I have a paralyzing fear of heights. And actually, it’s not really the fact of being up high that scares me, it’s the terrifying vertigo associated with heights that does me in. Imagine that you were standing on a balcony, high up off the ground, when suddenly, the ground beneath you began tilting at a 45 degree angle, which would cause you to slide off the balcony to your death. That is vertigo, and it is my major motivator in avoiding anything higher than a foot off the ground.

However…even I could not pass up the London Eye, a massive “ferris wheel” of 135 metres (442 feet) in height that rides high above London. There are 32 ‘pods’, each holding up to 25 passengers. Interestingly, the pods represent each of London’s 32 boroughs…the city of London itself only measures one square mile. It is greater London that we think of when we think of the huge city. One of the burroughs is the City of Westminster, in which are located the houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that Buckingham Palace was only a short walk away from our modest (though definitely not modestly-priced) hotel.

D and I paid the extortionate price to ride the London Eye, which takes about 30 minutes to complete one revolution. It was built for the millenium celebrations, and is a temporary structure, though I have no idea when the city plans to dismantle it.

While we were in our pod, nearly at the top (completely terrifying position, incidentally), a helicopter flew past us, coming so close that we could actually see the people within. D and I remarked that it was a very gutsy, if not completely irresponsible and possibly illegal, move. Later on, while we were on a tour boat returning to the Tower of London pier, the captain informed us that the new James Bond film was in production, and that the helicopter had been flying all morning, getting shots of the London Eye and the Thames. We all had had our Hollywood moment, and we didn’t even know it.

We are en route again this morning. Hopefully, the weather in our new destination will be a massive improvement from London’s cold. wet, windy conditions! I do love London and its energy, but it’s hard to love its weather.