Christmas is Popping Up All Over

Today on the drive to work my normal route on the highway was closed and I had to take a detour through north St. Louis County. We had a pretty big storm recently and it ripped the cover off of this magnificent Venture sign. Venture closed in 1998.

I opened an Expedia credit card. I just thought that it was high time that I got rewarded, you know?

That night we continued our Christmas themed pop-up bar binge with Mistletoe at Paddy O's. I think that this was one of the better ones. I was impressed with the level of decoration and they really had the whole rhyming thing down as well.

They had a decent menu.

Lydia went with "A White Christmas - Smirnoff Peppermint Twist Vodka, Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur, Bailey's, garnished with a chocolate sauce and crushed candy cane rim." This was clearly an error because everyone knows that white chocolate is the absolute worst kind of chocolate. I mean, it's got like friggin' zero percent cacao. Another fun fact: Lydia's favorite ocean is the Gobi Desert.

One thing that may make Mistletoe the best Christmas pop-up bar in St. Louis was the fact that they were real generous with the snacks. I think that they just brought us little bowls of snack mix AND cookies for funsies. They also gave us each a little bag for free with s'more supplies in them! Best day of my life.

We had to go outside immediately and do some mallow roasting. Got another fun fact for you, and this one is even real: modern marshmallows are descendents of a medicinal confection that was made from the marshmallow plant, which grows in marshes. Ancient Egyptians made a version of them because marshmallow root was used to soothe coughes and sore throats.

No coughs here.

I don't know.

Later we hit up Bailey's Chocolate Bar to use our drink passports.

The girls ended up getting these horrid bellinis that were so bad 3 of them got left on our table. I had a manhattan because I don't hate my mouth.

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!