Guest Post: The Product That Saves Dying Nails

 Beauty advice interlude: My super cool friend Debie is a makeup artist in New York, and today she was nice enough to share one of her tricks of the trade. 

Ladies-- when it comes to first world problems, we know that chipped, broken nails can be one of the worst offenses.  They snag our most delicate of clothing, ruin our favorite tights, and leave us living in fear of every soda can top.  As a former nail biter (I was one of those “I didn’t even know I was doing it and oops now my nails are bleeding” die-hard addicts), a part of me wonders if the nail gods are making me pay for my once-terrible habit with the curse of weak, brittle tips.

Fortunately for those of us not blessed with naturally fierce claws, relief is found in the form of Rejuvacote, a miracle product manufactured by Duri Cosmetics, a company operating out of Brooklyn.  This humble pink antidote has transformed my cracked and peeling nubs into healthy tips, growing stronger by the day with each slick application.  Directions suggest you apply a fresh coat daily for 7 days but I found it hard to resist applying multiple coats in one sitting to achieve a finish that’s distractingly glossy.  One brief week later and my “dying nails” might not be “to die for” as their tagline promises, but they do look and feel pretty darn good.

Rejuvacote certainly isn’t the only effective nail strengthener out there but for about $8 a pop (I purchased mine from my local Bed Bath & Beyond), it’s a much cheaper option than other strengtheners (comparable alternates are OPI Nail Envy which retails for $17 and Nail Tek Xtra which retails for $12) and infinitely more practical than indulging in a weekly manicure.  Armed with Rejuvacote and a little patience, let those fear of pop tops fade away and instead let those nails shine (literally)!

Paris vs DC Bikeshare: Joe's Adventures in Bikesharing

I asked Joe to write about Paris Bikeshare vs. DC Bikeshare.  Before he gets to it, I just wanted to share a tip if you decide to try the Vélib’ system when you are in Paris.  I was worried about whether our American credit cards would work in the bikeshare machine.  I tried to research this but it was inconclusive as to whether you need a chip and pin credit card.   So on the advice of Oh Happy Day, I bought my pass online.  I didn't bother with the Navigo pass she mentions, and instead just bought the 7-day pass off the Vélib’ website.  That gave me an ID number, I create a pin code, I then printed out the sheet with that info and carried it in my purse.  When you get to station, head to the computer terminal, hit the language button, enter those codes and select your bike!  Worked like a charm.

I also wanted to add another note about how nice people were - a young guy saw us struggling with the computer and came over to help.  So nice!

And now here's Joe:

Adele was kind enough to invite me to pen a guest post about our adventures in shared bicycling. Many of you know that I’ve been trying to ride my bicycle as much as possible recently. Not only is it nice to get out in the fresh air and burn a few calories, but every trip I take by bike means those miles don’t go on the odometer of the 1996 Honda Civic that was handed down to me by my younger sister (it is the last in a long line of hand me down automobiles that started with a beautiful 1986 Saab 9000 that I bought with money earned by selling some cannily bought Microsoft stock, so it’s not like I’m a complete charity case).

After buying an (expensive) starter bike a few years ago I enjoyed it so much decided I needed a completely unnecessary upgrade. Too many hours perusing what I lovingly refer to as “bike porn,” I settled on my beautiful 2009 Cannondale SuperSix Hi-Mod. Full carbon. SRAM Red group. Helluva bike. Race ready.

My second bike is decidedly more humble. Fenders. Whitewall tires. Did I mention I have to share it with 25,000 of my closest friends? That said, I might derive both more pleasure and utility from the Bikeshare bike. For $75 a year I have access to caches of bikes spread across the city. For no additional fee, I can grab one and sprint off to any neighborhood I can get to in 30 minutes or less. If you hustle, you can get almost anywhere worth visiting. Some of my favorite memories over the past year have been riding to or from a new bar or sandwich shop and just enjoying the sights and sounds of the city with Adele and our friends.

As Adele and I (read: Adele) started planning our recent trip to France, we learned that Paris has a similar system, Velib, which is decidedly more expansive due to what I can only guess are more generous taxpayer subsidies. They did just elect a socialist president, after all.

Knowing that I’m obsessed with the DC version, Adele jumped online and purchased two temporary Velib passes. The French system did not disappoint. The bikes are basically the same. Ours are much easier to dock. Theirs ride a bit faster and have a basket that is infinitely more useful than the stupid half-basket/bungy system here in DC. Their stations are a bit closer together with many more docks per station, but from my observations they have the same problems with the most popular stations emptying out when you really want a bike and being full when you arrive in a hurry.

Paris traffic was a bit intimidating at first, but the network of bike/bus lanes and more or less unused back roads offered what turned out to be a wonderful way to explore the neighborhoods around our apartment. Aside from the occasional inconveniently full or empty station, I really do think bike sharing is the wave of the urban future. One of the main reasons I moved back to DC from Indiana after college was because I pined for a dense urban core that lent itself to walking and public transit. The bikeshare has more or less replaced the bus and the train in my arsenal of transportation options. I can hop on a bike and be almost anywhere in the city much faster and more cheaply than I could get there by car, bus, or train. For free. While getting a bit of exercise.

I have to admit I haven’t researched how much DMV taxpayers have had to put up for the system. I just know that the $75 annual fee is a steal as far as I’m concerned. I’ve also ridden hundreds of miles while my car has sat safely parked and I didn’t burden the roads or the public transit system. A little government-led problem solving has gone a long way. Approximately 340 miles in my case.

Guest Post: New Year Sure Sure - Radio for an Iceland Road Trip

Happy Friday everyone! Julie, my super cool friend from San Francisco who traveled with me to Iceland, is taking over today. I thought she could write about the radio stations we listened in Iceland, mainly one that seemed to be called "New Year Sure Sure" but my Icelandic is a little spotty, so take that with a grain of salt. Here's Julie's rundown of Icelandic top 40 and beyond:

Greetings everyone, this is Julie, guest blogging on GGG this week. Adele graciously asked me to write about something “cool” in music and all I could really think of is Kreayshawn’s viral single “Gucci Gucci”. Clearly I should just stick with writing about Iceland.

Besides basking in the magic that is Iceland, we spent a good chunk of our time there driving around in our rental car. Like all our past road trips, we forgot to bring our own music and had to heavily rely on the radio. You can learn a lot about a place from its local radio stations and Iceland’s radio stations were like a breath of fresh hipster air with a hint of Norwegian Death Metal.

Bon Iver, Mumford and Sons, Adele were on heavy rotation, but not much of Katy Perry or Britney and strangely enough, not a single Bieber song on the radio! That makes me wonder where those Icelandic Bieberers get their fix and why is he everywhere but the radio, I just don’t get it!

Over the course of five days of driving, we switched from our favorite station that sounded like “New Year Sure Sure” to their top 40 station with lots of Lil Wayne and Rihanna. Every once awhile we would hear the latest single from Cake. Yes, you heard me, Cake and it has nothing to do with short skirts nor going for the distance. Cake, have no fear, Iceland has not forgotten you yet, while the world has since the 90s.

Another popular band was called Awolnation, which we had never heard of before Iceland. If AFI and Bassnectar had an emo angsy dubstep lovechild, it would be them. I’m assuming they were very popular there since their single came on like a broken record. Somewhere between being wet and cold from our horseback riding and getting lost on our way to the Blue Lagoon, I saw Adele’s angry fingers fumbling to switch stations when that song came on for the fifty-millionth time.

The radio highlight? Going apeshit for Bjork. What would Icelandic roadtrip be without Bjork?! Not gonna lie, it was epic when her songs came on the radio. Something about the combination of the desolated landscape in Snæfellsjökull and her music made us realized, “holy shit, we’re in muthafuckin’ Iceland, AHHHH!” It made me want to just pull over our VW and break out running with the sheep and smallish horses! But instead Adele just filmed us going gaga with her iPhone (a much safer alternative).

Who knows what would’ve happened if Sigur Rós came on, we might have made a beeline straight for the ocean. Too much Iceland to handle!

Editor's note: We never heard Sigur Rós on the radio, so that theory wasn't tested. Instead, they played a lot of Jessie J, who just doesn't inspire the same reaction. And here's that iPhone video with Bjork playing on the radio whilst driving in the Icelandic countryside.

Iceland Souvenirs

The customs officer asked me what I purchased in Iceland. "Stuffed animals and a bottle of vodka," I said.

He gave me a look and sent me on my way. Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Except I forgot to mention the bow tie. Sorry, U.S. customs officials!

I bought this as a joke. I really wanted to get the Skipper's Pipe, but I couldn't find it at the airport shop on my way home. So I had to stick with Salty Fish. Sure enough, Salty Fish are salty - it's black licorice encrusted in salt, not sugar. Blech! Most people who've tried it have spit it out.

If you want to try it, I'll mail it to you. Seriously. First person who emails me gets dibs on the already opened box of salty licorice. Don't all volunteer at once.

More Touristy Stuff in Iceland

After a couple days in Reykjavik, we hit the road and headed to the Golden Circle to check out some of Iceland's most popular tourist attractions.

Þingvellir went way over our heads in terms of historical/cultural importance. We got out at a rest stop, went in an uninformative gift shop, snapped a few pictures, used the bathroom and left. Tourism in true American fashion.

Next stop: Geysir. Oh, hello gift shop that I thought would be tacky but turned out to be a hipster, urban-farmer clothing store mecca.

I've never been to a windier place than this.

I wondered, "How do I know that the wind isn't going to change and blow this steam right in my face?"

Gulfoss was our favorite of the three attractions by far. So beautiful! So Lord of the Rings.

I don't think these pictures do it justice.

We randomly pulled over here and happened upon a giant 3,000-year-old crater.  That's just another roadside attraction in Iceland.

I really wanted to go hiking in the steam valley at Hveragerði to a heated spring where you can go swimming, but let's just say I am no Mark Trail. I was confused about where the trail started and ended up leading us on a trail from one parking lot to another parking lot. That took an hour and we didn't have time to go on the actual trail because we had to book it to dogsledding. So a scenic parking lot trail it was. Thank God Julie is a patient person!

This is a neat little stepladder over a barbed wire fence cutting through the trail.

After dogsledding, we stopped for dinner at Fjöruborðið, which is renowned for their amazing lobster. Holy cow, that was the best lobster I've had! They were miniature lobsters swimming in butter, as lobster should be.

I think this picture Julie took is so cool, but it looks like it was taken during the Great Depression. Why do I look so doleful? I'm about to dig into a lobster feast!

We went horseback riding at Hestar on our last full day. It was cold and rainy, the kind of rain that comes at you sideways and stings your face. To say I was miserable would be an understatement. Not only miserable, but really scared of the whole endeavor, which could not end soon enough. I keep forgetting that I hate horseback riding. It always sounds fun, but in practice, I never have fun. As soon as the horse starts galloping or even walking quickly, I'm holding on for dear life and imagining myself just bouncing out of the saddle and into the mud.

My problem is that I know that I am not in control, and that it's the horse whose calling the shots, and that is not a good feeling. I admire those who are good at horseback riding though! Julie was a natural, and at least she had fun. I on the other hand, refused to dismount from the horse during our break because the instructor said, "Be careful, the horse might run back to the paddock with your foot still in the stirrup." I just assumed my horse would do that and refused to take the chance.

Touristy Stuff in Iceland: The Blue Lagoon

The people in our hostel dismissed the Blue Lagoon as expensive and touristy, which it is, but they left out the part about it being really fun!  And beautiful, of course.  I say, if you are a tourist in Iceland, you ought to go.  This is the Disneyland of pools.

The entrance looked foreboding.

And the water was an otherworldly blue.

Everyone scurried out of the changing rooms and jumped into the warm water. The air was freezing. But there was a secret door from a hot tub inside to the outside pool, which was a nice touch. We wished that the temperature of the blue lagoon could be cranked up just a tad, but perhaps that is too much to ask.

Here's Julie relaxing in the indoor hot tub. She has silica on her face, as a beauty treatment. There's boxes of silica around the lagoon, don't grab mud from the bottom of the pool, which we contemplated doing at first. We also got 20 minute massages in the Lagoon, which was really nice, even for someone as uptight about massages as me. When in Rome, right?

And if you go to the Blue Lagoon and value your hair, PLEASE wear a swimming cap. The water in the pool absolutely destroyed my hair. I put leave-in conditioner on it before I got in, but the next day it felt like straw. It was so dry and disgusting. I told my mom that when I got home, and she said "Yes, I was going to say that your hair looked weird," a statement which was definitely true, but still put me in a terrible mood. I wish I had sprung for the 100 kroners or whatever it was to get a swimming cap, and then I wouldn't have had to buy $26 hair mask from Sephora when I got home (this one is awesome though) and gotten 1.5 inches of damaged hair cut off. Learn from my mistake!

The inside of the spa was uber modern and sleek. Very lovely. They had fancy lockers that opened via a wristband. Of course it took me 15 minutes to figure out how to use it, grumbling the whole time. They are very serious about showering in public pools in Iceland, which I can understand. We went swimming almost every day at the geothermal pools around Reykjavik and I became a lot less prudish about public nudity, ha. Oh, the ravages of age that I have to look forward to. Just kidding. Sort of.

The first time I went to the pool, at the gigantic Laugardalslaug complex, I made the critical error of wearing my glasses instead of my contacts. I have terrible vision, so when I took off my glasses, all the naked people turned into pink blurs. Ha. If I couldn't see them, they couldn't see me, right? Maybe that was a good way to ease into the spa scene.

But I really loved the Icelandic swimming pool culture. Pools are open most of the day and night, and swimming was a fun thing to do when we had a spare few hours. We were often the only tourists at the public pools, which was great. It is the exact opposite of American pools in the summertime - instead of jumping into a cold pool to escape the heat, we ducked into a hot tub to avoid shivering in a bikini. I thought it was interesting that Icelandic children and pregnant ladies hung out in the hot tubs. Your fellow swimmers would probably have you arrested if you tried that in the U.S.

The night before we went dogsledding, we checked into a hostel near Laugarvatn Fontana, a brand new spa. It was gorgeous, Scandanavian-chic, overlooking a lake with a bunch of different saunas, hot tubs and pools. We were the only ones there, and I walked briskly from the locker room to a long, rectangular pool, trying to avoid hypothermia. I hopped in the main pool, and quickly realized that the water came up only to my knees. Ahhh!! So freezing out. I thought the water would get deeper so I could swim, but no, it was still knee-deep. I ended up sort of frantically half-crawling, half swimming the length of the pool toward the hot tub. I'm glad there was no one around to see that. What is the point of a 3-foot deep pool? No clue. Please weigh in, Icelanders.