You get in a capsule with 8-10 other people and then begin the slow climb up. The Eye moves incredible slowly – the ride is just one full rotation that takes half an hour. It barely feels like you’re moving until you start seeing points of reference that look tiny.

This was a lot of fun..the views were amazing and I could see all of the things I had visited over the past week.This gave me a chance to reflect on the trip.

First, London feelt much more modern than NY. Everyone’s credit cards have chips in them so they can be read much more easily. Subways have electronic displays telling you when to expect the next train. Everything was clean and organized. The US in general really needs to get going on infrastructure investment or its going to bite us later on (along with the debt, of course).

It’s a very welcoming country/city. Part of it is the modernity, and I’m sure (mostly) speaking the same language helps. Even so, people gave off a great vibe, and when people sensed I was a tourist, it typically caused them to be more helpful and patient, as opposed to getting all stabby. I think part of that is the dynamic – in London, and Europe in general, you are always in close proximity to other cultures so there is probably a shared sense of adapting. My experience in NY is that it’s certainly a melting pot, but everyone is expected to adapt to being a New Yorker.

This trip didn’t make me hate on NY at all though, as there are plenty of great things about home. London clearly is still impacted by class issues in a way that we don’t experience here. Also, there’s only so much fog a person can take. February may not have been the best time to visit, but I think we saw the sun twice.

The most important thing for me was that this rekindled my love of travel. Despite being on an airplane almost every week for the last two years, I hadn’t been overseas in any real way since 2005. I love exploring new places and this reminded me how important that is. I am going to use all my miles to try and get somewhere in the fall..potentially either Europe again, or maybe Thailand.

Life is too short to spend it constantly worrying about your Blackberry. Over the course of a year, if you add up all the crap you buy (drinks, take out, gadgets) it’s far more than a plane ticket and a hostel in almost any city in the world. I want to start making sure that travel becomes a big part of what I do every year. I also want to keep checking things off on my 101 list all year to make sure these adventures continue.

Overall, this was an amazing and much needed week away. Thanks again to Julie, Sara and Ronnie for having me. Here is a panorama I shot from the top of the Eye…can’t wait to put it up on my wall. Cheers!

The Tower of London only had an hour of visiting time left when we were nearby earlier in the week, so we decided to go back for the full tour on Sunday. The tower was built in 1078 and is actually a giant castle, it just gets its name from the White Tower in the middle. The tower has been used as a dungeon, mint, royal palace, armory and more, and now they have examples of each for tourists.

As large and imposing as the place was, it was actually one of the more historically accessible things I saw on the trip. You could see things like actual bedrooms where royals slept and graffiti carved into the wall by prisoners in the 1500’s. Kind of cool to be standing in the same place where you have a direct record of what happened there. Wikipedia has lots of good info on the tower.

While inside, and after waiting on a long but fast moving line, I got to see the crown jewels. The crowns themselves are very impressive but about what you would expect. They are covered in large and small gems. Some of the other things on display were hard to believe. There were rooms full of solid gold plates and sculptures, including a wine/punch bowl that was 3 feet by 3 feet.

Seeing the entire tower took almost four hours, and we had to hurry out because the gates were closing. I can’t imagine how they check the entire place for people every night.

The other part of the complex is the Tower Bridge (pictured to the left, right above the human/panda hybrid). You can actually take an elevator to the top blue crossing of the bridge. This apparently used to be a hangout for pickpockets and prostitutes but is now a monument to this and other famous bridges around the world. Can’t win them all.

This was somewhat of a let down only because of the weather – it was hard to see much of anything from the top. It was still interesting to be inside and see what a complex structure it was given it was built in the 1800’s. Part of the exhibition includes an underground tour of the hydraulic engine room that originally helped raise and lower the bridge for ships to pass.

Anyway, that was the last of the sightseeing for the day. For dinner we went to the local pub – The Phoenix. Tola met us there, and we figured the best way to celebrate leaving London was…burgers. Just about everyone had burgers. We at least had several pounds of bread pudding to wash it down.

Unfortunately, the next day in London was going to be my last, so naturally we spent the night playing some more drunk Scrabble.

Click to go to Day 5

The Broadway Market is one of the bigger (though not the biggest) market in the area. The market itself consists of back to back stalls surrounded on either side by shops. This all takes place on a fairly narrow block and goes on for about half a mile.

When we got there, we started eating. The first lap was just samples, but we eventually graduated to snacks, breads and full on meals. I didn’t know you could spend four hours walking in a circle and eating but we certainly managed. We had authentic German pretzels, savory crepes from two Frenchmen, and tried bread that was voted the best in the UK by the Economist (the noted bread authority).

Despite enjoying ourselves tremendously, it was very cold, so we ducked into a cafe for some tea. The cafe that the girls chose was decorated like a little girl’s doll house. Fortunately, maintaining your feeling of masculinity as an American in Europe is often very easy.

Before leaving, we bought homemade chorizo and gourmet cheese to make breakfast with the next morning, which would prove to be the Greatest Scrambled Eggs Ever.

We got home and were completely stuffed. Fortunately, it was dinner time. We headed to Barrafina, which was my favorite meal of the whole trip. It’s a tapas place with no tables – just around 15 stools around a counter. The line was out the door and we were headed to a show, so by the time we were seated we only had 30 minutes to eat. In those 30 minutes, we had 12 dishes and two bottles of wine. Nothing says class like shoveling tuna tartare and quail down your throat.

I wish we could have stayed longer but it was terrific, even in a rush. The show we saw was a comedy called Clybourne Park. It was about a black family trying to move into a white neighborhood in the 50’s, and then selling the house to a white family several decades later. It was pretty funny, and when they got into some of the more offensive jokes, everyone laughing sounded like they were saying “harumph”. Very British.

After the show we got gelato at a place called Gelupo. Delicious food, run by the most flamboyant Italian of all time. We then grabbed one more drink for good luck at a nearby pub before heading home.

Click to go to Day 4

There is no way to do this building justice, even with pictures. To the left is a picture of the Quire, which is where services are conducted. I haven’t been to the Vatican yet, which I imagine is on a much grander scale, but this was incredible. The ceilings are hundreds of feet high but covered in intricate murals, and every inch of the walls, columns and floor contains some kind of design.

Once you get over the incredible sights on the floor, it’s time to climb. First, there are 257 fairly wide steps up to the whispering gallery. This is a large open circle that overlooks the cathedral floor. Since it’s at the base of a dome, the acoustics let you be heard from anywhere.

From there things got really cool. There’s a tiny hidden door to enter and then stairs that go straight up – literally the next few steps are almost at eye level. This eventually leads to the Stone Gallery – which is back on the outside of the cathedral (you can see the railing in the diagram above). From here you have a great unobstructed view of the city, but why stop?

Another ~120 steps on a tiny metal spiral staircase puts you at the very top of the dome (the Golden Gallery), from which you can see all of London. Me being me, I figured that I would drop one of my cameras over the railing, but I managed to capture everything unscathed (pic on the left).

The Cathedral has an awesome website and you can even see a 360 degree tour of every major area. I definitely recommend checking it out here.

The other God stop on Friday was the Temple Church. This is actually a giant compound, but the church itself was the one featured in The Da Vinci Code. From a tour perspective it was somewhat underwhelming, since it is just one big room and you don’t have access to some of the other areas and some of the underground chambers. That said, it was still cool to see, and a very interesting building. Other than the Knight statues, the two coolest things were the giant stained glass window and organist suspended on the wall.

After both churches, we walked over the Millennium Bridge over to the Globe Theater, which houses a Shakespeare Museum. Wasn’t interested in the tour but it was interesting to see the building.

As a thank you to everyone who got me to London, I cooked a big steak dinner on Friday night. We stayed up late playing Scrabble. It was wild…and I even learned that lazing is a word.

Click here to go to Day 3

Outside Westminster Abbey

The first day in London was all about exploring. Sara and Ronnie’s flat is two blocks from Buckingham Palace so we tried to see as much as we could in the general vicinity. First stop was Westminster Abbey.

This was a pretty incredible thing to do first. Seeing 700 years worth of headstones, and standing in a room that had held royal coronations certainly gets you to appreciate London’s history in a hurry. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed inside, but the website has some decent shots and a floor plan. The opulence of some of the tombs was incredible.

From there, we did lots of walking around. Picadilly Circus was pretty cool and is basically like London’s Times Square. Oxford Street is like any major avenue in NY..high end shopping mixed with chains like H&M and Gap. The Horse Guards Stable…does not have a NY equivalent.

After seeing some of the main roads, we walked to Trafalgar Square, then walked along Hyde Park to look at some of the artwork and catch the sunset with several hundred birds. Although we only saw a few major sights the first day, we walked 6 – 7 miles so it really helped me get a sense of the city.

We caught pre-dinner drinks at an underground bar called Cellar Door. The entrance was on the street and looked like an awning/stairs that would be for a subway stop, but instead led to a tiny bar. It was decorated like a brothel, the bartenders were dressed up formally like a speakeasy, and the waitresses had goth angel wings. Hard to pin down the genre, but my Old Fashioned was absurdly strong, which is all that matters. They also had unexpectedly good popcorn.

For dinner we went to 32 Queen Street – a high-end gastropub. Between the pig cheek, haddock and venison, I got the chance to try lots of new food. The most interesting thing was a lupin bean. It looked like a lima bean but tasted like saganaki. Why wouldn’t the bar serve beans that taste like cheese?

After dinner, we headed downstairs to a private bar and had dessert and another round. As we were paying the bill, the following exchange happened:

Drunk Guy: Where are you from?
Sara: I live in London but am from New York.
DG: Well if you live in New York, why don’t you?
Sara: That makes no sense, I don’t live in New York.
DG: Just because you live there, doesn’t mean you can act like this! What the hell is wrong with you people?! Have some manners!!!

He was then restrained by our waiter. And they say Europe has a drinking problem?

All in all, it was a solid first day. I’m putting most of my pictures on Facebook since WordPress takes awhile to upload, but below are some of my favorites.

Click here to go to Day 2

Random thoughts on London:

• London has three types of weather, at least in February: really cold and foggy, slightly less cold and foggy, and night time
• It is the most tourist friendly place I’ve ever been – there are tons of maps and guides everywhere and everything is pretty intuitive. The Tube is comparable in size to NYC but is blanketed in route maps so it’s much easier to use. Plus, the conductor announcements sound like Mrs. Doubtfire instead of someone choking on a pretzel (thanks MTA!)
• That said, there are very few straight roads, and the same street might change names five times while you’re on it
• Every meal we had was incredible – London’s bad food reputation is undeserved. However, twice I was served salad with breakfast. Lettuce and I have an uneasy truce, and I certainly don’t need it messing with my bacon, egg and cheese wrap
• Seeing the thousands of years of history was a big change from seeing things in the US. It also makes you appreciate the role of the royals, and why the upcoming wedding is such a big deal.
• Even a construction worker calling his colleague a filthy motherf*cker sounds pleasant with a British accent
• Everyone we met was interesting, including the old man who gave us directions after grabbing Julie’s ass, and the drunk guy at 32 Queen who told Sara that she needed manners before falling down.

I hadn’t been on a real vacation/trip in almost five years and this reminded me how much I love to travel. I also can’t stress how amazing it was to not be glued to email/news/blogs. I tell myself what is or isn’t important in terms of work/life balance, but until I was free from the daily grind I couldn’t appreciate how it feels to have the fog lifted.

More to come..but can’t wait to go on my next adventure.

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5

I wouldn’t describe the latter scenario as liberty anymore.

Once the sheer implication of this act sunk in, my initial reaction was dread and disgust – it seemed like the last two years of invective, heavily coming from the right, had finally come home to roost.

However, while I think this shooting does significantly reflect the current culture, it wasn’t necessarily caused by it.

I think the debate about Palin’s target map misses the point. Yes it was inappropriate, but it was far from the most overtly violent imagery towards politicians (see: “second amendment remedies“), and far from the worst thing Palin has done, violent imagery or otherwise. However, there is nothing to suggest that this shooting was a result of this map, or anything she said. As far as she goes, I think the real telling story here is her reaction to the controversy.

The best analogy that I saw: let’s say a child says to their parent in anger, “I wish you were dead!” Then, unfortunately, the parent dies. Of course this statement had no bearing on what happened, but certainly the child would feel remorse.

Now, we don’t know how much the current political dialogue had on what happened. Either way, I don’t see why Palin couldn’t have defended her right to use war/combat metaphors (which she has done, somewhat fairly), while still expressing remorse for the unfortunate use of imagery. As opposed to, say, pretending it was never there.

Palin aside, though, I feel like this is a complex situation. One one hand, the right has been overwhelmingly driven by fear-based rhetoric, even preceding 9/11. This apparently stays with them even when they discuss other issues (see: Tucker Carlson calling for Michael Vick’s execution). Even if right-wing rhetoric didn’t cause this particular shooting, it has contributed to actual violence (assaults on Muslims, office vandalism, etc.) and threats (up to all members of Congress, but heavily focused on health care reform). It is hard to not want to use this as a teachable moment to help tone things down.

Furthermore, I will quote Steven Budiansky (via the Dish):

For as long as I can remember, I have heard conservatives blaming everything that is wrong in the universe, from violent crime to declining test scores to teen pregnancy to rude children to declining patriotism to probably athlete’s foot  . . . upon Dr. Spock, Hollywood liberals, the abolition of prayer in school, Bill Clinton, the “liberal 1960s,” the teaching of evolution — in other words, upon symbols, rhetoric, cultural norms, and the values expressed by political and media leaders. Yet from the moment when someone gets a gun in their hands, apparently, society ceases to have any influence whatsoever on the outcome and individual responsibility takes hold 100%. Something is driving the tripling of death threats against congressmen (and the concomitant rise in threats against Federal judges and other villains of the right, from Forest Service rangers to climate scientists) and it isn’t the sunspot cycle.

So yes, it is hard to not blame the right for this.

On the other hand, though, what if Loughner had nothing to do with any of this? What if he was romantically obsessed with her? What if he thinks the current political climate is just peachy, but really hates Jews? A former acquaintance suggested something else:

Tierney thinks that Loughner’s mindset was like the Joker in the most recent Batman movie: “He fucks things up to fuck shit up, there’s no rhyme or reason, he wants to watch the world burn. He probably wanted to take everyone out of their monotonous lives: ‘Another Saturday, going to go get groceries’—to take people out of these norms that he thought society had trapped us in.”

Sometimes things defy easy explanation. I don’t think Hinckley attempting to assassinate Reagan reflected anything about a political party either. While I think much political dialogue has devolved into nonsense, which I believe is inherently a problem, millions of people listen to it every day and don’t go out and shoot people.

At the end of the day, this should be a time of mourning, reflection, and analysis of how to prevent things like this from happening again. The left looking to fit a narrative and the right believing they are the real victims here is a sad testament to just how far things have fallen.

Much of Loughner’s worldview seemed to focus on the idea that if the government controlled grammar, they could control the populace. In a sad irony, rather than focusing on Congressional security, gun control, or how to better identify the mentally ill, everyone is focused on language.

Hopefully those that survived continue to heal and we’ll see what the next few weeks bring.

(via DrinkYourJuice)

Boston.com runs phenomenal photography all the time – multiple pages of hi-res photographs from around the world. They put together three pages (here, here, and here) covering all of 2010 that are worth looking at.

(h/t The Daily Dish)

There are a million ways to make chicken soup with matzo balls but this is the family recipe. It takes awhile up front to prepare, and you have to let it sit overnight, but it’s well worth it. I even got some enchiladas out of all the chicken I had left over on the first night.

Making the matzo balls was tough because I was on a conference call. There is no way to get the stuff off your hands when you’re holding a phone, and it’s hard to explain giant splashing noises every few minutes. I will have to let everyone at work know that I moonlight at a dunk tank.

This was probably the first time in my life I had homemade matzo ball soup not for a holiday with family. While no meal is the same without hilarious consequence bets and absurd stories, these things had no effect on the taste of the soup. It was probably a quieter meal though.

Recipe is below the pics for anyone interested.

Matzo ball soup

2  3½ pound chickens
10-12 full carrots, chopped
2 hearts of celery, chopped
2 medium/large onions, chopped
5 parsnips, chopped
3 turnips, chopped
4 chicken bouillon cubes
Dill

1. Wash chickens and put in a giant ass pot. Fill with water so chickens are more than covered
2. Add all chopped vegetables
3. Bring to boil, add 2 bouillon cubes, then reduce heat and simmer for two hours. With 30 minutes left, add 1-2 bouillon cubes and stir. With 10-15 minutes left, submerge the dill in the soup.
4. Remove the chickens from the pot and pull off the meat – throw away bones and skin
5. Strain the broth, then pour into containers. Add vegetables, some chicken and refrigerate.
6. The next day, skim the fat off the top off each container and save.

Matzo balls

2 tablespoons oil or 2 tablespoons skimmed fat from the soup
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 cup Manischewitz Matzo Meal
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons soup stock or water

Mix fat and eggs together. Mix and add Manischewitz matzo meal and salt. When well blended, add soup stock or water. Cover mixing bowl and place in refrigerator for at least twenty minutes. Using a two or three quart size pot, bring salted water to a brisk boil. Reduce flame and drop balls from above into  the slightly bubbling water. Cover pot and let cook 30-40 minutes. Have soup at room temperature, or warmer, and remove matzo balls from water to soup pot. When ready to serve, allow soup to simmer for about 5 minutes. Recipe makes about 5 matzo balls.