Here, There and Everywhere

Today we did a lot, but I feel like we didn't do enough.  Enough site seeing anyway.  Our first stop was the Imperial War Museum.  It was very well done, and if we had the time we could have spent all day there.  Since we didn't have all day, we focused on two areas.  First, World War I.  Or as they call it here in the UK, The Great War. Since it is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the war there was a special exhibit.  There was so much to see, and there were many people trying to see it at the same time. There were a lot of school groups, as well as tourists.  I'm sure plenty of locals were there too.  I learned things about WWI that I didn't know.  My grandfather fought in WWI and I wish I knew more about what he did in the war.  We then went to the exhibit for World War II and the Holocaust.  It too was a well done exhibit.  We've gone to the Shoah (Holocaust) Museum in Paris and the Holocaust museum in Washington DC, and I would say that this exhibit comes pretty close to being as good as the others.  It's interesting to see the perspectives of the different countries.

I always get emotional when it comes to the Holocaust, so after we left we decided to take care of some business.  That got my mind off it a bit.   We took the Tube to Paddington Station, where we will go tomorrow morning to take the train to Bath.  I had pre-purchased the tickets, but we have to pick the actual tickets up at the station.  Not knowing how busy the station will be in the morning, we decided to pick them up today.  After that we went to the Tower of London.  We've been there before, but I wanted to see the installation of ceramic red poppies that have been placed there to commemorate WWI.  It was very moving and impressive.

Of course we had to get some pics of the iconic Tower Bridge.

After that we went to the Westminster area and walked around to see the sites.  Big Ben (people refer to the clock as Big Ben, but it's actually the bell), Parliment, Westminster Abbey, Downing Street...

After that, more shopping - some breakfast food for us and filling part of Jamie's makeup order. Oh, and a London Starbucks mug.  Can you believe that the only things I've purchased in our 11 days here are Starbucks mugs?  It's true.  The London mug is to replace the one I have, that after 8 years of use has a crack in the handle, and I got one in Edinburgh too.

We had a nice dim sum dinner and strolled along the river going home.  It was beautiful at night.  I took some pictures with my phone, but they didn't turn out very well.  I deleted all but one.  We will need to go back with the camera.  It supposedly does well in low light conditions.  We will see if that's true.  We decided to keep one picture because it looks almost like a painting.