Despite today’s rainy and windy weather, we got to see a lot of interesting places and fit in some free time to roam about the city. We woke up and took the tube to Paddington Station (remember Paddington Bear, anyone?) and headed to our first stop, the Frontline Club.

The Frontline Club is a group of journalists who cover foreign issues and the war. We were fortunate enough to hear from John Burns, the London Bureau Chief for the New York Times. He was an incredible guy with lots of wisdom for us. He’s been covering the war in Iraq and has spent time in Africa and Afghanistan as well. His job as a journalist covering war has been pretty difficult – he was even kidnapped once and barely survived – yet he remains very calm.

One of the most important things he said to us was to remember to be a citizen before being a journalist. He actually reminded me a lot of Ernie Pyle, because Ernie would also have always looked out for people’s needs before simply "getting the story." Burns also talked about handling ethics and the importance of interpreting on and off the record situations. Overall, he was absolutely amazing to listen to – we hardly realized he talked to us for almost two hours.

After braving the weather (lots of wind and rain – our umbrellas were frequently inverted) and grabbing a quick lunch, we went to St. Paul Cathedral, a beautiful old church in the heart of London that barely survived a horrible bombing in Dec. 1940. St. Paul’s was huge and majestic. We got to walk around it for awhile – even visiting a crypt down in the basement that was a bit creepy -– and most students ventured up pretty high to get an even better view. We were talking about how beautiful it would be to have a wedding there when we heard someone mention Princess Diana was married in this cathedral.

Our last organized activity today was the Cabinet War Rooms. These were established during the blitz during World War II. Air raids happened almost every night and the Cabinet needed a private, established place underground where prime minister Winston Churchill could meet with the other members. Many of the rooms were completely restored to their original 1940s state.The Winston Churchill Museum was also inside, and it included an interactive touchscreen timeline where you could see what Churchill was up to most of the days of his life. We couldn’t help playing around with it for quite some time.

The long day proved to be incredibly interesting. It’s crazy to actually see these places that are so full of history. We also found plenty of chances to get in pictures of our London favorites – double decker buses and Big Ben. Tomorrow we have a long day ahead of us as we say goodbye to England and travel by bus, then ferry, to Caen, France.