Close your eyes and think of England('s spas)

The Lush Spa country kitchen.

There were a few factors that tempted me back to the United Kingdom again during this year's trip to Europe, but one of the strongest was English spas.

I'm guessing that when most people think of spas, they think of Moroccan spas, or Turkish baths, or at least an outdoor massage table in some sort of tropical location where gauzy curtains billow in the breeze. But me, I think of English spas. Mostly because of my fantastic Synaesthesia massage there last year, an experience I was eager to repeat.

I didn't want to get the same treatment over again, though (fabulous as it was), since Lush had come out with some new treatments since my last visit. I was especially drawn to "The Good Hour," which is a deeper tissue massage, and is set to sea shanties. Yes, in the strange and fantastic world that is the Lush Spa, they've gotten about as far away from whale songs and Enya as they possibly can and set a massage to sea shanties.

Then the most I started thinking about it, the more I thought I should try TWO treatments. I mean, how often am I in the UK and able to go to the Lush Spa? Not very. And "The Spell" foot treatment seemed to be just the thing for someone with a bum foot. So I booked The Spell for the very beginning of my trip, and The Good Hour for the very end, a nice little set of spa bookends.

I had The Spell the day I landed, which maybe wasn't my best idea ever. My migraine was really throbbing from the lack of sleep, and I was seriously jet-lagged. Before the treatment, I followed my therapist, Sophie, around the shop floor as she picked up all of the items we'd be using. Then we went down to the delightful little country cottage kitchen of the spa, where she gave me an ink pen and paper, to write down something that was worrying me, while she went to prepare the room. I folded up my paper as instructed, and dropped it into a copper kettle, and when Sophia returned, she lit a fireplace match and placed it in the kettle. My "worry" went up in a flash — a bit of theatrics before we went into the treatment room.

The treatment starts with a foot soak and then a scrub, all, of course, with Lush products. Then you get a slathering of Volcano all over your feet. Sophie described Volcano as almost an underdog product for Lush, not the most popular one in the store by far. But I've been using it since it came out and love it — the warming effect feels great on your feet and it really does make them softer. While the Volcano was setting, Sophie did a fantastic head, neck, and shoulders massage with hot stones that had been coated in Dream Time temple balm, so that it not only felt great, it also smelled of relaxing lavender. It didn't exactly get rid of my migraine, but it did help.

Then it was on to the bulk of the treatment, a reflexology foot massage. I've only had one other reflexology foot massage, and this one used a lighter touch (and Pied de Pepper foot lotion). It felt very nice, so nice that combined with the jet lag I found myself fighting to stay awake. The music was certainly a contributing factor — more vocal than that used in Synaesthesia, it's another custom-scored set of English folk centered around a theme of walking.

So even though I was in a sleepy trance for much of it, I really enjoyed The Spell. And with the combo of relaxing spa treatment, a very nice hotel bed, and the jet lag, I slept like the dead that night. Did it warrant the name of The Spell? Well, all I'll say is that my worry did indeed go away.

This post isn't meant to be ALL about the Lush Spa, however, as I did also have an additional spa visit while I was in Bath. The first time I went to Bath, with Eileen and Jeff, we spent some time in Thermae Bath Spa's Cross Bath, which was just the thing after touring the Roman Baths. When I decided I wanted to go back to Bath, I knew I wanted to check out the full Thermae complex.

In the main building, they have two major pools — one on the top of the building with a spectacular view out over Bath, and another slightly larger one on the ground level. Both pools are filled with the same mineral water that the Romans and the Regency gentry bathed in, pleasantly warm and slightly sweet-smelling. There's also a set of four steam rooms, each with a different scent, and a set of bubbling foot baths. I decided to pay for a four-hour session, but wasn't sure if I would end up using all of the time.

Well, I did. Both of the pools were lovely to float in, and they had pool noodles out to make for easier floating. I went in the early evening, and the pools were crowded at first but thinned out as the evening went on. Each pool had water features, like bubbles coming up from the floor, and a high-pressure waterfall that gave a great shoulder massage. My favorite, though, was a lazy river in the ground floor Minerva Bath, made with a series of jets that propelled you and your pool noodle along. I could have done that alone for hours.

I did manage to tear myself away from the lazy river, though, and also alternate among the steam rooms and rooftop pool. It was a bit cold getting out of the water and the steam, particularly on the roof, but that was quickly forgotten as soon as I got into the next warm attraction. It really was a delightful and relaxing way to spend an evening, and I felt fantastically relaxed when I left.

I saved the other end of my Lush Spa bookend, my Good Hour massage, for the day I flew out. I had a late afternoon flight out, which left me just enough time for a 10 a.m. massage (the treatment portions of both of my treatments clocked in at one hour, but I was there about two hours both times).

So the worst thing about The Good Hour is knowing I can't go back immediately and get the treatment again. Synaesthesia might be more of an experience, but The Good Hour really worked. It uses trigger point therapy, which Sophie (again my therapist for this treatment), explained as pressing down on a knot in your muscles and then releasing it so that blood rushes in and it's like restarting your muscle in the same way you'd restart a computer. And it really works. This was the most effective massage I've ever had — my muscles felt like jello when I left.

And there were still some of the signature Lush theatrics. For this one, Sophie dropped a Big Blue bath bomb into water and then poured it over dry ice, creating "sea mist" that rolled across the floor before the treatment began. As for the sea shanties, I can see where they wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but I thought they were great, and they really fit with the motion of a deep tissue massage. Speaking of a cup of tea, that was what Sophie had prepared for me when I left the treatment room, complete with an optional splash of rum (which I opted for, because hey, I was on vacation). It was a contrast to the detoxifying post-Spell drink of hot water infused with lemon and ginger slices, but perfectly fitting.

So while Thermae was a wonderfully relaxing way to spend an evening, the three treatments I've had at the Lush Spa are hands-down the most unique, memorable, and surprisingly also the most effective I've ever had. They are delightfully and unabashedly English, from the country cottage decor, to the folk music, to the cup of tea at the end. When you think of spas, you might not think of England, but you should.

Candlelight in the treatment room.

11th-hour barefoot (a shoe report)

From left to right: Left-behind mesh shower shoes, Merrell Pure Gloves, Merrell Brios, and Merrell Waterpro Sables.

I've had shoes on the brain lately, which is not an unusual thing for me. But it probably means it's time for me to post on the shoes I took on my trip.

I ended up taking three pairs. If you do one-bag travel, this is generally a no-no. Normally, you can do pretty much any travel with two pairs of shoes, as long as they're the right two pairs of shoes. And indeed, up until a few weeks before my trip, I had been planning to take my Merrell Brios and my Merrell Waterpro Sables.

The Brio is a mary jane that is fantastic for walking. Before my trip, I did a five-mile test in these on the cobblestone sidewalks of Alexandria, Virginia, that I never had time to blog about. They stood up, as they usually do — in fact, it was only one excruciatingly long day in Paris, ending at the Louvre, that felled these shoes, and I'm pretty sure it would have felled any shoes.

The Waterpro Sable was really the linchpin of my shoe plan. I needed shoes that would work for the beach, for hiking, and for city walking. Since many of the beaches on Skiathos were gravel or stone, I decided that a good pair of water shoes would be my best bet, and I loved the Sables because with socks, they look like a pair of sporty sneakers, so they'd be far more versatile than flip-flops. And indeed, in a previously blogged walking test, they went well past the 5 mile test for a strong 7 miles.

So I had my shoe plan pretty much down. For kicking around the house and my hotel rooms, I'd planned on taking a super lightweight pair of mesh shower shoes. I'd actually planned on taking these to Ireland, too, but in the last-minute shoe space crunch caused by my needing to take an air cast, they got left behind.

They got left behind this time, too. I've mentioned that I was suffering from an extended migraine before my trip — my migraines aren't as intense (auras, hiding in a dark room) as those some people get, but they can last much longer if I don't take the medication in time. This one was well up over 20 days.

So take that stabbing pain in my head, and combine with a trip to REI for some final travel items. I happened to walk past the shoe section, and they had the Merrell barefoot shoes out on display. As I stalk Merrell's web site on a regular basis, I knew all about the barefoot shoes, but had always assumed that they were, well, like walking barefoot, and would have zero arch support. I was surprised to look in there and see that there was a curve where your arch goes. The heel isn't raised at all, and there's all sorts of room for your toes to spread out naturally, but good old arch support is still in there. So I tried a pair of the Pace Gloves on, and loved them so much I bought them. My original intent was to use them as a walking shoe that would strengthen my bad foot. But then I decided, what the hell, why not try this barefoot running? My foot had largely stabilized by now, thanks to my other Merrell shoes, and what did I have to lose?

So I watched the instructional videos and did the recommended prep work, and then headed out for a combined walk/run. And remember that migraine? It felt FANTASTIC to get the blood flowing when I ran. And rather than being worse for the wear, my foot actually looked better — I'm assuming because running using a correct and natural form was getting the circulation going, and making it stronger.

I did a few more short (less than three quarters of a mile, as you're supposed to build up your feet slowly) barefoot runs and decided I wanted a pair of barefoot shoes I could take with me in case I wanted to run for migraine relief. The Pace Gloves, while my preferred shoe for running, were not exactly very versatile. But the mary jane style Pure Gloves were, so I ordered a pair of those and found that I could also run in them.

Replacing the thin little mesh shower shoes with a pair of full-size shoes was not ideal, given that I was traveling with one carry-on. But I was packing light enough that there was still plenty of space in my suitcase, and the barefoot shoes are so light that there was only about a 4 ounce difference between them and the shower shoes.

So how did they all do?

Well, the Waterpro Sables came in as the linchpin, and boy did they perform. I wore them on the beach, and was glad to have them when I went in the water and lots of little fishes were suddenly interested in my feet. I wore them hiking up to the Kastro in Skiathos, and walking in the Cotswolds. They were already my favorite walking shoe, and with their thick soles, air cushion, and Merrell Q Form, there was nothing I threw at them that they couldn't handle. In fact, I wore them earlier today for a river tubing expedition, and they were perfect there, too.

Hiking in the Waterpro Sables.

If there's one complaint I have about the Sables, it's that when I wore them as a water shoe, if they got filled with rocks, they stayed filled with rocks until I could stop and remove them. This might have not been as large an issue if the plastic buckle hadn't gotten stuck once immersed in salt water. These are both design issues that I'm hoping Merrell fixed in the Sable's successor, the Waterpro Crystal. The lack of ankle support might have also started to be an issue if I'd done more extensive hiking. That said, given the number of things I threw at this shoe and the number of occasions I wore them for, overall I think they were fantastic.

I might have worn the Waterpro Sables every single day but for Paris. I was a bit freaked out in advance of going to Paris because I'd read many articles about what you should and shouldn't wear, and any sort of athletic shoe was firmly in the shouldn't wear category. So I knew I wanted a nicer shoe that was also a tested walking shoe, and my Brios fit that definition. As I expected, they held up mightily, until the day in Paris where I went through the catacombs, the marine museum, and the Louvre all in the same day, with some substantial stretches of walking in between.

With their nice rubber treads, they did quite well on the damp floors of the catacombs, and actually my feet were feeling pretty good for most of the day. But that slow crawl over marble museum floors is a killer, and I just did it for too many hours on top of too many miles. By the time I left the Louvre, my feet were throbbing. Now, in my case, any time BOTH feet are throbbing instead of just my bad foot, I count this as a good thing because it means my feet are behaving normally. But still, I hobbled back to the hotel from the train, and opted for the thick, comfy Sables the next day. I don't really blame the Brios — I think my feet would have been sore in any pair of shoes after that day. But I do wish I'd replaced the insoles before the trip; I wear these shoes to work a lot, too, and I think anything that would have given them a refresh and a little more shock absorption would have been helpful.

So what about the 11th-hour Pure Gloves? Well, they had to fill two major roles in standing in for the mesh shower shoes. First, I needed to be able to kick around whatever my current abode was in them, and second, I needed to be able to wear them in place of slippers at Thermae Bath Spa in Bath (more on that in a future post). They managed both of these, although the velcro may have taken a little longer to deal with than the mesh shoes' elastic strap, and I got it caught on the mosquito net on my bed in Greece an inappropriate number of times.

I actually didn't end up running in the Pure Gloves during the trip. When the migraine started to clear up, I had no interest in running on vacation, although I did start back up again when I returned home. But they did get far more use than the shower shoes would have. They were a better option than either of my other shoes to wear sockless into Skiathos town with a dress, and, more substantially, I wore them to Versailles. I'm not really sure why I decided to test them out in a massive palace and its extensive gardens, but I did. And they held up pretty well. With the thinner soles, I could feel the gravel walks of the gardens more, but I walked a ton, and my feet only started to get sore at the very end of the day. The biggest issue I had with them was that the mary jane strap would start to irritate the top of my foot if I kept it too tight while wearing them barefoot. Not bad for a fairly untested pair of shoes, and ounce for ounce, I got far more use out of them than I would have the shower shoes.

Pure Gloves, dusty from a day at Versailles.

If I had gotten into barefoot shoes earlier, and built up the strength of my feet more, I think I probably could have done this trip with two pairs of shoes, the Sables and the Pure Gloves. The Pure Gloves would have picked up the hiking duties in the Cotswolds, because with a shoe this minimal, lack of ankle support isn't an issue — the shoe can't really turn if you step wrong, and you feel it more instantaneously if you step wrong, so you can make a correction. And the Pure Gloves would have also served whenever a mary jane style shoe was needed. The Sables still would have been my shoe of choice for our boat tour of Skiathos, which had me walking in the water on Lalaria Beach and then hiking up to the Kastro on the same day. Since both shoes have a substantial Vibram tread, I would have had good traction either way.

That would mean leaving home my beloved Brios, which I will always own a pair of as long as Merrell makes them, and will always love, because they were the pair of shoes that made me understand how poorly I'd been walking, in part because of my previous shoe choices. So Brios, even if you get left behind next year, thanks for even getting me to the point where I could walk as much as I did on this trip. Maybe after teaching me to walk properly, and suffering through the Louvre, you deserve a rest.

And now for a place I liked

Skiathos town had no shortage of quaint, cobblestone streets.

Greece.

Just that word in itself conjures images of crystal-clear water, romantic ruins, and maybe a nice slab of feta cheese. And all of those things were on Skiathos, but it was more than that.

Lalaria Beach.

As you'd expect, the water was this amazing clear blue near the shore, clearer and deeper and more vivid even than what I've seen in the Caribbean. It was almost mesmerizingly beautiful, especially in places like Lalaria Beach with its signature rock formation, only accessible by boat. We went there on an all-day boat tour, which is also where I got my share of ruins.

Mosque in the Kastro.

These weren't ruins from Greek antiquity, but rather what remained of a medieval town, built up on a cliff that prevented pirates from ransacking the town. We reached the beach below the town on the same boat tour that took us to Lalaria, but then had to hike up the cliff in order to see the town. The short but sweaty hike made me really feel the desperation that must have led the people of then-Skiathos to opt to built their town in such a remote and impossible place.

As for ruins from Greek antiquity, well, Skiathos doesn't have any. I did feel a bit like I missed out on those in skipping Athens and some of the other sites in my chosen itinerary. But strikes and riots in Athens while we were traveling made me feel a bit better about my choice to skip out on it this time and return in some future trip. And, regardless of how you feel about it, the reality is that many of the treasures of Greek antiquity aren't actually in Greece anymore. I'd already seen some of them, such as the Parthenon (Elgin) Marbles, in the British Museum, and I saw more this time around in the Louvre. But if those are the sorts of ruins you're looking for, you'll need more than Skiathos in your itinerary.

For me, though, spending time on a Greek island like Skiathos was more than that. For one, although I've spent time on many Caribbean islands as part of cruise ship stops, this is the first time I've really stayed on an island for any period of time, and what really struck me was how local the economy, and by extension, the food chain, were.

It really did feel like much of the island's economy existed to support tourism, either directly or — through the agriculture that provided food for the grocery stores and restaurants — indirectly. We were impressed in Ireland at the freshness of the eggs, and that you bought them non-refrigerated from the grocery store shelves. On Skiathos, though, you actually woke up to the sound of a rooster crowing (and then listened to him continue to crow all day, because roosters are, apparently, stupid), and when you bought the eggs off the shelf, they sometimes still had feathers stuck to them.

Greek Salad.

It was abundantly clear that food on the island was based on fresher and more local produce than what we get in the United States, even with the movement to buy more food from local farms. Take a Greek Salad, for instance. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, and olives with a nice slab of spice-dusted feta on top. No need for any other dressing aside from maybe a sprinkle of olive oil and balsamic, because the vegetables were so fresh and flavorful combined with the mild, creamy feta. It's not something you can pull off with the hothouse tomatoes you buy in your local chain grocery store.

Seafood, too, was fresh and caught off of tiny fishing boats, not giant trawlers. One evening while we were having dinner at a taverna in town, a fisherman brought in his catch, and it was instant drama. People from all of the nearby restaurants started crowding around, watching the catch as it was unloaded, and then standing around the fishmonger's in vaguely intimidating poses. We watched as one man scored an eel from the fishmonger's, and then walked over by the water and proceeded to gut and slice it in front of an audience of disgusted-but-fascinated tourists.

Drama at the fishmonger's.

If you take all of these fresh ingredients, it's very difficult for things to go wrong, and indeed, Skiathos was the site of many of my favorite meals during the trip. I couldn't stop eating Greek Salads, but most memorable was the Moussaka at Diamond, a little outdoor restaurant down the road from our house. A fluffy but decadent layer of béchamel sauce over a slightly spicy and super flavorful mixture of tomatoes, meat, and other goodness, this stuff was so good we swooned when we ate it the first time. Then we went back again a few days later.

Moussaka.

So the good of Greece was memorable, but so were the people. We'd expected open friendliness in Ireland last year, and not really got it, but here people were always exceedingly kind and interested in us. Maybe it was because we were, for once, a rarity as American tourists instead of British (the island is extremely popular with British tourists, which is why flights out of Gatwick were so easy for me to find). Maybe it was because tourist season was just starting up, and they weren't worn out yet. But whatever it was, the people of Skiathos were a real delight.

As for island living, it suited me quite well for a short period of time. Knowing that I had such an aggressive itinerary in England and France, and coming off of an extended migraine that started to clear up as soon as I saw the view from our house (funny how that works), and got even better once I slept off the jet lag, I was content to just chill out in our lovely house, explore the town a bit, and of course, hit the beach. Oh yeah, and dance a bit when, on our last evening on the island, Tommie, Jeff, and I went out to dinner and ended up staying for "Greek Night," which was unquestionably touristy, and yet still fun.

That's not to say that I wasn't inappropriately delighted when I got back to England and realized that now that I'd left the island's weak plumbing, I could once again throw my toilet paper in the toilet instead of a special trash can beside said toilet. I was. I am fairly sure I was the most giddy person in the women's bathroom at Gatwick Airport. But as much as I love urban spaces and strong plumbing, I had experiences on Skiathos that I never could have had in England or France.

Standing by a bus stop in the warm Greek sun, watching an old man with leathery skin walk by with his old, bony donkey and his most important possessions strapped to the saddle, alongside a large plastic bottle of water that had obviously been refilled many times before, smiling and responding to his greeting of "yeah-sas." That's the sort of thing that only happens on a Greek island, and I think someday I'll be back. Probably not to Skiathos, though — there are just so many more to explore.

• All of my Skiathos pictures

Cluster France

Requisite Eiffel Tower shot.

This will be taking things a bit out of chronological order, but I don't think I can write about my trip for very long without getting this out of the way: I didn't really like France that much.

It's not that the people were rude, which seems to be an unfair stereotype that Americans have about French people. Now, I might have stacked the deck in my favor by at least learning polite phrases and greetings in French (as well as "I don't understand" and "Do you speak English"), which I think people appreciated. But I found everyone I interacted with, whether they spoke English or not, to be quite polite. Polite, but not necessarily nice. There was none of that enthusiastic friendliness of the people in Greece, or even the kindly-under-a-reserved-shell demeanor of people in England, but they certainly weren't rude.

It wasn't that I had a difficult time getting around or communicating, either. Once I got enough change in euros to use in the machines, which were often only coins or cards (and I assumed the card readers were chip-and-pin only), I had no trouble switching the language to English and buying what I needed for the RER (a cross between suburban rail and D.C.'s Metro) and the Metro (subway). In fact, I'd been in Paris about three hours when I was at a ticket machine and the woman at the machine next to me started asking me questions in French. All I could say was "juh nuh com pruhn pah." What I really wanted to say is "I've been here for less than three hours and you speak French, therefore you should be better at this than me." But that was well beyond my French skills.

Paris Metro.

As for communicating, the longer I was there, the more comfortable I felt using my limited French, and I even picked up a few new words and phrases. The waitress at the cafe I ate at switched to flawless English when I asked her if she spoke it, but I think even if she hadn't, we could have muddled through. I do wish I had learned to count to 10 — I could remember a few numbers from the wee little middle school language class they did for us, but not all of them. Still, by holding up a number of fingers and saying the English word if I didn't know the French, I got what I needed across.

I saw some remarkable things there, so it wasn't that it was boring. I already blogged about the creepy but fantastic experience of walking the catacombs. I also saw Versailles, Notre Dame, and the Louvre, did a boat tour on the Seine, and saw an exhibit on the SS France in the maritime museum. And I also drank some fantastic wine (not exactly surprising), ate some brilliant baked goods, and had a piece of goat cheese that might be the best cheese I've ever eaten.

So where did France go wrong for me? Mostly, it was all of the tourists. When I played my favorite France game — tourist, or Parisian? — on the RER or Metro, I generally felt like the ratio was about half and half. Granted, I was visiting in May, but the ratio was not nearly the same when I played tourist, or Londoner? on the Tube. Somehow, London seemed better able to absorb its tourists.

Part of the problem was simply the number of tourists, combined with a healthy share of laissez-faire attitude from anyone working at any sort of tourist attraction. Take Versailles. Having heard that the ticket lines were ridiculous, I ordered my ticket online in advance. You were supposed to be able to print the ticket from a link in the confirmation email they sent. Except there was no link in the confirmation email. I emailed them asking what I was supposed to do, and they said to go to their Internet desk when I got to Versailles and they would print it for me.

So I get to Versailles, and go to the Internet desk, and there is no one there. Fuming, I got into the ticket line, and also on the phone to their Internet tickets number. Fortunately I did the latter, because the woman I talked to on the phone told me just to go to the entrance, and they would print the ticket for me there. Except you don't just go to the entrance at Versailles. You wait, in a line that snakes up and down the giant courtyard several times. After an hour of waiting in line, I got in to the entrance building and handed a man my Internet confirmation, and he did indeed print my ticket. I also saw that the line was pointlessly long — if they had more than two people taking tickets, and more than one x-ray machine for everyone's things, there would be no line.

Line at Versailles.

I waited in a pointless line at the catacombs, as well, this time for more like an hour and a half. There were signs posted that they could only allow 200 people down in the catacombs at one time, so they were letting very small groups in at a time. But simple math says that if it takes 45 minutes to go through the catacombs, and there are 200 people allowed down there at once, they should have put about 400 people through in the time I was waiting. Uh, not even close. And when I finally got down there, I can definitely tell you there were not 200 other people down there with me. I don't even think I saw ten other people. Live people, that is.

It wasn't just the lines, though. Any time you have that many tourists in one place, a certain number of them are going to be idiots, and when you combine that with a lack of enforcement of any sort of rules, you get people taking flash photography all over Versailles and the Louvre. Now, the signs at Versailles were not the most clear about what you could and couldn't take pictures of. But the signs at the Louvre were exceedingly clear, and done with images, so there should have been no language barrier. Yet there were people taking flash photos all over the place, especially of the Mona Lisa, and I never heard anyone tell them to stop. I can't even imagine the amount of damage all of those paintings get over the course of a year. A guard did tell me to put my camera away at the SS France exhibit at the marine museum, and while I really would have liked pictures of the France artifacts, I respected that at least somebody was enforcing something (albeit something terribly sign-posted). They need to transfer that guy to the Louvre.

Mona Lisa paparazzi.

And that was my other issue with France, especially Paris — it seems like a caricature of itself. All of those tourists, dutifully shuffling along with their flashes turned on, crowding in front of the Mona Lisa (a painting that just doesn't really do it for me), looking at a painting because it's the thing to do. The buskers that get on the Metro and RER trains and play "romantic" accordion music. It seems like a city that exists for tourists, a string of cliches and cafes. That might be why the people in Paris are polite, but not necessarily deep down kind. They seemed to have a sort of big city weariness, to be tired of dealing with too many tourists. I live near Washington D.C., and I get that.

Not my video. I feel obligated to give a busker money if I take a picture or video, and I did not want to give any of these guys money. But this gives an idea of what I'm talking about.

But I don't get that sense in London. Sure, it's a city with plenty of cliches, with its Routemaster buses and Big Ben and all that pomp and circumstance. But it's also a city where you see building cranes on the horizon, progress happening amongst the historical sites. It's a city where you can step out of a Tube station and hear three buskers who've taken the trouble to lug out amplifiers and a drum kit covering Cream. It's a diverse city, and a city where normal people take the Tube to work and to the pub after, spilling out into the street with their pints. It's rock and roll and pubs with real ale.

This is my video. Now THIS is busking.

In short, it's still my favorite city in the world. Sorry, Paris, you were no competition.

Some might say that I should go back, and give it more time to grow on me. But on my last morning there, with a late-morning Eurostar train back to London, I still hadn't seen Notre Dame, and I was debating whether to drop my luggage at the train station and squeeze it in. It would have been less stressful just to stay at the train station and stuff my face with croissant and pan au chocolat, but I realized that if I saw Notre Dame, I wouldn't ever feel like there was something I really wanted to see that I'd missed, like I had to go back someday.

So I dropped my stuff in a locker at the Gare du Nord and went to Notre Dame, and now I'm not sure if I'll ever be back to Paris. Not with the lure of London just two and a half hours away.

• All of my Paris pictures
• All of my Versailles pictures

Five memorable moments

So it's time for Channel Six to go all travel blog again, because I just got back from a 17-day trip to England, Greece, and France. I've got 3,000 photo and video files I'm currently sorting through, so for now, just a bit on my itinerary, and five moments that really stood out.

A group of friends and I had a house in Skiathos, Greece, which is accessible by ferry and flights from Athens, but also a number of flights from England, as it's a popular British holiday destination. I opted for one of those flights, because it doesn't take much to get me to tack on some extra trip time in England. I decided to also include France in the itinerary, since I hadn't been there yet.

So I flew in to London Heathrow, had a little time in London, and then stayed overnight at Gatwick airport. In the morning, I flew to Skiathos for a week there, and then back to Gatwick. That's where things got a little nomadic — from Gatwick, I took a train to Portsmouth, where I stayed overnight and spent a morning. Then I took a train to Bath and spent a night there, and then I took a cab to Castle Combe, in the Cotswolds, for a night there. Another cab and another train, and I was back in London for a few hours before heading on the Eurostar to Paris for three nights. After Paris, it was the Eurostar back to London for two more nights, and then home.

In the course of my trip, I had some delightful spa experiences and visited countless beaches, two palaces, five churches, and a great many museums, including the Louvre. But here are five moments that really stood out, in chronological order:

1. Climbing the stairs at our house in Greece for the first time.

The view was absolutely unbelievable. Our house-finder extraordinare Meghan really outdid herself this time with this upside down house where the bedrooms were below, and the living area was above, so everyone had a share of this view. Imagine having your morning tea/coffee here every day. Yeah.

View from the house.

2. The sailboats of Portsmouth

Leave it to Portsmouth to make this list, even though I was there for less than 14 hours. I went for a walk in the morning, and as I climbed the stairs to the sea wall on a beautiful day, a stream of sailboats were headed out to sea. There was something magical about that moment — the sun, the wind, the notion that both they and I had adventure ahead of us. I'll admit, I had chills.

Video: Sailboats heading out.

3. Walking the Paris catacombs

After an hour and a half wait in line with tons of people, I descended a spiral staircase down into the catacombs and found myself alone. The people behind me must have lingered in the museum, because I was way below ground and could hear no humans. A real hairs on the back of the neck experience.

Video: Alone in the catacombs.

4. The roses of Hampton Court Palace

I thought the roses in Greece were beautiful, until I saw the roses in England. The month of May must be peak time for them, because there seemed to be perfect roses everywhere I looked. But nowhere more than in the Hampton Court Palace Rose Garden, which had so many it was overwhelming, and you can smell them in the air as you walk on the spongy grass, awed by one variety after another. I feel like every photo I took there was inadequate, because unless you can really be there, and see all of these roses in full detail, and smell that amazing scent, you're not getting the full experience.

A truly Tudor rose.

5. Shakespeare at the Globe

This is my fourth trip to England, and although the flights are cheaper in colder months, I'm not sure I'll be able to go back outside of the Globe's theater season now. I saw "Much Ado About Nothing," and although I've seen Shakespeare performed before, seeing it at the Globe as it was meant to be performed gives you a whole new dimension, as the audience becomes a character. If I had to pick one moment out of the play, it was when Benedick first tells Beatrice he loves her: she froze in her tracks, and simultaneously the audience gave a loud "ooooooooooooooh."

Pre-show entertainment at the Globe.

5 mile test: Encore Breeze & Waterpro Sable

Encore Breeze

I managed to get in two 5+ mile walks this weekend, despite abysmal weather on Saturday. First up was an after-work walk on Friday. Usually by the time Friday rolls around, unless I have plans, I'm so tired I just want to go home after work and veg out. But the weather just was too nice to do that, so I headed down to the mall and took a route around the Tidal Basin, down the national mall, and to Union Station.

I was wearing my Merrell Encore Breezes, and very curious about whether I could remotely approach five miles in these. They're my go-to shoes when my feet are sore from walking in other shoes, but they fit, well, like clogs, and I don't know that walking long distances with your foot rattling around in your shoe is a good idea.

It was an interesting walk. I started out at about a 17:30 per mile pace, which is usually way too fast for me to continue comfortably with my foot, but that was the pace I felt comfortable walking at. They felt great for about the first mile and a half, and then my left foot, which is my good foot, started getting oddly sore in places. At about two miles, both feet were sore, but then they didn't get any worse the rest of the walk, and I didn't have any trouble hitting just over five miles. And strangely, I finished at about a 18:30 per mile pace, which considering stops for traffic lights and taking pictures of my foot in front of the Washington Monument, was pretty good.

Waterpro Sable

I did another post-brunch walk on Sunday in what are probably my favorite walking shoes, the Merrell Waterpro Sables. Because I thought I'd charged my cell phone overnight, but in fact, hadn't, my phone was down to about nil battery power, and I had to keep it turned off. This meant no RunKeeper to track my distance, and no music to listen to.

So I set off for a quite boring walk, sticking to a route I knew, from yummy brunch spot Nage, which is north of Farragut North, down to the mall, back around the Tidal Basin, down the mall, and to Union Station. I knew the core of the walk was about five miles, but what I didn't realize was that with the extra walking down to the mall, I actually ended up walking about SEVEN miles (which I calculated with Google Maps Pedometer when I got home).

I had a little stiffness in my bad foot arch left over from the Friday walk, and an odd little pain in my heel that seemed to be sock-related, although I couldn't find anything when I stopped and did a sock investigation. But aside from that, the Waterpro Sables felt great the entire walk — it was more my post-bottomless bloody mary and mimosas self that was dragging, and even with that, it looks like I did about a 17:30 pace. They have a Vibram athletic tread, and the extra shock absorption makes a difference. I've also noticed that I don't feel so shin splinty when I wear shoes that have more freedom around the ankles like these do.

I'm not sure that the Waterpro Sables are meant for this much walking, but this is the farthest I've walked since I had the foot problem, so I'm quite excited. What they're really meant for, as the name suggests, is as a water shoe. I'm hoping to use them for that purpose on my upcoming trip to Greece — they seem like just the thing for pebble beaches AND lots of walking. Although Merrell doesn't make them anymore (added bonus — I got mine on clearance), the Waterpro Crystals look nearly identical.

5 mile test: Merrell Apure + Cambia

So many kites flying at the Washington Monument

I thought I'd try something new with this blog and do more reviews. See, since my previously blogged about revelation that Merrell's Q-form technology REALLY helps my feet, I've been starting to walk longer and longer distances in various pairs of Merrells I've bought — up to 5 miles fairly comfortably, now. I did get those orthotics, but found that they were super thick, and not actually as effective as straight-up Merrells.

So I'm going to try and see if I can get up to 5 miles in various pairs of shoes, and how it goes. Today's were the Apures, plus a Merrell Cambia shirt that I'd bought for travel. I took a post-brunch walk from Union Station, over by the Capitol, down the mall, turning around before the Washington Monument, and back to Union Station. I tracked my mileage using the RunKeeper app for Droid, which I love.

Merrell Apure

These shoes I hadn't worn very much before today's walk. The first day I wore them, the elastic band across the top of the foot was a bit stiff, and as a result, it was making my bad toe a bit uncomfortable. I tried them again, with thinner socks, and the combination of different socks and a bit of break-in seemed to do the trick. So I've probably worn them 3-4 times before today's walk.

They felt pretty good for about the first 3 miles. They have the same sole and a similar foot bed to sister shoes Parma and Brio, and all three shoes have always felt really good on the bad parts of my bad foot. You can really feel the air cushion and Q-form in all of them. By the fourth mile, they were starting to rub on my left pinkie toe and my right heel, but the foot support was still good. Approaching mile five, things started to fall apart — the back of the right heel (which now has a nickel-sized blister) hurt increasingly, and I was even starting to get a sharp pain underneath the heel when I stepped down.

Part of this might have been the thin Nine West dress socks I was wearing — perhaps with different sock material they would have rubbed less and all would have been well. I think they probably could have stood a little more opportunity to break in, as well. The leather on my more worn Parmas and Brios is nice and supple now and it really helps. But they did feel really good for about three miles, and at that point I was below a 20 minute mile, walking. Not bad for a pair of shoes you can wear to work, although I think I still prefer the Parma for overall comfort and the Brio for versatility.

Merrell Cambia

The Cambia I was impressed with. I liked the look of it online because it's a cute dress shirt that doesn't look like travel clothing — it looks like something you could, again, wear to work. The material feels thin and you can definitely tell it's quick-dry polyester when you're wearing it (but not looking at it), but for travel that's great. It's a shirt you can wear out to dinner and then sweat all over wearing it walking around a few days later.

The cult of Merrell

Those of you who know my tendency to find a brand I love and stick with it will probably not be surprised that I have a new one: Merrell.

I'm coming up on the one-year anniversary of when my right foot mysteriously swelled up, something which was never fully diagnosed, even after an MRI, CT, and visits to numerous podiatrists. Finally, after I saw a lymphedema and then a foot and ankle specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, I came out with a prescription for the "so simple why didn't anyone else think of this?" solution of orthotics.

The orthotics are still being made, but I worked at making sure all the shoes I bought were heavy on what the orthotics will provide — arch support. I ordered a bunch of shoes from Zappos.com, but the ones I ended up keeping were entirely the same brand as the pair of clogs that were my #1 shoes for much of the year of the swollen foot. Yep, Merrell.

I love Merrells, and I'm not the only one — read some reviews on Zappos and you'll see that there is indeed a cult of Merrell. There's a reason for it, though — the shoes are lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and with Merrell's Q-Form technology, extremely stable and good to walk in. I've seen tremendous improvement in my foot since I switched to pretty much full-time Merrells (except for my New Balance gym shoes).

Now, the downside is they generally aren't the most fashionable shoes out there. But I've pretty much accepted that it will be a miracle if I can ever wear heels again, and they definitely beat wearing gym shoes to work (I also went through a phase of that). If you're looking for good walking shoes, here are some of my favorites:

Encore Breeze 2

I think what I have is actually the first Encore Breeze, which I bought at DSW after my desperate realization that my trail running shoes were the only shoes I owned that my exceedingly swollen right foot would fit into. It was a good desperation choice, though. I generally HATE clogs, but I love these. There's just enough back to them that my feet don't feel like they're going to slide out (my issue with clogs). I believe my first version was before they put the stinkproof antibacterial treatment in there, and after a whole lot of wear, they did start to get a little funky. But a run in the washing machine (handwash cycle, with the inserts separate) solved that.

Marina

The exception to the fashionable rule — I love the look of these boat shoes with their ridiculously aggressive tread. They took a little longer than most other Merrells to break in (there were band-aids involved), but once I did get them broken in, they were quite comfortable. And they have, hands down, the best arch support of any shoes I've ever worn. Ever. I've kept wearing them in to winter because the tread on these is as much a match for a little snow or ice as my snow boats. The Zappos reviews about ordering a half size down are right — I didn't at first and had to return them and order a half size down from my usual Merrell size.

Parma

No one would write home about the style of these shoes, but they really show off what the Q-Form technology can do for a shoe. I really feel myself walking correctly in them, and they're extremely light-weight, which is something I hadn't really thought about before in a shoe. I haven't fully tested this yet, but I'm pretty sure I could walk longer in these than my gym shoes. Yes, I'm probably going to try some Merrells for my next gym shoes.

Brio

If the anti-shoe fairy came along and told me I had to give up all of my shoes except for one pair, these are probably the ones I'd keep, simply because they're versatile and also very comfortable to walk in. They're maybe just a smidge behind the Parma in walking comfort, but I like the versatility of the Mary Jane. And both this shoe and the Parma have a very nice touch that seriously cuts down the break-in time — a little piece of elastic on the heel.

This doesn't cover the Merrell boots I snagged on clearance at DSW and have subsequently forgotten the name of, or the Waterpro Sable shoes I picked up on clearance last fall with plans to wear them a ton come spring and summer. But I think my membership in the cult of Merrell is pretty firmly established. And one other nice thing — all the Merrell insoles are removable, so when my orthotics are finally ready, I can remove the insoles and pop them right in.

ASPCA donation = surefire mail SPAM

So a year or two ago, I made a donation to the ASPCA. I love animals, so it was a logical thing to do. But oh boy, now I really wish I hadn't.

See, the thing is, I like trees, too. And those guys not only send me at least one mailing a week — they've also obviously sold/given my name to other animal organizations, who also now send me mail spam.

I wrote them and said I wasn't going to donate to them anymore if they kept spamming me. They kept spamming me. So lately, I've resorted to becoming my own manual spam filter by writing "return to sender" on the envelopes, and blacking out the address. I used to not black out the address, but about half the mail just ended up back in my mailbox. The Postal Service...not the most observant crew out there.

So, donater beware — if you donate to the ASPCA, only do it if you love animals but hate trees. And if anyone out there knows of an organization that helps animals but doesn't mail you a crap ton of stuff, let me know.

The 10 Best Lobster Rolls of My Life (So Far)

Yankee Lobster roll looks like a prototypical lobster roll, but it didn't make the list.

Lobster rolls are a funny thing with me. The first time I had one, it was transcendendant. Fresh, tender, hot, buttery lobster — one of the best things I've ever eaten in my life.

And for some reason, probably because that best-ever lobster roll was consumed in Bar Harbor, Maine, a locale that's not easy to get back to, I continue to seek out that same level of perfection in other locations selling lobster rolls. I am often disappointed, and yet, unlike in the area of fish and chips (where I know the best best best ever fish and chips are served at the Ship Anson in Portsmouth, UK, and they have ruined me for life for all other fish and chips), I feel compelled to continue in my lobster roll superiority quest.

Let's talk about what constitutes a lobster roll. Traditionally, it was served cold, as a lobster "salad" roll, comprised of the less-desireable claw-and-other-bits meat and mixed with mayonnaise and perhaps some other spices or greenery. It was, essentially, a sandwich lobstermen could take with them for lunch while they were out doing their lobster thing.

Personally, and probably because that first roll I had was hot, I think it's time we moved beyond tradition. Because believe me, a good hot lobster roll beats a good cold lobster roll. Every. Single. Time. Sweet, tender lobster with a smattering of butter, all without any more manual labor than opening your mouth and chewing. Drool.

The trouble is, a lot of things can go wrong with a lobster roll. The bread is a common failing, and one that should be easier to get right. The top-split hot dog bun is best, buttered and grilled. Generally in my experience, restaurants fail when they try to depart from this. The lobster meat is another common failing. Although it's put on a bun and served as a sandwich, the lobster roll should still feature fresh, tender lobster. Many don't, unfortunately.

On a recent trip to Boston, I realized I'd passed more than 10 lobster rolls consumed, and perhaps it was time to start ranking them. I have hopes that some day another place will move in high in the rankings, but as I've tried many of the well-reviewed lobster rolls from D.C. to Boston, it's possible this is it unless I get back to Maine.

1. The Lobster Claw, Bar Harbor, Maine — A lobster roll should be relatively easy, but there are a lot of ways to screw it up. This place set the standard by doing everything right. Lobster fresh off the boat, cooked up in the back, and immediately plunked down on your roll with a side of butter. Pure lobstery perfection that started a quest. And sadly, perhaps no more, as it appears from Yelp that they're closed. Let us hope it's just for the season. I like to think someday I can go back to Bar Harbor and have another lobster roll this good.

Lobster roll and oysters at Abbott's Lobster in the Rough.

2. Abbott's Losbter in the Rough, Noank, Connecticut — Although the first hot lobster roll I had was in Maine, apparently the hot style is actually called a Connecticut-style roll. And Abbot's does a damn good job of it, although it serves it on a hamburger bun instead of the hot dog bun. It's clear the lobster is fresh, and cooked up fresh, and you get to enjoy it by the water. Wins all around, and enough to excuse the non-traditional bun, mainly because it's still the right texture and consistency, if not the normal shape.

3. Legal Test Kitchen, Boston, Massachusetts — I'm surprised a cold roll could rank this high on my list, but LTK does a lot of things right. The bread is the split, buttered and grilled hot dog bun, and the lobster meat, although cold, is clearly fresh and very tender, with just the right amount of mayo. There's a lot of meat, and eating it is a challenge that involves a lot of balancing; they should do without the piece of lettuce between the lobster meat and the bun and jam that meat in there a little more. Aside from that, though, I have no complaints.

The Daniel Packer Inn roll: so much potential, so many bread issues.

4. Captain Daniel Packer Inn, Mystic, Connecticut — The DPI got way too ambitious with its bread, putting some very good and more upscale (sherry butter and shallots, anyone?) hot lobster on a crusty bun that was nigh unchewable. With some nice, tender bread, it would have easily beaten the LTK roll, and might have even been ahead of Abbott's.

5. Luke's Lobster, New York, New York — A bit of a cross between a hot and a cold roll, this was served fairly close to room temperature with a bit of mayo and a bit of butter. It tasted better than it sounds, with fairly tender lobster meat on a classic split top hot dog bun.

6. Red Hook Lobster (tent), Washington D.C.-ish — I had one of Red Hook's hot lobster rolls from a tent they had at a festival, not from their line-around-the-block truck that moves around downtown D.C. I hope to rectify this one day and try the roll out of the truck, but for now, my impression of the roll was that, while it was nice that it was warm, the lobster meat had clearly been cooked beforehand and then warmed up. That is NOT the way to cook a hot lobster roll, and the meat ends up overly done and too chewy as a result.

Neptune Oyster's roll had tons of plate appeal, but didn't live up to it.

7. Neptune Oyster, Boston, Massachusetts — This one was rated well in the Boston foodie-verse, but did not live up to its rating, in my opinion. Problem number one was that, like Red Hook's, the meat was overdone and too tough and chewy. Problem number two was that they went with a brioche roll for the bread, and it couldn't stand up to the lobster and butter; it was mushy before I took the first bite. Oh, and problem number three is the $25 price tag. Now, I am as annoyed as anyone to read reviews about lobster rolls that complain about how expensive they are. It's a LOBSTER roll, people, not a turkey sandwich. However, for $25 that lobster should be melting in your mouth, and it wasn't even close. I do love the swanky-classic tiled interior of the place, but stick to the oysters here and go somewhere else for a lobster roll fix.

8. Tackle Box, Washington, D.C. — A fairly tender lobster salad roll, served on the classic bun if I remember correctly. Nothing to write home about, but not bad, either. I do enjoy the pseudo-beach-shack atmosphere, too.

9. J's Oyster, Portland, Maine — I had this one and the similarly unadorned Yankee Lobster roll within days of each other, but this one makes the list more on the strength of the J's Oyster ambiance than the roll itself. Yankee Lobster's definitely had more lobster, but I enjoyed my meal at J's more. And they did give you mayo on the side, so you could mayo to your own preferences.

10. Hank's Oyster Bar, Washington, D.C. — Another salad-style roll, a little too heavy on the mayonnaise, although that's preferable to completely unadorned (a pile of cold lobster is surprisingly untasty). Another place to stick to the oysters.

One-bagging it: Better with wheels

So after my last trip to Europe, one thing I didn't write much about was my attempt at one-bag travel. Well, it was at least what I would call one-bag travel; some purists would say that since I had a carry-on and a personal item, that wasn't technically one-bagging it. Whatever. I was traveling light, and I didn't check any luggage going out on my long-haul flight.

I got really excited about the idea of carry-on only travel as I was planning for my trip. I visited web sites like this one, and this one, and, knowing that I had a trip with lots of legs and travel on all manner of planes, trains, subways, and buses, I was sold.

The premise of one-bag travel is pretty simple — pack really light, and cut out "just in case" items. This is somewhat difficult for me, as I like to be prepared for anything. But when I began planning what I wanted to take on my trip, I found that I could still take the sorts of essentials I like to have (sewing kit, eyeglass repair kit, mini roll of duct tape, enough band-aids for minor surgery) and still have plenty of space in my suitcase. And I did cut out some of the more ridiculous always-prepared items I might have otherwise taken.

The primary way to fit everything into a carry-on is to cut down on your clothing and shoes. I planned to take only two pairs of shoes, plus an odd little pair of lightweight shower flip flop things, and I bought a travel clothesline, sink stopper, and laundry soap sheets to do some wash in the sink (I also planned to, and did, make use of the washer and dryer at our house in Ireland).

eBags Weekender (photo from Amazon)

I also asked for (and received) a new bag for Christmas, and based on the advice of the one-bag experts, I went with one without wheels, the eBags Weekender, a relatively inexpensive foray into the wheel-less bag world. This was a major mind shift for me, as I've always used wheeled suitcases, but I believed the arguments. They were, to sum up: without wheels, your hands are free; without wheels, you don't have to worry about cobblestones in Europe; without wheels, you won't have to worry about stairs; and wheel-less bags are lighter and have more interior space than wheeled bags.

I was all ready for one-bag travel. And then two things happened. One was that I developed a foot problem, and my podiatrist recommended taking my air cast in case I needed it (I did). The other is I came down with some sort of cold/sinus infection/plague just before I left. As a result, I was suddenly lugging around an unexpected air cast and small pharmacopia of cold remedies in my bag, which made it weigh a lot more than I was expecting it would.

(As a disgusting aside: sadly, none of the cold remedies cleared up my illness, even a z-pack...what finally ditched it was throwing up pure stomach acid when I had food poisoning. Nothing burns out your throat-schnoz-ear system faster.)

So, cue me with my heavier-than-expected bag, walking through the various transit systems of Ireland and the United Kingdom. The first annoying thing was that the chest straps that helped make it more stable also made it a pain to take off. So when I was waiting for the subway or on an actual subway car, I'd have to weigh the effort of undoing all the straps against the weight hanging on my back. But the second, far more concerning thing, was all that weight on my back. Turns out, my back is not that strong. As I walked through the endless tunnels of the London Tube system, my shoulders ACHED, and I began to long for wheels — even when I encountered stairs. Said stairs and cobblestones were few and far between when compared to the amount of regular, flat pavement.

The longer I went on my trip, the more unhappy I was about my bag. Everything else worked pretty well. I did laundry in my hotel rooms, and learned the important lesson that things dry much faster if you roll them in a towel after washing them. I discarded a book after I finished it, with a Bookcrossing.com marker in it. I used solid toothpaste and shaving cream sheets and Lush solid shampoo (okay, maybe that last one doesn't count...I use those every day).

I enjoyed not having a ton of stuff to keep track of, and not having to worry about carting around a steamer trunk-sized suitcase. I just really, really, wanted wheels, to the point where I thought about trying to find a store selling one of those collapsible luggage carts to start using on my bag.

Skyway No Weight Ultra (photo from Amazon)

So this year I decided to buy a lightweight wheeled bag. I lusted after the Zuca Pro, but went with the MUCH less expensive Skyway No Weight Ultra. It's only about 2-3 pounds heavier than my eBags backpack, but it has sweet, smooth, ultra-stable wide-stance wheels.

Then I put it to the test. Without an enormous amount of thought put into packing (I took three books, a weight no-no, and too many toiletries and clothes), I took it on the closest thing to a European trip you can do in the U.S. — a six day train trip to Boston. Cobblestones? Not so much, but there were definitely brick streets and stubbly D.C. Metro platform edges. And the Boston T's long subway corridors, punctuated with odd half-flights of stairs, were pretty much the exact equivalent of the London Tube (okay, maybe there wasn't quite as much gap to mind). Thanks to Metro's rampant escalator failures, I also got some experience at carrying it up and down full flights of stairs.

My verdict? Wheels win. Wheels win so much, it's not even funny. It was totally stable on the bricks and platform stubble, and pulled just fine. It has a nice rubber carry handle that I could grab whenever I needed to reach down and carry it on stairs, and because of the light weight, it was no big deal any time I needed to do so. And I popped that sucker up in the overhead train bin with no problems at all.

I'm going to keep my wheel-less bag, as I think there will still be some travel situations where it will be the better bag, and if I do ever need to travel with two bags, having one wheel-less, lighter-packed bag will be really handy. My old asshole-sized carry-on (you know, the one that's just a leetle bit over the appropriate size, which meant I never actually used it as a carry-on) will be the casualty of the new suitcase purchase.

I'm looking forward to one-bagging it again in Europe next year, with wheels. Now I just need a Kindle to deal with that too-many-books problem.

So what was this rally about, anyway?

Crowd at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

So as the glut of photos that landed in my Flickr stream might indicate, I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on Saturday. Reading the post-rally coverage since has been sometimes amusing, and sometimes infuriating.

The trouble is, no one really (still) can put their finger on exactly what the rally was about, except maybe the people who were there. We weren't looking for any political stance (in fact, a political stance, or, even worse, encouragement to vote for any one party, would have ruined it). We weren't looking for any stance on anything, actually. The Daily Show isn't about stances, it's about pointing out ridiculousness, and making you laugh. No one should have expected the rally to be any different.

I remember the vibe from inauguration, and the rally did not have that vibe. When Barack Obama came in to office, he did so with a promise of change, and the promise of "Yes We Can!" Well, like it or not, we've seen change, and we've had to accept the reality that huge problems cannot be solved in two years. But I think the thing that most deflated us was that we never really saw the "We."

Sure, there were opportunities to knock on doors, and make phone calls. But there was also the growing realization that doing so was just going to elect the same old people to the same old political system. Regardless of whatever happens tomorrow, we have a Congress run by polar opposites, who run around opposing each other, and would rather be jerks and not get anything done than compromise.

Stewart had it right when he pointed out that everybody else compromises all the time. We compromise in our jobs, in our relationships, in our lives. That's how we get things done — we are sane, and we are reasonable. But that's not how Congress operates, and I think it's the source of everything from the Tea Party to deflated Democrats.

So what this rally was about, at least for me, was admitting that things are screwed up, and we don't know how to solve them, and when you feel the sense of desparation that comes from that, it's nice to have a laugh or 56. And if there's one thing Jon Stewart does — in the rally, and on his show — it's pointing out when media personalities and elected officials are being ridiculous. Although he does it for the purpose of a punchline, he holds their feet to the fire more than the mainstream media. And that's why more and more people get their news from The Daily Show.

If Stewart attacked anyone, it wasn't the right, or the left — it was the media, and they deserve it. And generally, the media response seems to have been "Wait. What? Us? Uhhhhh.....THIS RALLY WAS A FAILURE!" Try to be a little less transparent, guys, really.

David Carr of the New York Times wrote:

"Media bias and hyperbole seem like pretty small targets when unemployment is near 10 percent, vast amounts of unregulated cash are being spent in the election’s closing days, and no American governing institution — not the Senate, not the House of Representatives, not even the Supreme Court — seems to be above petty partisan bickering. Mr. Stewart couldn’t really go there and instead suggested it was those guys over there in the press tent who had the blood of democracy on their hands."

Well, David Carr, like it or not, Jon Stewart is still a host for a show on the Comedy Channel, whereas you are a columnist for the newspaper of record. It's not actually his job to "go there." It's YOURS.

Because it's not just the "24-hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator" that's the problem. It's journalists who don't even deserve the term, and not just the cable ones.

You — the real news journalists, not the comedy news ones — were supposed to be the "fourth estate," the one that pointed out when the other three were failing. You used to be watchdogs, and now you're more like poodles, yipping at Jon Stewart.

So, for me, going to the rally was acknowledging that things are broken, in politics, and in the media, and the "We" of "Yes We Can!" don't know how to help fix them. It was a chance to go be out with 200,000 or so other people who — I think — feel the same way, and commiserate and laugh with them.

Now I just wish we could figure out where to take that energy, that silent majority understanding that we need to compromise to get this country moving in the right direction. Sanity Party, anyone?