Parliament, Plays, and Pub Quizzes!

A busy past few days have kept me from updating this...it's been constant go-go-go with a Macroeconomics test and then a lot of fun on the books for us crazy London kids!

On Tuesday afternoon, Charlie was kind enough to give Peter, Kate and me a private tour of PARLIAMENT.  Oh. My. God.  Absolutely staggering.  We got to go in the administrative building, Portcullis Place, for starters...once there, we went through airport-style security and got official lanyard-ID tag things, then Charlie hit the ground running giving us the tour.  He was full of facts and fun anecdotes...it was an awesome way to experience Parliament! We took an underground passage to enter the main Parliament building and emerged into the gated courtyard I always pass and wonder who gets to go in...answer?  WE do!

We headed into Westminster Hall, the oldest part of Parliament that had been saved from fires like four times or something ridiculous like that, the home of Henry VIII's court and the place where Charles I was tried before his execution.  I know this is going to sound weird, but it literally SMELLED historic.  Huge wood-beamed ceilings, floors that were worn from being walked on, stained-glass windows.  It absolutely reeked of history, which of course means I loved it.

From there we continued into the newer State departments and from then on out it was one big mindwarp for me...I kept thinking "Oh my god.  We're in Parliament.  Parliament!" and it really blew my mind.  We walked around and Charlie was able to tell us a lot about the history of the building, how Parliament functions today, and what was going on in the places we checked out.  Highlights:
-The Queen can't go into the House of Commons, EVER.  We did, though, and watched a debate on banning certain types of ammunition in active warfare.  Kind of dry, but really cool to see how Parliament functions on a day-to-day basis.
-The House Of Lords: Ridiculously sumptuous, beautiful room, with the golden ceremonial throne for the reigning monarch's opening of Parliament every year...it was built for Queen Victoria and is tiny and beautiful.  We watched more debating there, with a Baroness and a bishop discussing clean energy.
-We also explored the building a little bit, as Charlie's pass got us through places pretty easily.  It was such a rush to pass people in the halls and think that they were doing all this hard-core business...it made my head spin!

Our time at Parliament ended all too soon when I looked at the clock, realized how late it was, and remembered I had a play to get to...across the river...at 7:30.  I literally sprinted most of the way there, asked directions to the theater and got directed to the wrong one, and finally arrived at The Old Vic, the correct theater, only to find out that our seats had changed...I was so frazzled at this point that I just sort of went blindly where they directed us and finally arrived in our (very good) seats totally worn out and not at all in the right mindset to watch a play.

"Six Degrees of Separation," by John Guare, was a very random, very intriguing play based on the true story of a young con-man who swindled his way into the lives (and pockets) of rich New Yorkers in the early 90s.  The play was incredibly weird, unique and unlike anything I'd ever seen.  I still honestly don't know if I liked it or didn't...I enjoyed the experience of seeing it, but it sounds like I was in the minority as the rest of my classmates either hated it or were bored stiff.  Whatever...I guess I just have no discerning taste...but it was a fun night out no matter what.  After that, I went home and had a pretty late night studying, boo.

Wednesday was a very busy but quiet-ish day of class, class, and domesticity.  I cleaned.  I read a bunch of blogs I had to catch up on.  I emailed people.  I watched "Dancing With The Stars" online (my pick? Erin Andrews, although I loved Buzz Aldrin, he was adorable).  Early bed.

Thursday was a workday for me: I spent most of the morning doing filing and invoicing as it's quarter-end and Steph and Dale were swamped with work on that.  The afternoon saw me running GG's errands picking up and delivering "really vitally important documents" between the three Omnicom agencies on/near Marylebone...and then doing work on transfer-pricing analysis, Sabine's travel expense analysis, and the PSA.  The other interns and I went to the Golden Hind for fish'n'chips before pub quiz night and oh, my god, it was amazing as always.  Unfortunately we got absolutely drenched on the walk there, oh well!

Pub Quiz Night!  It was amazing.  Tom K, Tom P, Adam and Janet were the only ones in the office who came, but when we showed up it was even: four interns, four Brits.  We split up into Tom P and Janet's CFM team (Katie and Kaitlin) and the financial controllers (plus Kayla) team.  Our team name?  QuizzyModo, a clever play on the fact that we go to Notre Dame.  We all got pleasantly drunk in the best innocent, fun giggly way, and FINANCIAL CONTROLLERS beat the CFMs in a last-minute, one-point victory because we were able to identify blurry pictures of David Beckham versus Roger Federer.  So much fun...and I now have a really cool silver Stella Artois pen to commemorate our epic win.  After Pub Quiz, we went to a place on Baker Street for "a curry," which is what they call any kind of Indian food.  I had lamb bhoteko at Tom K's suggestion and it was sooooo good.  We all talked about movies we'd seen, our families, our friends, our lives in general...it was great, I had so much fun, and I feel so incredibly lucky to be interning at BBDO.  The people are really just fantastic.

I'm going to draft a Paris post and put it up in a few hours, although now that just feels like an empty promise since I never do...but right now I have a meeting for internship advising with our program director, Cornelius.  Cheers!