Eye in the Sky

We had a couple of wild rides today - one on a wheel overlooking the city and one on the streets, searching for a Harry Potter mask. One was a success; the other, not so much.
Laura came to London with a request to find something called a Harry Potter Death Eater Voice Changing Mask with Interactive Wand. This was for a 10-year-old and would be a major score in the gift department. We called around, looked around, asked around and finally found the mask this morning at a store called Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue. We asked them to hold the mask for us but they don't hold merchandise, they said. So we took the bus, two subways and a four-block walk to Forbidden Planet to collect the mask. At this point, my curiosity was killing me. Just what does a Death Eater Mask do anyway?
We arrive at Forbidden Planet and ask for the mask. We're told it's gone. It was the last one they had, it had been there for months, and in the past hour, it had sold. We were crestfallen. After all that, to leave without a Death Eater was such a disappointment.
But we didn't have time to dwell on our dismay because we had an appointment to ride the London Eye.


The Eye, built to celebrate the Millennium, looks like a cross between a bicycle wheel and a Ferris wheel. When you see it at a distance you never think it's moving. That's because it moves at just 10 inches per second. You barely know you're moving.
The wheel is made up of 32 egg-shaped glass pods (Eye pods ... get it?) that hold about 25 people. There's a eye-shaped wooden bench in the center if you want to sit down during the 30-minute ride - but why would you? You can walk about freely as it rotates and you can take amazing photos of London in all directions.
They say some 30 million people have taken a ride on the Eye since it opened in early 2000. Today we saw a wedding party getting on, bride, groom, attendants and two picnic hampers. The joke around here is that you get in, get married before you reach the top, and the rest of the marriage is downhill from there.
We waited in a fast-moving line as we waited our turn to board. The wheel never stops, but it moves so slowly you have plenty of time to walk aboard. Then you're up, climbing higher and higher, until people are tiny specks and the Thames looks like a ribbon of shimmering green.
I will admit that I have been a little apprehensive in the past about riding the eye. I'm not deathly afraid of heights but I don't exactly love them either. And the Eye takes you 443 feet in the air - that's pretty high. But I've been seeing this thing forever and I just wanted to have the experience. You have to face your fears, step out of the comfort zone, right? So I just walked into that pod and started climbing.
I don't know what overwhelmed me the most. Since the Eye is at Westminster Bridge, you're right across the Thames from Big Ben and the House of Parliament and that's a view I never get tired of. You also see the river as it curves through London. You see the BT Tower, the Gherkin, St. Paul's (a building that never ceases to amaze me), Buckingham Palace and lots of green - Green Park, Hyde Park and so on. You can even see Wembley Stadium, way off in the distance.
If you love this city as I do, book a flight on the Eye. It's the quickest 30 minutes you'll ever spend. What a joy to climb so high ... and I refuse to believe it's all downhill from here.