31 March - 1 April 2022
We took off from Cleveland at 4 PM, and landed in London at 9 AM the next day. With a 5 hour time difference, that is 4 AM Cleveland time. We both got a 2 or 3 hours of sleep on the plane, so when we landed we felt OK, which is a good thing since we have more traveling and a museum tour ahead of us before we check into our AirBnB. Instead of traveling all the way to Middlewich, where we are starting our narrowboat holiday, we decided to travel only part of the way to Milton Keynes,
We got through customs and arrived at the Underground station just in time to catch the 10AM train to Euston Station where we will catch a train to Bletchley. We arrived at Euston Station way ahead of time and had to wait till the 1:15 PM train to Bletchley. We grabbed lunch and tried to stay warm in the station...burrrrr...it is chilly here. The train was successfully caught and we arrived in Bletchley at 1:50 PM. We walked to the museum and arrived in time for our 2:30 PM tour.
What museum, you may ask, is worth all this travel and staying up after a long flight? The National Museum of Computing, of course. The National Museum of Computing is home to the world's largest collection of working historic computers, and is located in Bletchley Park, the principal center of allied code-breaking during WW2. You know the movie "Enigma?" This is where that happened.
Anyway, the tour was amazing. It started with a working replica of Enigma, a cipher device used by the Germans in WW2. The guide explained how the device works and then showed us the Bombe, a machine made by Alan Turing to break the code. The Bombe at the museum is actually a working, rebuilt Bombe.
We got through customs and arrived at the Underground station just in time to catch the 10AM train to Euston Station where we will catch a train to Bletchley. We arrived at Euston Station way ahead of time and had to wait till the 1:15 PM train to Bletchley. We grabbed lunch and tried to stay warm in the station...burrrrr...it is chilly here. The train was successfully caught and we arrived in Bletchley at 1:50 PM. We walked to the museum and arrived in time for our 2:30 PM tour.
What museum, you may ask, is worth all this travel and staying up after a long flight? The National Museum of Computing, of course. The National Museum of Computing is home to the world's largest collection of working historic computers, and is located in Bletchley Park, the principal center of allied code-breaking during WW2. You know the movie "Enigma?" This is where that happened.
Anyway, the tour was amazing. It started with a working replica of Enigma, a cipher device used by the Germans in WW2. The guide explained how the device works and then showed us the Bombe, a machine made by Alan Turing to break the code. The Bombe at the museum is actually a working, rebuilt Bombe.
 Working Enigma replica |  The Bombe |
The Germans followed Enigma up with the more sophisticated Lorenz SZ42 cypher machine. Colossus, the world's first electronic computer, helped decipher these messages between Hitler and his generals during World War II.
The tour guide didn't just show us these machine. They explained how the people of Bletchley Park figured out how to build a machine based on just he coded messages received. The guide would then turn on the machines. That was what was impressive about this museum. Every machine/computer in the museum is in working condition.
Here is the Harwell Dekatron Computer, aka W.I.T.C.H. It was built to help do calculations for the atomic bomb program, and became operational in 1951. It has RAM and uses paper tape to load programs. This machine is oldest original working digital computer in the world!
The tour guide didn't just show us these machine. They explained how the people of Bletchley Park figured out how to build a machine based on just he coded messages received. The guide would then turn on the machines. That was what was impressive about this museum. Every machine/computer in the museum is in working condition.
Here is the Harwell Dekatron Computer, aka W.I.T.C.H. It was built to help do calculations for the atomic bomb program, and became operational in 1951. It has RAM and uses paper tape to load programs. This machine is oldest original working digital computer in the world!
Harwell Dekatron Computer, aka W.I.T.C.H.
Even though the tour was incredible, we were getting extremely tired and it got harder and harder to concentrate. I didn't take anymore photos on the tour, but it continued for a total of 2.5 hours where they showed us computers from the beginning to today.
After the tour, the tour guide offered to take us to our AirBnB, which was awesome. We arrived at the apartment around 5:45 and was exhausted, but also hungry. We headed out and found food (Japanese) and even managed to pick up a new SIM card for my cellphone, so now we have full service, including data. After arriving back to the apartment, we stated up as long as we could, and finally went to bed at 9:30 PM.
The next day, Saturday, we slept in and felt pretty good when we got up. Neither of us seemed to have jet-lag...Awesome! We spent the day doing some shopping, eating lunch, and walking around Milton Keynes. We wound up at BrewDog Brewing Company which was kind of cool, since we were in BrewDog in Columbus, Ohio just 4 days ago. We then went to dinner at Weatherspoon's, one of our favorite chains in the UK, that has well priced food and drink. Then, back to the AirBnB and called it a night. Tomorrow we head to Middlewich, the town we start our narrowboat holiday.
After the tour, the tour guide offered to take us to our AirBnB, which was awesome. We arrived at the apartment around 5:45 and was exhausted, but also hungry. We headed out and found food (Japanese) and even managed to pick up a new SIM card for my cellphone, so now we have full service, including data. After arriving back to the apartment, we stated up as long as we could, and finally went to bed at 9:30 PM.
The next day, Saturday, we slept in and felt pretty good when we got up. Neither of us seemed to have jet-lag...Awesome! We spent the day doing some shopping, eating lunch, and walking around Milton Keynes. We wound up at BrewDog Brewing Company which was kind of cool, since we were in BrewDog in Columbus, Ohio just 4 days ago. We then went to dinner at Weatherspoon's, one of our favorite chains in the UK, that has well priced food and drink. Then, back to the AirBnB and called it a night. Tomorrow we head to Middlewich, the town we start our narrowboat holiday.
RSS Feed
