After completing 30 days of sobriety, I was ready to go on a bender.

I can already feel the audible gasps and disappointments. Fortunately, although I did have some drinks, I didn’t create any phone breaking, random encounter debauchery. Most nights I was in bed by 11 preparing for the agenda the next day.

Landing in London reminded me why I like Europe. You tap your credit card to board the train, tap again when you leave, and somehow the entire system trusts you to figure it out. Meanwhile I heard someone on the trip paid 180£ for a taxi. My ride was 10£. These are some of the travel tips you gain when you’ve been doing it a while. A beautiful French woman sat beside me with her daughter and I briefly wondered whether I should say something before deciding against it.

I should briefly explain why I was even there in the first place, because “international slate roofing trip” sounds like something I made up after three drinks. It’s a group of slate roofing professionals who gathered to see a roofing award show in London and a slate quarry in Westmoreland. I’m one of the youngest people in the group by a few years, which is both flattering and mildly concerning. As President of the association, I’m constantly trying to increase participation, but convincing people to spend five grand to look at rocks in Scotland is apparently a harder sell than I imagined.

I’ve been to London a few times so I knew to look right instead of left for oncoming traffic. Not tipping was also preferred as you’re not bombarded by 180° devices asking you to tip 25%. Finally, the people are friendly and each conversation feels like you’re talking to a sophisticated individual and not an uneducated American. Another attractive Scottish woman sat next to me on the train and I briefly considered asking if she was from Edinburgh before realizing that was possibly the worst conversation starter ever created. She spent the next forty minutes on her phone while I stared out the window and reading.

Edinburgh surprised me a bit because I expected a city feel. The first morning I climbed Arthur’s Seat and couldn’t believe views like that existed twenty minutes from my hotel. Golf courses, pubs, hiking trails, everything felt compressed into one place. It reminded me of Innsbruck in its active nature and a destination I could see myself spending more than a few days in. It would be nice to see if that lifestyle struck me as preferred to the USA.

What felt strange about the trip was the absence of chaos produced by drinking. Trips used to produce stories automatically. Broken phones, bad decisions, random encounters. This time I spent a Saturday morning walking from Buckingham Palace down the Thames listening to music in perfect weather, completely content….except I wasn’t. I’m not meant to do nothing. This is the ongoing battle I have where I always need to be climbing a ladder.

I had the same feeling years ago walking through Vienna. Everything was clean, peaceful, beautiful, and my immediate thought was: what am I doing here? I need action. For most of my life, money was the objective because money represented freedom. Now I have that financial freedom and I don’t know what to do with it.

What else is there? I thought sobriety might answer that. It didn’t.

Either way, I’m planning a trip to China next.

Wish Laura a “Happy Birthday” if you know who she is.