PARA DOS MARGARITAS

Coming Monday: Margarita Madness Contest.

While you're waiting, here's a recipe a friend sent me some years ago, along with a gift, an antique silver shaker, circa 1900.

1 ½ ounces Tequila (Sauza Hornites)
1 ½ ounces Cointreau or Triple Sec (the first choice being Cointreau)
Juice of one whole lime, or to taste

BORN-AGAIN VIRGIN

I was a spa virgin until a year and a half ago. I’d been to resorts, but not a spa with a capital S, not what they call a destination spa. (And no, I am not going to go and tell you what “spa” means again.) I went to a certain spa in Scottsdale, okay, The Sanctuary, and had a pedicure and a totally transformative watsu and swam in the infinity pool (as well as the lap pool and another pool on the grounds) and did yoga, poolside, at dawn.

Now it’s been a stretch, and I’m starting to feel like a born-again spa virgin. Which makes me really, really pine for this one: An all-include three-day stay at Mii Amo in Sedona, Arizona. Bizarrely, on the heels of this week’s Virgin Territory (Virgin Airlines) contest, this is another virgin-themed sweeps, the book The Virgin’s Guide to Everything, which is supposed to assist women do things right and well the first time. (I wonder if the book discusses firsts like plucking your first gray eyebrow hair.) Real Simple (the magazine) is in on this as a sponsor. I want this one so badly that I am considering sending in entries via snail mail, a first. Ah! So, I’m a sweeps virgin, too. To enter, click here.

FOR DOMESTIC BLISSTERS

When I find a hole in the otherwise rich English language, I like to take a stab at filling it. Sometimes this whimsy teetering on hubris works, sometimes it doesn’t. I’m undecided about my latest: “blisster,” someone who follows his or her bliss as prescribed by Joseph Campbell. The word has potential in that it evokes “hipster.” It’s problematic in that its homophone is “blister.” Though you could easily get a blister being a blisster. Following your bliss can be a bear.

I don’t mean to suggest I’m developing calluses on my fingers from all this clicking and entering. But as I’ve previously indicated, this systemic sweepstaking is not effortless, especially the daily entries that make you key in your address and, most often, your birthday and phone number and email (twice, to be sure) each and every time.

This is a roundabout way of getting to my summer travel plans, an annual exercise in following my bliss. Part of me wants to stay stateside and do something in the great outdoors. Last year, I rented a little log cabin in Bath County, Virginia. My son and I went for soaks at The Jefferson Pools and swimming in our own private water hole right there on the farm, in the Wallawhatoola River, which has been renamed The Cowpasture River. Another possibility is Maine, the only New England state my son has yet to visit.

Then again, if Lady Luck deigned to descend upon my little life in the form of one of these trips, I’d be feeling a touch of the bliss.

Missouri, Lake of the Ozarks, two nights at the Country Club Hotel and Spa and – love this – a picnic at Ha Ha Tonak State Park. My grandmother’s nickname was Ha Ha. To enter, click here.

This month’s Hot Spot Contest from Frommer’s is four days in the New York Finger Lakes region, in counties whose names mean nothing to me save Steuben, where Corning Glass is made. For the itinerary, scroll down the Official Rules to the prize language.

For more on Joseph Campbell and the pursuit of bliss, click here.

RUG'S THE DRUG

The allergy-fog has lifted after two long zomby days and I am raring to go on a magic carpet ride.

First, my rug dealer. There have been very few times in my life where my response to an object has been so strong that I am overcome by an immediate and overwhelming urgency to possess it. I’m too practical and, more often than not, cash-strapped to boot. One of those times involved a Gabbeh rug. If you don’t know what a Gabbeh rug is, check out this site, in particular this screen. Sumak Gabbehs just make me swoon.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I had never seen anything like it, and I've eyed a fair number of rugs over the years. It was hanging outside a neighborhood rug store, a rectangle of color the vibrancy of which I’d never seen outside nature; it made my eyes ache dry. The rug had a deep blue field, with a squared border and dots like colored stars in the center. I was driving by the store, in our old blue 1982 Saab. My son was in the back seat, being his vaccinated-with-a-phonograph-needle, ringlet-headed three-year-old self. My response to this rug was so strong that my memory plays back tires screeching to a near halt. But I decelerated gradually, without making a scene, and looked at the rug, without causing an accident, and finished running whatever errand I was running, I think to get takeout. When I got home, I called the store.

This is how I met my rug dealer. The fellow on the line, my once and future rug dealer, had a very inviting voice, and when I declared my love for said rug hanging outside said store, he told me someone else was interested. This may or may not have been the case, it’s an old sales strategy, but I fell for it. I told him – by now he’d told me his name was Drew -- I simply had to have that rug. I think he flattered me and told me I had good taste, I had an eye. I think I ate it all up. I think I told him, “Yes, champagne taste, beer budget.” He suggested I come by the store. I went over the next day. I bought the rug, in a fit of temporary insanity given my circumstances. My income status had recently changed from a two-earner household to a one-earner household.

This blue rug would be my first of five Gabbehs, all purchased from Drew and his then-employer, whose store, which has since closed, shall remain nameless. Drew came to call me Gabbeh Girl, my second favorite nickname. (My absolute favorite is Barbara Fellini, which was bestowed on me by a college friend, a lovely woman from Tunisia.) Drew and I talked and laughed about my addiction to Gabbehs. I would stop by the store a few times a month, to look at new shipments. We joked about founding a 12-step program for rug addicts, “step” as in stepping on a rug. Five may not sound like a lot, but I did burn through a chunk of my savings for these beauties; if my apartment were larger, I would have bought me.

I haven’t spoken to my rug dealer in a few years. He has his own store now, The Eos Collection. Contemplating a fantasy textile itinerary reminded me that I must pick up the phone and give that man a call. It also reminded me how much I love textiles, and how every item in my modest collection – the Gabbeh rugs, two blue rugs from Teotitlan de Valle, in Oaxaca, Mexico, made by the daughter of renowned rug maker Isaac Vasquez (purchased directly from her on a visit there in 2003), a Pakistani area rug with a tree of life design on it – gives me enormous, active pleasure every single day.

Now, for my Magic Carpet Tour. It’s not the one I originally envisioned. Are they ever?

Marrakesh, Morocco: How could anyone be indifferent to this? Istanbul, Turkey: This is a lovely key to motifs: Iran (various, Tabriz, Farahan): Here’s an overview of Persian rugs.

I know Iran would be dicey right now, but remember, the prize here is not your dream itinerary, it's a trip to London. To enter, start here.

PLUS CA CHANGE

Update from yesterday: I had a little technical difficulty over at the kayak.com site and have not yet successfully entered my Virgin Territory itinerary, for the trip to London. I will try, try, try again and trust that my entry will go through without a hitch by the sweeps’ May 15 deadline. I will also get around to riffing about my rug dealer and my hometown’s long reach into my travel template when things quiet down here at the ranch.

In the meantime, I’ve entered a sweeps for a cruise of the Greek Islands. It’s kind of an exception to my “no cruise” rule in that it’s not a place like Antarctica or the Galápagos which is only accessible by boat. But I have nostalgic reasons for wanting to go. I was supposed to go on a cruise of the Greek isles when I went to Europe with my French teacher when I was sixteen, but there was a war in Cyprus, and we ended up cruising the Adriatic, leaving from and returning to Venice, and going to Malta and Sicily.

I kept a travel journal, and boy, was I an unschooled, unformed writer. “Today I got up at about 11 and went to look at Malta,” I wrote in my journal. “We are docked in a port which is a cross between a lumberyard and a dump. This cruise is going to some poor places.” I describe a walk that same day, of what presumably was the port of call of Valetta: “There are no ladies from 10 to 30 years old, the guys were GROSS and it was do hot! We sat at a bus stop for about 15 minutes and then went back to the ship. It was so boring this afternoon and tonight I thought I’d go crazy!” Oh, the seeds of a curmudgeonly traveler had already taken root.

Another motive is, surprise, surprise, my son. We’ve been studying Greek mythology together, and I think he’d love Athens and then a week of island hopping. Another feather of a fantasy in my cap.

To enter, I registered with the folks at Friendly Planet In exchange for my entry, I’ve agreed to receive their Hot Deals newsletter. Here’s the detailed itinerary.

LIKE A VIRGIN

People complain about runny noses, itchy eyes and scratchy throats when those invisible assailants commonly known as allergens descend upon them come the spring. My allergy symptoms typically assume metaphysical states: ambivalence, indecisiveness, lack of focus, acute scatteredness. Today’s, the first bad day of the season, were so destabilizing they felt synthetic, as though they’d been produced by a narcotic, which of course had been commissioned by the arch enemy of productivity.

And what kind of a day did you have today?

Ironically, today’s sweeps is bursting with riff potential. These two innovative travel concerns and sweeps sponsors, Virgin Atlantic and Kayak.com, both have their offices in my hometown of Norwalk, Connecticut. This is where I grew up, whence I wanted to escape, where I return, every year, over and over, where I have spent every single Christmas of my life. I shall however save this riff, on places of origin and how they provide the expectation template for travel for life, for a cloudy, and, heaven help us, allergen-free day.

Here we have yet another one that makes entrants work for a chance for the brass ring. They want your idea of Virgin Territory. This kind of entry has steps. Step 1: Select a category. (I selected Shopping.) Step 2. Provide a title. (“Exquisite Textile Experiences”). Describe your idea. ( “A trek top the world’s best rug makers, from Turkey to Afghanistan to Persia.”) Step 3. We have to provide between 3 and 25 destinations to the mix. I cannot imagine anyone who would go so far as to take this beyond five destinations; three is plenty enough in my book.

I’m so allergy groggy that I don’t think I’m going to be able to finish and enter this one this evening. I don’t want to compromise my standards and enter inappropriate locales, places where rug makers use synthetic dyes.

I’m going to finish this one anon. Then maybe I’ll have the wherewithal to riff about my hometown as well as my drug dealer. Yes, my rug dealer. I’m addicted.

P.S. The prize is a trip to London, not your idea of Virgin Territory.

NO PROCEDURE REQUIRED

I found this three-nights-at-a-spa sweeps from the ad that’s been running now for several days in that wide skyscraper Google Adsense sidebar to the left of your screen. Scroll down and you can’t miss it: www.botoxcosmetic.com. If it’s still there, that is. I’ve resisted looking into it, because of the usual ambivalence about the ascendance of plastic surgery and cosmetic enhancements in our culture. But that word “spa” – spa, spa, spa, apparently from the Latin, salus per aquam, wellness through water, or espa, which is Latin for fountain – proved impossible to resist.

Now, I did not cheat, I did not click on the Google ad on my own site, that is against the rules. I typed out the URL (duke, duke, duke, duke of URL) and discovered this promotional sweeps for three nights at the Bodega Bay Lodge & Spa on the Sonoma Coast. The stay includes two massages and a gourmet brunch and airfare. The prize, with an Approximate Retail Value of $3,860, is good for one year after notification.

Before I started clicking, I read the Official Rules to make sure this wasn’t like those time-share giveaway traps where I’d have to go and listen to some plastic surgeon expound on the benefits of botulism injections. I think some doctors are certifiable about these treatments, and I do not mean board certified. Several years ago I was being treated for a major ear infection by an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor who did cosmetic procedures on the side. He was as handsome as they come, not my type though, I’ve never gone for that escaped mannequin look; of course his assistant was central-casting attractive, too. Well, the two of them discussed the elasticity of my facial skin while he extracted massive amounts of fungus from my ear canal. The pain was excruciating, like having a root canal of the ear. Had it not been so painful, would they have gotten an earful, a piece of my indignant mind.

So, no procedure required here. You do have to fill out a few questions, like whether you’ve had a Botox treatment (no! no! no!) and when you were considering getting a Botox treatment (I can’t remember what I checked off; I know they didn't have a checkbox for never).

Entering will expose you and your loved ones to promotional emails and snail-mail literature. (As for the latter, not as much as magazine subscriptions used to. Speaking of which, in the early 1990s, for reasons that are too complicated to detail here, I subscribed to The New Republic under the name Curt Manners. I got mail for Mr. Curt Manners for years, including a letter from then President Bill Clinton, soliciting donations for the Democratic National Committee. It was very entertaining at the time.) To enter the sweeps, click here. Or go right ahead and click on the Google ad if it’s still there. It’s not against the rules for you. Wink, wink.

PERU FOR TWO

One of my sacred rules is not to enter sweeps that require a purchase of any sort. I am however open to the occasional contest, like sending a short essay, as I did for the German-sponsored sweeps to the World Cup (which is increasingly sounding like things could get dicey, with reports of expected hooliganism and dreadful racist incidents at matches in France and Spain) or subscribing to an e-letter provided it’s informative and/or a good cause.
This sweeps, for a nine-day trip to Peru, meets that standard.

To enter, I signed up to receive the Daily Grist, a roundup of environmental news put out by the online magazine Grist. The site’s new to me, so I haven’t been able to get a feel for it. I’m optimistic. Grist bills itself as offering “Environmental News and Humor.” A little levity helps soften the blow of apocalyptic forecasts.

As for the trip, it’s a dandy. I’ve never been to South America, and very much want to get there. The itinerary: Lima, the Urubamba Valley, Machu Picchu, the Amazonia Tambopata Nature Reserve. The prize comes with $500 for airfare. Which won’t cover two, but the total value of the trip, minus the stipend, is $5,600. I wouldn’t fret over that. To enter, click here. For the Official Rules, here. Be sure to respond to the email they send after you've entered to complete your entry.

Otherwise, it’s a glorious spring day weather-wise. Soft air, soft light, a stretch with a caressive quality to it. The city seems quieter as a result. Work is slightly less glorious, but I am hopeful that I will be able to straighten out matters in the coming days.

TEN CHANCES FOR EUROPE

I’ve been thinking that what I do, getting off on the fantasy of travel, albeit cerebrally, is not very different from dabbling in online pornography. I’ve gone so far as to concoct Mae West lines in my head. “If travel is the new sex, heaven help us. The foreplay is so boring.” I had packing in mind.

Now Anthony Lane has gone and expressed a similar thought on the subject of online fantasy travel as pornography in this week’s New Yorker, a themed issue about “Journeys.” “I like to spend an idle hour surfing the site,” he writes, “planning languid weekends in little-known spots; the technical term for this is ‘pornography.’” The site in question is Ryanair’s. Lane has written a fine piece on Europe’s discount airlines, Ryanair, easyJet, but mainly Ryanair. (Note to travel agents: Do not reveal your profession should you ever find yourself in the presence of Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary. He's not a fan.)

Anyway, she who hesitates is lost. Please know that I thought this thought before I read Anthony Lane's thought.

It’s a fascinating issue, with articles about cannibalism (The Donner Party), immigrant smuggling by Chinese sharkheads, The Mayflower (a book review) and a short story by Martin Amis, “The Last Days of Muhammed Atta.” You remember him. He was the lead September 11 hijacker. Not exactly traditional destination travel-magazine fodder.

Wanderlust, travel yearnings. There’s some overlap between libido and the impulse to journey; understandably people talk more about travel than they talk about sex. They may even think more about travel than they think about sex, though that by no means is a given. Scottish researchers recently analyzed the behavior of 500 individuals who subjected themselves to speed dating. The event was organized in conjunction with the Edinburgh Science Festival. (I wonder if the researchers are aware that organized speed dating is a possible violation of the Geneva Convention: utter torture.)

According to the The Scotsman, researchers identified the best “chat-up lines:”

The top-rated male's best line was “If you were on Stars in Their Eyes, who would you be?”, while the top-rated female asked bizarrely: “What's your favourite pizza topping?”

Well, we knew that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. What we may not have known is that talk of travel makes the heart grow fonder:

Conversation topics were also assessed. Only 9 per cent of pairs who talked about films agreed to meet again, compared with 18 per cent who spoke about the subject found to be the most suitable for dating: travel.

It is thought women's taste for musicals clashed with the male liking for action films, while talking about "great holidays and dream destinations" made people feel good and appear more attractive to each other.

Now, what would happen if women starting asking men what their favourite pizza topping was the last time they were in Italia?

Speaking of which, here’s a chance to win a trip to Italy, and nine other European itineraries, between now and September. Sponsored by the European Travel Commission and American Express Travel, there will be 10 biweekly drawings starting at the end of May. Enter once, and you are eligible for each subsequent drawing. Enter by May 26 to be eligible for all ten. To enter, click here. For the Official Rules, click here. Here's a list of the prizes in order of the drawings:

Drawing 1 Spain
Drawing 2 Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland
Drawing 3 Germany, Austria
Drawing 4 Italy
Drawing 5 Ireland
Drawing 6 France
Drawing 7 England
Drawing 8 Portugal
Drawing 9 Czech Republic, Hungary
Drawing 10 Sweden

ANGUILLA FUSION

Today was an interesting day sweeps-wise. I got up in the middle of the night, before the birds, that old insomnia, and clicked on my four daily-entry sweeps (Audi Road Trip, World Cup, Working Mom, Luxury Link).

When I woke up for good, after the birds, I tried to enter the Gourmet Montréal Getaway Sweepstakes. Only I kept getting an error message. Me thinks my entry was “lost, late misdirected, garbled, or incompletely received for any reason, including by reason of hardware, software, browser, or network failure, malfunction, congestion, or incompatibility at Sponsors’ servers or elsewhere,” rendering my entry ineligible. That legalistic language is lifted verbatim from the Official Rules. I'm guessing my entry got garbled. It felt like a garbled entry.

No big, since as lovely as Montréal would be, especially considering my visit there with my parents, I would prefer a more tropical locale. With that in mind, I successfully entered the Bon Appétit sweeps. Remember: You can enter without subscribing to the magazine. Now, this one, for five nights at The CuisinArt Resort & Spa in Anguilla, with airfare, a master cooking class and a tasting dinner, looks sublime. My one quibble, and I noticed this when I read about the resort when it opened a few years ago, is the resort’s fusion of Mediterranean and Caribbean sensibilities. The design was inspired by Greek island architecture. People liken it to Mykonos in the Caribbean. That’s a little jarring to this purist, like those Asian-influenced resorts in the Southwest, but I think I could get over what really in the end is a minor detail lickety-split.

This one has me absolutely pining.

Later that same day, which would be today, I chanced upon a sweeps on the Southwest Airlines website, for a three-night trip to SeaWorld for four, with air and admission tickets. It closes July 31. I can’t resist imagining the expression on my son’s face after I told him I’d won one of the sweeps I’d entered with him in mind, like this one.

SOMETHING PHISHY

This doesn’t rise to the level of travel fraud, but Gourmet Magazine’s full-page come-hither ad, on page 179 of its April issue, for a Montréal getaway, is annoying bordering on duplicitous. The ad beckons readers to enter what it calls “The Great Gourmet Montréal Getaway Sweepstakes," then describes the prize (roundtrip airfare, deluxe hotel accommodations, dinner for two, admission to the world’s most spectacular botanical gardens, whatever that is), then invites reader to go to the magazine’s website for more details.

"No Purchase Necessary" appears at the bottom of the page in fine but readable print.

Well, at the website, it’s all about subscribing and getting the chance to win the sweepstakes that way. Give me a break! The print ad should have made its intentions clear. Now, there is an option to enter the sweeps without subscribing to the magazine, (which, ironically, I was going to do), but it’s in tiny green type and it is not self-evident and then after I finally get there, I had serious trouble entering this no subscription way.

If you are so inclined, check it out.

Annoyingly, when you leave the site, there’s an “exit popup” for a Caribbean sweeps if you subscribe to Bon Appétit. Ah! It's inescapable.

If I think of it, I will try to enter both between now and the time they close.

Am I not shameless?

Separately, I’ve been seeing sweeps mirages lately.

When I was going to a listserv on Yahoo! last week, I swear I saw a sweeps to the World Cup. This was very exciting to me, because it was before I chanced upon the T-Mobile sweeps I’m entering daily. Strangely, I've never seen this sweeps again. I know I spend far too much time online, but I can't recall ever seeing a mirage of this sort before. Thank goodness the T-Mobile sweeps is satisfying my World Cup sweepslust.

Then, over the weekend, I went to the NBA website and saw a sweeps to the finals (like the World Cup sweeps, this is more for the boy than for me). It was a standard online entry that I planned to submit when I got back to the ranch. Only once back I found that it had morphed into an ad for a sweeps that requires dropping by a T-Mobile store to enter. Sure, if I’m in the neighborhood.

CRACKING THE CODE: CASTLE IN SCOTLAND

I’m visiting my mother and what novel does she wonder if I’ve read: The Da Vince Code. My sister had given it to her for Christmas. "You can’t put it down," she tells me. Maybe not. But I’m reading Frank Conroy’s Stop-Time, his memoir, a book that I not only can put down, but one that I have to put down. It gets that disturbing.

She’s retired for the evening, my son is watching the Wizards play the Bulls, and I am clicking around the New York Times website when what do I find, above an article in the Real Estate Section titled, How Big Is Too Big? An ad for a sweeps: Win a Scottish Castle! Five nights for 10 at Fenton Tower, September 11 through 15, from Newark to Edinburgh on Continental, golf, whiskey, fly-fishing and Edinburgh.

Of course I entered. It’s open through May 15.

It's one entry per person. (Thank goodness. These bloody sweeps with daily entries are really beginning to get to me.)

What does this have to do with The Da Vinci Code? The castle’s Rosslyn Chapel is in the novel, that’s what. And there’s real history in this sixteenth-century castle: "In 1591, King James VI of Scotland (son of Mary Queen of Scots, and later King James I of England and Scotland) hid from a rebel army in Fenton Tower, today it can provide you with a luxurious refuge," notes Lloyd & Townsend Rose, a firm specializing in luxury holidays, including plenty of stays in Scottish castles.

You know, there’s another Da Vinci Code sweeps lurking out there somewhere, to Paris, and I hesitated entering it because I have not read the novel. Even though I still have not read the novel, I felt that I had to enter this one, coming on the heels of my mother recommending the novel. Plus, it’s my third sweeps to Scotland since I embarked on this luck lark. Yes, things do happen in threes. The trick is to know when to start counting.

To enter, click here.

DOG DAY AFTERNOONS AT SUNDANCE

Here’s one for a trip to next year’s Sundance Film Festival, for two, and the winner’s dog, sponsored by CESAR Little Dog brand. Which begs several questions: Must entrants own a dog? The eligibility rules do not stipulate as much, but the entry form does ask for name of the entrant’s dog, plus the dog’s size. I tried to enter but got some funky error path message and will try again. I’m planning to enter with my son’s dog, a large Belgian Shepard, as my own. Who knows if that would fly. And who knows if, should I win, I could get that dog to fly. I can’t help but wonder if CESAR doesn’t want a small dog owner to win, given that’s the kind of dog food the company makes and sells. And there’s that little trend of celebrities toting small dogs everywhere, which no doubt is fueling the this sweeps. I don't know any dogs, as sophicated as they are, that are film buffs. My son's dog won't even sit through 101 Dalmatians.

Another question I have is why online entrants are limited to one per day, and mail entrants can enter as many as they like in one day, provided entries are in separate envelopes. I started contesting as a hobby, yes, that's "contesting" as a verb, but think I will soon have to start mixing pleasure with business, and start reporting on some of theses scorching issues. This question is not specific to this sweeps, since many have similar entry rules.

For details, click here. The deadline is April 28. You can enter online once a day until then.

I'm not being as expansive as usual because I am visiting my mother in Connecticut.

GERMANY CALLING: WORLD CUP

Finally, a seamless sweeps for a trip to the World Cup. No essay, no quiz, just click and enter. Folks can register here and enter once a day - or more if you tell a friend, and even more if you’re a T-Mobile customer, which I am not and which I do not intend to be as I have no intentions of owning a cell phone anytime soon. But if you are a T-Mobile customer with a hankering to get to the World Cup, check out the “insider” options.

This sweeps includes five (!) trips to the World Cup this summer. The Grand Prize is 3 nights in Berlin for the Final Match, with airfare, on July 6. The remaining first- through fourth-place prizes are two nights and airfare for, in order of desirability, the semi-final match in Munich on July 5, then earlier matches, like Japan versus Brazil on June 22 in Dortmund.

I’m bookmarking this one and entering daily.

I’ll post the deadline and a link to the Official Rules later in the day. I’m having trouble accessing the fine print right now.

P.S. I’ve been meaning to comment on several sweeps issues. One, I have not, repeat not, noticed an upswing in spam since I started entering all these travel sweeps. Any promotional emails I’ve gotten, and there have only been a few, have usually come after notice at the time of entry. So, no surprises. That’s reassuring. Separately, I am not thrilled that so many sweeps ask entrants for their date of birth at the time of entry, since they are one of the key pieces of data marauding identity thieves like to collect. I think sweeps sponsors do this for legitimate identification purposes, but wonder if it’s misguided. I think entry forms should ask only for an entrant’s year of birth as opposed to the precise date of birth. That’s what the folks at Luxury Link do.

I HEART NEW YORK

Trying to find the entry form to this one nearly left me in palpitations. I first chanced upon it on a list of sweeps, but could not access the link. I knew it was sponsored by Redbook, “it” being a four-night stay at The Westin New York at Times Square, but foolishly, instead of making a bee line to the magazine’s website, I continued to try and enter the sweeps via other sites, which led to a deadend. It finally occurred to me that the folks at Redbook/Heart/iVillage.com could well have disabled the hyperlinks, so off to the Redbook site I finally went. Click and learn.

Here’s a link to the first page on the Redbook site that lists the New York sweeps, scroll down to enter. Redbook gives away some neat stuff each month, including trips. Here’s the link to the first page of this month’s giveaways, including SIX trips besides the one to New York: Tahiti, Fort Myers, Dana Point (California), Curacao among them.

THE DONALD, LIONS AND TIGERS AND ME, OH MY!

First, consider this man’s signature, at the bottom of this “about” self-representation. It speaks volumes, to the ego, to the supposed perfectionism, to the hair that I strongly suspect still, after all these years, does not have the proper building permits: It is just too damn high and off center, it must be in violation of some New York City code or other. But forget the hair. What's just as spectacular is this man’s signature. It looks like the Manhattan skyline. I think the second “d” in “Donald” is the Chrysler Building.

The Donald’s travel site, GoTrump.com, which, travel know-it-all that I am, I did not know existed until this evening, is sponsoring a sweeps to Africa. Yes, Africa. Why my diligent Googling did not take me to this spectacular giveaway last evening, when I was on a serious Africa jag, I do not know. What I do know is that I have found an open sweeps to Africa, on a new-to-me site, GoTrump.com, and I have entered said sweeps to Africa, the Donald’s sweeps to Africa, not the “I had a farm in Africa” Africa, which would be Isak Dinesen’s Africa, Kenya, Africa, but to Botswana, via South Africa, the Botswana, Africa Africa.

The package includes airfare and a total of eight nights (not shabby, not shabby at all), one in a Johannesburg hotel, the rest in three different Botswanan lodges, including three nights at The Chobe Safari Lodge.

I. Want. To. Be. There. Right. Now.

Something tells me the Donald is the sort of person who likes to do things his way. True to form, he’s published a vague and truncated Official Rules for this sweeps, ones that in no way mirror the contractual elaborations of the oh-so-many Official Rules I’ve studied in the past month and change. I'm not sure when the sweeps closes, but it's clear that the drawing is on June 1. The value of the prize: $10,000.

The Donald attempts to case-sensitize this URL and make us think that this site is called GoTrump.com. Well, he can’t fool all of the people all of the time. This URL swings both ways, just like whorepresents.com, which tries to pass itself off as Who Represents, as in who represents the talent, the celebs, the notables, but which also can be read as Whore Presents, which of course is suggestive of temptative things like selling your artistic soul, to the devil, to the pimp, or, quite possibly, to highest bidder. In that vein, Go Trump’s gotrump.com also reads like Got Rump, at least to this armchair traveler, who has got rump, major rump, from sitting at this computer so damn long entering sweeps and plying my trade. All I can say is, Go Go Trump, and Go Got Rump.

TO ENTER, CLICK HERE.

DON'T KNOW MUCH HISTORY

Let this be a lesson to me: No more speeding-reading of fine print.

I stumbled upon this contest a few weeks ago, and did not even enter it until last night, when I realized that this is a one entry per person PER DAY sweeps. Ah.

The History Channel is sponsoring this one, in conjunction with the series Ten Days That Unexpectedly Changed America that’s running this week. 10 winners get their pick of the following 10 prizes, as precisely described in the Official Rules:

Ten (10) Grand Prizes: A 7-day/6-night trip for two to one of the following ten locations (Winner's choice): (1) "Gold Rush", trip to San Francisco, CA; (2) "Scopes: The Battle Over America's Soul", trip to Nashville, TN; (3) "Einstein's Letter", trip to Washington, D.C.; (4) "Shays' Rebellion: America's First Civil War", trip to Boston, MA; (5) "Antietam", trip to Washington, D.C.; (6) "Massacre at Mystic", trip to Mystic, CT; (7) "Murder at the Fair: The Assassination of President McKinley", trip to Niagara Falls, NY; (8) "Freedom Summer", trip to Jackson, MS; (9) "When America Was Rocked", trip to Memphis, TN; (10) "The Homestead Strike", trip to Pittsburgh, PA. Each trip package includes round trip coach class air transportation on Orbitz' choice of airlines for two from a major U.S. airport near winner's residence (Sponsor's choice) to the U.S. airport near the destination chosen by the winner; six (6) nights hotel accommodations (Sponsor's choice; double occupancy) in or near the destination chosen by the winner; seven (7) day Avis rental car, and admission for two (2) into select historical sites (Estimated Retail Value (ERV): $3,500 each).

The sweeps, which has been running since March 9, closes April 13. At least there’s today and the next three days to enter. I am trying to be positive about these entries, I don’t want to send out the wrong vibe when I’m clicking and entering. Oh, were I to win, I’d probably go with the “Gold Rush” in San Francisco, though I'd consult the boy on that.

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HISTORY CHANNEL’S ONE OF 10 WAYS TO SEE AMERICA

TO ENTER, CLICK HERE.
THE DIGS: VARIOUS
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): $3,500
THE OFFICIAL RULES.
MY ENTRY: April 10 (and 11, 12, 13)
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I HAD A FARM IN AFRICA

I lost my heart to Isak Dinesen when I was a senior in high school. That was the year I took an English class titled “Around the World in 80 Days.” It was taught by Margaret Gardiner, one of the most sophisticated teachers I had before I went to college. She had been a dancer on Broadway, and was tall and elegant and vain. She had a facelift in the middle of the school year. This was when plastic surgery was stigmatized rather than anticipated, and we gossiped like mad about her. We wondered if she could still kick as high as a Rockette, that sought of silliness. She spoke in a clipped accent, like upper class New Yorkers still do. Her voice was like a mellifluous Phyllis Diller’s, if you can imagine that. It carried. It registered.

Her English class opened up world literature to me. She assigned The Stranger by Camus and Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton and I wish I remembered what else. I don’t recall if she also assigned Dinesen, but I am certain that I found my way to her through Margaret Gardiner.

She served as a chaperone to the best field trip I took ever. We went with the Drama Club to New York City, and saw Equus on Friday evening, complete with a sighting of Richard Burton after the show, and A Chorus Line on Saturday evening. On Sunday afternoon Mrs. Gardiner took a few of us down to the Village to see the Lina Wertmuller’s Seven Beauties. This was before cable television, before video and DVD rentals, so we weren’t exposed as regularly to so much. Our popular cultural menu was quite slim. After the movie, Mrs. Gardiner suggested we not mention its baudy themes to our parents. I don’t think I did at first, which was liberating. But then I did and my parents didn’t seem to care, which was even more liberating.

I became a fan of Lina Wertmuller’s. One year I had a Connecticut license plate without a photo, one that said “VALID WITHOUT PHOTO,” I cut out a little head shot of the internationally famous director Lina Wertmuller from one of the New York papers, either the Post or the Daily News, definitely not the Times, and put it on this license. She had that cropped short blonde hair and those wild Italian glasses. I tried to use it as an ID a few times, and got the bouncers and bartenders to laugh at me and with me. Then, I lost my wallet. A year later, I got a call. The local mass transit authority had found my wallet. Everything was in it except two things: the cash and the Connecticut license plate with Lina Wertmuller’s photograph on it.

I thought of Mrs. Gardiner this evening because I’ve got New York on my mind. She is part of that memory-scape. I’ve also been trolling for sweeps to Africa, to Kenya, Namibia. That got me thinking of Isak Dinesen, which also got me thinking of Margaret Gardiner.

She had one of the saddest stories, one that sends chills down my spine as a mother. One New Year’s Eve, her daughter’s date stood her up. Mrs. Gardiner encouraged her daughter to go out and have some fun, not to sit home and sulk. She died in a car accident that night. Not only do I think of that story every New Year’s Eve, I think of it at various times when I make a decision for my son, when I chose him doing one thing over another. When he’s older, he’ll make decisions on his own, but I will have sometimes still have some say. I’ll do as I do now. I’ll toss the coin. I’ll call heads, and pray tails loses.

Yes, I’m looking for sweeps to Africa. I’ve found one, sponsored by Land Rover, but it looks as though it’s only for residents of the U.K. I’ve got time to confirm that, as it runs through September. It looks quite lovely if a bit short, six nights in all, with stays on Elsa’s (yes, that Elsa, the Born Free Elsa) Kopke and Tortillis lodges in Kenya’s Meru and Amboseli National Parks.

It’s very British, this one. In the form for title, your choices are the usual Mr. an Mrs. and Ms. as well as Sir, Professor, Reverend, Lord and Lady.

I almost entered as Lady Barbara Benham, but decided against it. How silly it would have been to be disqualified because I’d tried to pass myself off as a lady.

SKYSCRAPERS AND EVERYTHING

I confess I harbor blogger pride about keeping up with sweeps, but I don’t feel too, too badly about not having found this one until this evening at about 10:15 Eastern Standard Time. It closes tomorrow, yes, Monday, April 10, but it only opened last Monday, April 3. In the interim I have not been trolling for trips to New York City. In fact, I don't believe that I trolled once before this evening for a trip to New York City. This afternoon I got hit with a hankering to get to New York. Maybe because I'm going to be in the vicinity, in Connecticut, later this week. I'll see the skyline from the train, the skyline I used to call the Alps of the Cities, before the manmade avalanche, but I won't get into the city itself.

This one, sponsored by the Food Network, is for two nights in the Big Apple, a dinner at a Food Network’s celebrity chef restaurant (alas, time is too short to investigate this one this evening, though I am curious), and tickets to a live taping of the Emeril Show.

This one allows for one entry per person per day.

Too bad I didn’t stumble about it sooner.

Here’s the entry form.

Here are the Official Rules.

I'M CLICKING TO DISNEY WORLD

It would be especially sweet to win the Weather Channel Forecast for Smiles sweeps, a vacation for 12 (yes, twelve, wow and gulp at the same time) at one of Disney World Resort hotels, plus passes to Disney World for seven days and a $1,500 dining and shopping card and other assorted prizes. This comes with air. You know, I’d like to think they’d let people fly in from different cities, but that’s not clear in the official rules.

My dad was supremely attuned to meteorological developments, cold fronts and storm systems. For years, he had a barometer in the front hall, and would provide running commentary on the severity of impending weather changes based on barometric pressure readings. I know he would have found last summer’s hurricane season fascinating, never mind dispiriting. No surprise that one of his favorite channels was the Weather Channel. We could dedicate the trip to him. On top of that personal connection, my son has been begging me to take him to Disney World. “Everyone in my class has been,” he tries to tell me. Not quite. He goes to school with children from families that travel to some pretty exotic places, Orlando not among them.

This one lets you enter once a day. Even though there’s only a week’s worth of entering left, things could be worse. The sweeps only started a month ago, on March 15.

If that sweeps doesn’t pan out, here’s another one: A 7-night stay for four on The Orlando/Orange County Visitors Center, with air (from the same city again, darn.)

FWIW: I found the Weather Channel Forecast for Smiles listed on www.cashnetsweeps.com. I found the second sweeps while I was Googling for the first sweeps, because I am not signed up for www.cashnetsweeps.com.

P.S. I think I found my sweepstakes mentor this afternoon. We haven't spoken yet. But I can tell she's a gal after my own heart. She uses "contest" as a verb.

NOTE: Templates for both sweeps coming. There are some funky technical glitches afoot.

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DISNEY WORLD: 6 NIGHTS FOR 12

DEADLINE: April 14, 2006
TO ENTER, CLICK HERE:
SPONSOR: The Weather Channel
THE DIGS: One of Disney World Resorts hotels (four to a room!)
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): $20,440
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: April 7, 2006
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ORLANDO FOR FOUR, 7 NIGHTS WITH AIR

DEADLINE: April 30, 2006
TO ENTER, CLICK HERE:
SPONSOR: Orlando/Orange County Visitors Center
THE DIGS: TBD
THE INELIGIBLES: Resident of Arkansas, Hawaii, Puerto Rico,
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): $3,750
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: April 7, 2006
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HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, BLOG BABY

One of the funniest things for me one month to the day into this sweeps quest is that I thought I was going to be able to blog about every sweeps I entered, if not contemporaneously, at least within a day or two. Well, I don’t think so. I’ve already let one massive sweeps close with nary an entry, the $50,000 “See the World” sweeps that concierge.com was running through April 3, as well as several others, like this one to Scotland, not that silly Date a Hot Scot one that closed March 31, but a rather elegant sweeps whereby the winner gets to select from a menu of three themed itineraries, one art and architecture, one ancestral, one food and wine, nine-day trips each. Lovely! I entered that on March 23.

Oh, and here’s another one I never got around to mentioning: a weekend spa getaway for one lucky mom sponsored by Lifetime’s Cheerleader Nation. I entered this on March 17, and suffering succotash, even wrote “luck of the Irish” in my notes. I didn’t even know what Cheerleader Nation was until about 11:17 p.m. ET last evening, when I looked it up on the Internet. It’s some cornball TV show about cheerleaders and their moms. I don’t have cable, so I have an excuse for not knowing what it was. Oh, and after I postulated two days ago that sweeps could not render ineligible prospective entrants based on marital or parental status, etc., this sweeps, which closed on April 5, stated outright that it was for moms only. Well, my stars. Or my pom-poms. They could have restricted it to moms who are former cheerleaders.

Here’s one I entered last evening: a trip for two to Costa Rica, without air. Now, the sponsor, Backroads, is an adventure outfitter, one that promises active vacations taken at your own pace, but still, I would have to get in shape for all that hammock hopping, because that’s about as rigorous a pace I could stand right now, though I suppose I could work up to a stroll, and then, maybe if I did really well, a power stroll. This one is interesting in that there are no official rules, a first for this sweepstress. Details below in my spiffy custom-designed Entry Template.

Otherwise, I am still finding my way with this. For instance, I am undecided about how much I want to divulge about my son. I’ve mentioned his age and some of his affinities (soccer, green beer) and his snakes’ names, but not his name. Oh, and he blogs, that’s right, My Son the Blogger, but I hesitate to link his blog to my blog, because then you would know his name. And you might find his blog more entertaining than my blog, and then what would I do?

I also find myself yo-yo-ing between sharing and withholding. I am finding it easier to write about the past, trips taken and not taken, than it is to expound upon the present. Flights of fantasy, about winning a sweeps, are a cakewalk, too. I privately describe the bad luck that inspired me to start entering travel sweeps as My 3-D Bad Luck, the three D’s being death, divorce and, well, I’m not ready to divulge the third D. So, it’s so yo-yo. I’m on the fence. Plus, and this is secondary, but sometimes secondary impulses are more revealing than primary impulses, that omission creates a little dramatic tension there, doesn’t it? Perhaps it leaves people wondering. Perhaps the third “D” stands for “disfigurement,” the result of an accident. Or maybe it stands for “deprogram,” maybe I’m coming out of a wicked cult experience. Then again, perhaps it stands for drilling, as in I need a lot of dental work. Which might sound boring, but I go to a dentist who once instructed me to “open wild.”

Bottom line to all of the above, I don’t want to come off like a wha-wha-wha type, because that’s what getting too detailed about certain things might sound like, wha wha wha; despite some unfortunate turns of events, I still have it pretty darn good.

Anyway, it’s been one month. One month ago, I did not know there were so many online travel sweeps, I did not know diddle dee squat about how to upload a photograph onto a blog, I did not know how to format a hyperlink (until this week -- ergo all the cut-and-pasted URLs, in all their gunkiness, in earlier posts), I did not know that Google ads were the lunacy that they are*, I did not know visitors to a site actually had to click on Google ads for the publisher to earn something from them. (Hint, hint. Go, Team Click!)

*For the uninitiated: Google ads home in to your web pages based on content. Sometimes that makes for some sidebar mischief. My favorite Google ads pairing on my blog so far: in one entry, from March 10, I mention an incident involving a plane on which I was a passenger making a dramatic descent to Shannon, to refuel; the Google ads that showed up were for flight training schools. How reassuringly associative for someone who already hates to fly.

Go for it.

FWIW: I found this one by Googling “Win a trip to Costa Rica 2006.” Isn’t that brilliant?

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COSTA RICA

DEADLINE: April 30, 2006
TO ENTER, CLICK HERE: http://tinyurl.com/zxeok
SPONSOR: Backroads
THE DIGS: TBD
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): $3,996 - $5,396
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: April 6, 2006
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SOCCER MAMASITA

If soccer’s your thing, and you’re interested in trying to win a trip to the World Cup in Germany this summer, here’s one to bookmark and enter daily through the end of the month.
For the past several weeks, I’ve been Googling my heart out looking for sweeps to this summer’s games. My son, who’s nine, plays on two soccer teams. They, and soccer in general, are pretty much his favorite things in the world these days, besides his assorted pets. While I’ve become a serious soccer aficionado, I am not fan of throng events, like the World Cup is going to be in spades. But I’d make this trip for my son, I’d make the sacrifice, just like I did when I bought him a snake for his eighth birthday.

I hate snakes. We’ve had not one but a total of three snakes since we got our first one, Dr. Hyde, in September 2004. Sadly, mysteriously, Dr. Hyde went missing, in our apartment, six months later. We waited to see if he’d come back – apparently they can live on their own for months, don’t ask me how -- but he never did. So we finally went and bought another snake. The day we got him, the same day, a Sunday last October, he disappeared, somewhere between the pet store and our apartment. We looked for him in the apartment, in the hall to the apartment, in the elevator, in the lobby, on the sidewalk, in the parking lot, in the car. No snake. We went back to the pet store and got another one, snake number three.

Four days later, we were driving to the pediatrician’s to see if my son had strep, and he starting screaming, “Mom. Mom. Mom.” The snake – Snake Number Two, the one that had gone missing the day we bought him -- had fallen from somewhere in the car’s, and was slithering around my son’s feet. Oh, so that’s where he’d been hiding. Now, this was a baby corn snake, a snake that’s not much larger than a large worm, but still. I was not a happy camper. However, since I am at the wheel of a Subaru Outback, I decide this is not the moment for a reptile-induced freakout. I pulled over, and implored my son to pick up the snake. He refused. Suddenly, my charming Mr. Snake Lover is afraid of snakes, too. I made a plan: We’d go to the 7-11 up the street, get a coffee cup and coax the snake back into captivity.

By the time we go there, the snake has disappeared again into the underbelly of the car. Like magic, he resurfaced minutes later. At that moment, my idea of a miracle is capturing the snake and not being late for the doctor's appointment. Since neither of us had the gumption to pick him up by hand, I used a little stick to prod the snake into the cup. Mission accomplished. We decided to bring the snake in to the pediatrician’s office with us, so this Harry Houdini of a snake would not escape again.

Now, we didn’t want anyone to know what was in our coffee cup, especially the couple in the waiting room with their newborn twins. So I just held the cup, and we did not discuss its contents and the sound it kept making each time it poked its head against the lid. As it turned out, my son did not have strep, no one in the doctor’s office figured out I had an exotic animal on my person, we returned the snake to his tank the moment we got home. For a few days, we were the proud caretakers of two baby corn snakes. A few days later, the other snake, Snake Number Three, died. He couldn’t keep his mice down. My son named the sole survivor, Snake Number Two, Ripley, for Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.

I sometimes can’t believe there is a snake in my life.

After all this snake drama, a few days of soccer throngs would be most manageable.

This sweeps is on Coca-Cola. The prize includes tickets to see the Mexican National Team play either Iran, Angola or Portugal. (Why Mexico and not the U.S.? This sweeps is aimed at the Hispanic market, that’s why. When it comes to sweeps, winners can’t be chosers.) Accommodations are in a three-star hotel. Not ideal, but as long as there are no snakes on the premises, I should be fine.


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WORLD CUP IN GERMANY, 2 NIGHTS AND AIR

DEADLINE: April 30, 2006
TO ENTER, CLICK HERE.
SPONSOR: Coca-Cola
THE DIGS: TBD
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): $7,940
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: April 6, 2006
OF NOTE: You have to register for Coke Rewards. It’s painless. The Official Rules explain how you can enter by phone and text message, a first for this sweepstress.
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BOOKMARKED TRIFECTA

I’ve got these three sweeps bookmarked so I can enter them daily.

If you win because you saw these sweeps here, please-please-please drop me a line.

Luxury Link
Close Date: June 30

MSNBC Working Mom Sweeps
Close Date: April 30

Audi’s Abercrombie and Kent Colorado Road Trip
Close Date: May 15

WORKING MOM "ULTIMATE BREAK" SWEEPS

Here’s one that all moms can appreciate: a six-night, all-inclusive package at the Palladium Grand Resort and Spa in the Riviera Maya, for four, along Mexico’s Caribbean coast. Ah, can’t you feel yourself decompressing at the thought of it? By all moms, I mean moms who are 1.) working out of the home; 2.) working from the home; 3.) not working out of or from the home; 4.) not exactly moms because they, um, minor detail, don’t have children.

You see, MSNBC might be billing this as a “Working Mom’s Sweepstakes,” complete with a semiotician’s showcase of working-mom symbols: laptop, cell phone, teddy bear, baby bottle (subliminal mommy-war message: because working mom’s don’t breastfeed, or if they do, they stop sooner than the American Academy of Pediatrics wants them to!) and the lexicon of anxiety that comes with the territory: what’s for dinner, meetings, schedules, deadlines, appointments, laundry. But as I understand the Official Rules, any resident of the U.S. of A. and their mother can enter this Working Mom Sweeps. So could their father, for that matter.

My intuitive, laywoman, non-expert take on this is that while sweeps can market to a select demographic, they cannot limit entries on the basis of gender, marital status, ethnicity, religious affiliation and, in this case, parental bona fides, never mind work credentials. Bottom line: You can up your odds and get the men in your frazzled world to enter, too. And any toiling U.S. citizen, age 18 and older, can click and enter.

You can enter this one once a day until it closes, so if you’re interested, you might as well bookmark the darn thing and do just that. (I’m doing that with two others rights now.) As for the resort, it’s part of the Fiesta Hotel Group, an Ibiza-based concern. The property looks sprawling and, with classical columns encircling the hot tub, a concrete (literally) reminder of the Roman Empire parallel thing, even though the décor is supposed to be Spanish colonial. The package is all inclusive, which can start to feel like a cruise on terra firma if you’re not careful and don't get off the grounds. But what the hey. Go for it.

FWIW: I found this one at four in the morning after the cat woke me up meowing to be fed. I went to check my email and the overnight news and then, before you know it, I was surfing for the latest on Brangelina. MSNBC was running an ad for this sweeps next to an archived article about Angelina Jolie, a working mother who knows how to work it if there ever was one. (I think Brad looks miserable, by the way.)

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6-NIGHT ANYBODY AND THEIR MOTHER GETAWAY TO MEXICO MAYA RIVIERA

DEADLINE: April 30, 2006
TO ENTER, CLICK HERE.
SPONSOR: Microsoft, MSNBC, Kia.
THE DIGS: Palladium Grand Resort and Spa in the Riviera Maya
THE INELIGIBLES: See above.
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): $5,000
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: April 5, 2006
THE FINE PRINT: Enter daily!
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WORLD CUP UPDATE

It’s fair to say that Deutsche Welle, a Germany company that provides news and analysis from Germany and other parts of Europe in 30 languages, is in the communications business. Having worked in the communications business for a number of years, I have noticed time and time again that people in the communications business often have not mastered the business of communication. Now, here we have Deutsche Welle sponsoring a sweeps to the World Cup, something I am absolutely burning to win, unabashed soccer mom that I am, and, most unfortunately, they can’t seem to communicate basic sweeps details, like when a sweeps closes or who’s eligible and who’s not. I realize the U.S. has more stringent advertising laws than the rest of the world, ones that require sweeps sponsors to publish detailed contest rules with references to obscure legal concepts such as force majeure, but still. The bare minimum would be nice.

So, I got an email this morning from Deutsche Welle, in response to an email I’d sent two weeks ago, informing me that the sweeps I entered and blogged about here on March 22 is closed. Yes, closed. It was the one that asked for a 250-word essay. I submitted a 325-word essay. (I write shorts long, as my editors know.) However, bless their little poor-communicator hearts, Deutsche Welle is sponsoring another World Cup sweeps. To enter, email your impressions of Germany to english@dw-world.de. Be sure to put RADIO CONTEST ENTRY in the subject line, and give your full address, including country, in the body of the email. Besides that, all you have to do is send along your impressions of Germany. For details, all two of them, click here.

I’m going to send them an edited version of my essay. It is not what I would call polished. And I left out an anecdote that turns on tourist stereotypes. Here it is:

On a trip up U.S. 1 along the California coast, my friend and I kept running into busloads of German tourists at the various lookout points along the way. I do not know if their exuberance was a response to the exhilarating scenery or a after effects of beer at breakfast. Whatever the reasons, they were loud.
On my next trip, to Costa Rica, my friend and I pulled up to the lodge where we would be staying at for a stretch. There was a tour bus outside. “Oh God, I hope that’s not a busload of Germans,” I said, half to myself.
"What wrong with Germans?" my friend wanted to know.
I told her how loud they’d been in California, tall and tan and loud.
Luckily for us, it wasn't a busload of Germans. They were Quakers.

MY IMPRESSIONS OF GERMANY (MY ENTRY)

I traveled through Germany once, en route to Denmark from France. We stopped in Cologne. The cathedral was majestic, the people at turns warm and brusque. I was traveling with a French family. That might explain this ambivalent reception. It was a short stop, so I do not remember anything beyond that. I don’t recall if we ate there. We definitely did not have any beer. (I probably could have used one.)

Back home, in the States, my earliest impressions of Germany were classical musical, the great composers, and then, when I went to collge, cinematic. Fassbinder, Herzog. I must admit that I didn’t warm to their movies as much as I did to French or Italian cinema, but they were moving, like powerful dreams.

I later developed an appreciation for the great influence German immigrants had on American cooking. Meta Given, a leading food editor in the 1940s and 1950s, was influenced by her family’s German heritage. She’d grown up on a farm in the Ozarks. When I bake a recipe from one of her cookbooks, I think, “Ah, the German influence.”

As for contemporary Germany, my window there was my father, who passed away one year ago. He’d studied German in college, and picked it up again when he was in his seventies. When I visited, he used to love to ask me if I knew what a German word, like die fleidermaus, meant. And so many more. And I rarely knew the answer, except when I got lucky with a deductive guess. He also liked to show me articles from Der Spiegel and Der Stern. He liked that sometimes they showed topless women on the covers.

It’s a shame he never got to Germany.

(FWIW: I learned of this sweeps in an email response from the Deutsche Welle folks.)

BOOK GROUP IN NAPA

I have no idea if the impetus for this sweeps, a novel called The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble, is any good. But if the winners are anything like my old book group, it won’t matter, because not everyone will have finished the book by the time book group rolls around. (I was one of the biggest offenders.) But, truth be told, this sweeps would have been perfect for my old book group: It involves wine and food and more wine. Oh, and books. Harper Collins, publisher of The Reading Group, and Sutter Home Winery are co-sponsoring a two-night stay at the winery’s Victorian Inn, plus air, for six. The winery’s chef will prepare the group dinner, which presumably will include plenty of the Sutter wine. The winner also gets 10 copies of the book, as well as 10 copies of Noble’s The Friendship Test.

Of course the book is not the only impetus for this sweeps. Getting book groupies to drink more wine is a motivating factor here, too. I wonder if the folks at Sutter know how much wine women at book groups are already drinking. I bet wine sales dropped measurably after my book group disbanded. (Amicably, by the way.) We used to wine and dine our hearts out. And, to be fair, there were many book group gatherings where almost all of us had finished all of the book, and more than a few where all of us had read all of the book, especially early on.

This sweeps is a throwback: You mail in your entry; there’s a printable form. You can enter as often as you like, but each entry must be mailed separately.

All I can say to the winner is, good luck trying to schedule this one.

(FWIW: I found this one by Googling “Win a Trip to Napa.”)

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2-NIGHTS IN NAPA VALLEY AT SUTTER HOME WINERY VICTORIAN INN

DEADLINE: June 30, 2006
TO ENTER: MAIL IN THIS FORM
SPONSORS: Harper Collins, Sutter Home Winery
THE DIGS: The Sutter Home Winery’s Victorian Inn
THE INELIGIBLES: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Utah, Puerto Rico and all U.S. territories and possessions
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): $4,800
THE FINE PRINT: THE OFFICIAL RULES
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: April 4, 2006
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SPA-DI-DA

Before I get into the big spa sweeps news, Spa Magazine's rolling monthly sweeps, I’d like to give a nod to this lollapalooza package: three nights at The Miraval, in Tuscon, with air. This is a promotion for the “green” lifestyle website LIME. You can enter the sweeps once a day, through June 29. For more details, scroll down to the template at the way, way bottom of this post.

The big news: Spa Magazine launched a monthly sweeps last month, with one drawing a month for the next 10 months. Why 10? Ten-year anniversary, that’s why. I love that that they allow only one entry per person, and all entries roll into the next month’s drawing. However, at the risk of sounding like a sweeps brat, the July prize is disproportionately miserly: one night at The Hershey Hotel. Just one lousy night! You’ll still have the scent of chocolate-kiss treatment on you when you roll out of there. The other prizes come with at least a two-night stay; most are longer. (See below for more on the digs.)

Apart from this trifling quibble, this sweeps really gets my spa-fantasy juices flowing. (By the way, my bad on not finding and posting it in time for my March madness collection.) I entered on March 31, at about 10 P.M.; I’m not sure if that was in time for the March drawing, for five-night at the Hyatt Regency Maui. If not, no big whoop: my entry is rolling over into April’s. My first choice out of all the prizes would be the December prize, six nights at the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Retreat & Spa in Los Cabos.

Though that would change if I knew what each of the spas’ terrycloth bathrobes were like. I have a thing for bathrobes. They’re my spa benchmark, more, if you can believe it in these mattress-obsessed times, than the bed. So far, in my limited resort experience – so limited that I’ve gone and packed my own bathrobe, silly me, not realizing until my third resort that bathrobes really do indeed come with the room, the way Bibles used to – my favorite bathrobe is the one at The Phoenician in Scottsdale. It’s the velour waffle robe in the online gift shop. But this photo does not do this bathrobe justice. There was something about the details, the textures of the velour and the honeycomb weave combined with the weight, that were, in a word, heavenly. The weight was key. There’s nothing like a solid bathrobe to make you feel grounded.

I put mine on. I plucked my eyebrows. I gave myself a pedicure. In the midst of all this pampering, I realized that I had not had two whole hours to myself, disconnected from domestic chatter, removed from family obligations and work and school deadlines and go-go-go-ness, in a full year.

Let me repeat: I had not stopped running the marathon that is my life for one solid year.

After my nails dried, I went to the pool. I had a few hours before the conference began. I sipped ice water with a thin lemon wedge tucked between the cubes. I flipped through two magazines. I looked at the view, at Camelback Mountain. The crowd was sedate, a few couples, a few friends. To my annoyance, a woman who looked like she might be from Long Island was smoking a cigarette two lounge chairs over and one row back. I shrugged it off. I was not going to let anyone or anything ruin my moment in the desert sun. I closed my eyes, and let out long, deep breaths, taking care to inhale away from the cigarette smoke. Then, out of nowhere, I heard high-pitched, boundless-energy voices that I instantly knew belonged to children. They were getting closer. They were headed in my direction. They could not, I said to myself, be coming to this pool. This pool was a designated quiet area. But they were, three children, with their parents.

The family installed itself several rows over, smack in my line of sight. The children, being children, went right for the pool, and instantly cracked the tranquility with their splashing and Marco Polo’s. I cursed their presence. The last thing a single mother wants to hear when she is trying to decompress at a resort in the middle of the desert in the middle of a cloud-free glorious afternoon is the voices of children, even well-behaved, reasonably self-contained children.

I could barely contain myself. I considered asking the management what exactly they meant by a quiet area. But the thought of traipsing over to the front desk, even in my ne plus ultra bathrobe, seemed like a poor use of my resort time.

Then, as suddenly as they’d appeared, I let go of it. I studied the family, discreetly, squinty-eyed, and guessed the children’s ages. The oldest, a girl, was 12 or so. Her siblings, two brothers, were maybe 8 and 5. They were not a mirror image age- or number-wise, but they reminded me of myself and my siblings, splashing in a pool at a hotel in Manchester, Vermont, one summer. From that same trip I remember being parked in our car, our Pontiac Safari station wagon, next to a car, another station wagon, that had travel decals plastered all over the back windows. The Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls. This family was making a point of Seeing the Country, and letting everyone know about it.

The decal that caught my brother’s and my eye was from the Smithsonian Institution. Now, we had not yet been to Washington, but we were vaguely aware of the Smithsonian, the nation’s attic and all that. But for some reason, my brother and I latched on to the word "institution," and started wondering whether this was the Smithsonian, or another institution, as in a mental institution. We decided it must be a mental institution.

I know part of it was thinking it was totally goofy for a family to have all those travel decals on their car, so much so that we decided that since they were stupid enough to put all those travel decals on their car, they must be stupid enough to put a decal from a mental institution on their car. We thought this was the funniest thing since The Smothers Brothers, since the Adams Family started when Uncle Fester farted. Who would want to tell the whole world they they had been to a mental institution? We laughed uncontrollably, with chlorine-tired lungs.

I looked back at the three children in the pool. Something about their play made me wonder if they laughed that much, that freely. Something suggested not. I’d been trying to size up the mother. She was gorgeous, blonde hair, blonde teeth, a Pilates-perfect core, but she looked as though she was wound really tight, like the inside of a golf ball. She looked as though she might be suffocating in her circumstances, as though, on really bad days, she wondered if she might end up in an institution, a mental institution.

I hoped I was wrong.

I looked at the children. Maybe things weren't that dire. Maybe they were just having an off day. I took more deep breaths. The smoker had left long ago, unnoticed. I went back to my magazines. I got bored. All that free time. I decided to go for a swim. The children got out while I was doing laps. I swam hard, chasing chlorine-tired lungs.

As for the Spa Magazine sweeps, there’s a crescendo quality to these prizes. They get better with each month.

Go for it.

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3 NIGHTS AT THE MIRAVAL
DEADLINE: June 29, 2006
TO ENTER, CLICK HERE.
SPONSORS: lime.com, The Miraval
THE DIGS: The Miravel
THE INELIGIBLES: Residents of Puerto Rico and Guam
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): $4,000
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: April 1, 2006
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SPA MAGAZINE SPA GIVEAWAYS
DEADLINE: December 31, 2006
TO ENTER, CLICK HERE.
SPONSOR: Spa Magazine
THE DIGS: See below for full list.
THE INELIGIBLES: Residents of Puerto Rico and Guam.
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): Various.
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: April 2, 2006
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MARCH: Five nights at Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa
APRIL: Five nights at Hilton Curacao
MAY: Two nights at Jupiter Beach Resort & Spa (Palm Beach)
JUNE: Three nights at British Colonial Hilton (Nassau)
JULY: One night at Hotel Hershey
AUGUST: Five nights at Dreams Puerto Vallarta - Resort & Spa
SEPTEMBER: Three nights at Ojai Valley Inn & Spa
OCTOBER: Five nights at Canoa Coral by Hilton (Bayahibe, Dominican Republic)
NOVEMBER: Four nights at Red Mountain Spa
DECEMBER: Six nights at Pueblo Bonito Pacifica - Holistic Retreat & Spa (Los Cabos)

I WON A TRIP!

April Fools.

If I fooled you, you haven't been paying close attention. It's too early for me to have won a trip. I only started this sweeps extravaganza less than four weeks ago.

Friends (and they know who they are) have been asking:

Where do you find these contests?

I have been telling them:

Google, Google, Google.

After experimenting with general key words like “travel contests” and “travel sweepstakes,” I found that I find the most sweeps when I get destination or category specific. So far, “Win a Trip to [INSERT DESTINATION/CATEGORY] 2006” has yielded the best finds. I include the year to try and weed out sweeps of years past, some of which languish in cyberspace like stale pastry. Finding a swell sweeps that has already closed can disappoint, as did this one, a trip to Venice,: www.powells.com/contest_venice.html (sniff, sniff). They can also entertain, like one to see gospel singer Bobby Jones perform at the Umbria Jazz Festival.

There are a few places online that aggregate travel sweeps. I find them through Google. About.com’s Susan Breslow Sardone posts sweeps ostensibly for the nuptially inclined at http://honeymoons.about.com/. In March, none of the sweeps specified that entrants had to use their prize for their honeymoon. Bizarrely, one of the sweeps she posted last month was for a trip for an ice fishing trip to Alaska, for THREE, sponsored by Chivas Regal: www.thisisthelife.com/alaska/?tag=home.) I could see how going ice fishing in Alaska might appeal to a sliver of honeymooners, but with a friend along? It’s open through April 30 if anyone’s interested – but please promise that you won’t enter if this will be your honeymoon, unless the third wheel is a factotum schooled in ice fishing.

Julie Register serves up spa sweeps on her Discover Spas website, at www.discoverspas.com/spacontests.shtml.

Then there’s FlyerTalk, an online community of frequent flyer obsessives founded by self-described frequent flyer guru Randy Peterson. I’d poked around the site several years ago, but never ventured into any of the discussions, which range from specific airlines’ programs to chats about destinations until recently. Frankly, on my first visits, the site felt cumbersome and befuddling. Plus, the participants post in their own lexicon of abbreviations and obscure (to me) travel acronyms, another offputting attribute. These are the types who know all the major airport codes by heart. (For more on that topic, here’s an article on the genesis of airport codes. www.skygod.com/asstd/abc.html.)

To give you a sense of the breadth of FlyerTalk discussions, check out the index at www.flyertalk.com/forum/archive/index/php. For a revealing take on the obsessive culture of the FlyerTalk set, I highly recommend this series that ran in Slate in 2004: www.slate.com/id/2102698/entry/2102715/ The writer, Marisa Bowe, no hardcore FlyerTalk participant she, accompanies a group of diehard FlyerTalkers who managed to score $61 roundtrip tickets to Ireland due to a computer mistake. It’s one of the funniest pieces of travel writing I’ve ever read.

So, I’d forgotten about FlyerTalk until, two weeks ago, when I Google-stumbled on an archived index from the site’s Free Travel Contests and Sweepstakes forum. (I’d Googled “travel contests.”) True to type, there is a forum for sweeps geeks. (The URL is www.flytertalk.com/forum.forumdisplay.php?f=223. Registration is required. Go to the home page if you can’t access the forum through this URL.) It didn’t take more than few clicks to notice that two posters in particular, “outoftown” and “SkiAdcock,” are in the sweeps loop bigtime. They post details of travel sweeps with unfathomable frequency. FYI: FlyerTalk participants tend to post incognito, ergo the code names.

Sometimes, I’ve already unearthed sweeps posted on the FlyerTalk forum, other times I have not. Of those that are new to me, a fair number don’t interest me. Some don't include airfare. Some are to destinations that are not high on my travel wish list. Some are to faraway destinations that I hope to visit one day, but the prize is not for enough time to make the trip worthwhile. Some are just not my thing.

For instance, there was a post earlier this week for a trip for two to L.A., with a visit to the Playboy Mansion, a promotion for Basic Instinct II. I have no interest in flying cross country to see Hugh Hefner’s version of utopia and watch Sharon Stone perform in a role that strikes me as a major miscalculation as far as aging with grace and dignity goes, a role that launched a thousand "does she still have it" comparisons. (Okay, for those of you who might want to enter the L.A./ Playboy Mansion sweeps, here you go: www.playboy.com/basicinstincts2/sweeps.)
Of course, the FlyerTalk sweeps forum does turn me on to the occasional new-to-me travel sweeps that I end up entering.

If you check out the FlyerTalk forum, take care to read the comments, which often enlarge the fine print. Folks post basics from the official guidelines, but leave the combing to others. Of course, this is understandable, considering the number of sweeps these folks post.

Okay, enough process.

Go for it.