What a busy day, but boy I was sure glad to have a busy day finally, I mean one that I was doing and seeing stuff I wanted to see and do. I woke up later than I had hoped to, as usual, but once awake, I went and talked to my roommates in the livingroom for a while. They left somewhere, and I then went to take a shower, as I prefer to shower when no one is in the house. After I cleaned up and everything, I was just about to get fully dressed, as it was I was only in my socks and underwear, when my parents phoned and I went to go talk to them dressed in only these scantily clad garments (albeit not all that scantily). About a minute into our conversation, Erika, Jessa, and their Swiss friend Tom show up, and there I am standing by the phone in only these things. I continued to talk to my parents for a bit and eventually got off the phone, rushing to get dressed. After this, I talked to them for a bit longer, when Jessa and Tom left, leaving only Erika and I behind. Erika intended to use the day relaxing in the flat, and I needed to get out, for the betterment of my soul if not else. So, I took the course to go to the Imperial War Museum, and that is what I shall describe next. I got on the Tube, first Hammersmith to Baker Street, then Baker Street to Lambeth North, which is where this lovely little museum was situated. It was on the other side of the Thames, which is always exciting for me to cross as I don’t do it too often (no Londoner generally does either FYI). It was the last stop before Elephant & Castle (the last stop) on the Bakerloo line.
So, I walked up to the museum and it looked really neat with a dome and a sky-roof, and in a Victorian style. I went inside and in there, there were tons of Britain’s military vehicles sitting in the main atrium. There were one-man submarines, tanks, howitzers, ship munitions, rockets (including an original V-2 rocket), and all sorts of crazy instruments of war. When I walked further along, I went into the ‘children’s war exhibit’ which talked all about evacuating the children of London during the Blitz. It was fascinating and showed the gas masks they were issued, photos, school uniforms etc etc. The thing I thought was truly amazing about this, although it probably would not be so to most, was that they had a whole house inside of this museum to show what a London home would have looked like during the war. My favourite thing about the house though, was that they had a picture of Clark Gable up, framed, in someone’s room, so I thought that was great. After this, I went to the special exhibits on World Wars I and II, and in these both they had tons of uniforms of all peoples involved in the war, flags galore, weapons and everything else. The World War I, I thought was certainly the best part of the whole museum though. There, they had a huge tabled replica of a section of the trench system, it was quite crazy to see and it mostly just showed the British section of the line, right up until No Man’s Land. There were tons of reserve lines, communication lines, and of course the cursed front line.
After this, came the real glamour, or should I say the real moving part of the whole museum to me and made the whole trip, in my opinion, worthwhile to see. This of course was, they had a full scale replica of one of the trenches, complete with voices soldiers in their places, and lighting, explosions and smells. It was quite the thing to be in, and I took as many pictures as I could, although the lighting didn’t turn out great as it was very dark. After that, I finished up WWI and then went to the WWII part, which was rather informative and they had a similar exhibit on that side, which was a full scale replica of a part of London during the Blitz. They replicated the bombs and their impacts, and they actually moved the seat we were sitting in for one of them quite violently, or so it seemed. I didn’t think it was as good as the WWI one, but it was still great to do for the experience. After this, I went and they had a full exhibit on field marshal Montgomery, in this were many of his uniforms and such, but also his famous beret, and I made dead sure to take a picture of that. I was so happy to be seeing all of these things, and I simply never thought about or imagined seeing them or recounting where they may be. I also saw the imperial eagle from the Hitler’s chancellory building, which amazed me frankly. I also saw a whole exhibit about Britain’s post WWII wars and other countries too, as there was a huge part of it devoted to the Vietnam War, and also the Cold War (as mainly between the US and the USSR). It had things about their involvement in the Falkland Islands, and Africa and Asia.
After this, I went and looked at an exhibit on the spy agencies and such, including a part about MI5 and MI6 (James Bond’s agency) which apparently really existed. That was okay, but in there they showed a thing about how the SAS (Britain’s elite military regiment) was able to use their special training to release some hostages from the Iranian embassy in London in 1980. After this, I went outside and of course it was already dark, but I thought the building looked so good that I took some pictures. I went home, and had a pizza and was working a bit on writing some things when the phone rang. I answered, and it was Jessa telling me to come meet them at a pub in Parson’s Green (close to Wimbledon), so I said okay, and went there. This was my kind of night scene, I’ll tell you, because, there was no music and no television more or less forcing people to talk to each other for entertainment, it was quite the pleasant pub, and it gave me an idea to start something similar at home someday. Who knows? Anyway, I went there ordered a pint of Fuller’s ESB and went and sat next to these two girls, one of whom looked of Indian descent (Asiatic), and the other looked like Kate Blanchet, with long red hair. It was pretty cool to just go and be friendly like that, though I felt guilty because we talked a lot about the US, and they were telling me about their experiences driving in California. Well after a bit they left, and I finished my beer, see I had been waiting for the girls to show up, but I never saw them. After that I returned home and uploaded my photos for the day and things like that. The girls, and Tom, returned home eventually and we all went to sleep at one point or other.