Recommendation Rant **language warning**

----A break from the regularly scheduled San Fran posting for this breaking rant----

I enjoy watching Samantha Brown's Travel Channel shows. It's how I hear about many of the activities and shows I look forward to. However, 99.19% of the hotels she stays in and gushes about and recommends cost WAY MORE than I am willing to pay for a freaking BED. A BED people. And a toilet. I sometimes look up (for shits and giggles) the cost of these little rooms she suggests. After I pull myself off the ground I check to see what makes this hotel worth the cost. Let me tell you what I expect from a hotel that charges for these world class service. I would expect various amenities illegal in most civilized societies (except maybe in Nevada and Amsterdam) and I would expect it in triplicate! I had better be freaking high with free drugs because I would have to be to fork over my credit card to pay those prices.

FOR A BED. A BED people.

I also love reading The Pioneer Woman for all her self-deprecation about "roughing it" with her incredibly wealthy husband. My in-laws own a ranch in South Texas. I recognize ranching money when I see it.

So for her to recommend boutique hotels is like her recommending Lucchese boots. Do I sound bitter? Probably. Am I jealous? SHIT YES. However what really ticks me off is that for the most part I would lay down great odds that her readers CANNOT afford to stay in the luxury accommodations she is writing about. I'm not sure what her purpose it, but to me it's coming off as a "look what I have and you don't (nor will you ever have)."

The reason I find this annoying is that this is counter to her usual recommendations (like Neutrogena Shampoo and Dr. Pepper lip balm). Maybe she thinks we want to live vicariously through her. Which would make sense if she listed and suggested other out of price range options, but she did not. Instead this comes from left field and my hopes of getting great ideas via her site for travel have been squashed like a spider at my friend Tracy's house. So bottom line for me is "Don't even bother reading her posts about hotels."

Well, that has saved me some time in the day at least to post more here!

As a way of showing what I DO expect in recommendations and what a reader can expect from here I am going to describe my search for a Hotel in Berlin.

So I'm reading the Reader's Choice issue of Conde Nast Traveler and they listed their favorite hotels. This magazine caters to the ridiculously wealthy I think and most of the things they recommend fall into a "should also include 2 hookers and a gourmet meal that has no calories" category. Also lots of drugs. But because I am nosy and think that sometimes a even blind squirrel can find a nut I looked at the listing of hotels in Berlin for pricing. And apparently when you plan out seventy months in advance like I do you can get deals.

I mean like ONE THIRD the cost of a room at a Luxury hotel!!!! HOLY FREAKING CRAP BATMAN. I got a river view room at Grand Hotel Esplanade in Berlin for UNDER 100 EUROs EACH NIGHT. See me Snoopy dancing?

Here is what I look like



only more blonde and puffier.