Charleston, South Carolina + Kingston, Jamaica
Alison is excited about it being Episode 44, because if you didn't know this already, she's obsessed with numbers. If its a double number like this episode, or if the 1st thing or event of some kind happens on the 1st of the month. You get the idea. Or do you? It's hard to explain exactly what she likes about numbers, all Lulu knows is she knows a number Alison will like when she sees it. Alison thinks she knows what numerology is, and actually does a decent job of explaining it, to her own surprise. Our producer is really into numerology, and recently had her life chart done...we need to get Alison to do it because she would be, say it with me, OBSESSED. We aren't even to our weekly obsessions yet. Lulu has been binge watching The Haunting of Hill House, which is so unlike her. Heres the thing, October bombards you with scary stuff. Scary commercials, scary movies on every channel. She has inadvertently started movies she thought would be normal feel-good movies, and they have turned out to be horror movies. To all her fellow scaredy-cats, it's okay to be scared. And hey, can we get a rating on the screen, in the corner maybe, like a scaredy-cat rating? That'd be super helpful thanks.
By the way our website is a really great way to catch up on back episodes, find out more about us, and connect! You know about this obviously which is why you are here right now. Plus, we are excited to announce our brand new blog! Cue the fanfare! Which you know about because your reading it. Well so you know there will be a companion post to the podcast episode released every week. Our producer is writing them (hello, there!), so not only will you hear great comedy (from us), witty commentary (from her), you'll also get corrections to mispronunciations or mistakes on our part. Alison and Lulu are excited to read these posts themselves as sometimes we don't realize we did these things. The blog is where you'll want to go for great travel resources too. There are links to every thing we talk about, every where we go, everything we do. So if your curiosity is peaked during the podcast, you can check out the companion blog post to find all the travel details. Cool, huh?
In other new news, well, this isn't new to those of you who follow us on social media. So just news then. But not just news, because it's really incredible, awesome, exciting news! On November 6th, election day (hey, you! GO VOTE!), we are going to be on SiriusXM. THAT'S RIGHT!! We are so excited to be guests on Tell Me Everything, John Fugelsang's show on SiriusXM Insight - Channel 121. You can do a free 30 day trial if you don't have it and if you don't love SiriusXM as much as we do by the end of your free trial, you can always cancel. Also you can visit the show's Facebook page.
What are we obsessed with this week? Well, Alison may have had this obsession before, because she's been into it for a long time. But it's that good, you guys have got to try it! The Luna Play Plus is an amazing portable silicone cleansing brush it mildly exfoliates, which she needs to go with her favorite Nerium products and her homemade facial toner.
Lulu's obsession is "Southwest Air". Wait, like the air in Arizona? Oh okay, as in Southwest Airlines. They don't have change fees, and they have incredible customer service, and they literally made her travel dreams come true. She's not one to gush about corporations, but Southwest made the cut.
Alison wishes that candles weren't so expensive. She absolutely loves them. She's bumming hard that you can't get a good one at Publix for under $12. Lulu's counters that you can't get a good candle at Publix. No matter the depth of your google search, any inexpensive candle is absolute crap. Lulu reminds her that the perfume we all wear makes a candle with the same fragrance. Add that to Alison's christmas list. Also add these candles that Lulu's friend makes.
Lulu's wishlist item is for the Zoom H6 pro. It's a recording device that our friend Alan Seales showed her that would make the audio quality of this podcast so much better. Here's the thing, she had one earlier this year, but sold it when she couldn't figure out how to work it. Oops! As soon as Alan showed her, it all made sense.
Lulu could have sworn we'd been here before, but she double-checked and couldn't find it on our master list. Our producer also freaked out when she got our notes, worriedly searching for a duplicate city, but there was none. We think we confused it with Charlotte, North Carolina. Whew, close call. Lulu stays at The Spectator, which describes itself as a maverick boutique hotel. We're here for that description. Amazingly, she only got a regular queen room, because it was over $800 a night. This hotel has luxury service coming out of its ears.She rents a Chevy C7 Z06 for the day from Palmetto Exotic. It's a family owned business that saw the need for exotic car rentals in the ever-growing-in-popularity Charleston area. She drives her luxury chevy to The Grocery for breakfast, where she goes ahead and indulges in a few charred tomato bloody mary's. Why not, she's on vacation!
Ditching the car for a moment, she takes a walk to Mrs. Whaley’s Garden which was chronicled in the book, Mrs. Whaley and her Charleston Garden. It's someone's personal home and garden, and she's curious in a voyeuristic kind of way, about someone who daily let's people come into their space. Now for a 10k Dollar Day first, and a real dream of Lulu's, she's going to buy some art. She would love to be able to buy art that she resonates with in every single city she visits in real life, but in this imaginary day, she's getting what she wants. She walks through some local galleries and buys Blue Spoon by Kim English at the Anglin Smith Fine Art Gallery. More local shopping is in store, next she buys a bottle of High Wire botanical gin, distilled right there in Charleston. She decides she wants to continue on her local shopping spree, so Lulu decides to buy Carolina Sea Salt.
Next Lulu goes to The Macintosh, which is known as the "home of the bacon happy hour". Sold! She starts with two drinks and the daily bacon appetizer, then decides she will stay for dinner as well! Lulu tries bone marrow bread pudding, which Alison is super skeptical of. Who's bone marrow is it? It's always a cow, says Lulu. More appetizing is her dessert choice - Nutella potato chip crunch.
After her day, even with the art purchase, she's over $2500 short of her 10k budget. What's a gal to do in this scenario? Well she goes back and buys every single one of the 876 people in our 10k Dollar Baes group some Carolina Sea Salt. Alison lets out multiple gasps in increasing volume as Lulu reveals that her day came to nine thousand (gasp) nine hundred (gasp) ninety-nine dollars (gasp) and ninety-nine cents (GASP!). Just drop a penny somewhere, Lulu.
Someone told her to go here, but she can't remember who. So just text her, tag her, something, let her know it was you! She is nervous about aiming to spend 10k in Jamaica, but here goes. She stays in a seven bedroom villa she found on Airbnb that overlooks a tropical garden in Ocho Rios. Immediately our producer thinks, "Wait! This is not in Kingston!?" Alison actually caught this, and knew about it, so that's something! She wanted something a bit further out so she could have more time driving around in her Mitsubishi Pajero she rented through booking.com.
She was want for ideas on things to do in Jamaica, so she consulted this printed travel guide from Lonely Planet. It led her to breakfast at The Terrace at Terra Nova. There are plenty of traditional favorites, like bacon (we're thinking bacon today apparently), as well as Jamaican delicacies like Ackee & Saltfish, Escovitch Fish and Steamed Callaloo. Lulu has heard of Ackee but never of that last one, what was it again, Alison? That's right, we get her best guess at pronunciation and it does not disappoint. Full on bacon and callaloo, she heads to the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston and takes the One Love tour. You get to tour Bob Marley's home and the Tuff Gong recording studio. It's only 40 bucks, so cool! The gift shop is full of awesome stuff, and Alison goes crazy making vinyl souvenirs for Lulu and everyone else she knows.
Alison ask's Lulu what the first thing that comes to mind when she thinks of Caribbean Food. JERK, Lulu responds. Which is close to what Alison was thinking...SPICE. She heads to a rural area of Jamaica to take a tour of the Walkerswood factory where they make all kinds of spice blends and sauces. Each jar of spices is $3. Lulu stops Alison mid-sentence to remind her that the salt she bought in Charleston was $3. Whooah...back to numbers again, but wait let's put a pin in it for now because there are some exciting Jamaican things to discuss first. And by that I of course mean that Alison is heading on a ganja tour. After a ride through the mountains you come to a hidden farm where they show you growing techniques and "how to roll like a Jamaican". They also invite you to "feel free to hit the pile & roll your own". This sounds aaaaahhhmaazzzziiinggg, mon. Okay, that was a bit much, but I had to at least once.
She has a feeling that after this tour, she's not going to want to drive, you know what I mean? Yes, we know what she means. So Alison finds someone to take over her Mitsubishi and get her around. Lulu advises that she's not making the safest choices with just picking someone to drive her in her, um, condition. But Alison says they're all friends after the tour so its all good, no worries! Obviously eating comes next, so she goes to get dinner at the Strawberry Hill Hotel. No Jamaican delicacies here, just a normal dinner of salad, chicken, and filet mignon. But she's also going to get ALL of the desserts. Every single one of them. As well as a glass of Hennessy which we know she's been feeling lately. Oh and she shared the love and bought her driver a meal.
Time to hit a reggae club! She heads to Kingston Dub Club, whose slogan is "Please leave all badmind and negative vibes at the gate – only love and light welcome". We are here for that! It's been hours since she's had some ganja, so she's going to need some more. She just decides to buy some off somebody who looks legit. Lulu's chuckles up to this point cumulate into a "are you kidding me!?". These safety-related decisions are very suspect to Lulu, as she reminds Alison of when they were in Jamaica in real life, and how scared they were, to which Alison retorts "I was much younger then". Fair enough.
Oh and back to that pin, with the $3 sauce? You remember, Lulu bought all of our 10k Baes some Carolina Sea Salt, so when Alison said she got $3 sauce, she said she'd come back around to it. Well she ALSO buys all our 10k Baes a $3 souvenir. Symmetry! And that brings her total to nine thousand (gasp) nine hundred (gasp) ninety-nine dollars (gasp) and ninety-nine cents (GASP!) Not sure if that number is exactly correct, but for the love of numerology and for continuity's sake, we'll allow it. Well, there you have it. Now if we could all just take a moment to picture Alison in Jamaican braids, that'd be great.
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