London Day 10, A Downer and then an Upper

Class came early, and before I knew it I was sitting at my desk, cup of coffee in hand, ready to go. It was a nice long class discussion, but all the sleep deprivation from the days before were quickly catching up with me and sitting still just made it worse. After struggling to keep my eyelids open and mind at full attention, I was relieved when class was over and we could get moving again.

Today was going to be a simpler day than most. The first stop was to go to the Imperial War Museum. After a short tube ride and a short nap we were there. We sat outside eating our sandwiches admiring the huge cannons hanging outside the building, but it was really only a preview of what was to come. When we finally checked our coats and walked in there were machines of destruction everywhere. Only of the first things you see when you walk in is a mangled car on a platform. It was a car that had been bombed in Iraq. It really kind of set my mood for the rest of the museum.

The museum was so big we decided to work our way up. We started in the basement in the first world war section and my mood dropped further. The entire basement was just packed FULL of artifacts, weapons, uniforms, and other miscellaneous objects. It really made me sad to think how much stuff came from the war time, how much effort and construction was put into making things to kill each other. It was clear to me that war, while being an awful tragedy, is great for production. There were just so many items, cases just littered with them. I couldn't help but think how much time and effort went into designing all these things and even when the item was beautiful, their truly dark nature. Then there were the caption of course that I stopped reading after a while because I was so bummed out.  It didn't help that there were little kids running about everywhere. Seeing them pointing at a gun in the display and talking about how they used that one in a video game and how they wish they could try it didn't really help with the mood. They were just being kids on a boring field trip trying to make fun out a seemingly irrelevant display for them. I didn't really understand why they were, they clearly didn't understand the gravity of the subjects being displayed and discussed in the museum.

It got me thinking however that children, similar to these children had to present when the world was going on. They were living an irrelevant war to them and had to choice, they might have peered at that same gun with the same longing and awe. The presence of these kids really just put everything into a weird perspective. It reminded me of the presence of the young girl in War Horse, still childlike despite the horrors all around her.

Overall the Imperial War Museum was impressive, and an important place to visit. However, I was more than happy to leave its walls. I definitely some pick me ups after such a solemn start to my day.
Luckily after some lunch and nap, we had some more light-hearted tasks set up.
The evening again was another free evening so after some debate over which show to go to, Kyle Sami and I decided to go see something completely different than we had seen before and the Angel Theatre; A puppet show!

That's right, the play was Alice in Wonderland and it was a good ol' puppet show. It took place in this adorable little hidden theatre tucked off the street. Right next to the theatre was the little puppet work shop were the puppets were made, it was just all so charming!

There were a good number of puppets in the performance despite there being only four puppeteers who were constantly shifting from puppet to puppet sometimes controlling two puppets at once. They were really quite impressive. The songs were a little cheesy, and sometimes the puppeteer's pitch was questionable but overall it was really entertaining and I was glad I went to see it. It was funny because while it was most definitely a show aimed at young Children, the audience was at least 80% adults so we didn't even seem out of place. It was great and really added to the variety of show types we had seen during the trip.

After an up and down kind of day it was time for bed again and then DAY 11.