England: Houses of Parliament, London

April 2012

Every traveler to the British capital needs to have a selfie with the Palace of Westminster somewhere behind them - if not, they haven't really been to London.

For all my walking around the city, I did not pass near this iconic spot more than a handful of times. On most of my visits with AFVdR, we were seeing "non-tourist" London - which I greatly appreciated.

From that first visit to London with Brian in 2001 (of which only bits and pieces of memory remain), I recall we took a tour of the Palace of Westminster. Although I wish I remembered more, I still consider it one of the best tours I have ever taken in Europe. It was chock full of information that referred to many names and dates where I thought, "I knew that once." The biggest takeaway from the tour was just how similar the US and UK are in government. I also had the audacity to smirk during the tour and the guide called me out! ha!

Interesting idiom: the phrase "toe the line" is from the Houses of Parliament where literally a line was drawn just over a sword's length from the opposition. Overly agitated speakers had to "toe the line" to be heard (and prevent accidental death to someone in the heat of the moment). Wow!

Although Americans are taught that the Founding Fathers struggled to come up with a new form of government, in fact, they went with the model they knew best. Although some things addressed British excesses in the Colonies (leading to the Bill of Rights), mostly the "new" government was just the old one in new packaging. I learned via that tour that the US and UK are incredibly similar in their forms of government.

One interesting snippet of a memory was the guide talking about a certain political "rabblerouser". He was gifted a large piece of land in the New World so he could take his new ideas (actually not all that new, just not in agreement with those in power at the time) along with him. He established a colony, but eventually branded himself a failure and returned to the UK. He is buried outside of London. His name? William Penn. It is his son that actually continued with the Pennsylvania's development.

What amazingly different perspectives of the same man and the history surrounding him exist on two side of the Atlantic. Was he an influential politician banished to the New World who returned defeated? (kind of) Or was he a visionary who helped establish a colony of like-minded, forward-thinking men? (also true). Where one learns history is very important.

Houses of Parliament - been there, done that. I was happy to take the tour and not just the selfie.