My well-traveled daughter, Jenny, was back in Chicago for just five days after her Europe sojourn  before she and her good friend Emily took off for their final spring break trip. The two seniors gave themselves a graduation gift (with a generous kick-in from Mom and Dad) of a five-day trip to New York City. It was a first-time trip to the Big Apple for both, and they were extremely excited to experience as much of the city as they could. Her trip triggered memories of my own college graduation trip to New York with my roommate Diane, 30 years ago.

Jenny believes one of the best parts of the trip was their accomodations at the Duane Street Hotel in the TriBeCa neighborhood. She had had her fill of youth hostels and the YMCA after her two months overseas, and she and Emily spent plenty of time researching to find a nice place that could accomodate their budgets. Located conveniently not far from Wall Street and the financial district and in a trendy area with great restaurants and shopping, the Duane Street Hotel sounds like it would meet the needs of both business and leisure travelers. The girls appreciated the fact that they could hop on the subway just two blocks from the hotel  and get to the myriad sites on their extensive list of “to-sees.” With only 45 guestrooms, this was a good choice for them, and they found the staff friendly and very helpful with tips and directions. They also appreciated the property-wide free Wi-Fi, warm cookies available 24/7, plush bathrobes in the room and a spacious, well-appointed bathroom.

I got a kick out of Jenny’s Facebook posting on her first morning in New York: “You know you’re in NYC when: they are filming Law & Order right outside your hotel.” Another New York moment (on the other end of the thrill scale) was spotting rats on the subway platform, but it seems everything else was pretty much a thumbs-up. Both girls were moved to tears at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum (just blocks from their hotel) but were glad to have experienced it. They also visited MOMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, took the ferry to Liberty and Ellis islands, stopped in at a jazz club on the Upper West Side and saw The Lion King on Broadway. They wandered around Little Italy, compared New York pizza with the Chicago variety they know well and, of course, enjoyed the shopping (”Mom, no sales tax on clothes!!!”). One disappointment: They weren’t picked up by Cash Cab.

Arriving back in Chicago late Friday night, Jenny now looks ahead to her final months of school. She will graduate not only with her formal degree but also some great real-world experiences gained on her travels. Best of all, she’s grown in confidence in herself and her ability to navigate a big new city (even if she mistakenly ends up in Brooklyn at some point!) and has gained a grand appreciation for the world and its peoples. 

– Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader

On Wednesday night, five of my friends and I trekked into Philadelphia for Shecky’s Girls’ Night Out. The event, held at the Crystal Tea Room in the Wanamaker Building, is a shopper’s dream. Booths of jewelry, shoes, clothing, accessories and more offer savings of up to 80 percent for attendees. Shecky’s, however, is well known for its goody bags. A $25 ticket guarantees admission, free cocktails (provided by a variety of sponsors) and a goody bag. Our red, reusable goody bags were stuffed to the brim with a variety of beauty products. Some of the notables: Softlips chapstick, Neutrogena make-up, Dial’s newest body washes, hair accessories. I literally could not stop talking about all the freebies.

We had a blast, perusing the wares and sipping on interesting drinks, including Michelob pomegranate-raspberry beer, Midori margaritas and X-Rated Fusion liquor with lemonade. Of course, we also shopped. I came home with two necklaces and a pair of Emilio Pucci sunglasses. It was too hard to resist the great deals. If you love to shop, I highly recommend a visit to Shecky’s Girls’ Night Out. Similar events are held in Dallas, New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco and Atlanta.

And, speaking of shopping . . . Monday is the kick-off of our annual charity auction! It’s important to help today’s youth, which is why we have partnered with the Mentor Foundation this year. As our charity, 100 percent of the proceeds from this year’s auction will benefit the organization, dedicated to keeping children off drugs and promoting general well-being.

What is up for grabs this year? Business-class tickets from American Airlines, SWISS, Lufthansa, British Airways, Asiana, Emirates, OpenSkies and more. Hotel stays all around the world, including Asia and Europe. Vacation packages to London (one of my personal faves) and Orlando. And that is only a sampling! For all the information, visit the website. Bidding begins Monday and ends May 1. Good luck!

– Kimberly Krol, eFlyer editor, circulation and public relations executive

I penned my letter from the publisher recently and took a bullish stance on the future of travel based on the return of the Emirates A380 to New York and OpenSkies‘ new service between Washington, D.C., and Paris.

Add to that the recent announcement that American Airlines will be increasing international flights from New York. This spring, AA will add three new destinations from JFK, including San Jose, Costa Rica; Madrid, Spain; and Manchester, England. The new flights to San Jose will begin April 6, while service to Madrid starts May 1, and flights to Manchester will begin May 13.

Jim Carter, American’s vice president in New York City, rightly stated: “New Yorkers are international travelers.” He is absolutely correct. Add the feeder markets around New York, which can stretch as far south as Philadelphia, and there is a huge potential market for AA.

Hopefully, this is another sign that travel will continue to pull the country, and the world, out of the global recession.

– Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO

I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for quite a while. Not because we had any big plans or were going anywhere special. I just was anticipating a leisurely three-day weekend (more for my husband than for me, since working from home means my work days can often be indistinguishable from weekends and holidays), with Valentine’s Day and the start of the Winter Olympics adding fun and excitement to the mix.

This year we decided to forego a nice dinner out at one of our favorite places and instead create a nice dinner in for Valentine’s Day. I think I’ve mentioned before that Harry is some mean cook, so I’m anticipating a meal of coconut shrimp, wild rice and asparagus with Hollandaise sauce and, of course, a bottle of wine or two. I’ll be contributing a yummy chocolate dessert — can’t have Valentine’s Day without chocolate! We’ll also take in a couple of movies this weekend (we each choose one, so there’s a nice balance) and just enjoy a few unhurried days together.

The weekend began with watching the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Games in Vancouver. Well, I will admit that I was reading a magazine and doing a few chores at the same time, as all of the coverage did not require my undivided attention all of the time. I did enjoy much of the visual spectacle, though. And, with the games being held here in the Pacific Northwest, we have an added interest in them. Having lived in the Seattle area and Washington state for two decades, we’ve visited Vancouver a number of times. It is definitely one of my favorite cities for it’s stunning setting, cosmopolitan atmosphere and cultural diversity. After observing all of the preparations over the last several years for this big event, it’s exciting to now see it all coming to fruition and to see the rest of the world’s reaction to this beautiful place.

I’ve always enjoyed both the summer and winter Olympics. I have very little athletic talent myself, but I really get drawn in to the various competitions and can’t help but admire and respect all the effort and sacrifice the athletes put forth to achieve their goals. A few peeves about the coverage, though. This one applies not just to the Olympics, but any sporting event: Please, do away with the pre- and post-event interviews with the athletes. The same old cliched questions are asked, and the same old cliched responses will be given. I like the pretaped background stories on the athletes’ lives, but not those stale bits that reveal absolutely nothing new.

I’d also like to to see the events in real time, not tape-delayed and broadcast during prime time (admitting that there may be options via satellite and such). For those of us living in the same time zone as the Games are being held, it would mean we don’t have to stay up ’til midnight to catch the finals of big events. I appreciate the editing which compresses time between preliminaries and individual performances, but too much manipulation takes some of the spontaneity and anticipation out of the viewing.

Finally, I just don’t like the participation of professional athletes, especially in the team events like hockey, basketball and baseball. I know all of the history, the political and economic reasons behind the change in the rules. I know that there are the Shaun Whites and Apolo Ohnos who have made a lot of money in their sports, too — more than most professional athletes in team sports. Still, especially in those team events, I think it makes for especially uneven “competition.” And who believes the 1980 Miracle on Ice victory would have been as sweet if the U.S. team had been loaded with pros? 

Ah, but enough of that. I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the rest of my weekend, and may you do the same.

– Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader

This month’s issue of Global Traveler has a wonderful article on London, with plenty of great suggestions on what to see and where to stay and dine. I shared the piece with daughter Jenny, as she and her fellow students would be spending a month in the area during their study abroad experience. Our family had actually stayed in London for several days a number of years ago when Jenny’s big sister was studying in England, so she had already had the opportunity to experience some of that delightful city’s offerings. We visited St. Paul’s, the British Museum and the National Gallery, shopped at Harrods and took in a play in the West End. There was not enough time to see everything we wished, so Jenny has been looking forward to getting back to London.

 In just the last two weeks on daytrips in to the city, she has toured the Tower of London (and has decided the jewels alone would make it worth being Queen of England), spent some time in the museums, visited Harrods (again!) and thoroughly enjoyed a production of Sister Act: The Musical at the Palladium Theatre. That is not all she’s taken in, though. No, as a nursing student, Jenny has also visited some lesser-known attractions in London that have been, at the very least, eye-opening.

First stop was the Hunterian Museum, located at the Royal College of Surgeons. John Hunter, an 18th-century surgeon, collected and preserved thousands of specimens of plants and animals (and assorted human body parts) in order to better understand anatomy and improve medical treatment and surgical techniques. His original collection was purchased by the government in 1799, given to the Royal College and grew exponentially over the decades. Even though a large portion of the collection was lost during the bombing of London during World War II, Jenny was amazed at the number and variety of items on display.

They then proceeded to the Old Operating Theatre, dating back to the 1820s and the oldest in all of Europe. It’s actually located in the attic space of a church which adjoined St. Thomas’s Hospital — convenient, I guess, whether the surgery was successful or not. Actually, a large skylight just above the operating table provided good light, and the gallery gave apothecaries and physicians-in-training the opportunity to observe and learn. This was, of course, in the days before anaesthesia was available (except for opium and alcohol, that is), so speed was important. Jenny’s group saw a demonstration of how an amputation might be done, including the knives and other instruments used. Her one-word assessment: “Gross!” Usually, these modern nurses-to-be would also visit the Florence Nightingale Museum, also located at St. Thomas’s, but it is closed right now for updating.

Just this past Wednesday the group took in a little more medical history when they visited St. Mary’s Hospital and the lab where Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. Fleming had been working with staph bacteria before he’d left on a two-week holiday. On his return, he was clearing away Petri dishes that had become contaminated with mold and happened to notice that the bacteria in those dishes seemed to have been killed by the mold. Jenny found this quite instructive and deduced a few nuggets to live by: Taking a break from work can be good for you in unexpected ways, and perfection in housekeeping could be detrimental, also in unexpected ways. (I would say that when she was a teenager in our house, she had already embraced that last philosophy!)

It just goes to show that there are always fascinating places to see and new things to learn that are often off the beaten track from the usual tourist destinations in the cities we visit. Follow your own interests and inclinations, grab a map or Google a bit and create your own personalized tour.

– Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader