From York Minster to Westminster

The city of York was hosting their first showcase event in London last week. The afternoon started of in style with afternoon tea at the Houses of Parliament - hosted by two of the Yorkshire MPs. I had never been inside the Houses of Parliament and I was very impressed! I am not entire sure what I expected, but probably not the vast hall that you pass through when entering. The queue in was quite long and only a few lucky ones had fast pass to jump the queue to get through security.

Mr Oliver Cromwell posing next to Big Ben

inside Westminster Hall

After the afternoon tea - the cakes were especially nice! - we got a short tour of the Houses of Parliament after which we were able to go to the visitor gallery for both the House of Lords and the House of Commons. There were sessions going on in both. Attendance was appalling and those who were attending seemed busy on their blackberries! I saw Jack Straw give a speech and didn't understand a word of what he was talking about... I find the set up of people sitting on benches facing each other, without any tables, rather bizarre.

By the way, you can book tours (75 minutes) on most Saturdays throughout the year and Tuesday to Saturday during the Summer Opening period. 

From the Houses of Parliament we went on to the Intercontinental hotel Westminster for the showcase. They had about 20 exhibitors present and I had appointments with York Conferences (at the University of York) and  York St. John University.

Work out of the way, we sat down for the dinner:

starter and dessert were great, the beef and Yorkshire pudding rather dry

 

Reception at the Intercontinental

 

And to finish it all off - we got a goody bag to take home:

• a complimentary train ticket to York
• creme brulee fudge
• Yorkshire tea
• chocolate
• candies
• keyring torch
• memory stick keyring
• nail file
• notepad
• lanyard
• YorkPass
• and a I <heart> York tote