How many national parliaments (the buildings) have you visited?

[reynir@social.data.coop]

@Pepijn I voted zero because I've not been inside any. But I've been just outside at least two buildings. For some reason it didn't occur to me that they might be open for the public or interesting to enter.

[mossman@social.vivaldi.net]

@Pepijn it's a tricky one. I think 4 if I include just walking around the outside. (UK parliament, French senate, Malaysia - I think... can't remember exactly - been past many official buildings down there, and finally I used to work in a shop across from the press entrance to the actual Dutch second chamber!).

Not sure if I've been inside any though - got vague memories as a kid of sitting in someone's seat and playing with the voting buttons in what may have been the Dutch parliament or may have been something to do with the UN or something like that. Similar vague memory of walking quickly into and out of the public gallery in the UK House of Commons during a school trip, but maybe I'm making that up from TV coverage or something. It was a long time ago...

Edit: and I've walked around the lobby of the Welsh parliament in Cardiff not to long ago. Forgot that one.

[diffrentcolours@tech.lgbt]

@Pepijn I am British. I have visited the outside of the Palace of Westminster (UK Parliament), the Scottish Parliament, the Swiss federal parliament.

The only parliament building I've been inside is the European Parliament.

[donutage@mastodon.social]

@Pepijn @clay I've only visited one, but it's *not* my home country's (USA). It's Iceland's Alþingi in Reykjavík.

[veza85ue@eupolicy.social]

@Pepijn Zero.

But I have done my EUropatriotic duty and visited both visitor centres of the lower chamber of the Parliament and had a blast.

[samerion@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@Pepijn Made a mistake and voted wrong. I did not visit the parliament of my country, but I was in the Bundestag. That makes it one, not zero.

[richardoc@infosec.exchange]

@Pepijn UK kind of blows this out, Stormont (NI), Holyrood (Scotland) etc etc

[mjg@mstdn.social]

@Pepijn none for me. The US capitol is far from the west coast so a school trip was not an option and in all of my travels I’ve never thought to tour the inside of a government building.

[bhtooefr@snack.social]

@helle @Pepijn especially when the national legislature is based on an extreme edge of the country

(and, for my experience, related to that: I've been to the outside of the US Capitol once, late at night, a group of friends was meeting with a member of the group who was working on a security system there. another member of the group took a drunken piss on the grounds, because, why not? the snipers that were watching us did nothing.)

speaking of which, should non-Europeans vote in this poll?

[tho99@mendeddrum.org]

@Pepijn I visited the Bundestag in all its iterations, but counted it as 1

[quoidian@mastodon.online]

@Pepijn
I've toured the Canadian Parliament and seen Westminster (from the outside.)

[susannah@mastodon.nu]

@Pepijn I've been outside at least three (Swedish riksdag, UK houses of parliament and the EU parliament in Strasbourg), but never inside.

[serac@troet.cafe]

@Pepijn
I'm not a collecting type of traveler, but I think I'll make the 5+. I have only taken a tour inside a parliament building twice (Bundestag Germany and Capitol USA). If it counts to only be standing in front of the building taking pictures of it I have at least three more (UK, Liechtenstein and my own country, Switzerland)

[syn_rst@norden.social]

@Pepijn
Fun fact: My country moved its parliament and I visited both locations…

[silvermoon82@wandering.shop]

@Pepijn
Basically all of southeast Ontario is within a day-trip of Parliament Hill, so school trips to the capital are a pretty standard thing here. I went a few times with school, and almost but didn't quite participate in the Parliamentary Page Program, where local school kids work as parliamentary gophers.

No other national or local/provincial/state legislatures, though. Haven't even been to the provincial legislature in Toronto, and never to any American government thing.

[simonbp@social.linux.pizza]

@helle @Pepijn The Canadian federal parliament is relatively easy; I was milling around outside when when a tour guide asked if we wanted to take a tour, and so we got to go in. That was before the construction started, to be fair.

But yeah, it's way more common in the US to visit state capitols, and you're way more likely to meet a legislator that way.

[kemra102@mastodon.social]

@Pepijn I think you overestimate school trips in many countries. I've been on so few I could probably count them on one hand and we never left the county. There's just no money for such "fancy" trips in a lot of schools, at least in the UK.

[v_perjorative@mastodon.org.uk]

@Pepijn does Þingvellir in Iceland count?

[pepijn@mastodon.online]

@kemra102 No I don't. That's why I specifically added the comment on how some countries actively subsidise this.

People in the comments pointed out how at least both the Scottish and Welsh parliaments offer subsidy

[cjwatson@mastodon.ie]

@Pepijn Only one that I can think of (the US Capitol) and it's not even on my home continent never mind my home country. But I mean I'm European, it's possible I tripped over one at some point and forgot about it