If today is Wednesday, then this must be Paris...*

A few times a year the company I work for sends me on a shopping trip to Europe. This is completely normal for the Footwear industry. In fact, many times on these trips I have bumped into friends and old colleagues in totally random restaurants or shops. It's a small world after all.

When I mention this trip to friends and family who aren't in the biz, I usually get one of the following responses:
"You're being paid to go shopping?!?"
"Do you need someone to carry your bags?!?"

Most people in my life don't understand what exactly happens while I'm traveling, so I'm going to summarize my week here.

Long story short: NYC to Dusseldorf to Paris to Florence to London to NYC. In five days. 
Yes, you read that right - five days. I'm basically breaking the sound barrier.
 

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Long story:

Sunday:
I don't travel alone - I'm paired up with my friend from work for the whole trip, which is awesome!
We leave NYC in the evening. I make sure I take an Advil pm to get some zzzzs. If I don't sleep it's a big problem. We land in Dusseldorf, Germany about 6am Monday. I sleep on and off during the night but estimate about 2 hours all together. Crap. I am usually better with overnight flights but it just doesn't work out too well this time.

Monday: 
Since we land so early and had reserved a hotel room for the night before, I have a little bit of time to spend napping. 

Sunrise in Dusseldorf

I sleep about 30 minutes, my alarm goes off, I get up, get dressed, go to breakfast, and we're out on the street by 10am when the stores are opening. We walk the streets for the next 7 or 8 hours. As we buy stuff, we carry it. Every time we back-track towards the hotel, we drop our bags in our room, and head out again. This is my first time in Dusseldorf, so there is a lot of back-tracking and exploring to figure out what streets had good shopping. We finish in time for dinner and I'm in bed by 9:30 pm.

Tuesday:
No rest for the weary.
Got up around 4:15 am since we had a 7 am flight to Paris. We eat breakfast in the airport and sleep a little on the plane. Arrive in Paris during rush hour so it takes a long time to get into the city. Check into the hotel but my room isn't ready, so I leave my stuff in my friend's room. 

View from the hotel

We head out for shopping immediately.
I eat goat cheese for lunch at a typical French cafe.

 

An insane amount of goat cheese

 
There are numerous problems with my credit card today. I always call in advance to alert the bank of my travels. But this time it didn't stick and the bank keeps stopping me. I have to make lots of expensive international calls to clear up this mess. Frakking bank! But by mid-afternoon I'm up and running again.
We had to make multiple stops at the hotel just to drop our bags off.

At the end of the day we arrive back at the hotel and assess the damage...

We shop for a lot of stuff

We unpack/photograph/repack everything into our bags. I still haven't been to my room since it was unavailable earlier. I'm really hungry, but I decide I want to get my bags to my room before we go to dinner. We head down to the 6th floor and open the door.

What???

It's a box of fruit and champagne on ice on my coffee table in the living room of my hotel room. Because they gave me a suite. Because 1 year ago I complained over some really bad things that happened last time at the hotel? Is that what this is for??

This never happens, by the way.
 

 And my room has a view of the Eiffel Tower

This also never happens, ever, ever, ever.

We devour the champagne and some of the fruit. By now we are starving and head to our favorite Parisian restaurant, which is really just an awesome Italian restaurant down a little side street nearby - Pizza Positano. It is excellent home-cooking style and everyone speaks Italian. It is tiny but I've eaten there a bunch of times and it really is as great as anything in Italy.

After dinner, we go back to the hotel. I call John to say goodnight and I'm prepping my clothes for tomorrow morning. I notice there is something wrong with the shower. The cold water doesn't work, so I'm only getting boiling hot water. Ugh really?? I can't deal with this as it's already 11:30 at night. Let me just brush my teeth and wash my face and get in bed. Oh - the sink isn't draining properly. Let me try to - no that doesn't work. If I get up under the sink and fiddle with the chain... Nope. This is a 4 star hotel, by the way.

I call downstairs and they move me to the "Eiffel Suite"

Yeah.

It is on the 7th floor and is probably the nicest room in this hotel. I take a shower and pass out.

Wednesday:
Wake up about 8am. 

View from my window

 
Get dressed and go. Breakfast downstairs. We have to meet some people on the Right Bank. More shopping at the big department stores over there. Then we have a big lunch, because we're with our clients. We head back to the hotel. Pick up our stuff. Our flight leaves at 6:45pm but it takes a while to get to the airport.

I'm glad to leave Paris. I know it's hard to understand, because so many people are enamored by this city. But I just don't get the mystique. Don't I sound like an ass just saying it? I won't get into details, but similar to the story above, there are just too many things that have gone wrong while I've been there. Unfortunately, the shopping is good which ensures I'll have to return next time. But thankfully we are heading to Italy tonight.

We land in Florence about 9 pm and speed over to the hotel. Drop our bags. We are starving so we walk over to Buca Mario, which is an underground restaurant. 

 

Spinach Ravioli

It's about 10pm now. The great food is worth the wait.

 

Fresh produce and beef in their fridge!

I go to sleep late - after midnight. But I don't sleep very well. Crap.

Thursday:
Wake up, pack up, head to breakfast. Our time is limited today and we have a lot of ground to cover. We walk all over the place. It's magical. Florence is my most favorite city in Europe. 

 

Pasta in a random window

 Chandelier at breakfast

We buy lots. We arrive back at the hotel and make a mess in the lobby while furiously re-packing and squeezing everything in our bags. We head to the airport.

The flight to London is about 2 hours. We land in Gatwick, then head into the city. By the time we arrive at the hotel it's 9 pm and we're starving (see a pattern here? ha!). We at least had the foresight to make a dinner reservation at the always-crowded Sale e Pepe restaurant. Which is insanely good Italian. See another pattern here?

It's 11pm and we go back to our rooms. We have a serious issue with space in our bags. So we once again unpack/photograph/repack everything. Then it's light's out.

Friday:
Wake up, pack up, head to breakfast. We shop for the next 7 hours, squeeze in lunch, then furiously pack our bags on the curb outside the hotel. The days are really blending together now. It seems like we're always packing, eating or walking. We both pass out in the taxi on the way to the airport. Check in. Walk around the airport. I spend my last bits of foreign currency. Sweet - I love it when that happens!

We board the plane and here goes the 7 hour flight back to NY. I manage to watch 3 movies. We land in JFK at 10:30. I'm home by 12 midnight, completely exhausted.


* Quote from Dad

Whirlwind...

OMG! It's been about 1 month since my last blog post. Shame on me! I'm in the middle of a whirlwind shopping tour of Europe. No joke, that is actually what I am doing right now. I have so much to share and apologies for the lack of posts in the meantime. I'm sure I will have a few moments this weekend to catch up on my photos, travels, and stuff. Teaser: Miracle in Paris today! Will share more in a few days :)

Technically also our dining tables...

Our new coffee table(s?)...

Office update

As mentioned in this previous post, I was desperate for a small desk for incoming mail, bills, and all that other miscellanea that accumulates during the week...

Ta da!

I ended up ordering most of the stuff listed in that post. Still need a cute chair and possibly a lamp. Maybe a wastebasket as well? But at the least, we are in business.

In the meantime, I organized and reevaluated all the books on the book shelf. The trunk will stay in that spot or possibly will move upstairs to the guest room.

Just for fun... we've come a long way from this:

2 years ago

But...

The office still needs some major work - we have a gigantic gash in the ceiling where we had a leak. And by "gash", I mean half the plaster ceiling is hanging and needs to be replaced. The radiator needs a custom cover built. We need a new ceiling fan. The large desk needs an organizational overhaul as well as an aesthetic overhaul. We need to cozy it up with a rug. Check in with me next year to see where we stand.

to-do ... late winter / spring edition

Sorry for the lack of posting... besides being super busy, I'm in the middle of a million different projects.  

So-- that means no neat before-and-after photos.

Here's a glimpse of what is happening around here, in to-do list form:

1) We committed to, and ordered two tables from Ballard Designs. to use in front of our sofa...

I'd also like to add a couple of pouf cushions and throw pillows to the room...

* * *

2) I put 1 coat of polyurethane on our stairs. It dried quickly. But I haven't been able to commit to a second coat. I will have to do that one night right before we go to sleep; start at the bottom of the stairs and paint ourselves into a corner for the night, so to speak.

After that, I'll have to prime and paint the risers as well as some other touch-ups around the stairs.

* * *

3) After I finish painting the stairs... there is a lot of touch-up work to do everywhere...

- touch up wall paint around the house

- patch and repair hole behind bedroom door

- patch and repair ceiling area next to stairs

- touch up white trim around the house

- touch up wall paint around the house

- finish white paint inside closet of 3rd bedroom

All that should in theory take about 1-2 hours of my time, but I will procrastinate for months I'm sure...

* * *

4) Acquire and have lighting installed:

- dining room chandelier

- vestibule sconce

- front stoop ceiling light

- upstairs hallway ceiling light

- upstairs master bedroom ceiling light

- upstairs 2 small bedrooms ceiling lights

* * *

5) Basement:

- repair and paint floor

- paint walls

- order treadmill

- workout everyday

 

5) Bedroom:

I've been pulling together furniture and accessories to give our bedroom a boost. Here's a sneak peek at the old screen our contractor was about to throw out. I spent some time repairing it to look like this, but it needs to be spray-painted and hopefully used as a headboard...

We also need to order a new duvet cover for our new comforter.

And we need better bed-side lamps.

* * *

6) Office

I really want to fix up our large desk to resemble this:

In addition we desperately need to:

- repair gigantic crack in the ceiling

- install new ceiling fan

- cozy it up with a rug

- custom-build a radiator cover

- get a cute cheap chair for my billing station

* * *

I think we can accomplish most of this over the next few months. Here is a look at my to-do list from a few months ago - a lot of the big projects were surprisingly accomplished!!

Office corner

It has been a little crazy around here. Don't really have an excuse, it's just been hard to sit on the computer at night to do anything. So sorry for the lack of blog posts...

I've realized that the core of many of my problems lie (or lay?) in paperwork over-flowage. There is this steady stream of mail and garbage that takes over our dining room table. This is actually a tame pile:

This is only about 1/4 of the table - but it is not unusual for the pile to overtake the entire table. It makes me crazy!

I determined that we need a paperwork station to corral all this stuff...

1. Parsons Mini Desk from West Elm

2. Chartreuse Chair from CB2 - but I'll try to re-purpose a thrift-store chair or something...

3. Mirror lamp from West Elm - but I will try to find something smaller from TJMaxx or Target...

4. Pencil cup from the Container Store

5. Lacquer tray from West Elm

6. Letter Tray from Container Store

7. Succulent plant, just because it looks cute in this image...

This little corner mini-office will go in the corner of our office, right where the trunk currently sits:

 

 

I'm ordering some of the pieces now... will share photos soon!

Dresser Makeover

This dresser is from my mother's bedroom set she had growing up. It was in great condition, but the finish was looking a little drab. I tried to clean it, lightly sand it, etc, but this thing was basically begging for paint...

before

after

The paint is Benjamin Moore, Aura, satin finish, Stonington Gray. We used the same color on our office wall but it looks a lot lighter on the furniture than I expected! But it's all cool, the goal was to have a neutral-colored dresser we can throw in any room and use for decades to come, and I think this goal was accomplished!

The hardware was removed and sprayed lightly with a coat of Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. Basically, the best stuff ever for dealing with brassy finishes.

We also have a large mirror that matches this piece. I gave that thing a makeover too, but it's sitting on the floor so it's a little anti-climactic to show you just yet!