Tis my birthday today, so I’m taking a welcome day off politics, studying, and travelling. I spent the weekend at a seminar on Internet campaigning with the European Green Party in Brussel, and then had a couple of days to do “dissertation research”. I managed to get an interview with the Secretary-General of the EGP, and plenty of time for ‘networking’, which will hopefully prove useful later on. There was also time to carry out my role as International Co-ordinator of the Young Greens in Great Britain; a role mainly consisting of sitting in cafés or bars and discussing things over a glass of Belgian beer. Of all the roles on the boards of the young greens in the UK, I like both of mine the best.

I only got back from Brussel last night though, and I’m off to Edinburgh on Friday afternoon, so today and tomorrow will be a good chance to rest, and catch up on reading for a very late switch (seven weeks in) onto a different unit within in my university course.

Well I didn’t get very far with the “political” post, so I’ll save it for another time. My constant travel continues, and I’m taking a short pit-stop in Manchester, before heading for the Netherlands for a week, and then crossing Central Europe and the Balkans to get to Greece.

I was in Dublin for the first Inter-Isles Young Greens get-together, which was great fun. We managed to achieve the perfect balance between socialising and serious stuff. Highlights included going on my first Pride march, and developing a taste for Guinness. The next event is in Edinburgh, later in the year, so I’m looking forward to that.

While I was in Ireland, I managed to squeeze in a trip over to Co. Galway to visit family. Rural west of Ireland is quite a contrast to Dublin, shown most clearly in the difference between a pub in Cong with DJ Eamo (bored looking man in the corner with a laptop plugged into the speakers), and pretty much any pub we went to in the capital.

Anyway, ’twas all fun, as, hopefully, the rest of Europe will be.

Woohoo! My exams are over. I’m officially still in term time, but in reality I’m on holiday until September. Not that its all going to be resting. I have quite a lot of projects on the go at the moment, and I should probably make a start on my dissertation over the summer.

I spent the weekend in Berlin, at the Federation of Young European Greens General Assembly. It was very interesting. At quite a few points, I was totally lost in the European variant of English that seems to have developed (manifestation is used to mean demo, odd), and a couple of times, I’m shamed to admit, I wasn’t completely sure what I was voting for. I didn’t get much chance to do touristy things, but I did see the Tiergarten and travel around Berlin on the U-Bahn and S-Bahn a little bit. I’ve also managed to become the subject of gossip among the DWARS delegation and one of the new executive committee members. Maybe I’ll go into that in another post though.