The Falkland Islands + Midland, Michigan
An incredibly rousing round of applause from the audience at Penguin Entertainment has the girls real excited. Oh, we are recording this episode live in front of an AWESOME audience. Watch it here! So excited that they want to do another live show wherever you are. Seriously, we'll come to you.
So if you missed it, we did a giveaway of our obsessions. We had multiple ways you could enter, we put all the names in an app that generates your winner, all ways to be unbiased, and yet somehow, Alison's mom won.
Alison is obsessed with mirrors. She has this new found appreciation after realizing that if she didn't have the car visor mirror to put makeup on, she would have quite possibly looked crazy. It brought about a full on meta-existential-crisis thinking what we would do without mirrors. Lulu is less existentially but very practically obsessed with Scribd. For just 8.99/month you have unlimited access to tons of E-books, audiobooks, and sheet music.
Alison has waxed poetic about the wonder that would be a portable toilet situation. It's been her wishlist more than once we’re prety sure. Well its here. She found it. A backpack portable toilet. It's called the InstaPrivy, and you can get it now by backing their Indiegogo campaign. Lulu wants to see Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden someday.
Always one for a theme, since they are recording this at Penguin Entertainment...you guessed it, she wanted to go somewhere to see penguins! She heads to The Falkland Islands, a remote South Atlantic archipelago. We had to look up what exactly an archipelago was, so for those of you smarter than us, skip ahead, but if you are also in the dark, it is a cluster or collection of islands. Alison is staying at the Waterfront Hotel, whose luxury suite is under $300 for two nights thanks to low season discounts. Guess what, that means she's bringing the audience with her!
She books a vehicle and driver through Falkland Islands Tour & Travel, because they've got places to go and penguins to see. Off to Bluff Cove, home of over 3,000 penguins! King Penguins, Gentoo penguins, and Magellanic penguins, the latter's pronunciation throws Alison for...a bit. But she's forgiven as she pays the tour guides directly to take them on an off-road excursion to the Bluff Cove Lagoon, a wildlife haven. They also adopt a few of these tuxedo wearing birds through Bluff Cove's adopt-a-penguin program. The attached Sea Cabbage Café offers complimentary freshly brewed tea, coffee, hot chocolate and herbal tea served in china tea cups! How delightful.
After a bit of refreshment the group continues on to the Falklands Museum where they see galleries covering social, maritime and natural history, oh and the archipelago's 1982 war. Alison is sooo excited about this because she was born in 1982. Lulu and the audience question her about the war to which she replies that she hasn't actually been to the museum yet, so she doesn't know much. Something about Argentinians. Or Americans. If she'd really been to the museum and not just in an imaginary 10K day, she is sure she would be much more knowledgable on the subject, thank you very much.
Malvina House Hotel's Bar & Restaurant is up next, but they've got to make it in time as they have very narrow time windows for their breakfast, lunch, and dinner services. Alison really did her math here, as each of her guests is allotted one starter, one main dish, two sides, and a drink. Less than $600 for 12 people is not that bad! Maybe she could have let them have a second drink? We'll see how the day shapes up, perhaps some retroactive imbibing will fit in the budget.
Well as there is time and money to spare, Alison is going to make a penguin music video! She has these one-size-fits-all penguin costumes ready for her and her guests. She does a re-write of "Seasons of Love", titled "Penguins of Love". They record this remake at Falklands Radio. In lieu of a videographer, she buys a few of these Traveling Multi-use Tripod that can be used with DSLR cameras or iPhones. She gives her guests a break while she does a quick iMovie edit, and then invites them to the premiere at Harbour Lights Cinema. She orders a bunch of penguin-themed food for the event...except these aren’t available to order, they are recipes and tutorials. So hopefully her guests will pitch in to make all of these snacks? That's what they can be doing while she edits.
She also buys some bottles of that really inexpensive little penguin wine, but just for the label. She's getting really good wine for her guests, and putting the penguin label on the bottle, just so they look on theme. She took some suggestions from the Robb Report 2019 Best Wine list, and bought a $900 bottle of Promontory 2013 from Napa Valley, two bottles of the Ramey 2015 Ritchie Vineyard Chardonnay, and a bottle of Mod Sélection champagne. Usually you hear of people putting inexpensive wine in expensive bottles to feel more bougie, but she went the other way with it. Just go with it guys, it's a 10K Day so she can do what she wants.
Lulu found this article - “So you think there is “nothing to do in Midland”? Think again!”. Of great disappointment to Lulu, two of the items on this list are “get a cappuccino at Starbucks” and “see the latest movie.” Yikes. She's setting out to prove that you can have an exciting time in Midland. Not off to a great start, she's staying twenty minutes away in Bay City. But she wagered she could prove you can DO great things in Midland, she didn't say the best stay would be within town limits. Seeing how great her accommodations are, we think this was a good call. The Historic Webster House is a beautiful bed and breakfast that has a five room suite which Lulu obviously selects. It has a fireplace and a private bar, and you can pay around $150 to have new sheets, not fresh sheets which is a hotel given, but never-been-used-fresh-out-of-the-packaging new sheets. There is also a nightly wine and cheese reception, FOR FREE.
The most expensive car Lulu could find was a Chrysler 300 on Expedia, so that will be her wheels for the day. Despite some deterring TripAdvisor reviews, she grabs breakfast at Shirlene's Cuisine. Seriously, go read these reviews. If you are still curious why Lulu chose Midland, recall that she is obsessed with Christmas, and those obsessed with Christmas often observe Christmas in July, whatever that means. Lulu chose Midland for the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School. This thing is legit. Since 1937, expert lecturers have taught men and women to embody the spirit of Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus. So obviously she is flying in Alison to join her for a Christmas-centric education.
Needing to be properly outfitted, they get custom-made 10K Dollar Day ugly christmas sweaters from Roody Originals. Thing is you have to make a minimum of 100, so everyone is the audience is getting a sweater. Dressed for the occasion, Lulu and Alison study hard to become experts at wig and beard application, sign language, reindeer habits, and toy making. There is also a Mrs. Claus breakout session, which Lulu is pawning off on Alison. They also teach you some exercises to help work off all the milk and cookies.
Ready for seasonal holiday work as the Clauses, the gals head back to the b&b for the free wine and cheese before they hunker down and binge watch some Hallmark Christmas movies. This is a very, very, Lulu 10K Day if ever there was one.
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