Hello again,

(My apologies in appearing tardy in making posts.  I had a camera problem which has prevented me from showing pictures from the second day in New York at Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  I'll be sending that post with pictures at the end of the journey.  In the meantime it's the fourth of July and we're in Tel Aviv.  A happy Independence Day to all of you.  Here's Wednesday's post.)

It's Wednesday, July 1st and we arrived in London this morning at 9AM after an overnight flight that left us a bit confused.  There should be one more New York post but I'm having trouble getting the pictures of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  Anyway, we took the subway, known locally as the "Underground" or the "tube", to our rooms at a bed and breakfast in South Kensington(see photos), a neighborhood of large, old fancy houses, most of which haven't been family homes since before the Second World War when the interiors were sectioned off to be rooming houses for the thousands of military personnel from all over the world that were here to help the British defend themselves against Hitler's forces,  primarily the German Air force that bombed London mercilessly beginning in 1940 with the Battle of Britain.  The subway experience, except for the lack of air conditioning, was world's cleaner than New York subway.  See pictures.

We visited the Imperial War Museum today and from all the school groups visiting it was very clear that the British people are much more connected to their history in WWII and WWI, than are Americans.  Probably because the possibility of a German invasion in WWII was a real possibility.

The Spitfire airplane in the picture defended Britain from 1940 in the Battle of Britain and served until the end of WWII.  Also shown is one of Hitler's "buzz bombs", rockets which flew over London until they ran out of flew and dropped as bombs yielding massive deaths and casualties and destruction on the people of London.  The gigantic guns on the lawn were from a British battleship.

Tomorrow we go to the Tower of London and Big Ben and Westminster Abbey....