This weekend I go to go on my first Sambassador experience, which was a getaway to Inn on the Twenty in historic Jordan Village.  It turns out that the available weekend they had was a few days before our 1 year anniversary, so it made the experience even more special.  Included in the package is

• One night accommodation in a two storey Loft Suite
• $50 gift card toward dinner
• Breakfast at On the Twenty restaurant
• Free makeup application with any spa service at The Spa on the Twenty
• 15% off all spa services(excludes massage)
• Complimentary parking
• Farewell gift 

 

Jason and I headed out to Jordan Village on Saturday afternoon.  The drive should have taken us about an hour and 20 minutes, but it took us over 2 hours to get out of the city due to the Gardiner Expressway being closed!  As soon as we hit the highway though it took us no time at all to get there.  We arrived just after 5pm and pulled into a picturesque little main street, centered around the Inn.  Check in is at 3pm but we called ahead to let them know we’d be late.  They were expecting us and had our room ready and a free wine tasting certificate to use at the Cave Springs Cellar wine tasting bar.

We headed straight across the street to catch the wine tasting before our dinner reservation at 6pm.  We chose the CSV Pinot Noir, the CSV Chardonnay and the CSV Pino Noir Dolomite.  CSV means that the grapes have been planted since 1974 and they hand pick the best clusters for each year.  Jason bought us a bottle of CSV Pinot Noir and we ran back to our room to get dressed for dinner.

Everything is close in Jordan Village and we walked across the street to the On the Twenty restaurant.  They sat us at a table by the window and we spent our dinner looking out across the Twenty Valley.  The atmosphere was relaxed and definitely perfect for my dress.

The food was absolutely delicious.  We started with an Amuse Bouche – a mussel topped with pear and fennel; I had the Truffle Scented Linguini – woodland mushroom ragoût, organic pole beans, parmesan tuile, and Chardonnay cream and Jason had Ontario Heritage Beef Tenderloin – Ontario chanterelle and foie gras ragoût, pommes Anna, cipollini and Cabernet butter and we paired it with a carafe of their CSV Pino Noir Dolemite.  The food was fabulous – Jason says “It was amazing” and he’s got a pretty good palate.  We also commented on the portion sizes because they were perfect, just enough that we both ate our whole meals (for me this is no small feat!).

After dinner we went back to the hotel room to taste our bottle of Pino Noir and I got changed again to go for a walk to find the Jordan House Tavern.  There was a haunted house tour happening in the village and there were people dressed up as ghosts hiding all throughout the area.  They definitely scared me seeing someone in the shadows, but we actually had to ask a couple of ghost girls for directions!

The Jordan House Tavern is adjacent to the Jordan House Hotel and “there has been a roadhouse on this site since 1844 and it has hosted everything from church services to vigilante meetings in its history.”  We stopped in for beers, shots and great live music by Jay Maher – who played a great cover of Neil Young’s “Hey Hey, My My” that made me want to sing it.

After drinks we went back to our cozy loft sweet and drank wine in front of the fireplace before falling asleep in the giant king sized bed – which we absolutely need to get for our house.  I had the best sleep and woke up the next day around 830am – I know, seems early but I’ve been on a crazy schedule lately so this was pretty good.  We went back over to Dine on the Twenty for breakfast which was a mini plate of pastries cornbread muffins, rosemary & cheese tea biscuits, apple danish and a two other pastries we didn’t try, a fresh fruit cup, fresh orange juice, tea or coffee and the choice of a cold cereal meal or hot eggs benedict or eggs florentine.  Of course we had the eggs!  Jason the benedict and I had the florentine.  If you’ve ever eaten breakfast with me you know that I can’t eat runny poached eggs.  They have to be hard or I’ll send them back – but they made the perfect eggs and we both thought their hollandaise sauce was excellent.

From breakfast we went back to our room to relax before our massages at 1030am (this was not included in the SambaDays experience and we splurged and treated ourselves).  I read by the fire for a while – finally getting around to reading Amber Mac’s Power Friending, and then we watched TV up in the loft until our massage therapists knocked on the door.  The massage room was close to ours so we didn’t have to take anything but the keys to our room.

We had massages in the same room and it was amazing.  I almost fell asleep and it was so nice and relaxing.  When we were finished our massages we headed back to our room to fruit, chocolate sauce and a small bottle of merlot.  We took a bunch of photos, packed up our stuff and checked out with Lianne, who was great and helped organize our reservation and services.  She gave us a bottle of their Riesling to take home and off we went to make our way back to the city.

Jason and I both had a really great time at Inn on the Twenty and in the village of Jordan.  It was a fun, relaxing romantic weekend away that was definitely something I would recommend and hope to do again.  I think it’s a great idea to give people a gift of something they can go and do and make memories out of, instead of a material item. I will remember this weekend.

Thank you to Samba Days and the Sambassador program for this awesome experience and to Scott, Lianne and the friendly staff at the Inn on the Twenty.  We’ll definitely be back.

I can’t wait for my next Sambassador experience.  Stay tuned!

For all the photos from our weekend you can check out the gallery

I am constantly touching my computer screen and it is always covered in fingerprints, smudges, water marks and well it’s usually pretty filthy. My blackberry is the same and there is always makeup smudged on the screen.  (I am actually embarrassed to post this photo of how dirty I let it get)

I’ve tried cleaning them with the cloth for my glasses, windex & paper towel, toilet paper (very bad idea, leaves white pieces).  I was pretty happy to receive Brilliant Screen Wipes in the mail to test out and review.  Its a 2 step process – a wet wipe that cleans all the dirt off and a dry cloth to wipe the screen dry and get any left over smudges.

So I tried them out today to clean my screen and phone and they worked really well.  You would not believe how much dirt came off!  I also used the wet wipe to clean the keyboard and shell of my Mac and it got all the dirt and spills out.  It’s like I have a brand new computer and I’m going to try and keep it this clean in the future.

I’ve got 2 packages (5 sets in a pack) of these screen wipes to give away so if you’d like to receive them leave a comment with the weirdest thing you’ve spilled or done to get your computer or cell phone dirty.

***

Something interesting to note.  Because I’m in the US blogging and receiving product from here I have to add a disclosure that the company sends me.  So here it is:

“I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissions 16 CFR, Part 255 Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. Tomoson Product review & giveaway Disclosure.”

Sponsored by Tomoson.com

This week has been crazy busy with NXNE and NXNEi taking place.  I’ve been attending NXNE since I moved to Toronto five years ago and have covered it for a variety of online sites, including my own blogs.  I was really excited to hear that they decided to launch an Interactive component to the already successful NXNE Music & Film Festival.

I met up with the lovely Casie for the panels and I was very impressed with the panels and their content.  One thing that most people noted was that there was no WiFi access for attendees.  For an interactive event this was a pretty big NoNo and really the only negative thing I heard anyone say.  There is a promise of free WiFi at next year’s NXNEi so let’s hope it happens.

I sat in on four panels: Amber Mac’s “Architects Of Community”; Jamie Woo’s “Social Media Circle Jerking 101″;  Scott Stratten’s “Stop Marketing, Start Engaging. Social Media and Viral Marketing”; and the Women in Social Media panel titled “Thank you for being a friend: Tips, traits and tactics of successful women in tech and social media”.

• I have been to a couple of Scott Stratten‘s presentations and I admire that he has created a strong personal brand with hard work and passion.  He covered everything from his past professional experience (both good and bad) that have led him to creating his Unmarketing online personal brand. I recommend going to an event to hear him speak if you haven’t already.

• Social Media Circle Jerk was of course a popular panel, that discussed how people and organizations use social media that annoys their followers instead of engaging them.  They also touched on what kind of content users post on Twitter, including being critical of others online, censorship and posting personal tweets on business profiles.  Speakers were Kevin Airgid, Mark Evans, Andrew Lane, Michael Dolan and moderated by Jamie Woo.
• Architects of Community featuring Alan Cross, Amber Mac and Erica Ehm was one of the most interesting panels in my opinion.  The topic was building communities through social media and learning how they grew them with limited resources.  It was interesting to hear that the key point was again being authentic and the level of engagement you have with your community.
• Women in Social Media featured Lucia Mancuso, April Dunford, Guinevere Orvis and Amrita Chandra and it was a very relaxed and welcoming atmosphere for this panel.  Three main topics were discussed – gender and technology, mentors and online identity. Their main points for success were: setting clear goals, seeking out mentors, and asking questions.  These women were the highlight panel of my NXNEi experience and it really got me thinking about my business model and plans for the future.

I had a great time at NXNEi and really learned alot.  I can’t wait to see what next’s years conference will bring.  Thanks to Jason for stopping us to take photos!