London, baby! Day 3 + 4

We continued to pack in activities for days three and four. Day three started with a trip to the Churchill War Rooms. This place was really cool - it was the actual wartime bunker for British forces during WWII plus a pretty large museum on Churchill himself. The audio guide was really good, too, with personal accounts from staff during the time in the bunker, Sometimes they'd even play an air raid to really show you how it felt.

Here are some of the bunker rooms:

Churchill's private bedroom - he only slept here a few times (other times he was in another room) but this one was just off the main map room and he could really do anything here - from that desk he often broadcast radio announcements and made some phone calls. He really liked maps as you can see from the walls.

After emerging, we hopped on the tube over to Harrods department store, which I was really looking forward to seeing. It's huge and lovely and just wow. We could only spend a short time here, but what an ornate building and amazing selection of merchandise. I especially liked the floor that housed all the wine and spirits and the food halls were packed with things I wanted to try. We did manage to get a few chicken Caesar wraps for lunch that hit the spot.

But really, that store is so upscale I need to start making money now to afford something. One of the wings we walked through looked like a modern art museum, except all the art was for sale. I'm glad that I don't have a luxury handbag addiction or something. That would be a troublesome store for me!

Soon it was time to get to our next trip highlight - seeing the Book of Mormon! Yay! We've heard some awesome things about it, and London had been psyching us up for it since arriving. The marketing team really went all out with the ads, we saw them on all the double decker buses, at bus stations, and inside tube stations. After being out in the crowds and rain, it was really nice to sit down with a whiskey and ginger ale at the theatre. Hubby got us some really great seats center stage up on the top level.

Here's the opening act of the show, taken from the 2012 Tony Awards...

The show was quite funny, and hubby found some of the piano music online so he's been playing a little. There are definitely some adult themes and language and general outrageousness, but that makes it all the funnier.

After the show we had a little time before our dinner reservation so we found a pub (a pub!) and hubby had a pint of lukewarm beer. He didn't like it at first but said it grew on him. We went to Kettner's for dinner and I had mushroom risotto and hubby had the beef bourguignon. Quite tasty all around. I was already full from every other meal this trip, and continued to be full. We both went to bed in food comas.

Waking up on the last day, we still had a lot to cover before our flight at 8pm. We got up, had some breakfast and walked over to the grocery store to see what sort of tasty things we could smuggle back in our suitcases.

(Hubby would later learn that it's NOT a good idea to bring back cans of beer in your suitcase. Did you know they explode? I would later learn that beer smell that gets saturated in clothes doesn't come out after only one wash. Bleh.)

We picked up some jam, chips (crisps) and some other things and then left our bags at the hotel and headed over to the British museum. We didn't get to see all of it and could have definitely spent more time there, but we did manage to see the Rosetta Stone and a variety of cool pottery, statues and Egyptian artifacts:

 Hubby hiding behind some pottery...

Hubby and I found a yummy Indian restaurant for a late lunch and gobbled up the samosas, chicken and lamb before heading back to the hotel. Since we got done a little early, we decided to go to the airport so we could take advantage of the lounge. It was nice to relax there away from the masses. Soon we boarded our flight and headed back home.

A jam-packed (in more ways than one) holiday for sure, but really nice to get away!