Fourth of July in London

The Fourth of July was my last day in London before heading off to Canterbury for the wedding.  I really wanted to be home on the Fourth of July, but that wasn't going to happen so I was determined to make it as American a day as possible.

The first thing I did was go to the American Embassy.  It was a pretty big building and it was all fenced off.  I went there because they have a little park outside with some things I wanted to see.  The first thing I came across was the statue of Ronald Reagan.  Reagan is certainly a popular president, but I don't think he's been given the credit that he really deserves for winning the Cold War.  Mikhail Gorbachev has been given way too much credit.  Gorbachev was trying to save the communist empire.  He failed.  Ronald Reagan was trying to win the Cold War.  He succeeded.  He's a hero for the Eastern Europeans who live in freedom because of Ronald Reagan's leadership.  There were four great heroes of the Cold War:  Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher, and Rocky Balboa.  Reagan was the greatest of the Cold War heroes (I have John Paul II ahead of Reagan on my list of heroes because his heroism goes way beyond the Cold War, but if we're limiting the discussion to the Cold War, Reagan comes first).

He won the Cold War and he was a great friend of Great Britain.

Below the statue was a plaque with quotes from Reagan, Thatcher, Gorbachev, John Paul II, and Lech Walesa.  There was also a piece of the Berlin Wall.  I wish the Berlin Wall had fallen while Reagan was still president (it was 10 months into George H.W. Bush's presidency).  Lots of people point to that as the end of the Cold War.  I understand why people would point to that as the end of the Cold War, but I think it ended on May 31, 1988.  On that day, Reagan made a speech at Moscow State University talking about how great freedom is.  Here's my favorite quote from that speech:  "Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put on this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer."  If the Soviet Union was letting the President of the United States say that at Moscow State University, the Cold War was over.

I don't know if you can read it, but my favorite quote was from Lech Walesa:  "We owe him our liberty.  This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989."

The last quote on the plaque was from Reagan:  "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.  Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."  Below that quote from 1987 was this:

A piece of the Berlin Wall.

Besides the Reagan statue, there was also a statue of Franklin Roosevelt.  Plenty of folks would rank Franklin Roosevelt as one of the greatest presidents of all time.  I'm not one of those people, but his statue in London is well-deserved.

Another American president that was a great friend of Great Britain.

Besides the statues of the presidents, there was a memorial for the 244 Americans who flew in the Royal Air Force before the United States entered World War II and there was also a September 11 memorial.  There's nothing exciting about the embassy, but it's worth going to if you're an American in London to see all this stuff in the park outside the embassy.  By the way, they're moving the embassy soon.  I don't know if all the stuff in the park is moving with it.  All that stuff should be right outside the US Embassy.

World War II memorial

September 11 memorial

As I was walking around the park outside the US Embassy, the Madison Rising Star Spangled Banner came on my iPhone.  I teared up a little.  If you haven't seen it, click on the link.  I'm usually opposed to adding flair to the Star Spangled Banner because it draws unnecessary attention to the performer, but you can tell that the flair they added to their version isn't about them, it's about how awesome the United States of America is.

This was on top of the American Embassy.  It was great to see this on the Fourth of July.

I still had one more president to see.  I made my way to the National Gallery and found this:

The Greatest American to ever live

The statue of George Washington was given to the people of Great Britain and Ireland by the Commonwealth of Virginia.  I likened it to the Boston Celtics giving the city of Los Angeles a 2008 NBA Championship ring.  Washington was a loyal servant to the king ... and then he beat the British in a war and changed the world forever.  This man deserves statues all over the place.  Unlike the kings and queens of England, he wasn't born into greatness, he achieved greatness.

After a quick visit to the National Gallery (it was free, they had some good religious art), I went to find the statue of King George III to mutter obscenities at it under my breath.  While doing that, I had a thought.  If not for George's tyranny, the Declaration of Independence would not have been written in 1776.  Perhaps the United States never would have become the greatest nation in the history of the world.  Perhaps we would have rebelled later, but it might have been up to a lesser generation than the one of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams to try to create our country.  So Americans today can be thankful that George III was so terrible.  Things might not have turned out so well if he hadn't been a tyrant.

I cut off the top of George III's head.  I'm not too upset about it.

The last thing I really wanted to do was drink a Sam Adams.  Googling "Sam Adams beer London" did not turn up much useful information.  So I asked my cousin Kevin (he spent a semester in London when he was at ND) for a recommendation for an American bar for the Fourth of July.  He gave me Bodean's BBQ.  I went to the Tower Hill location.  It was exactly what I wanted on the Fourth of July.  I drank Sam Adams and had New England clam chowder.  It was great.  Thanks, Kevin.

It tasted like freedom.

At night I went to an American beer festival.  It was crowded and it was nice to hear lots of people with American accents.  The only disappointment was not having any Sam Adams beers.  I had a Brooklyn Summer Ale and a Brooklyn Brown Ale.

The stars should be in the upper left, not upper right.

It was as good as the Fourth of July could be considering I was out of the country.  The only thing missing was the fireworks.