And you thought paying extra for checked luggage was the bulk of your air travel problems…. Just a few weeks after American Airlines started to offer in-flight wireless Internet, flight attendants are lobbying the airline to put filters in place that will block passengers from perusing porn and other racy programming at cruising altitude. It's one of the the unintended effects of providing in-flight Wi-Fi service.
What do you think? Should airlines start policing in-flight Wi-Fi?
The River Thames gets its due
It’s no coincidence that rivers run through many of the world’s leading cities. Case in point: London. A new walking tour, the Tides of Time, traces the evolving relationship between the city and the Thames. Docents from Context Travel—a network of archaeologists, historians, food critics, and other specialists—take participants on a 2.2-mile stroll along the river’s South Bank. Beginning at Tower Bridge, the route hits landmarks old and new, such as the Houses of Parliament, the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, the Tate Modern, and the London Eye. While passing wharves and brick warehouses (some now galleries and trendy lofts), you’ll learn about the river’s industrial role and about efforts to improve its water quality. Just walking the Tides of Time does a small part to tidy up the river; Context Travel donates £5 ($9) from each ticket to Thames 21, a nonprofit that hosts periodic cleanup events. Happen to be in London this Saturday, September 20? You could join a special cleanup day: the Context walk followed by a few hours of collecting trash with Thames 21 members. The Saturday event is part of the nonprofit’s annual Cleaner Thames Challenge (September 18-21, 2008). The three-hour Tides of Time runs regularly on Wednesdays for £35 ($64) per person. No, it’s not cheap, but the walk is a highly curated experience—Context terms it a “seminar,” not a tour—and limited to just six people. Keep up with the company’s like-minded offerings in Paris, Rome, Naples, Florence, Venice, and New York City at contexttravel.com.
This weekend: D.C. is hosting more than 80 free walking tours
If American history class wasn't really your thing (read: you slept through it), here's a chance to get caught up. Washington, D.C. will be hosting more than 80 free walking and bike tours this Saturday and Sunday. Cultural Tourism DC, a nonprofit coalition of cultural and neighborhood organizations, is sponsoring the event. The breadth and wealth of subjects is almost overwhelming (the tours span 18 neighborhoods), but here are a few that stood out: "Art on Line: The Story Behind the Artwork at Metro Stations," "Can You Dig It? The Past, Present, and Future of Mt. Zion Cemetery," and "The National Mall: What the Memorials Don't Tell You," where you can be a guinea pig for a future self-guided tour (plus, it sounds like there might be some National Treasure action.) Meeting points, times, and guides vary - some tours require registration (although all the tours are free). You can get all the info at culturaltourismdc.org.
My taste test of new Big Day Breakfasts at Hilton Garden Inns
Starting this week, participating Hilton Garden Inn Hotels will offer a new type of breakfast. The national chain has teamed up with Chris Jacobson, a chef who competed on season three of the Bravo TV show Top Chef, to create three new breakfast dishes for the chain's nearly 400 hotels. The upside of having a celebrity chef is obvious: Top Chef is a popular show, and Jacobson is a personable former pro athlete who will be an asset in the chain's Big Day ad campaign. The potential downside is that bringing in a celebrity chef might seem like just a gimmick, especially when he's designing just a few dishes rather than overhauling the entire menu. The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. There's a waffle with blueberry thyme compote and granola with flax seed, lemony yogurt, and strawberries, and both dishes are good. The most interesting option is a poached egg served on shredded brisket and kale. (Vegetarians can replace the brisket with tofu.) It's a healthy take on hash, but more importantly (to me, anyway) it tastes good. Jim Cone, vice president of marketing for HGI, says that individual hotels may use premade brisket instead of making it themselves from scratch, but he also says he tasted Jacobson’s dish with premade brisket in Dallas recently and thought it was very similar to the dish Jacobson made himself. According to Cone, a couple of substitutions may be made by individual hotels (these depend on the ingredients they can get from local suppliers): Spinach may substituted for kale in the hash (Jacobson and Cone each pointed out that both kale and spinach are so-called super foods, very rich in nutrients), and plain yogurt may be substituted for the Greek yogurt Jacobson uses. The taste is similar, but Greek yogurt has a thicker, creamier consistency. ELSEWHERE HotelChatter talks more about the Top Chef
