Ah toiletries, sweet, sweet, toiletries...

Hello, my name is Emma, and I’m a Hotel Toiletries Thief.  This is how I would have introduced myself had there ever existed a Hotel Toiletries Thief Group.  You see, I am That Girl. When I check into my hotel and get to my room, I bee-line straight for the bathroom.  Why?  Because I want to see what’s there!  To me, it’s like Christmas.  I go in there and if the products are really good, my eyes light up, a broad smile comes to my face and then… and then I hoard.  Having just completed a 3 week vacation in Japan and Singapore, I am still on a toiletries high.  At the Park Hyatt in Tokyo they had Aesop Toiletries. At the Shangri-La, it was L’Occitane to include full sized bath soaps! I like to justify my habit by saying that I like to ride my bike to work so those lighter toiletries are fantastic.  And why am I now gleefully confessing my obsession?  Click on the jump to find out… read more »

Who's In?

Are you going to be in the UK in August?  Looking for a reason to be?  Like concerts?  Look no further… I’ve got my tickets for the Hyland’s Park location.   Tickets are sold out if you try to buy them alone.  But, buy them with a “coach” ticket, aka bus ticket, and you can still get in.  I’ll be the one screaming like a 16 year old girl, jumping like a Mexican jumping bean, with a beer in one hand and a camera (that won’t get any clear shots – ref: jumping bean) in the other…

The Good Guys

Ah, the sun.  My trip to St. Lucia was the reason I spent the last 2 months going to the tanning salon.  The first month I only went once a week for 10 minutes, I bumped it up to 12 minutes by the second month.  Growing up in Southern California I was taught to abhor the “fake and bake” in favor of the real thing.  That’s all well and good when the “real thing” happens most months of the year.  However, desperate times call for desperate measures.  Let me insert here that I am well aware of the dangers of tanning. I am also keenly conscious of the “first burn of the summer” phenomenon.   For those of you unaware of this event, it is the belief that one must get an initial, all body burn, in order to tan the rest of the summer.  Don’t ask me why, it was just a commonly accepted fact growing up on the beaches of So Cal.  So, thinking that a Caribbean “first burn” would be worse than a few months getting my skin used to fake rays, I chose the latter.  Having only done carry-on luggage for our flights, we were unable to bring large amounts of sun screen and figured we would just buy it at the resort…which we did… for $17 dollars a can.  I picked a Banana Boat dry oil aerosol spray (this was something new I hadn’t seen before) in SPF 8.  I have to admit that buying SPF 8 is a new thing to me.  My entire life I’ve been a 6 kind of girl, but, being told that the Caribbean sun is hotter, I chose a higher SPF.  The aerosol can was terrific.  I could easily spray my back and it was easy to rub in.  I did, however, use Neutrogena’s Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sunblock SPF 30 on my face (which luckily fell just under 3oz and thus was able to make the journey with me).  After all, one must protect oneself from wrinkles.  The Banana Boat ran out after two days.  On the third day I decided to buy a local brand ($10 vice $17), and an SPF 15 at that!  I did this mostly to make my husband happy who frowned every time I sprayed my SPF 8 on.  Never has that old phrase “you get what you pay for” been more accurate.  The Banana Boat 8 was great!  It wasn’t oily, it went on evenly, and I never burned; just tanned after spending all day in the sun!  The local brand 15, however… Not so great.  It left a bizarre white film all over me and after two hours I was burned to a crisp.  Me = not happy.  I ended up retiring to the room early and proceeded to spend the next 18 hours rubbing aloe vera gel all over.  Grrr…. My lesson learned?  Spend the extra dollars on a name brand that you recognize, it just may save your skin…

As summer draws closer, some of you may be thinking of trips to Europe.  If so, here are some tips on airfares to Europe and within Europe.    read more »

The Caribbean at its Best

Ah, the layover. I have a love – hate affair with layovers. I absolutely detest with all of my being, the 3 hour layover. Short layovers (less than 3 hours, think 1 -2 hours) are fine because I then have time to find out where my gate is, to browse the duty free, and perhaps even have a cocktail or snack (or both) at one of the eating facilities. In short, it doesn’t provide me enough time to get bored. I can also get into the 4+ hour layovers. Depending on the city, 4+ hours is enough time to leave the airport and wander around a city. London Heathrow is great for this. The express train to London from Heathrow takes 20 minutes. I once got a train into London, saw St. Paul’s Cathedral before tubing it to Buckingham palace and then heading back to Heathrow, all within 4 hours. Now, the layover that falls between 2 and 4 hours is the worst. Not long enough to go outside and see the sights, but too long to sit in one place coming or going. Of course, my preference is the direct flight; however, I’m rarely fortunate enough to grab one of those.

I was recently burdened with a 6 hour layover in Barbados. Yes, life is tough… Before getting there, I did some research online to see if anyone else had ideas of what to do in the area. One person recommended the diners by the airport. Normally, I’d be completely into that, but, 6 hours seemed a long time to hang out at a diner, even for me. Let me insert here that going into the capital, Bridgetown, was a possibility (most articles I read said it was a 45 minute cab ride) however, my husband was set on being at/by the beach. So, with that in mind, my search was fairly limited. The biggest restraint was that we weren’t going to have shower facilities so, we’d be limited to looking at the water vice swimming in it. It was then that I found the St. Lawrence Gap. read more »

Ah, a wedding. One of life’s most joyous occasions… The type of occasion that, when two of your nearest and dearest decide that they want to tie the knot and want you at their destination wedding in St. Lucia, you do everything in your power to go. And so it began… Unfortunately, what it began was a month of waiting for an exact date to be set only to find out that that exact date was a month later. For all intents and purposes, this should have been enough time to plan a trip and buy tickets, except that we live in Germany. There are no direct flights to the Caribbean out of Germany. One option is to route through the US, regrettably, we were on a time crunch (vacation days) so needed fairly direct, same day routing. By flying through the US, we would need to stay the night somewhere as all of the flights to the Caribbean leave in the morning, well before any flight from Europe can arrive at a US airport. So, we were forced to do some creative routing which avoided the US but included London City Airport, London Gatwick Airport, Bridgetown (Barbados) Airport, until finally reaching our destination of St. Lucia. Fortunate for us that the European airlines have not succumbed to charging its customers for cocktails…

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Let me start off by saying that I am in no way, shape, manner, or form, a train enthusiast.  When traveling, I believe trains are an efficient way to get from Point A to Point B without having to worry about rental cars, airport security, or any of those other silly things which can take up so much time.  I leave the “enthusiast” part to my husband.  I believe the correct term is, “train spotter.”  Yes ladies and gentlemen, he is that guy.  The one who, on occasion, has been known to go out to train stations just to watch the trains go by.  He is also a big believer in the “Romance of Travel.”  He believes that the holiday is not just the time spent at a location, but also includes the travel involved to get there.  This encompasses the class of travel, the food served, as well as the scenery outside.  Trains are a particular favorite because of the dining car with their huge windows where one can have a leisurely lunch while watching the world roll by.

Knowing all of these things, it was by pure luck that I came across a news article that said the United Kingdom had just built their first steam locomotive in 60 years.  The new engine was currently doing some initial runs around the UK.  Well, it just so happened that we were going to be in York when the new “Tornado” locomotive was scheduled to make its debut run from York to Edinburgh.  And that is how I came to purchase two tickets in the First Class Dining Car for my husband’s Valentine’s Day present.

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