London
I just returned from a week long trip which took me from Garmisch to London, Normandy, and the Loire Vally in central France, it was an incredible time. I arrived late in london where I was supposed to meet my parents early the next morning at Heathrow, so to begin my journey I ended up sleeping on the concrete floor of the airport terminal, surprisingly enough, evidently I sleep very well on concrete because when I awoke I felt fantastic and was easily able to catch the first bus in the morning from Stansted to Heathrow (for future reference it take a full 2 hours to get between the two airports). From Heathrow with took the express train into central London.
For as much as I have traveled in my life I have for, some reason or another, never made it into central london, truly a great failing on my part. London is so quinticentally western that it has set a new benchmark for me as to what it truly means to be from the west, as a side note I have recently been very interested in attempting to understand exsactly what it means to be from the west or at least what it means to have western values. Needless to say there is much more to me understanding the west than simply spending a few days in a western capitol, but it was certainly an enlightening experience.
After getting situated at the Queens Gate Concord we met our old family friends the Scanavinos for lunch at Signor Sassi (14 Knightsbridge Green) and it was an extremely delicious and authentic Italian dining experience although punctuated by three bottles of the French Sancerre. After lunch we went shopping, and shopping in london is something else.
Harods contains more of everything than I could ever imagine there being, and I barely got past the food court. In terms of shear variety of fine goods the selection was staggering. The cheese counter had more than 300 distinct types representing nearly every European country. This was my first experience with the smell of raw milk cheese and as compared with the aroma of pasteurized cheese, it adds a certain, I don’t quite know, rawness 
Behind the meat counter the man providing service was wearing an exquisitely tailored suit, behind the meat counter this was exotic. Tailored suits in London are as ubiquitous as taxis are in NY, they are everywhere. i don’t own a suit.
From there we all went to the Pearlfisher Gallery where my friend David Scanavino who is a NY based artist was having his London debut, as a celebration for that debut we then all went to dinner at the two Michelin stared Capitol Restaurant which proceeded to set a new standard for what high cusine means to me.
We all had the menu Dégustation paired with the full selection paired wines, the menu consisted of:
1. Roasted scallops in sauce vierge paired with 2003 Le Roc Des Anges, ‘Vieilles Vignes” VDP des Pyrenees Orientales Languedoc, France
2. Pan-fried foie gras, Puy lentils and “jus Pointu” paired with 2002 Riesling Auslese, Wehlener Sonnenuhr J-j Pruem, Mosel-Saar-ruwer, Germany
3. Grilled turbot with mushroom ravioli and jus diable paired with 2001 Pinot Noir ‘Haven’, Kooyong Vineyards, Mornington Peninsula, Australia
4. Fillet of Lamb with cumin jus paired with 2002 ‘hannibal’ Bouchard Finlayson, Walker Bay, South Africa
5. Le Platau De fromages
6. Desert
It actually turned out to be much more like 10 courses after all was said and done, food just kept coming and coming, and all of it was prepared to such a level as I have never seen, and I used to like to think that I had seen food prepared to quite a high level, well now I have. wow. but of course more importantly the company of the people at the meal was truly superb and just for that I was grateful for the evening, but everything being as it was, amazing.
The next morning we met for breakfast and I had the biggest chocolate croissant I could have hoped for (it was huge), from there we headed out for a tour of London which was dominated by the National Gallery, and The London Eye which provided a superlative overview of all of the parts of London I could not get to. I found it to be remarkable that the National Gallery has one of the worlds largest and most complete collections of European art and yet because it is seen the national gallery all of the art ostensibly belongs to the public and therefore entry to the museum is always free, in terms of cultural resources I can not imagine something more valuable for a community. The London Eye is a essentially a huge farris wheel operated by British Airways which has huge capsuls instead of chairs and takes a total of 30 minutes instead of the usual 5. It does provide a truly fantastic view nearly all of the city, from the tower of London to Buckingham Palace and Big Ben, I took a lot of pictures.
That evening we went to eat at Tamarind (20 Queen Street, Mayfair) which is London’s first and one of the world’s only Michelin stared Indian restaurants. It was an extremely exquisite experience, unfortunately we were somewhat hurried through the meal because of theater tickets on the west end for Andrew Loyd Webers newish production “Woman in white”.
and there is more.