Parliament

Okay so we've been out of contact for a week now. We've done lots of things and are going to slowly blog about them all over a few posts.

Tuesday 8th July

We were lucky enough to get a guided tour around the houses of parliament. We went along with Gem's cousin Pamela as part of a Liberal Democrat group tour. We saw the House of Lords which is very elaborate and ornate and has a huge big gold throne where the Queen sits once a year for the opening of parliament. We also saw the House of Commons which is very green (just like the one in the Beehive). Then Pamela's MP, Greg Mulholland, took us up to on of the Select Committee conference rooms and talked about what he does in Parliament and stuff. It was really really interesting to hear what an MP's job is actually all about. And strange that we've talked to a real MP in England but never met one in NZ. He's also the most famous person we've met so far (but not that famous cos theres about 600+ MPs).

We spend the rest of the afternoon with Pamela and had a look through the Jewel Tower which is one of the only remaining bits of the original Westminster Palace (the offical name of the Parliament building).

Afterwards we lugged our massive packs out to Ealing to stay with Gem's great Auntie Kath. She live in a real cute little terrace house and I trimmed her hedges for her.

The next day we headed out of London by train... but thats a story for another post.

And that was London.