Happy Friday

Went Paddington hunting -- 

and was marginally successful. 

I highly recommend it.

Wordless Wednesday

Too tired to even type.

Musee de l'art modern, Paris July 2014.

I'm off to London tonight.  Wish me luck.

Keep Calm and Panic Later

Hoxton Station, way out there. 

Update - Hyatt has honored our reservation at their other property without any intervention on my part. I love the AndaZ and will talk about why in a new post. 


What to do when the hotel you have reservations at suffers an unfortunate kitchen explosion and has evacuated all guests until they can determine if it is safe or not.

1.  Be happy that they didn't just say, oops and laugh it off and blame it on a pot of beans 
2. Be relieved they have moved all guests into neighboring hotels and will not allow for occupancy until the hotel checks out to be safe 
3.   Be relieved that while one person was seriously hurt, very few suffered injuries 
4. Realize that your stay is two weeks away and a lot of things can happen in two weeks, so you should chill
5.  Make alternative plans because even though you know they'll take care of you, you want to take care of yourself 
6.  Not call the Customer Service line to bitch and moan because you applied an upgrade to your reservation and you will not accept a downgrade 
7.  Read the frequent flyer thread on the incident with some amusement and realize everyone thinks their crisis is more important than their fellow travelers 
8. Keep abreast of changes through the hotel's social media streams 
9.  All of the above I

I'm going with all of the above.


There is too much other drama in my life and I can wait a little longer to make sure my stay details are going to change. Follow @hyattconcierge and @hyattchurchill on twitter to track the status of the Hyatt Regency Churchill reopening.

The festive lunch

                                      Getting festive. St. John, Spitalfields, Dec. 2010. 

Today  I Googled "date night restaurants in London" and read through various and sundry lists of places to have a romantic or quiet dinner with decent food.  On the lists are places that I have dined and had a great time. For the most part they were great places to eat, but definitely not places for date night. Date night to me means that you can actually hear and interact with your object of affection.

Having to scream or lip read because the restaurant is so loud does not for a great date make.  

Perhaps the issue is that we really only go to London during the festive period - the first weekend to the third weekend of December. This is the time when colleagues celebrate their good fortunes at work by booking lovely long luxurious dinners and lunches at places sought out by foodies and have a jolly time. Unfortunately, it is usually at the expense of anyone else who has had the misfortune of booking at the same time.  I'm talking about being seated next to 18 tops at St. John and six tops at Nopi.  We've seen it all at both dinner and lunch - no time is immune from festive bookings these days.

I have two dinners next month free in London. I'm hoping I don't hit the party circuit and get to actually enjoy the company of my date and friends without a megaphone. 

vacation notification

TH and I are off to London for a few, meeting up with JK, NKK and RK for some holiday fun.

We're using points for our hotel stays, even checking out the Park Lane Polonium. :)

Wish us luck.

More tomorrow.

nm

london kills me redux

Yeah, you know who you are. London, November 2006.

To tell you the truth, I hate large events. I avoid large crowds of flyertalkers, I hate to talk points and miles for very long. We’re all fascinating people who lived fascinating lives away from our airports/hotels and our obsession of miles (1,963,000 to date on AA and counting). I hate the drama that can happen at any event. I’m too old and detached to give a crap about what someone said about someone else. In the last few months, I have realized that life is too short to deal with psychic trauma- mine and yours.

Imagine that all yesterday, there was none.

Okay, I had a little bit when I needed to get John to pick a hotel so that I could go in search of cheese. He bucked up and we moved on.

Thanks John. J

All day yesterday, there was none around me that I could detect. I loved it.

I also enjoyed meeting people I had only heard of and in some cases, admired from afar. You know what, they are all normal people.

It was fun.

Dinner was great. I actually won something (2 nights anywhere in the Hilton chain, I’m thinking Japan) and had some really good conversations and really good food at Café Lazeez. JK, we’re going here and a panto.


Smooches,

Nm

Roma, Roma, Moleskine City Guide, October 2006.

It is very rare that I take advantage of the concierge service of any hotel I stay in. This past weekend, I did use the concierge to book a table for me at Lutetia Brasserie for lunch, find me a restaurant and to track down the elusive Moleskine city guides for the cities I am most likely to visit and annotate any guidebook or map I may have.


They were located at the WH Smith on Rue de Rivoli, which is an expat hangout. I did try the Bon Marche book and paper department, called Brentanos and checked a few places that were independent with little luck.


Turns out WH Smith had most of them and at least the Paris guide was waiting for me at the cash desk.


What can I say?

I am a bit dissapointed. They are small, which I guess is good if you are going to carry it everywhere, but the maps are not so great. The London maps have very little detail on them, so unless you stay on main drags you'll get very little use. The Paris guide is much better on maps and the metro map is useful, but why not put in a RER map? I'm used to journalling in a bigger moleskine, so it was hard to adjust to this size.

I didn't start filling out our Paris one, I may do it this week.

I'll take my London one next week. I don't suppose I'll be seeing anything new or exciting, so I'm not sure how much I can fill it out, but it is a step in the right direction.

I'll post the maps and details on my flickr asap.

nm