Gingerbread envy & a case of mistaken identity

From Nov 12, 2010
I have just returned from a conference. During the conference, staff were decorating the conference hotel for the upcoming holidays. While leaving for dinner, I heard some drilling noises and found a small house being erected in the middle of the lobby. When I returned, it was completed and I told my new acquaintances that I needed to be excused. I wedged myself into the house as I just couldn't help myself. L thought that was great and took a picture with her phone and promised to email it to me. I gave her my business card with my email address and didn't think any more of it the rest of the night.

The next morning, I bumped into my boss, who was cracking up. She asked me why she had received a picture of me in a gingerbread house. I was certainly confused; I wondered how L had known who my boss was and what her email address was. However, my brain suddenly clicked back on and I fished out my business cards and started laughing, too. We have a general template for the cards at work. I was in such a hurry to get everything in order at work before I left on Monday that when I used the template, I had updated the cards with my name and job title, but had left my boss's email address on the card. L had been confused as she had thought my name was [Aroundthewherever]*, not [Boss's Name]*, but thought that maybe I just went by [ATW] casually and sent the email anyway. My boss loved the picture nonetheless and forwarded it to me.

The next night was even more exciting in the hotel lobby. Our group had a pow wow to talk about how the conference was going. The whole lobby smelled strongly of gingerbread so I followed the smell to what had been a wooden house the night before. A gentleman in a chef's smock was stirring a giant vat of icing and was cutting large sheets of gingerbread. He was plastering the gingerbread to the house with the icing. I felt that I just had to offer to help shingle the house with gingerbread (seriously, I had never seen such big vats of icing or such huge blocks of gingerbread before in my life! How awesome would it have been to be a part of it?). My co-conspirators tried to give helpful opening lines of how I could make that happen. However, I think that the chef was having none of it because various conference attendees had been milling about him all night and he just wanted to get the darn thing done. I feel that my life is not complete because I haven't plastered on giant gingerbread shingles. Perhaps some day my hopes will be fulfilled.


*Pseudonyms to protect the silly.

Traveling Booking Sites Review

Since 2008, I've used a few different websites to book overseas travel. I first fell into this when I traveled a friend/previous co-worker, K, who had been using the sites for a while and suggested using them. We've only used the sites for hotel and transportation packages. We felt as if we were getting decent deals and avoiding spending copious amounts of our own time by going this route. Sure, we could've really scouted airfares and hotel deals on our own and possibly could've found better deals, but we're both really busy so we appreciate the sites that combine the services for us.

Between the two of us, we've used the following sites, which I'll review. BTW, I get nothing from reviewing them; this is my unbiased opinion, not paid for or endorsed by anyone else (but hey, if they wanted to give me swag, I'd take it - but would disclose that!). Take it as you will.


Gate One Travel www.gate1travel.com is our first pick. Between the two of us, we've used them for at least 5 trips. They have decent prices and their customer service has been good. After one trip, we received a survey about our experiences. We had been moved from two of our hotels during check-in because of water problems the hotels were having, but the hotels booked us a new room and paid for a cab for us to the new hotel. I didn't feel that this was Gate One's fault and felt that the hotels had satisfactorily addressed our concerns, but did mention that it was odd on the survey. They gave me a voucher for money off next time, which I wasn't expecting as we weren't mad about the changes at all. Gate One offers hotel and flight packages, escorted tours, and even some cruise packages. We've used them for trips to Western Europe. The hotels we've stayed at have been basic but the locations were good. I'd say that they were on par with a clean and up-to-date Holiday Inn Express. It's a decent site for semi-budget travelers with options to upgrade.

Playing Frogger in Lisbon

There's an old video game from the 80s called Frogger in which the player must direct frogs safely across a street, dodging vehicles and whatnot. During a recent trip to Lisbon, Portugal, my travel companion D and I found ourselves playing a similar game. However, this was the real life version and not on a road. We were playing Frogger on the sidewalk and the "vehicles" were the people who stand in front of restaurants and try to entice (or ensnare, depending on how one views it) unsuspecting pedestrians into eating at their restaurant. We tried to dodge their advances and avoid being sucked into the restaurant, practically running through the corridor.

Unfortunately, the staff members were quite devoted to recruiting us. D is especially unhappy about such advances so as we gained an unfortunate tag-a-long, she irritably said she was from Canada when asked her place of origin. Of course the interloper wanted to know where from and he suggested Quebec. That was going to be her original answer, so she shouted "Toronto!" as we hightailed it out of the danger zone.

Once we had successfully completed our game of live Frogger, I asked her why she said Toronto and not Quebec (we actually do hail from Quebec, somewhere along the line). D had decided that if she was going to lie (which she usually doesn't), she was going to lie big.

After reading this, it would be no far stretch for the reader to think, "Well, have they ever considered just saying 'no thank you'"? Yes, we have definitely tried that. It doesn't seem to make a difference for the very devoted staff.
--
Feel free to chime in below: how do you respond to those guys (or ladies) who stand out front of restaurants and are very in your face as they try to get you to eat there?

Add this to the list of stuff to pack...

Did you ever read a list of suggested items to pack on a trip, and feel as if it were written by a stodgy grandmother? I mean, who'd pack galoushes? Of course, having had wet, cold feet on a trip, I could see some of the helpfulness of that suggestion, but I wouldn't be caught dead in them.

I always rolled my eyes when I read about bringing a travel alarm. I mean, seriously, what was the author going to suggest next? How about bringing a nightstand, too? What kind of hotel wouldn't have an alarm clock?

I was smarmy about all of this in Germany. There was always a clock to keep us in line; after all, aren't the Germans known for their punctuality? We had no problems with getting up on time, even in the throes of jetlag, thanks to the handy dandy alarm clocks.

In Spain and Portugal, we learned that the profileration of alarm clocks was not to be the case. Perhaps it was that we were staying at budget hotels, or maybe it was a result of the more relaxed Romance style culture. Who knows. Either way, we had to rely on wake up calls from the front desk.

My advice on relying on wake calls is this: don't do it! We were lucky that the two hotels were very good about calling us, but I've been on other trips where we never received the wake up calls (luckily enough for us, we'd also set the alarm). It finally struck home with me the validity of the stodgy advice of packing a travel alarm. And, while I'm at it, be sure to check that the batteries are good.

Prague sidewalks, or: When I go walking, I strut my stuff and I fall in holes

Prague is a beautiful, medieval city, mostly spared of the bombing during World War II. Being as old as it is, it shows some wear though, especially with settling roads and sidewalks. During my first visit to Prague in March 2010, I was surprised at how uneven the sidewalks were. The sidewalks are composed of small pavers/stones in patterns and some patterns bulged oddly from the settling. It was almost like one of those carnival funhouses to watch one walk down the street; the person appears to grow taller and shrink as she hits high and low spots in the sidewalk. The thing is, though, is that it's not so fun to trip in the holes.

Seriously, many of these sinkholes could take a person out. Granted, their sides were often sloped, but they could often still be six inches deep. I was so taken by the sinkholes that I made an impromptu music video (with singing done by moi) on a deserted street at night about the sinkholes. I took the Violent Femmes' Blister in the Sun and just tailored it to the Prague experience: "When I go walking, I strut my stuff, then I fall in holes." It was great stuff, I tell you.

About a year later, I returned to Prague, but this time a little later in the spring. I found the sinkholes less prevelant, making me wonder if the sinkholes were from winter thawing and freezing and municipal workers had repaired them. My travel companions and I actually witnessed the workers repairing the holes. Apparently it was as enthralling for others as it was for us because a crowd of slack-jawed tourists gathered around the workers, snapping pictures and chattering in various languages. I don't think that the workers were amused by their new-found celebrity but I have to say that I was very grateful to them because they helped me to avoid a twisted ankle.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Street Crossing Turtles

This one is almost more like Around the Block. I was on my way to a riding lesson when I saw a petrified turtle, cowering in the middle of the road. I was already running late and there was a stream of traffic behind me, so I avoided running over him but felt guilty that I hadn’t stopped to escort him off the road.

On the way home from the riding lesson, there was an opportunity to redeem myself: I was flying down the road when I saw another turtle (on a different road home). I couldn’t stop in time so I navigated over him, my tires then kicking up dust as I skidded to a stop past him. Poor Mr. Turtle was so shocked by the experience that he was leaking. I tried to wait for that to be over, because even though I have a soft heart, I have no interest in Teenage Mutant (non-Ninja) Turtle urine coming into contact with me.

I determined that Mr. Turtle was indeed a pond turtle, evidenced by the green slime coating the top of him and the proximity of the pond from which he probably originated. I then grabbed a winter glove for my car (here is evidence in support of not cleaning out one’s car often), gloved up, and picked up Mr. Turtle. There didn’t seem any good way to get him into the pond without getting myself sopping wet, so I went over the other possible options in my head. The only workable one was to toss him into the pond. I hesitated, because I was wondering if Mr. Turtle was still shell shocked (har har!) from the experience of a car hurtling over him. Would he be so shocked that he wouldn’t swim when he hit the water? Was it just instinct to do it? If I chucked him into the water, would he pass out when he hit the water?

In one decisive motion, I launched Mr. Turtle as hard as I could throw him into the pond since it was set back so far from the road. He hit the water and disappeared. I’m not sure what happened to him; I only hope that it was better than getting run over by a car and that he went on many other turtle adventures after the harrowing experience. What could he have possibly thought about having a huge mechanical thing fly over him, then having a hand like the Hand of Insert-Deity-Name-Here pluck him out of the road and chuck him into the pond? It must've certainly been life changing.

What Ms. Around the Wherever likes to pack when she goes wherever

I've marveled at what can accomplish with one bag packing and the such out there, which has mostly been born out of necessity with rising airfare costs and fees. I shudder to think what it would've cost for my luggage when I returned from a semester in London had such rates existed then. Imagine a girl, proud of her new Anglicized vocabulary (you know, calling a cell phone a MO-bile), crawling through the plane aisles with a laptop case stuffed to the brim, a bookbag stuffed to the brim, and a huge plastic bags of gifts stuffed to the...yeah, you get the idea. This doesn't even include the two large checked suitcases that were stuffed solid.

Having said that, though, there are some things that I like to pack on every trip:

1. Compass/clock combination thingie that clips onto my coat. Since I generally don't bring my cell phone with me, I don't have a means of telling time so this way I can tell the time AND direction, which is useful when trying to find the next sight.

2. iPod Touch. Okay, I don't get into the whole Apple is Insert-the-Name-of-a-Deity here thing, but it's been very handy. I highly recommend bringing some sort of small mobile internet device (heck, I'll be honest: I don't even have any music on my iPod! Seriously, I must be some sort of freak) for travel. I love being able to check into my email quickly and for free and have found that in most of my European travels, the hotels offer Wifi (or, in Hungary, they at least directed me half a block away where I hung out on the steps of the university and checked on things at home). I especially like the Touch because it's small and fits in a purse/backpack/coatpocket/whathaveyou.

3. Lightweight, collapsible small backpack. I bought one from Eddie Bauer in a dark color (easier to hide the toils and stains of travel) that's lightweight nylon. I prefer it over a purse because I can generally stuff a sweater in it if I get too warm, a travel guide, water bottles and a wallet. I also buy a small travel lock to lock the zippers close. This is easily foiled by thieves but at least it's a small deterrent. It's a little bit harder to rip off than a purse is if it's on. Just be careful in crowded areas such as buses, where it'd be easy for pickpockets.

4. An inflatable neck pillow (shaped like a jellybean and I prefer the kind with the removable fabric covering for hygienic purposes). It makes that bus/plane/train ride a little more pleasant and it's lightweight and small and packs easily.

5. Depending on the weather, a coat that has an inner and outer shell. Since I generally travel on the off seasons (I LOVE fall and early spring travel) and because I'm a true Michigander all the way (we're good at staying warm), I couldn't imagine not taking a coat with me. I like to take a coat with a nylon shell and a zip-out liner. I've used one, the other, or both on trips. A bonus is that you can wad up the liner and use it as a pillow if need be. I highly recommend finding a coat with secure inner pockets. Keep your money and valuables on the inside. However, be aware that nylon type coats are rather casual and you're more likely to see European natives wearing more formal garb such as classic wool peacoats.

Stuff I'd like to buy:

I've heard that there are watches available for deaf people that vibrate for alarms. I think this would be very useful, especially in hostel travel, where one doesn't want to wake others. I need to investigate this further.

Women's dress boots that are stylish AND comfortable. I don't think that they really exist, or at least not for less than $100. Pros: dress boots go well with jeans or dress pants, help keep your feet and pants cuffs a little dryer in the event of rain, and aren't so casual as tennis shoes. Cons: heavy, take a lot of room when packing, and if they look good, almost always are uncomfortable. I'm always on a quest for the perfect pair of boots and have yet to find a pair that encompass all my needs.