Sunday, July 30, 2017

Left New Zealand and Went Home. Sad!

We were now being forced to leave the magical land of New Zealand and return to the Hobbit-holes of our urban Shire, St. Louis, Missouri.


One last whimsically named product. Looks like here they call cough drops "throaties". I can't handle this culture shock.


We dropped off the rental car and Lydia called to yell at her phone company a few times.


Haere Ra to you as well.


Then I did what I do best, got us unlimited food and booze at the Emperor Lounge at Auckland Airport.


Sweet sweet free internet was also there in abundance.


Zoe and I share an affinity for the bubbly.


Airlines and airport lounges are a great opportunity to sample local products.


I think we arrived right at the cusp of breakfast/lunch. So I ate both.




Beer and cereal is my secret to growing up big and strong. Beer is sort of like cereal without all of that annoying chewing work people are always expecting me to do.








This picture sucks but there was a really cool glass sculpture above this bar that was made out of beer bottles.




We landed in Brisbane, Australia for what may be the 9th time on this trip. When we realized that they were going to make us go through airport security again we had to stop, drink all the beers we'd jammed into our bags in Auckland, then proceed. 

A guy with a family walked by while we were downing these beers in an airport hallway and said "nice place for a Speights isn't it?" I couldn't tell if he was being funny or not. 

Also Speights is a beer brand. That was an important detail for understanding the previous story. I guess read it again now that you know?

Was it funnier the second time? Let me know in the comments.




Speaking of Brisbane, do you remember when we first landed here there was a ton of fog and we got some good shots from the plane? 


Well I posted it on Twitter and the locals took a liking to it.


It even made it on a local news website, ABC.


Around this time the group started complaining "John you haven't gotten us into an exclusive airport lounge for free in about 3 hours what's the deal?" And I was like "Shazaam!"


I made it rain at Brisbane's Plaza Premium Lounge this time. We stayed here and ate and ate for seriously 6 or 7 hours.






This place had friggin cake pops.


Curry!






The flight attendants on Virgin Australia were polite enough I guess but all very stern. I've been on a couple of flights in my day so I know all the "put on your seatbelt" crap that they care about so I just do it then we don't have to talk. Well I was getting yelled at multiple times per flight by these women. One didn't want me to have my usb phone cord plugged in during takeoff. Who the hell cares?!

I got yelled at for taking this gif, in fact. I just think that maybe if they were a little nicer they wouldn't still be virgins. At some point it's time for a little self-reflection.








I don't care how many times I see it, the earth from a plane window is fascinating.


Artist's rendition of me makin' them lounge doors open for my crew.








It was discovered that a treat had survived the trip home and it was promptly devoured.


One of the fun things about being gone a while is the mountain of mail waiting for you. This time it contained a couple of new credit cards for each of us. Time to start working on earning our next trip!

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