Well, this is pretty much the end of the first leg of our trip. Barbra and Yannis have been nice enough to open their home to us for a few days, and we have enjoyed staying with them. I can't even tell you how well these two cook. We are eating like royalty at their house.
We arrived in London Sunday night and spent a wonderful evening catching up with these two. It's nice on a trip like this to be able to see people we know and not always be dealing with strangers. It really grounds us, as it's easy to start letting the real world just drift by as we play tourist.
Yesterday we tried once again to make it to Westminster Abbey, but the crowds were massing around the building - don't these people have to work? The tourist season is over. Go home...
So we made our way across the Thames to the Imperial War Museum. This is one of the must-sees of any history buff's trip to London. Entering the atrium, we were astounded by the assortment of WWI and WWII tanks, planes, and artillery. All the displays sit out in the middle of the floor (except the planes which hover above the ground), where visitors can just walk up and touch them.
I finally got to see one of Hitler's fighter jets. See, early in the war, the Nazi scientists figured out jet propulsion. They took the idea to Hitler to ask permission. He refused, citing the need for resources on the Eastern front and for implementing the Final Solution. It wasn't until very late in the war that some were manufactured. The Allied pilots were completely outmatched - if I recall correctly, the jets traveled at 5 times the speed of Allied planes. Good thing they didn't come into play earlier.
The museum also has a "trench experience" exhibit that takes visitors through a (pretty believable) likeness of a trench from the Western front in WWI. With piped in sounds and smells, combined with the life-size dummies all around, it really made me think about how horrible it must have been to live through. Keep in mind that some of the very fortunate (only because they lived to tell the tale) soldiers spent as many as four years in this situation. Most were scarred for life.
After looking through the extensive artifacts the museum has collected from both world wars, we headed to the Holocaust exhibit. For three hours, we made our way through the halls reading the life stories of some of the victims and experiencing the rise of the Nazis and the gradual move toward the decision to exterminate. The exhibit was eerily quiet despite the number of people looking around. Only the occassional bunch of teenagers would break the silence.
As a history teacher, I deal with this subject every year. And even though I try to impress upon my students the extent of the tragedy and the scar it has left on the twentieth century, it sometimes takes an in-depth exhibit like this one to drive home what it was all about. At the end of the exhibit, a TV screen was showing original footage taken by American soldiers when they brought German citizens to the one of the concentration camps. They forced the citizens to bury the bodies that lay strewn around the camp, and the scenes I watched were horrendous.
After leaving the museum, we boarded the Tube and rode back to Barbra and Yannis' house. Yannis had made a leg of lamb for us (my absolute favorite), and we ate heartily. After some good conversation and a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit, we called it a night.
Unfortunately the rain is coming down pretty hard right now. I don't know if we will make it out today or not. Tomorrow morning we have to go to Heathrow Airport and leave for the US.
As always, we never stop thinking of all of you back home. We miss seeing you and can't wait until we meet again (don't know where, don't know when...). Take care of yourselves.
Paul and Colleen
Back to home page