Monday, October 15: Imperial War Museum

"No fighting in the war room!"
One of my favorite lines in cinema history. Non sequitor. We got a late start today. The boys and I didn't even leave the flat until noon. We had to as there was virtually no food left in the flat. Nothing that could be magically transformed into an edible meal anyway. Liam wanted to go to the Imperial War Museum and I had no particular plans whatsoever so off we go. I must say exiting the Elephant & Castle Underground station is an adventure in itself.

There is a traffic circle right there with no street crossing access for pedestrians. It took me a moment to orient us and find the subway (that would be the British term for an underground walkway) to get us on our way. The signage is of course excellent, but I suspect I went 3/4 of the way around the circle when I could have taken a left turn and walked a much shorter distance. Oh well, I can use the exercise. Despite the amount of walking we've been doing I doubt I've lost a pound, stone, kilogram, whatever. That or our drier shrinks the shit out of every piece of clothing. Maybe it's a combination of the two.

On a side note I would like to take the opportunity to make a suggestion to the city council of Bilbao. I understand they would like to transform their business and industry oriented community into a tourist mecca. A word of advice. Visit London. Signage and toilets. The key to any successful tourist area. Label everything and encourage people to empty their bladders in plentiful, well-marked and clean facilities. Build toilets and they will come.

Oh yes, the Imperial War Museum. Well done, well done! The experience through the trenches has the most disgusting smells piped in which I suspect do not remotely approach the squalor actually experienced by WWI servicemen. The blitz experience scared the daylights out of Colin who damn near ripped my arm from its socket, but Liam thoroughly enjoyed. Go figure. The view of the Battle of Britain from the child's perspective is an exhibit that should not be missed. Wow, wow, and more wow. I hope I did not terrify my children, but I could not refrain from reading some of the poignant first person experiences and providing contemporary analogies.

Liam and I wanted to go through the Holocaust exhibit. It is not recommended for children under 14 but Colin did not want me to leave him on the bench outside. He insisted on coming in while holding my hand and staring at the ground the whole time. Fortunately, the exhibit was highly informative without being too graphic. Again, a fantastic exhibit.

The boys got to go through a sub mock up, an airplane that dropped spies into France and watch a film of the SAS raid on the Iranian embassy in 1980. And of course had afternoon tea in the museum cafe. I sure hope they don't think this will become a ritual when we return home. But most important to me, after they played for awhile in the playground adjacent to the museum we wandered through the Tibetan peace garden dedicated by the XIV Dalai Lama in 1999.

Once we returned to Canary Wharf I had the most lovely time located the low cost grocery store. Translation: Stopping into a pharmacy to ask where it was before my head exploded and then handing the crumpled up mall map to the cashier telling her she was more than welcome to throw the useless piece of garbage in the rubbish bin. What a wonderful experience dragging two bickering boys through a colossal mall trying to find a grocery store when you know they are going to act like assholes once you start shopping. And then I get a message from Jamie asking me where I want to meet him. We might as well have been in the middle of Moscow asking the same question. Hint: If I don't know where I am, I cannot possible tell you where we can meet. This was surely a low point of the trip.

But on to the plus side. After dinner we tucked the boys in and went back to Canary Wharf for wine and snacks at two pubs near Jamie's office. Jamie and I needed that time else we'd never have a completed conversation here.