Bathing in milk and cookies at The Plaza Hotel

by Jamie Rhein on

The opulent and famous The Plaza Hotel reopened in New York City on Saturday after a two-year long, pricey renovation. If you have $1,000 dollars to drop, you can stay here for a night. One person who is up on what justifies hotel costs said that the value of The Plaza is the experience. The time spent sleeping must be secondary then, otherwise I’d want the best dreams possible. If I were spending $1,000 a night (I wouldn’t, but let’s assume) I would check in at the first second I could check in, and check out at the last second before another charge kicked in. I don’t think I would sleep–seems like a waste of money to me.

And think about the monetary breakdown. Considering that most hotels don’t give a guest 24-hours in a room, even if you spent 20 hours in your room, that’s $50 per hour. That is cheaper than the hourly rate for most massages or a trip to many general practitioner physicians in the U.S. Still, that would mean you paid for twenty hour-long massages or visited a little less than twenty doctors in order to equal $1,000.

I would be so determined to make my $50 an hour stay worth it that I’d be flustered about what to do to maximize my optimum experience. Hang out in the lobby to be noticed? Walk the halls seeing who else can afford $1,000 a night? Swim? Work out? Can you swim and work out? I couldn’t find a pool listed on the Web site. What can one do at The Plaza without spending another dime? Can you bring in outside snacks and sandwiches? Perhaps, you could buy a knish or a hot dog from a street vendor hanging out near Central Park just before check-in to help with the budget.

According to the news about The Plaza, every guest can take a bubble bath with milk and cookies. At first when I read that detail, I pictured someone taking a bath in milk and cookies. Can’t you picture floating Oreos? There’s something that seems a bit gross and disgusting about the idea, though, since somewhere in Central Park that the hotel overlooks, homeless people are hanging out. But on the other hand, if you could drink the milk and eat the cookies while you are bathing in the tub with its 24-karat gold faucets, this type of bath would save you some money. You could have your bath for breakfast. I wonder if you just get one bath per visit, or could you slip in a few extra? [via AP]

African-American heritage tours

by Jamie Rhein on

With Leap Year we get an extra day for Black History Month. Even so, February is not enough to highlight all the places one might go to find out about African-American contributions. With just a few hours left, here are several tours designed to provide a scope of African-American history and culture. You don’t need to wait until next February–these are any time of year offerings.

In Washington, D.C., the company, Sightseeing Tours–The African American Tour specialists has three walking tour options: Walking in the Footsteps of Martin Luther King Jr. Tour; Duke Ellington’s Jazz Tour; and the Historical Educational Tour of U Street. U Street was the heart of the African American community from 1920-1950. The photo is of the Duke Ellington Mural on U Street. The company also has bus tours. The African American Heritage and Culture tour covers 200 years of history.

The African-American Heritage Tour in Durham, North Carolina includes North Carolina Central University, the first public liberal arts school for African-Americans and Stagville, a former plantation that is now a center for study about African-American life during slavery.

For a do-it-yourself itinerary of African-American sites in Mississippi, here are some suggestions. One place to stop is the Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center in Jackson. Here’s a place to learn about the “work, lifestyle and contributions of African Americans. One of them is Richard Wright who wrote the book Native Son.

The Quest for Freedom, Living History Tour in Columbia, Pennsylvania covers includes stops on the Underground Railroad.

In Savannah, Georgia, the African Influence Tour includes slavery, Gullah culture, Underground Railroad landmarks and the oldest African-American Baptist church in the United States.

The African-American Heritage tour in Detroit, Michigan has a menu of three tour options that encompass the scope of historical sites and landmarks.

The Black Heritage Trail tours in Boston, Massachusetts are offered by the Museum of African American History and cover the 19th century African-American community in this city.

What I’ve listed here are not all of the African-American Heritage tours by a long shot, but they are a place to start.

World Heritage Sites New Tentative List: Places We Love–You decide

by Jamie Rhein on

For the past weeks, we’ve have highlighted the 14 sites on the new Tentative List for U.S. World Heritage in a “Places we Love series.” Regardless,if they’re chosen within the next ten years–as long as it could take to become official, they are all worth a visit. But, people’s tastes differ. Some like history, while others are wild about nature. Buildings set some folks on fire, while for others, they are a yawn.

Of the 14 sites, which one would you choose? Check them out once more if you need to using the gallery and then make your choice on the survey. In March, we’ll let you know what Gadling readers think. Maybe the committee will listen to us. Each photo has a brief description culled from the previous posts.

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Love from London: The best pub in Britain

by Iva Skoch on

As you well know, the Brits take their pubs very seriously, so nobody should be surprised that they actually vote for the best pub in the country every year. The judges say the competition “analyzes all the criteria that makes a good pub – including the quality of the beer, atmosphere, décor, customer service, clientele mix and value for money.”

According to the Times Online, the The Old Spot Inn in Dursley, Gloucestershire, a 100-year-old inn has won the 2008 Pub of the Year award from the Campaign for Real Ale, “despite having no juke box, pool table, fruit machine or theme.” Fruit machine or theme, I love that.

You can actually watch the video to get a feel for the atmosphere here, but I’ll tell you – when it comes to pub crawling, virtual reality doesn’t really come close to the real thing. We’ll have to wait for some sort of “Third Life” before we can actually enjoy a virtual beer.

Sexy Scandinavian history: The provocative style of Viking women

by Anna Brones on

If you think today’s Swedish women are hot, take a look at their ancestors. New research shows that Viking women did in fact dress in a provocative manner. The historic Scandinavian beauties combined Nordic with oriental styles, adorning themselves in bright colors, silk ribbons and small glittering mirrors.

Until recently, historians believed that Viking women dressed conservatively. The new findings are based on research headed up by archaeologist Annika Larsson, done in the Russian region of Pskov near Novgorod, an area that Swedish Vikings used as an Eastern trade route.

An exhibition on the new view of clothing and other cultural aspects of the Viking age is now on display at Uppsala University’s Gustavianum Museum, and running through September 14, 2008. If you’re planning on being in Sweden between now and September, it might be worth a stop; what could be hotter than Viking history?