Ah, those squealing seagulls again... If I wasn't a stone lion, by God I would catch a couple and nibble their wings. That would teach them a lesson! I know they are not circling me to annoy me, they are attracted to the floodlighting. I have had time to get used to them, because it wasn't yesterday that the first streetlight was installed between the Parliament and the Danube, just as the floodlighting has been part of the building for quite some time. I'm really cross that I called the place “the Parliament” and not its official name, the House of the Nation... This is indeed the house of the country, members of the Hungarian National Assembly have been meeting here since 1896, even though the building was not ready at that time. Construction began in 1885 and only ended in 1904, so unfortunately Imre Steindl, who designed the building, never saw it finished. The fact that the internal layout of the building is divided into a lower house and an upper house, just like the English parliament building, serves as an excuse for my slip in parliamentary terminology. What's more, the four "siblings" of the eight marble monoliths beside the stone steps also decorate the Houses of Parliament in London. However, I don't mind that I found a place in Budapest instead of London. What a panorama! Every day I wake up and go to sleep gazing at Buda Castle and the Chain Bridge, and the building is also beautiful with its fusion of styles. The ground plan of the 286-meter-long building is Baroque, but the overall effect is Neo-Gothic, and with the exception of the aforementioned columns, only domestic materials were used in its construction. How do I know so much? If you had listened to as many guided tours as I have, you would also know plenty. For example, the fact that it is decorated with a total of 386 coats of arms that belong to various parts of the country, partner countries, and cities - also expressing that this is the house of the country.