London day 4 - Winston Churchill, Tom Cruise, and the Irish!

Erika and I had a really exciting and surprise-filled day in London. We started off with a quick breakfast at Mikhail's flat and then took the train in to Westminster. Once there, we headed for Winston Churchill's Underground War Rooms Museum. These were the actual offices, meeting rooms, and bedrooms from which Churchill led the war effort in secret while London was being bombed by the German blitz during World War II. When we got to the ground-level entrance we found a not-very-imposing small black doorway.

Once inside we immediately headed down the steps, underground and into the museum and war rooms. The complex was really amazing and huge! We first saw the cabinet room, where Churchill convened his wartime cabinet and made his all-important executive decisions.

From there, we saw a few other rooms including the phone closet that contained England's direct hotline to the President of the US. Then, the complex featured a large museum all about Churchill. This alone took up an hour and a half but was very worth it. We both learned quite a lot about a remarkable man. We were most impressed by Churchill's stunning and pragmatic foresight - both regarding Hitler (he spread warnings about Hitler ever since the early 1930s, having represented Jewish boroughs in Manchester as an MP) and also arguing against the spread of Communism after the end of the war. He certainly had his share of failures (the Dardenelles, and his stance against Indian self-governance) but Churchill was the defining statesman of his time and left a remarkable and unforgettable legacy on the free world.

After leaving the Churchill section, we continued on to the rest of the war rooms - we passed the bedrooms of the major members of the war cabinet, Churchill's own underground chamber, and then viewed the massive map room, which tracked every action taken in the war.

After over three hours we emerged from the museum to a light London rain (what else is new) and decided to walk down to Buckingham Palace.

Unfortunately, the up-close views of the palace were off limits as the grounds crews were still taking down the bleachers and stages from the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. At this point, we headed to Picadilly Street and to Picadilly Circus, the Times Square area of London and the entrance to the West End Theatre District.

When we got to Picadilly Circus, we heard a lot of music coming from Leicester Square so we wandered over there, completely by a whim, and walked right into the European premiere of the film Rock of Ages. Once we got into the crowd, we saw Tom Cruise, Paul Giamatti, Julianne Hough, and Russell Brand. Not too bad for a spur of the moment idea!

(Copyright Simon Svirnovskiy Papparazzi Extraordinaire 2012.) Read all about it: Russel Brand steals a baby!

After an hour at Leicester Square we took the train back to Raynes Park and went back to our new favourite haunt, Raynes Park Tavern. We watched the second half of the Italy-Spain game and then joined a bunch of Irishmen in cheering for Ireland as they took on (and, due to some truly miserable officiating, lost to) Croatia. While there we also saw Frank, our favourite Irish grandfather from yesterday! He was the most popular guy in the pub but still came over to chat with us several times, and also treated us to pints of Strongbow and Carlsberg. (VGs... guess which one I had.) We had a blast even as the Irish were robbed over and over again by the linesman and the referee.

Tomorrow we're off to the Museum of London and then we'll meet up with Jon Ready and Meg Rennix and the UVA Culture of London program at Regent's College!

We'll be back soon!

-Erika and Simon