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Posts from the ‘weekend fun’ Category

Jun 19

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Back to my roots

First and foremost Happy Father’s Day to my fabulous father and all others out there! Secondly, considering my blog is named in honor of my love and life passion of hotels and I can’t think of anything to whine about for once I figured it might be time to actually talk about travel. The first lesson I bestow upon you is the concept of bleisure travel. It’s a silly name but a great concept of adding some leisure time to your business trip. Side note I love the term bleisure. For me 2 days is perfect to take in enough of a city to then determine if I should return. It’s also the exact amount of time I can be alone before I go insane. Since I’ve now done this precisely 3 times (bleisure trips not gone insane) I’ve got some fantastic tips on making the most of your time. This particular list is for international travel.

IMG_1166

  1. Make sure that you stay up through your entire overnight flight. It is imperative to take advantage of all the free house red wine and as many newly released movies as possible and will ensure you arrive unrested and pleasant at your destination.
  2. Ensure you arrive to your hotel prior to any reasonably early check- in time and doubly ensure your room will not be ready by omitting your arrival time on all correspondence with your hotel prior to arrival.
  3. Serious tip- this actually works well to ensure you stay awake and do something in your new destination since you can’t take a nap…
  4. Drink at least 4 beers on no sleep to ensure that you absolutely fall asleep in public… Perhaps at a restaurant… Perhaps into your goulash
  5. As soon as you can check in to your hotel take a long enough nap to guarantee your first night of sleep is ruined along with your chances of quickly acclimating your body to its new time zone. 3-4 hours should do the trick.
  6. $50 is absolutely a reasonable price to pay for a club sandwich if someone delivers it to your bed
  7. Speaking of room service: currywurst and a minibar Berliner 100% counts as experiencing the local nightlife
  8. Try not learning any of the local language as a cute game. Even if you type up some key phrases such as “where is the nearest bar?” And ” can I please pay with a credit card for this 5 euro novelty mug?” Disregard this list and just obnoxiously assume everyone speaks English. All locals love this and it’s a great way to immerse yourself in local culture!!!

    I’m clearly being sarcastic and I think that’s enough of that for now, but be a pal and take your vacation time and share your travels on social media!

    Love and safe travels-
    Hotelie Blogger

 

Jun 27

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This is 30

This week a friend asked if this is how I pictured my life at 30 and my immediate answer was “HELL NO”. I then proceeded to escort myself on a self-guided journey into a pity party for one. After I moped around for a while, referencing a few indications of my perceived lack of success, I snapped out of that thought process real fast. Of course this isn’t where I pictured myself at 30 because I painted it when I was about 6 and I l was never very good at art. Or sports… I digress.

So this is 30 and to be perfectly honest I am quite happy to leave my 20s behind. The older I get, the more legitimate it is for me to leave places before 10:00 PM. It is one step closer to getting to wear muumuus without judgement. And discuss casseroles and crock-pots for longer periods of time. So there’s that.

I took risks in my twenties that helped me figure out what makes me happy and what makes me sad. I have trimmed and tailored and cut out the fat. I learned that while Edward 40 hands is a good idea when you are 24, Hendricks Martinis with your best friends are better. And even best when you do both with your aforementioned friends. I feel like the past year has led me to a calmer state of Marissa. And I can stand for a little calm.

So it was a happy birthday for me and a happy birthday for BJ. He’s 6, which is 40 in cat years. I wonder how he’s feeling.

Bitch didn't even get me a present.

Bitch didn’t even get me a present.

 

 

Apr 10

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Somehow I got old and out of touch with reality.

As I stood in security at JFK this past Friday to attend a good friend’s wedding and a reunion with some beloved college friends, it occurred to me that I forgot the one thing I actually needed that weekend – my dress for the wedding. I was also 2 hours delayed, present-less, and on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

At least I remembered to pack undergarments, a shoe, and this cat.

At least I remembered to pack undergarments, a shoe, and this cat.

So when I frantically plopped myself down at the closest bar I could find I was pleased to be sandwiched between two sophisticated businessmen, clearly older and more established than myself. Sometimes when one is at one’s worst it is nice to be surrounded by stability.

I happened to notice the gentleman to my left was rather handsome. We begin to chat and I imagine our own impending nuptials He is a suit, in some type of nebulous banking pharmaceutical industry and clearly far more stable than some chick who is delayed without imperative luggage.

We share beverages, laughs, stories, and within five minutes it is revealed that he is also a recent graduate. From college. And I am old, a cougar, and a borderline rapist. Not to mention a lost soul teetering on the edge of unemployment… but alas that’s for another post. 😉 When did I become older and less established than most bar dwellers? When did my concept of age reality go so awry? Is my judgment that far from accurate? Deep thoughts…. mission get my life back on track commences now!

Jan 22

The things I face.

pasta-types

 

The past couple of months have been what a diplomatic person might call interesting. Not bad, mostly awkward and uncomfortable,which I guess in my life would actually be considered standard,  I’ve endured first date over the table sweaty hand holding, not once, not twice, but thrice. Side note, this is incredibly strange to me and it has never happened to me before. Handholding seems aggressively intimate for a first meeting and if you grab a hand that’s beyond clammy, and this very considerate lady provides you an out, such as over the top gesticulation, TAKE IT. Don’t repeat the offense. It’s uncomfortable for both of us.  Anyway, the handholding is not my point, I have been derailed.

So that’s been happening, I’ve started a new job, which is a new exciting journey, but also a little bit scary. New culture, new responsibilities, newness all around. Okay I can handle it, I am an adult. Being alone with a homeless transient pleasuring himself while staring me down in a deserted subway car was mildly nerve-racking, but I’m a survivor. The most anxiety inducing experience of the past couple months?  An all out blowout amongst Upper East Side WASPS in the grocery line at  my favorite grocery destination, Agata and Valentina.

Picture it.  Saturday morning. The aroma of the finest specialty foods wafting all around. Cheese and pastry samples for all. Suddenly the beautiful murmur of seafood mongers and the banter of pastry chefs is shattered with the screeching of self-righteous shoppers. Hand crafted pastas are flying, specialty meats askew and nearly half of the line weighing in on who was to blame. It was legitimately frightening and I, one who is not necessarily known to shy away from confrontation, was genuinely afraid. I ran. I hope everyone survived the blood bath. I am not willing to find a new shopping routine. Enough change already. Happy January loves.

Nov 17

Pivotal moments.

Recently I was honored to witness the engagement of two dear friends. It was a beautiful moment that will be remembered for all eternity.  Picture it. Sicily Brooklyn, during the New York City Marathon… a handsome Irish lad took a knee, sacrificing his time to profess his love for all to see.  Not days later I was thrilled to receive the call that my best friend was going into labor with her first daughter. And just 48 hours after that, I received the blissful news that I am an aunt yet again. Needless to say, just kidding I will say it, it was a big week. I was on a high from the said engagement and baby arrivals that I naturally began thinking about the most important moments in one’s life.

So there I was, contemplating those moments one finds oneself ruminating about on rainy days, the ones that create an ongoing slow motion montage that would be featured during a pivotal plot moment if life were a romantic comedy. Which it should be, but I’ll save that for a later post.  I now present to you my top three most profound life moments.

  1. My first dream. I was sliding down a rainbow and when I reached the bottom I plucked from the ground an oversize, laminated, four-leaf clover. Rainbow? Slide? Lamination? What’s not to love and remember forever?

    This dream was so off the chain it continually inspires artwork such as this. No I didn't save this from my youth, I drew this a few weeks ago.

    This dream was so off the chain it continually inspires my art. No I didn’t save this from my youth, I drew this a few weeks ago.

  2. The first time I realized my extreme heat disorder and sweat through my tee shirt. It was summer and I was practicing my dance routine and discovered I was covered in sweat from basically shimmying for 5 minutes. I knew then that I was doomed.
  3. The first time I realized I was a giant. I was in the first grade and my best friend confided she was frightened by my size. I subsequently was named the Jolly Green Giant, thought to be a teacher as a 5th grader, and overall harbored a feeling of extreme height awkwardness until college.

Authors note: As with all of the imperative topics I cover, this is mildly in jest. I have obviously had more key moments in my life. It is my prerogative to leverage my awkward younger self-moments to make me laugh now and try to reconcile them in a way that makes me feel like an evolved person. And that dream was literally earth shattering.  A toast to more pivotal moments!

Sep 9

My Summer Story

I have been MIA, but it’s summer so I will blame it on the fact that I have been traveling. Actually, I have been informed summer is in fact now over and I need to start working a full day on Fridays, but alas. If I could sum up my summer story in a word, it would be magical. There were some parts of the summer that were exquisite, some painful, but as an overarching sentiment, I will opt to go with magical. There were so many moments throughout the summer where I sat back and reflected, or more aptly said aloud to myself  “This was more fun than I could have possibly imagined”. Maybe it’s the fact that I have started to anticipate mediocrity in order to accommodate my high expectations, but I doubt it, because who can truly lower expectations? Not this girl. So I’ll start with a round up (or two, who knows how long this could take).

BJ- Suitcase

BJ always tries to join me on my travels.

Summer started with a family trip to St. John. It’s been a family destination for years and one of the final places my mother wanted to be laid to rest. So we obliged. Days were filled with old favorites like happy hour at an island “dive” Woody’s intertwined with the new (ish) Fatty Crab, Virgin Islands edition. With poolside painkillers at The Westin St. John and swimming in the ocean with my beautiful niece, in addition to that I spent the week communing with starfish and sea turtles on nearly deserted beaches, it was both a perfect beginning and end.  Since St. John is so hilly, the views are obscenely gorgeous. If you don’t get St. John, you just don’t get it.

St. John View

So that was hard to top, but fortunately I had a lot of plans this summer. I had a nearly perfect birthday, a pretty gorgeous Fourth of July, and I already told you about Montreal.  One more thing I will add about the hospitality at Le Centre Sheraton Montreal, one way to win over this American is with a welcome ritual involving molecular gastronomy and booze. And rainbows never hurt.

Montreal

The next magical memory of summer was a trip to North Fork to celebrate one of my favorite brides. We toured three wineries, Lenz, Bedell, and McCall. At each we tasted fairly delicious wines, most memorably the Roses. Maybe that’s because I love all things pink, but I am fairly certain it was because they were crisp, floral, and not too sweet.  The wineries were beautiful, rustic, and charming and I was able to pet horses. It was a good day, but mostly because of the deep soul soothing laughter that comes from a weekend with your favorite girl friends and Cards Against Humanity.

North fork

This is getting lengthy; I’ll do a part 2 so your eyes don’t bleed.

Aug 26

On perks.

Welcome! I have moved and I am glad you are here! Now that the formalities are out of the way, I can get to the imperative topic I would like to explore.

Today as I was taking a shower, or possibly three, I got to thinking. There I am, showering in my miniscule NYC tub, curtain sticking and most likely depositing mildew onto my body, and I got slightly depressed. It was just yesterday that as a perk of my best friend’s puppy sitting, I was rinsing off on a Chelsea rooftop, no curtain in sight, surrounded only by unadulterated urban views. This was after playing with a fantastic puppy all day, swimming in a private pool, and popping bottles of bubbly like a boss.

Today wasn’t the first day I felt let down by my at home shower experience, however the recent dip into the waters on the other side caused me to be a little skeptical of my own dwellings overall. Between my microscopic shower and a recent fly situation, I am basically living a step above the streets. What is this shambles in which I have allowed myself to reside?

At the end of the day, I am sure I will fix the fly situation, and maybe I can get a new candle or something to spruce up my bathroom Feng Shui. And at least for one sweet second with my pool swimming, roof top mingling, and non-claustrophobic showering, I got to feel like Beyonce.