friend beauty fashion friday:: vacation packing (and what to wear on a long flight)

This week's Friend Beauty Fashion Friday couldn't be more appropriate. We're talking about vacations and what to pack. Which is exactly what I'm doing today- tomorrow Mr. DU and I head out to California for a much-needed break from life (although, not too much of a break since I'm planning on Skyping an interview out there and I'm still scoping out the job scene plus I'm conducting market research for my thesis project- I like to multitask). So here are this week's questions:

1. When it comes to packing for vacation what’s your mantra?
   Don't forget to pack enough underwear. And accessories, accessories, accessories. They can really change up your outfit from day to night. And I pack lots of neutrals with one or two pops of color to make it easier to mix and match pieces.
   
   Also, throw some underwear and contact solution in your carry on. I know I keep mentioning underwear, but really, missed flights and lost luggage happen. And no one wants to be caught with dirty underwear.
   
2. What are your must packs?
   As far as what I'm wearing, that depends where I'm going. More on that in a minute. As far as other items, I'm never, ever without my DSLR camera or my iPhone. Most of the souvenirs I have from trips are the pictures I take.
   
   So back to wearables.
   
   For the past several years, Mr. DU and I have headed out to California for vacation (hey, if I can't live there, I'm sure as hell going to visit as much as possible). I always take a lightweight jacket, no matter what time of year and no matter where I go in California, because I always get cold there, especially in the evenings.
   
   Other than that, I pack items I can wear for hiking and kayaking, plus cute clothes for site seeing, and clothes for going out at night. Generally the latter two can be mixed and matched, but the hiking/kayaking clothes aren't going to be mixed into my evening wardrobe.
   
3. What are you happy to leave behind?
   Stress. And PA.
   
4. Any packing secrets that help you get everything into one suitcase?
   After a few horrible experiences with too much luggage (seriously, I did not need an entire suitcase of shoes for just one week), I've pretty much mastered packing a lot but packing it well.
   
   I pack the heaviest items first, like jeans, and lay them flat on the bottom. Then I roll up knits instead of folding them. I stuff socks into shoes, and just generally make sure everything is arranged neatly. Sloppy packing means less room for your stuff, or results in stuffing it in and possible suitcase rippage. Trust me, you don't want your suitcase to ripp open at baggage check because of your lack of packing skills combined with your tendency to over pack, and then have to duct tape it shut just before you leave for a month-long trip to Europe. Not that I know about that from experience or anything.
   
5. Beach reading… what are you taking with you to read in the sand?
   A big stack of fashion magazines. And those trashy celeb weeklies. Summer beach time is not the time for me to stimulate my brain.

And while we're talking about traveling and vacations, I might as well throw in my two cents here about what to wear when flying. My rules: It has to be comfortable, cute, and layerable. Sort of like this outfit (which I actually wore to lunch with my mom this afternoon, but decided that it will do just swell for the flight tomorrow morning, too):



I had two people stop me on the street to ask me where I got this dress (for the record, the Target clearance rack, summer 2009), so I guess it fulfills the cute requirement of my flight attire rules. And it pretty much feels like a nightgown, so we can check off comfy, too. Easy to wear with a cardi and a scarf, so....we're done. Cute, comfortable, layerable. Rules to fly by.

So anyway, everyone, I'm off to California! I'll be back June 13 (or around there) with posts again. I'll be posting regularly to Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook while I'm away, so check in with me there! Have a great weekend!

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Fashion Beauty Friend Friday (FBFF) is the brainchild of Katy over at Modly Chic. Every week, she creates a set of questions and FBFF participants answer them on our blogs. On Friday. See, that's why it's called Fashion Beauty Friend Friday. Visit her blog to find out more or join the fun!

Inspired // California

Wow, it's been two weeks since my last post on this blog. Shame on me. But I have a decent excuse. I was on vacation in San Diego! Nothing inspires me like the beach and cities, so San Diego, being a city by the beach, is pretty much inspiration perfection as far as I'm concerned. We had a great time, I took over 1000 pictures, and I'm still busy uploading and editing them (in between studying for midterm tests and completing midterm projects- don't be jealous).

Here are a few pictures I took and then had fun with in Photoshop.

Epic FAIL- Why I'm never staying in a Trump hotel again (and why you shouldn't either)

I travel frequently and therefore, deal with lots of hotels and hotel staff. My recent weekend experience at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City was, by far, the worst experience I've ever had (and I once stayed in a hotel that had a water pipe burst on the 5th floor and flood all the floors below it down to the lobby). This was worse than that.

Why?

Because the staff at the Trump Plaza seems to be confused about proper customer service. It took us three hours to check in and it wasn't because there was a line.

Annette, Katrina and I were extremely happy when we arrived for our girls' weekend in Atlantic City well within the proper check-in time after making excellent time driving to the beach. Unfortunately, the time we saved avoiding traffic was siphoned away during our check-in process.

According to the first person at the check-in desk who helped us, there was some sort of mis-communication between Orbitz and the hotel because when we arrived, the hotel did not have a record of my reservation, despite the fact that I booked it a week and a half prior to our arrival. I pulled up the Orbitz e-mail confirmation on my iPhone and it still wasn't good enough. So, I called Orbitz and after 20 minutes on hold listening to Canon in D, I finally got through to “Ethan” in India and asked him to re-fax my reservation. He did and so I thought our ordeal was nearly over.

Wrong!

The re-faxed confirmation with the original date also wasn't good enough for the hotel reservation supervisor. She refused to confirm our reservation and had the (now second) person who was helping us tell us the hotel was fully booked. But since people were coming in off the street and booking rooms and others were upgrading to better ones, I was reasonably sure that the reservation supervisor was full of poo. So there we stood, just wanting the room we had already paid for. (And in the meantime, the first person who had helped us returned from her hour-long break, which she went on while I was on hold with Orbitz, and couldn't believe we were still there. Yeah.)

Finally, after two hours of battling with Orbitz and the front desk staff, and the front desk staff trying to move us to the Trump Marina, the front desk supervisor finally came out to help us. He had us fax our confirmation (again- which meant more time on the phone with Orbitz) directly to him to bypass the reservation supervisor. Shockingly, he managed to get us a room in the "fully booked" hotel (now three hours after we began the check-in process). So, obviously there were rooms available, but apparently, if there is mis-communication between Orbitz and Trump Plaza, it is the customer's fault and they are fully punished for it in the form of terrible customer service and wasted time.

Our stay didn’t improve much after check-in since this customer service confusion thing extended well beyond the shiny, marble top check-in desk.

Moral of the story- don’t stay at any Trump facility ever.

Sorry, Donald, you’re fired.