Parliament Tour!

Friday, there was a blizzard. I took one look outside and was like guess I'm not going outside today. If you don't know this about me, I absolutely HATE the snow. It can be pretty for about two seconds until you go outside and realize how freezing it is. Wind chill below zero, frostbite, etc etc. Its especially bad in London when it ruins all your fun touristy plans. (Jen, I really tried to be excited for you, but I couldn't do it). So, later that night a few of us planned a dinner. Kelsey made us green bean casserole, which Sophie decided tasted like America haha. I guess they don't really do casseroles here, the British flatmates took one look and were like ew what IS that. Whatever, I thought it was delicious. After a while, we decided to trek over to a pub close by. We got big pitchers of drinks to share, it was fun! 

Yesterday, we went on a tour of the Houses of Parliament! It was UNBELIEVABLE!! By far, my favorite thing I've done so far here in London. I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life. There is an incredible amount of history and tradition. There's been a palace on that site since William the Conquerer in the 1000's. This king also built the first part of the Tower and decided he wanted a separate palace away from the city (For those of you who don't know, there are technically two cities in London. Theres the city of London, which is the financial district. And then theres the city of Westminster.) This is when he built Westminster Palace along the Thames. It was used as a palace by the monarchy until Henry VIII (of course, he ruined everything). From Henry on, the palace was only used as a place for government. In the mid-1800's, the entire palace burned down except for Westminster Hall, which still stands today (so the entrance when you first walk in is 1,000 years old!!!!). It actually turned out to be a good opportunity because now they could build a building purpose built for running a government, instead of for a palace. Victoria was queen at the time, so most of it was built for her, so there are little VR's all over the place. Her husband, Prince Albert was in charge of the art and every room has its own theme. Theres even a Tudor-themed room (which I almost started hyperventilating in, I was so excited!). During WW2, part of the building was bombed and completely destroyed. Winston Churchill was Prime Minister at the time and decided to use some of the bomb-damaged remains in the new building. Kinda cool!

Westminster Hall

The Queen goes to Parliament every year, once a year, to open the new session for Parliament. She reads out "The Queen's Speech" which basically states everything the Parliament plans to do that year. She has to read it exactly as they give it to her, since she technically has no governmental power. (And yet, nothing can happen without her opening the Parliament session each year... interesting). There is this AMAZINGGGGG throne and altar for her in the House of Lords. I have never seen anything like it, I think my mouth dropped open and I couldn't take my eyes away for several minutes. This is also the one occasion every year when they take the Crown Jewels from the Tower and bring them to Parliament for the Queen to wear. We couldn't take pictures inside and no pictures do it justice, but heres what it looks like and more info on it:

http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/occasions/stateopening/

The State Opening of Parliament happens every year in May, I can't wait to watch it on TV, now that I've been there! Theres two major halls, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The House of Lords is for all the Lords who were born with their title (theres over 800 in the UK). The House of Commons is for the elected officials, so thats where the majority of things happen. They come up with the laws and write them, send them to the House of Commons, who edits them, and sends them back to the House of Commons. I could go on all day about how cool it was. There was just so much history and tradition there and at the same time, it is still used on a daily basis to run the government of the UK. Another amazing story they told is of King Charles I, but I'm guessing not everyone wants to hear about it, so if you do, ask me and I'd love to tell you about it! Basically, he thought he was above the law, so didn't work with Parliament and eventually they tried him with treason and he was executed.

They only do tours on Saturdays for most of the year (obviously during the week its crazy busy), but if you ever come to London it is a MUST do. I think they do more tours in the summer. Sorry this post was so long! You can tell how much I liked it :-) Tons more I could say on it too, let me know if you have any questions! Theres yet another blizzard outside today (I thought it was never supposed to snow here?!!), but I'm braving it later today to make it to church. We are for sure going to Scotland this Friday. We're doing an overnight bus to arrive Saturday morning, staying one night in a hostel, and returning Sunday night on another overnight bus.