Countin' down ...

The past few days have gone by in a blur, as we all have been preparing for Spring Break. On Sunday Coleen and I went to service at St. Paul's and I worked on a Philo paper all day. I took a break to watch the Man U match with TJ at the Pride and had an early night. In class on Monday we talked about taxes. Professor Heffernan said that most British are ok with paying higher income taxes than Americans because their paychecks are deducted automatically, and most Europeans expect a high amount of "Free" services from their government. He also described a lot of the hidden taxes that British pay, like the included VAT tax on all merchandise sales and the tv subscription fee. Imagine if all Americans had to pay 60 dollars a year to have a tv set in their homes? Ludicrous if you ask me.

Anyway, my day at work on Tuesday was very hectic. A professor from Notre Dame who is in charge of the abroad programs was in town and wanted to see the Parliamentary interns at work. Andrew and I walked into Westminster with her from the flats, talking about some of NDs plans for future abroad programs. Her job is very exciting, as she is travelling the world this week to scope out a few new potential sites for ND abroad programs. When we arrived in Portucllis we waited while she went through security, which we both found entertaining. I brought her up to my boss's office and introduced her to my office managers and my boss who was hustling out to make it to Committee. Simon took her on another excellent tour of Parliament and I tagged along. I remembered a lot more the second time around, so I will be able to give a knowledgeable tour when I get back from break. After the tour I hung out with the ND person in the atrium of Portcullis and had coffee. She picked my brain about how the London program is going and I offered my thoughts and suggestions. It was cool getting a very inside perspective on the abroad programs and how they function. She enjoyed getting some one-on-one time with an intern, which she said does not happen very often. We met Andrew and Meg for lunch and talked politics, and she treated us on behalf of ND.

After lunch I returned to the office to find papers on the floor with drafts of the election leaflet my managers had been working on for my boss. Every MP gets one free pamphlet distributed to every member in the constituency, so in Wales my boss's brochure will compete with about six other parties -- so it has to be good. I summarized some PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party) emails about various topics that will come up in the election -- Immigration, Defense, Education, etc. Each email had a lot of stats, some quotes from ministers, and bad things that the opponents did. I summarized six emails in one page and handed it to my managers for their use in election materials. I also proofread some of the pamphlet drafts and added my marketing expertise to them. No idea if they will accept my visual changes, but that would be pretty cool. It would be awesome if I could go out to Wales and canvass for them, but that might be a pipe dream. After congregating some more emails I left around five and met Andrew. We tried to go to one of the bars in Parliament called the Sports and Social, but we couldn't find it so we went to a martini bar in Covent Garden for half priced happy hour. It was my first martini, so I took a picture to Andrew's dismay. There were a lot of trendy lookin people in there, but we fit right in with our work clothes on. I decided I like martinis too.

Today was a blur packing and getting ready for break. I have all of my stuff packed and ready and all of our itineraries printed out. Tomorrow I go into work for an early day, and then off to Victoria station, Stansted, and Pisa! I will be away from the blog for over a week, but I will have stories to tell when I get back. Hopefully I will be able to remember all of it. I will have a journal with me and I will write stuff down. Until then, pray that the Euro drops (but not too much) and that we don't get lost!