England Day 1

I arrived at Heathrow around 8:00 in the morning last Sunday.  I got to my hotel around 10:00.  I didn't sleep much on the flight, so that was all I wanted to do, but I couldn't get into my room until 2:00.  So the first thing I did was go to mass.  There was a Catholic Church a half mile from my hotel.  I was surprised by how well attended it was.  More thoughts on the Catholic Church in England later.

Our Lady Queen of Victories in London

After mass, I went to the Churchill War Rooms.  I think I've written about my love for Churchill before.  He might be the greatest political hero of all time.  I'm excluding somebody like John Paul II (more religious than political) so it's Churchill or an American for me.  The Revolution had plenty of heroes.  The greatest is Washington of course, but I see him as more of a military hero than a political hero (he was both, but I admire him most for leading the Continental Army during the war).  Next is Lincoln.  I have Lincoln as the greatest American political hero ever, but his heroism is pretty much limited to the US.  The next one is Franklin Roosevelt, but you can't put him ahead of Churchill.  You just can't.  If you like his domestic policies, Roosevelt is going to be at or near the top of your list of American heroes, but Churchill is the greatest political hero of World War II.  The last American political hero is Ronald Reagan.  He's the greatest hero of the Cold War.  Reagan was significant (more on that later), but I'm giving the nod to Churchill.  The Soviet Union was an Evil Empire, but they never attacked us like Germany attacked the British.  It's a miracle that Britain survived and Churchill is the biggest reason for that.  Churchill's resolve was incredible.  I've said it before, but if not for the British after the French surrendered, it might have been too late for the Americans to save the day.  If the roles had been reversed between Britain and France and Germany had defeated Britain first before turning their attention to the French, the French would have surrendered in about five minutes and Europe would have been controlled by Hitler and Stalin.  Thank God for Churchill and the Brits.  America has been attacked before, but I can't imagine anything like the Battle of Britain.

The world will forever owe a debt of gratitude to Winston Churchill.

Anyway, it was amazing to be in the war rooms underground where Churchill ran the government during the war.  Of course the US was in the war, but it didn't take place in the US, with the obvious exception of Pearl Harbor.  Besides the war rooms, there was also a Churchill Museum.  Lots of good stuff in there.  There was a video that showed his travels during the war. He traveled over 100,000 miles.  I sat down to watch the video and started nodding off, but I got up and powered through.  There are lots of things about Churchill that I love, but one of my favorite things about him is that he's an honorary citizen of the United States.  Here's the list of honorary US citizens:  Winston Churchill, Raoul Wallenberg (google him), William Penn, Hannah Callowhill Penn, Mother Teresa, the Marquis de La Fayette, and Casimir Pulaski.  Pretty awesome list.

Churchill's honorary passport

I didn't have anything else planned for the day and I was tired.  But when I left the war rooms, I heard somebody say that we were right by where they did beach volleyball during the Olympics.  I checked that out and then just kept walking around.  I passed 10 Downing Street, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and lots of statues.  The two statues that I saw that day that I particularly liked were Abraham Lincoln (I don't have an explanation for a Lincoln statue in London) and Winston Churchill.

The greatest president of the United States.  In London.

Parliament

After a good deal of walking, I took the tube back to my hotel.  I was done.  The lack of sleep and the time change did a number on me, but it was still a really good day.  Passing out early that night wasn't a bad thing as I set my alarm for 5:18 the next morning.  I was originally going to set it for 5:15, but I wanted the extra three minutes of sleep. So I was planning on waking up for Monday at 12:18 in the morning east coast time.  I'll explain why in my next post.