Yesterday, Andrew and I had only one thing on our itinerary; to leap into London with everything we had; to "rub one's nose in the very quiddity of each thing, to rejoice in its being (so magnificently) what it was." (C.S. Lewis).

That's a big challenge when considering a city like London, and for a day with only so many hours in it. But we gave it our best shot. We boarded our train for Paddington at the Oxford railway station and enjoyed a nice, fifty-five minute commute into London. Andrew had worked diligently to have all the directions we'd need to fulfill our itinerary, acting as our navigator for the day, and he did a fabulous job, as I would have immediately gotten myself lost hopelessly in London's warrens. I will give London this credit, though: unlike Oxford, London labels its streets plainly and in large letters. In Oxford, there's no sense labeling a street because five paces after the sign the street will have changed its name.

Our first goal was to get something to eat. Our second goal was to arrive at the British Museum. We accomplished both in one fell swoop. We rode the Tube toward the museum and, upon arriving, discovered a hot dog stand right outside it. The hot dogs there were excellent, by the way, and Andrew was pretty excited because the stand carries his favorite soda, Sunkist, which he hadn't yet seen in Europe. From his reports it ended up tasting like Fanta, but it was still good.

The British museum was - you'll hear this word a couple times in this post - overwhelming. We rammed through much of it in about an hour and a half, but probably only saw a small fraction of one percent of what it offered. It's just huge. We walked through ancient Greece and Rome, ancient Egypt, ancient Ur and Babylon, and much of the history of Europe.

There were lots of sculptures and busts in the museum: busts of various kings and emperors, including an impressive collection of Roman emperors. These were important in their day: without mass media the Emperor needed a way to get his image out in front of the populace, so the emperors are represented in sculpted images of exaggerated youth, vitality, and heroism. There were large displays of armor, helmets, swords, spears, and the other implements of war. Toward the end of it, I found myself becoming a little depressed; it's amazing how much of mankind's history revolves around conquest, intrigue, wealth, weaponry, and politics. This morning at Christ Church cathedral we sang a song that reminded me of what I saw in the histories yesterday at the museum:

Cure Thy children’s warring madness,
Bend our pride to Thy control.
Shame our wanton selfish gladness,
Rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal,

- God of Grace and God of Glory, v. 3
Following the British museum, we again hopped on the Tube and made our way to the Imperial War Museum. Once again, it was overwhelming. We spent some time in the main room admiring the aircraft, tanks and rockets on display there, and then made our way down into the trenches of World War I. The trench simulation was very good, with the sites and sounds (but not the smells, thankfully) of trench warfare in the Great War faithfully reproduced. We heard interviews of soldiers who had "gone over the top" into no man's land and were the only ones left standing of their platoon,

All wars are awful, but World War I gets win, place, and show in the most hellish war imaginable sweepstakes. It was such a terrible, stupid war, full of waste and senseless bloodshed. I'm amazed at the English people for what they endured in the 20th century: not one but two world wars right on their doorsteps that stole entire generations of their young men.

Peace to them all . . . Ypres and the Somme ate up most of them. They were happy while their good days lasted.

- C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, chapter VI - Bloodery
We moved from the Great War section to the section on World War II, and were again met with tales of great courage and heroism on all sides. But also of troubling hatred.

"They were all murdered because we hate them."

- Felix Landau, SS sergeant, speaking of the victims of the Holocaust
I'm thankful to all those who sacrificed so much for our freedom, against such evil.

We finally left the War museum as dinner was calling us, and we had to make our way to Trafalgar square, again on the Tube. We had dinner in a nice pub called Garfunkel's, where we ate some very good Italian food. We were both footsore and brain-weary at this point so we took our time over dinner, and then headed to the National Gallery which is a magnificent building at the head of Trafalgar square. It was closing in about 45 minutes, so our visit there consisted mainly of a nearly-blind rush through room after room of paintings. To give you a sense of the scope of this art gallery, I think we went through about eight rooms devoted to the 17th century alone. The paintings were magnificent and my one regret is that we didn't have more time for this museum. I saw Monets, Van Goghs, Gaugins, and Rembrandts, among many, many other artists, and we stayed until they started shooing us out.

This completed our museum-hunting for the day. We also had on our plans the Churchill museum, but that proved unrealistic in hindsight. So we made our way to the Queen's Theater to see Les Miserables, which has been running in London for twenty five years. I had never seen Les Mis and was unfamiliar with the story, so I bought a playbill and read up on it while we waited for the play to start. It was magnificent! Not only was it a great, entertaining musical skillfully done, it was also surprisingly redemptive. It's a tale of sacrifice and forgiveness from start to end, and I walked out uplifted. Uplifted and also dead-tired, as it was now past 10:30pm at the end of a long, full day.

We still had a long road ahead of us, though. We trekked the few blocks to the Piccadilly Circus Underground and rode it to Paddington Station, arriving about five minutes till 11:00pm. We had to run to catch the Oxford train that was boarding at Platform 9.

"Uh oh," I thought as we boarded. The train was packed, with barely room for us to stand just inside the doors. And it was hot. So, dog-tired, Andrew and I stood sweating among teeming masses, including a young gent and his lass who decided that this would be the perfect place to start snogging.

To take my mind off the snogging happening four inches away from me, I tried to engage in conversation with the middle aged British couple crammed up against the door. I could hear them discussing Les Mis, as they had also attended that night, so I tried to join in, using my best Texas opener, "So, did you have good seats for the play?". But they didn't appear to be much interested in conversing with the sweaty American invading even the small personal spaces that Europeans value, so, since they were staring at me like I had a third eye, I decided to drop my attempts at communication. I resigned myself to a long, uncomfortable journey home.

But then, a miracle! Oh thank you, Glorious, Shining city of Slough! The train stopped at the Slough railway station (unexpectedly, as we had only one stop on the way in, at Reading), and a number of people exited the train. We still had to stand, but the young couple was able to take their intimacy over to a seat, and we had more breathing room. And then the next (unexpected) stop, and even more people got off, and Andrew and I were able to find seats into which we collapsed, until we arrived back in good old Oxford at midnight.

From there, Andrew and I each took our separate cabs back home: he to Christ Church and me to Windmill road in Headington. Upon arriving home, I skyped for a bit with my lovely better half - poor thing: I get to look at her while we skype and she has to look at me - and I was also able to talk to two of my kids, Bethany and Blake, as well. Finally, we said our goodbyes and, as the time neared 2:00am, I fell asleep.

London, thanks for a great day. I'll never forget it. But it's good to be back in Oxford.

If you'd like to see pictures from today, you can find them here.