not automatic to be a member. If a country doesn't want to be in it they don't have to; by choice Norway and Switzerland are not in it. To be part of EU you have to feel as though if you give you will get something out of it and the only country to leave was Greenland. One of the main reasons to have started EU was to bring countries together and prevent WWIII. It has done a good job so far and by coming together in the EU, there will be more influence on the rest of the world.

We learned how the Euro came about and it was to create a United States of Europe through currency, goods, service, free movement of people and capital. There is one federal reserve and it determines the Euro's worth.

Monday was like a said an interesting day but it wasn't too chaotic which was good because we were all still trying to recover from Paris. It was cool learning about where the Euro came about and why it is so important for more countries to join and come together along with the majority of Europe.