So I was (yet again) in New York last weekend

Do you think this is becoming a bad habit? Or perhaps it's an outright addiction? Living in one place and commuting or traveling to the other regularly. Previously, I did a one hour plane commute once a week so I could spend my weekends back in New York. Now it's six hours by plane. The weekend was magnificent, reminding me of everything I have left behind: fantastic friends; restaurants with decent food and good wine at reasonable prices; a city with a real summer with warm, dry weather; the smell of garbage and dog piss; and a city where a 20 dollar cab ride gets you from the upper west/east side to downtown.

Not that I'm complaining now that I'm back in London, though I have done my share of that. It was sunny and cool, at least this morning. And it felt good to be back in my new neighborhood. The porters, in their own British way, seem pleased to see me (i.e., they recognized me at offered me waiting mail - not the slap on the back I would get from the front desk staff at home in NY, but still, solid and reliable). My 9 bottles of wine shipped directly from Italy had arrived. And a quick glance at the web assures me many things to do in the coming weekend.

No, perhaps this need to travel is something simpler, and more troubling. I am beginning to enjoy the process of travel. Some of this has to do with a series of fortuitous upgrades and clever use of miles that has kept me out of the back of the bus for the last few trips: a comfortable seat, a full library of films and music at your fingertips; a nutritionally balanced and moderately tasty meal served in to you on real plates using real knives and forks (trumps my tasteless Tesco soups consumed from chipped mugs at home), and some pretty decent pours of nice French wine. If you're very lucky (and I was, once) a kind woman will arrive at some point and make up a little cot for you (which wonderfully resembles the berth on a train). Really it seems and feels like a flying sanatorium; instead of Magic Mountain and Thomas Mann it's Magic Carpet and Virgin Atlantic. Instead of being wrapped in a blanket in the chilly air with a view of the the Swiss alps you are wrapped in blanket in the chilled air of a pressurized cabin with a view of the clouds...

Must get back to the flugelbindery so I can save up for the next one.

Cheers,

BB