Yesterday I got to go to London for the day with UpRising. Up super early at half 6 go leave the house at half 7 to get the bus into town as we were getting the train from Lime Street. Don't think I've ever gotten the bus that early before & was definitely half asleep. We got the 8:47am train to Euston station.
We got to Euston around 11am & seen Ricky Tomlinson (Jim Royale from The Royale Family) who was on our train. We sat outside Euston station to have a our lunch & wait for the 4 who missed the train & had to get the hour later train in.
We then got the underground to Westminster.
Whilst queuing to get into Portcullis House I seen Gemma Cairney who present the 4-6am early morning show on Radio 1. As I was up so early I actually caught the end of her show before Grimmy was on & heard her mention she was going to Westminster but didn't hear why. I wish I asked her for a photo! Before you can go into Westminster security is pretty tight just like an airport, metal detector & a conveyor belt to put your coats & bags through.
They have trees indoors!
We went upstairs into waiting area & prepared our questions we were going to put towards the 2 MPs we were going to meet. We then went through the underground tunnel, which was like something from Harry Potter that goes under the road to get to the Houses of Parliament.
The next few photos were taken from Holly's phone, slightly better quality with her iPhone 6!
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Got to have a selfie with Big Ben!
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Selfie stick groupie photo!
After enough selfies to fill up a photo album we went inside the Houses of Parliament.
After the corridors of these doors is the lobby that you see on TV where there's no photography allowed. I think it's because the MPs walk through or something. We then went up into a room where we got to question 2 MPs.
The first MP was John Pugh who is a Liberal Democrat MP for Southport.
He was a typical MP who didn't really answer any of the questions people asked. He just swerved them. The other MP we got to question was Lousie Ellman
Louise is a Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside. We found she was a lot better than John & did answer the questions that were posed to her. She seemed more willing to answer & speak to us. We only had 30 minutes with her & had to leave the room as there were people waiting to use the room but she was willing to answer any more questions we had at another time which John didn't offer.
We then go to go into the House of Lords & into the House of Commons, after signing a sheet (can't remember what it said but the one for the House of Lords you had to put your address & name but for the Commons just had to sign it). Sadly you're not allowed to take your bag or phones in, so no photos. The House of Lords is so much nicer with the throne that the queen sits in. Where as the House of Commons has bullet proof glass in case anyone decides they want to shoot the PM or MPs.
We seen Ainsley Harriott in the lobby on the way our from the Commons & he said Hi to us as if he knew us but sadly another missed photo opportunity as we were in the no photography bit! We sat in the corridor leading up to lobby to wait for the others & I was eating fruit but got shouted at for eating. The staff, well police officers in the Houses of Parliament were quite rude & not very nice.
We then walked to Covent Garden as we were having dinner at Nando's.
It went cloudy so the photos aren't great. I was being a proper tourist taking photos every 2 seconds. I wish I brought my camera but it's heavy & thought they might be funny when going through security so I left it at home.
It was a 20 minute walk from Palace of Westminster to Covent Garden.
Street performer doing the YMCA or something strange.
We got to Nando's around 5ish. There was so much chips & hardly any chicken. 2 bowls of salad & some coleslaw. I don't even like chips! After we had free time as the train back wasn't till 8:07pm. Holly Googled Covent Garden & there was a frozen yoghurt place called Snog not far. So me Holly & Michael went to look for it. It said it was by Carluccio's but then we couldn't find it so just stood opposite Carluccio's then I seen the reflection in the window "Snog" luckily we didn't ask anyone when we were standing right outside it!
Me & Michael spent about 15 minutes deciding what to get & think the guy was getting quite annoyed. Couldn't decide which flavour to get, mango or green tea. I tried the green tea after original but that was horrible so I don't think I really go the green tea flavour so played it safe & got mango with 1 topping blueberries. He asked if we were from Liverpool from out accents & said it was cool but then said if he was in Liverpool it's get annoying... Not sure whether he was complimenting us or offending us there.
Holly got chocolate frozen yoghurt, Oreos, strawberries & raspberries. Michael got mango frozen yoghurt, caramel sauce & chocolate stars. Mine cost £3.70 for the 1 topping which was the only money I spent in London, actually I got Kelly a postcard for 30p which I couldn've easily just got for free as the postcards were just outside the shop with no-one there.
We then wandered around Covent Garden, I was meant to be meeting David but then something came up so we didn't get the chance to.
Dress - Zara (Before Christmas)
Cutout Boots - Zara
Some of them were having a group at a pub called the Nagshead which we couldn't find, we asked 2 people for directions one being a cleaner & the other a market stall holder, both pointed us in the completely wrong direction! We eventually found it after ring Natasha about 5 times! We nearly missed the train home as Covent Garden station was closed so we had to walk to Leicester Square & was told it was a 15 minute tube ride to Euston when it was less than 5! We got there with time to spare. It was a long & tiring day but really good. It was a shame we were only there for a day but I can't complain as it was all free! I wish we had more time with the MPs but obviously they're busy people so we're grateful they spared time to speak to us. Thank you UpRising again for taking us to London!
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