Monday, January 29, 2007

Travel Bliss

On Friday night I flew to Toronto for the weekend. Before that, though, I spent a whopping 7 1/2 hours (no, that isn't a typo) at LaGuardia. Waiting. Sometimes patiently, sometimes, not so much. (Interestingly, both of the Air Canada flights from LGA to YYZ that were scheduled to leave after mine actually left hours before mine did. I chalk this up to something about airlines that I don't understand.)

Fortunately, I love traveling and I even love airports. There's an Ani DiFranco song that sums up my feelings quite nicely.

My recent flight home from California was on the Friday night redeye. I hate to admit this, but the older I get, the more aware I am that, while a good idea in theory, the redeye isn't so hot in practice. I hate the idea of spending a whole day traveling across the country, however, I just end up sleeping the whole day I get home. Anyway. The redeye on JetBlue has its advantages. In addition to the DirecTV and awesome snacks, passengers on these flights receive the Bliss Shut-Eye Kit.

My first experience with Bliss dates back to 2000, the year I first lived in NY. I was working at a company that shared office space with BBC America, and Ian, one of the radio reporters was doing a piece on Bliss. As part of the story, he had to bring someone to have a treatment at the spa. I eagerly volunteered to be his guinea pig, and the service (a Hot Salt Body Rub) was scheduled. (The weekend before the appointment, I fell asleep in Central Park with my t-shirt cleverly pulled up so that I could get some sun on my underexposed belly, which wasn't so smart, but we went ahead anyway.) The treatment was amazing, with the only drawback being that Ian basically saw me naked. It's kind of hard to jam a microphone in someone's face with your eyes closed, and it was a full-body treatment. (Trivia note: Bliss was started by a woman from Saskatchewan. Yay Canada!)

The Shut-Eye Kit is a brilliant cross-promotion between JetBlue and Bliss. It's a little ziplocky bag with an eye shade, earplugs, a teeny tiny sample of Lemon Sage Body Butter, and a one-use amount of minty lip balm. I love the Shut-Eye Kit. For one, it's free. Free stuff! On an airline! A discount airline, no less! Secondly, it contains really practical items. I'm not a huge fan of earplugs (they always fall out, except for those really squishy green ones, which these aren't), but the eye mask rocks, and wearing one really is the only way to sleep on an airplane. And, it's well-designed. Good design makes me happy.

So thanks, JetBlue, for kicking it up! I will admit though that I had absolutely no trouble sleeping, little kit of fun or not, when my flight finally left LGA at 1:30am on Friday. Er, Saturday.

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