Working 9-5 (or 11-6 as the case may be)

Whew!

Today has been epic. It was my first day of work as an intern at Parliament.

Here's a few things I should explain about the British government.
1. There are 2 houses like the Senate and House of Representatives. However, these are called the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The House of Commons members each represent a district and have constituents. Everyone has an equal opportunity to serve as a member of the House of Commons. However, the House of Lords is consistent of people who have essentially been chosen by heredity or appointed by the Queen.

2. There are three major political parties: LibDems, (led by Nick Clegg), Torys (led by David Cameron) and the Labour party (led by Gordon Brown, prime minister). The general election is coming up in the next 5 months which means that the distribution of parties will change significantly. It is expected that the Torys will gain the majority and David Cameron will become the next prime minister. Coincidentally, Cameron is the BFF of my MP.

3. Britain is a constitutional monarchy. However, the royals really don't have a lot of power. The Queen is the Head of State, but it's more of a title than a position of power.

Anyways, my day has been hectic! I woke up and got dressed for work. The picture is silly but gimme a break, it was early!


I had English breakfast and walked the short walk to work. When I got there, Sue, my MP's private secretary, greeted me at security. She is absolutely hilarious and I am so grateful that I am working for someone so laid back and nice. She immediately told me that it was a relaxed environment (with casual Friday!) I'm a happy camper. Then she took me to get my own pass that grants me unrestricted access to wherever I should want to go within Parliament and Portcullis House (the building where most of the offices are located).

Today I got to open all of my MP's (Member of Parliament, who shall go unnamed for now) mail. This was rather exciting. I separated it into several piles: letters from constituents, invitations to different events/speakings, mail from other MPs, mail that deals with one of his foreign committees, and reading materials. After, I took the letters from constituents and entered them into the system. Each one has to be scanned and then either added to a previous case (or series of letters between MP and constituent) or a new case must be created. It was super interesting to see what people wrote to the MP about. A lot of it is about his political decisions or problems in their area. I drafted some letters and printed 68 of them to mail to constituents who all had written about the same thing.

Here is the view from my window at work:


You can actually see Big Ben as well, but I didn't have my real camera so I decided to save that for later when I can get a good shot. After we had lunch, Sue said it would be helpful and okay if I wanted to explore Parliament. So I left my office, (mapless) to see what I could see. Several minutes later, I stood in the courtyard hopelessly lost. Luckily a security officer gave me a mini-guided tour on the way to Westminster Hall. This is the oldest building in Parliament. It's huge with arched ceilings.

That's the only picture I haven't taken, but it looks kind of like the Great Hall in Harry Potter. What was eerie was that I was the only person in the room. It was almost as if I had it to myself for a few minutes. As I approached the enormous stained glass window I ran smack into the cutest elderly police officer I have ever seen. I told him it was my first day of work and he told me everything there could possibly be to know about Westminster Hall and several other rooms in the building. He gave me a full history lesson standing in the beautiful hall. He even gave me a little bit of an American history lesson. (In case you didn't know, America's independence from Britain had nothing to do with Americans wanting independence, but rather the fact that England was preoccupied with other things and didn't have time to deal with us. haha!!!) The coolest part about my new friend (besides the fact that he told me if I come back he could let me see inside the chapel) was that he LOVES history. He goes to the US twice a year to reenact the Civil War. How adorable/interesting is that?!

Tonight, dad and I went to a really trendy restaurant called Bank to eat dinner.

That's the ceiling. I love it!

Also, not to throw out another picture, but here is my dinner.

What is the point of that? The point is that I have made it a goal to have chips at every dinner. I had fish & chips last night! In case you were wondering where the "chips" are, it's what the British call french fries. But they are SO much better than just french fries. Trust me.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but today was so eventful! (And what's awesome is that tomorrow is even busier!)
Hope everything is well in the states.

xoxo,
molly saint