The OuterBelt's Podcast
The OuterBelt's Podcast
Summer Recap Episode 1
We are excited to be back and what a better way to start things off than a summer recap of our adventures! Join us as we talk about our recent travels and the amazing things we got to experience.
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Hey everybody, welcome to the Outer Belt Season 3. We have made it to Season 3. I am Patrick, I'm one of the hosts and you all know my friends. I'm Vince.
Speaker 1:Melissa.
Speaker 2:Eric and Jerry, and we're here to Rock your world, to speak truth into your life, to bring you into the presence of greatness greatness and uh, kill some time going down the road and uh, yeah, so I'm excited to be back for season three, season three. Can you imagine we made it this far?
Speaker 1:barely do you know people are waiting. They're on pins and needles. Pins and needles, y'all been coming out harassing us like this is some bull.
Speaker 2:Y'all should not. Who takes the summer off? Besides, you know, like, what have y'all been doing? And I'm like, well, lots of people take summers off. They got you know students and uh, things to do, other people, teachers and people, right, and it's not like we weren't working. We were working.
Speaker 1:Well.
Speaker 2:Most of us were working Touchy subject Anyways. So maybe we peaches that part out. I don't know.
Speaker 5:I don't think we do peaches that part out. I think that I'm going to let the bitterness shine through. All right, oh good grief.
Speaker 2:I can see it, I can see it, I can see it's all over the facial hair, all over the facial hair.
Speaker 5:Hang on, that's a little bitters from my cocktail.
Speaker 2:Okay, I knew it was bitter, so, no, it's been a fun couple months, very relaxing, got a lot of work done, got a lot of relaxation done as well. And we thought, you know what? If we're going to kick this off, since y'all have been asking where have y'all been? Well, by George, let's tell you where we've been. Yeah, so we are going to give you a quick synopsis of what we've been doing over the past couple months. Shouldn't take longer than four or five hours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it At least, yeah, between the five of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's an hour and a half per person, right? What is that?
Speaker 1:real quick.
Speaker 2:That's like seven and a half hours and Jerry's going to edit down to 15 minutes, I thought we agreed to make this a YouTube short.
Speaker 5:in less than a minute A YouTube short.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've already blown it, we've already gotten over.
Speaker 5:We've already messed up. You can speed it up in certain spots, slow it down in other spots, that's true, it's going to be like 50x the end Old school.
Speaker 2:So a third of our audience will understand this. The other two thirds won't. But back in the day you used to have these round things called records. You put them on the record player and they had a little switch. They could go between 33 RPM or 78 RPM, right? So you ever take a 33 and then you speed it up to 78 and listen to it. It's like the most ridiculous chipmunks Christmas song you've ever heard in your life.
Speaker 1:That's what this will be like you can do it the other way too, though you can slow it way down.
Speaker 5:It's like Christmas. Christmas time is near. You can actually hear the actual voices of the chipmunks, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:That's funny, that's great.
Speaker 1:That's good times.
Speaker 2:So where do we begin?
Speaker 1:Where do we leave off?
Speaker 2:We left off in May.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Mid-May, I believe. Is that correct? Anyone want to fact check Mid to May? Okay, mid-may, I believe. Is that correct? Anyone want to fact check? Mid to end? Okay, mid to end May. And it's now August.
Speaker 1:Already I know, Can you believe it?
Speaker 2:I just can't. Well, I can, because when you step outside right now, it's very clearly August.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Today was the day I went down to the lot and was working with y'all for not long 30 minutes, like a pretty quick little trip. I got back in my car and started heading back up to the office and I'm like it is so hot out there, like it's funny, because it didn't hit me until I actually got in my car and started driving away and then I was like wow, it's really hot. Yeah, like it's really hot. And then, with that AC blowing on full blast, you're just coming off the windshield. It's just, it's the heat.
Speaker 5:There's nothing you can do about it. It was crazy, it was a hot day. It's days like today that I wish I was going through FedEx trucks and not Panther trucks, because if they were FedEx trucks I'd just turn the reefer box just cool it down. A little cooling. There you go, and the panther trucks it's just a oven you know, I just bakes me.
Speaker 2:I've tried that, have you? Have you been successful at that?
Speaker 5:yeah, and the panther trucks, yeah, oh yeah, I have to.
Speaker 2:I remember doing it in the past and, for those who don't know, I used to do what vince does now. So when he came on board, um, I got demoted to the office, but he uh. So when I was working on the trucks I tried that a few times and I found that all it did was just blow the air right out of the back of the box. So I never could like you do get some cooling effect you do, it's better than nothing.
Speaker 5:It's better than just being in there with no moving air? What about a?
Speaker 2:giant fan. They're up on the lift gate and turn on for when you're working in there.
Speaker 5:Would that be, yeah, the problem then is all the crap on the floor is going to stand.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's going to blow everywhere.
Speaker 5:Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean I get in there and sweep them out, but all the crap on the floor is going to stand, but even still. Can you imagine?
Speaker 2:you're like sweeping, because sometimes you know you'll get a truck and it'll have like or you'll, because those pallets aren't the cleanest and so it's inevitable. You get mud, dried mud, you get all that stuff dirt in there. So when you're sweeping out you can get a little bit of a cloud, but we're doing it smaller. Can you imagine having a big fan blowing right on you while you're doing that? It's just a mushroom cloud. You can't breathe. You got to full respiratory gear.
Speaker 2:That's a good idea though In the back of a truck in a hazmat uniform. Yeah, what if we just start buying reefers for all the trucks?
Speaker 5:That'd be great. It'd cost a lot of money, probably put us out of business. You know what we could do.
Speaker 2:We might could do what might could we do, we're not gonna, but we might. Could we just take a window unit? Yes and we just bolt that in front of, in the very front of all the boxes that don't have reefer units.
Speaker 3:That'd be great.
Speaker 2:You know, turn it on, take six, seven days, finally cool it off.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'm glad you decided not to do that already.
Speaker 2:I do remember, like when we were it's funny, I just had this conversation when we were running freight, eric and I ran both dry van and reefer it intermixed running, uh, freight eric and I ran both dry van and reefer it intermixed. I mean like we would be in a reefer and then we would jump to a dry van and back because we always took whatever truck was available and the nicer trucks. We always put the better teams in and we would just take what's over left over, right you?
Speaker 2:know, being in yuma, arizona, in a dry van in the middle of august. You open up those doors oh yeah and you could bake cookies like instantly.
Speaker 5:it's just so hot in there. You wouldn't bake them instantly, you'd burn them. Yes, you'd burn them instantly.
Speaker 2:On a reefer truck. Even with that insulation, even if you're not running the reefer box, it still doesn't really get that hot, or it will, but it takes a very long time to get that hot.
Speaker 5:I was going to say that I looked at one today. We actually picked one up from a shop today and I turned the reefer on, because I always run the reefer, make sure they're working properly. Uh, it was 34 degrees celsius inside that box. That's toasty, granted. Yes, it had been sitting outside in the sun for the weekend at least. So yeah, but that. But I understand what you mean.
Speaker 2:It takes a few days, yes, to get that cold, but we had, uh, the other thing, so that was one thing. The second thing I noticed was um, so, on those boxes, the the roof of the box, some are a sheet of aluminum on the dry vans. And some of them are translucent fiberglass.
Speaker 5:I don't know what that is, yeah something like that, something stronger than just plastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not plastic, but it looks like translucent plastic. Basically, those are dramatically cooler they are than the metal roofed ones. Um, unfortunately we've pretty much only started doing the metal roof ones for a couple years now, so our translucent ones are starting to make their way out of the fleet. But, um, yeah, they're that, that little thin piece of fiberglass plastic. It does not radiate heat like that metal. Does that metal man? It man, it'll burn you If you touch it, if you have to go up there and change a bulb or something. It's way over 100 degrees. It's crazy hot, wow, anyways. But it's beautiful outside. Not a lot of clouds in the sky, no, I mean, if it wasn't so hot, it is actually quite lovely outside.
Speaker 2:It's a gorgeous day outside it, if it wasn't so hot, it is actually quite lovely outside. It's a gorgeous day outside, it really is. So I appreciated that. Last night y'all came over and we called up, since Eric and I had been gone for a bit. We'll talk about that in a minute. It was nice just being able to sit outside hang out with y'all.
Speaker 1:We actually had a cool breeze for a little bit. Last night we got really lucky.
Speaker 2:And what's really funny is, right before that happened, eric was like maybe we should cancel and you know, because it is so hot, he was in the front yard working on um. I was playing around my plants yeah, you were staking up a plant right like so it wouldn't fall over yeah, one of those tall ridiculous things eventually gets too tall, it starts to fall over. You're gonna stake it. And he was doing that and he came inside just completely head-to-toe drenched wet, just like it is so humid, so hot, just sitting there.
Speaker 2:There was no wind flow in that front corner of the house as soon as we walked in and I was like, oh no, because that's not got sun on it. Our back, where we hung out, does have sun. I was like, oh, this might be a crap show. But I said, no, let's keep doing it. If it's too hot we'll just sit inside. But I hadn't seen y'all so I wanted to catch up and it was just perfect. It was just a nice breeze. It never got too hot. No, really got lucky.
Speaker 5:We had the breeze coming down the river, yes, and then also the fan out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did. We had a big fan going too, so it kept the air moving nicely. Yeah, so it's that time of the year where the nights are lovely and the daytime is just brutal. But just think about it. You're going to hear this recording here in a few months and it's going to be negative 10 outside.
Speaker 5:Complaints will go the other way. Yeah, it'll swing the other side. The nice thing about the reefer is I can turn them up a little bit you get that heat go too, I went grocery shopping yesterday and I already bought pumpkin spice. Too soon, too soon we were at Costco like two months ago, maybe a month ago, and they had Halloween costumes on the shelf already.
Speaker 2:Just insane. Yes, I agree.
Speaker 5:I'm looking forward to next week going Easter shopping.
Speaker 1:Hobby Lobby had Christmas out already.
Speaker 2:Hobby Lobby had Christmas out in February.
Speaker 1:They just don't put it away.
Speaker 2:They just don't put it away. No kidding, you'll hear about this in a minute. But we're savannah and the other day, and in savannah, georgia, they had a store with all the christmas stuff inside of it yeah and I was like really, yeah, yeah, it was a christmas store, but still like seems early.
Speaker 1:That's all I'm saying yeah, but if that's your business 24-7-365, you're a Christmas store.
Speaker 2:Agreed yeah.
Speaker 1:Which I respect, that I can avoid you, but just going to like Joanne's or Hobby Lobby or Kroger and they're like Christmas and I'm like it's August.
Speaker 2:Anyways. Well, I'm glad y'all stayed with us to hear this ramble about the weather, but, and Christmas and seasons and whatever else, but so we left it. You left in May and I think Eric and I were the first ones to leave the city, right, yes, yes, you were. So Eric and I left and had quite a fun trip. It was actually our first time going to Paris.
Speaker 5:Wow, your first time in Paris.
Speaker 2:First time in Paris, so I've been in France before. We've both been in France before we did Normandy and Le Havre a few years ago on a transatlantic cruise had a lot of fun in Le Havre. I mean, like the piano player on the cruise had to be escorted back to the cruise ship with two people holding her up. Wow, because there was too much wine consumed at one of the British pub in. France.
Speaker 3:Yes, as you do.
Speaker 2:It was crazy, the Beatles were there.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:It was nuts. It was yes, yeah. I do remember you telling that story it was. It was a lot of fun, um, and everybody took care of each other, which I thought was really cool. You know, when that kind of thing happens, everybody just you know the people that you know enjoy themselves too much.
Speaker 2:They get helped that kind of thing, but it was, uh, it was a lot of fun. Um, those of us that stayed adult in that situation, uh, which we did, uh, I don't know. I just really enjoyed our time there. So I was anxious to see okay, what's paris like, right? So eric and I set out to go to paris, and it begins badly oh no so we had planned that. If I gotta remember how this works out, melissa, if I'm not mistaken, you were taking us to the airport.
Speaker 1:Yes, I had.
Speaker 2:I heard that story.
Speaker 1:I volunteered to do it.
Speaker 2:You volunteered to take us to the airport. Yes and so, but we were going to take my vehicle right. Your vehicle, okay, and then, and I was, going to.
Speaker 1:You were going to pick me up. And then, yes, we got it all worked out. Yeah, yes.
Speaker 2:And so I think we were supposed to be at the airport for like 5 pm. We were going to leave around 3, right, Correct. And I knew there was a bad storm going over New York City, but it was going to clear out by then. So who cared? Well, around 1230 in the afternoon, get a notification from Delta your flight's been canceled. And I'm like, well, that's not good, Because the very next morning at 7 am we were flying to France, to Paris. So I'm like, oh, this is not good at all. So I jump online. I'm like, looking, trying to find a reschedule. They rescheduled this for the next day. That wasn't going to work. So I'm like, let me find, look through Delta's website, see if I can find another flight or whatever. I couldn't find anything. So I'm really freaked out. So I called Delta and talked to a lady at the Diamond Medallion desk. Go, Diamond Medallion Was able to get us on a flight Columbus to Atlanta, Atlanta to Charlotte, Charlotte to New York.
Speaker 2:And it wouldn't even go to JFK. It was going to LaGuardia and I'm like that's fine. We can take a taxi when we get to New York and get back to JFK Because our hotel is at JFK. So I'm like I can make that work. That's fine and they made it happen. And she's like the only thing is your flight leaves in like 50 minutes and, for those of you who don't know, we live 20, 25 minutes away from the airport. That's not a lot of room for error. I'm sorry it didn't take off. It started boarding in 50 minutes.
Speaker 2:Okay. So Eric and I I mean like madhouse, crazy, start like turning things off and throwing things into the car. And just as fast I called you and I'm like run away, I don't care what you're doing, stop doing it, run away. Yeah. And you were like um, okay, and I'm like I'll explain to the car so I met you in the cul-de-sac you met me in the cul-de-sac and we did like you know, when you want.
Speaker 2:Have you ever seen the uh secret service driving academy stuff where they take the limousine and they do a U-turn in six feet? I did that. We scooped Melissa up. Eric popped the passenger door. We scooped Melissa up. We didn't even stop moving. She shut the door and we were on our way.
Speaker 1:It was crazy.
Speaker 2:She clicked the seatbelt in and we were gone. It was fast. And then it was just however legally fast I could get to the airport is what I did and I pulled straight up to the gate or not to the gate to the entrance and we hugged her and grabbed her stuff and we ran like praying they would take our luggage, because within so many minutes of a flight, they won't take your luggage anymore. Luckily, we barely made the cutoff and then, uh, everything at the tsa went good and we walked straight onto the airplane. Um, it was awesome, and so we're.
Speaker 2:We took off and you know we're flying to atlanta and now it's like you're relaxing, we're, you know, trying to calm down, and I was so wired I'm like I had the tv in the screen, but I'm like I couldn't even watch TV. I just had to think for a little bit and I played my game and listened to a podcast. And while I'm playing my game, get a little bloop your flight's been canceled, your flight from Charlotte to LaGuardia has been canceled, and I'm like you got to be kidding me. I'm like, does God not want us to go to new york? Like what's happening here, what don't I know? And, uh, flying in the air. Uh, thankfully with free text messaging with delta. Um, actually now it's free internet like you get. Yeah, full-on free internet. Delta's really made some good improvements. I know they had a meltdown while you know we'll talk and we'll talk about we'll get to that, but um.
Speaker 2:But no, I was texting with the lady, um, because delta actually has this feature where you can text them. If you are a delta flyer and you don't know about this, under contact us in the app there's a place to text them. It is amazing yeah there's time.
Speaker 2:Most of the time there's almost never a reason to call it is really it's slick, um, so I'm texting with the lady at delta and I'm like my flight just canceled. And, uh, I told her the situation and she was like all right, let me work on it. And I said, look, we need to be in new york tonight. I don't care if we can fly together, I don't care if we have to take separate airplanes, I don't care if we fly to different airports. Like we both have credit cards and uber, we can, like you fly me to laguardia, fly him to jfk, fly me to newark, like I don't care, we just have to get there.
Speaker 2:That's not, that's the only thing, because if not, then I'm changing my international flight, which is a much bigger deal, right. And then the whole thing with the air, with the hotel. A lot of those hotels if you don't check in when you're supposed to, they don't, they just cancel your room and you're just out the money. So I'm like, and and especially with paris and the olympics and all, they're being very tight on that stuff. So I'm like I've got to get on this flight. And so, sure enough, she found one seat on each flight going from atlanta to um jfk an hour apart from each other. But I'm like we'll take it. So she booked us both of those flights. I got the first one out, so I'm like, okay, well, when I get to jfk I just got to wait for an hour and then eric will join me. Um our, my flight got delayed on the runway, on the taxiway for, for whatever reason, we had like a 30, 40-minute wait, and so when I landed at JFK, eric was only like 20 minutes behind me.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So I got my luggage. Like, while I was getting my luggage off the conveyor belt, he was literally landing at JFK. So we just it was hardly any inconvenience on that end Made it there, walked over to the hotel, sp it there, walked over to the hotel, spent a whole two hours at the hotel.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:That's one of those things that you look at and you're like that was a waste of money.
Speaker 4:Wow, Two hours it was a waste of a lot of money.
Speaker 2:It was a waste of a lot of money. We actually got to stay at the TWA Hotel, which I don't know if y'all have stayed at yet. We actually got to stay at the TWA Hotel, which I don't know if y'all have stayed at yet. It's a really cool hotel in New York City. It is actually at the—if you haven't heard of it, look it up. So it's the TWA Terminal, the old Transwest—is it? Transwest Airlines, twa, whatever it means. They're the ones that went up against Pan Am, you know Eastern, yeah, all the Howard Hughes'' airline. So they were a big deal. They had a really cool terminal at JFK and it's actually, if you ever watch, catch Me If you Can.
Speaker 5:Yeah, great movie.
Speaker 2:His stuff happens inside that terminal and it's like the long red carpeted tunnels that lead to the runway. That's at the, that's TWA. So what they, what they did, is tw went out of business in the 90s and nobody used the terminal. So, um, people are freaking out because, like paname had a beautiful terminal there, they tore to the ground and there's just been a lot of these older terminals of these airports don't really make sense anymore. They're not, they're not best anymore.
Speaker 2:So there was a big thing to save TW Terminal and they did and they're trying to figure out what to do with it. And a hotelier was like I'll take it, like let me lease it from y'all and I'll make it work. And he built two towers on either side of the terminal that are very nice, very like 1960s outside architecture really fits in quite well with the design of the building. The terminal serves the hotel's lobby, which is huge but super nice, and you take the two red carpeted hallways, one to each terminal, and then in the middle of the two towers there is a Connie, an old Lucky Constellation airplane from the 1930s or whatever it would have been, and they converted that into a bar slash meeting area.
Speaker 2:So they've done a lot to really make it a very cool place. It's got that old huge scoreboard thing, you know where. It would say like all your flight terminals and then all your flights and what gates they're at, and then it does like the thing like a.
Speaker 2:Rolodex-looking thing with the numbers and then it updates and everything. It's really, it's very cool. It's very like to renovate. That was like $2 million just that one thing, wow. Very like to renovate. That was like two million dollars just that one thing, wow. Um, so they've done a really great job with it. So it's. It's a hotel I really really like.
Speaker 2:If you're an airplane nut like I am, on top of one of the towers is a swimming pool and a restaurant bar area and you can just sit there and just watch all these planes come and go from jfk outdoors. Uh, it's really nice. I've had some really great memories there. That being said, it is kind of expensive and also for two hours. I mean, I feel like you know, a nice chair at the airport would have been fine. It was such a waste of money. I was so angry. I almost always get non uh, cancelable you know, non-refundable rooms because you just I travel so much, we travel so much and we cancel rooms so rarely that I'd be losing money hand over fist if I always got refundable rooms. It was, you know, we went, but it was. It was really. I mean, literally get in, take an hour, hour and a half nap and then get up and leave.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And from that point on it was pretty uneventful, right? I mean no problems, eric.
Speaker 1:How was Paris?
Speaker 2:Keep going?
Speaker 4:How was Paris? Very French, it was very.
Speaker 5:We want to hear somebody else's voice besides Patrick's voice. Yes, so you get to Paris. First thing you see is so long ago.
Speaker 4:I do know our room had perfect view of the Eiffel Tower.
Speaker 2:Well, I wouldn't say perfect.
Speaker 4:Perfect for me.
Speaker 2:Close enough. Yeah, we did Good food. Yeah, we, we did the whole whole like, don't get a car, take the train in from Charles to Gall. That was a situation, not knowing which ticket to get and everything, and we ended up getting a five day pass or whatever. It was for the trains and it was for the trains and it was ridiculous because the five-day pass is on like what?
Speaker 4:an inch and a half by two-inch piece of paper. Yeah, it's like whenever you go check luggage in somewhere and the bottom half an inch, you pull it off and keep that with you. Yeah, that's the size of their transit tickets.
Speaker 2:For five days.
Speaker 4:Boy, be careful, don't lose that. Yeah, no kidding yeah you can see them thrown all over the floor like cigarette butts.
Speaker 2:Yes, because it's exact. It looks identical to like just a single trip ticket, so people use the same for the single trip ticket and then not throw them in the trash or throw them in the trash or whatever, like it's ridiculous. Um, but yeah, that was weird, I mean because we got, you know, two bags each and and we're taking up room and it. It was just super, super stinking awkward um getting there. But we got there and we stayed at the pullman next to the aft tower, like he said. Um, how do we get a little balcony?
Speaker 4:um, yeah, about about three feet wide.
Speaker 2:Yeah, enough to step out there.
Speaker 4:Ten feet long.
Speaker 2:But not big enough that we could cross each other Like whoever's in the far side. You'd have to get up and move to let them pass, or whatever. I was not expecting much out of Paris, right? I think y'all know me by now. I like the unusual places. I don't really care for the really popular places. I don't really like tourist traps Some I do, but most I don't. I like to be where people are and not where tourism takes place, where tourism is the overwhelming dynamic, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And Paris is so famous and it's so the city of love, and it's so blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So I'm like it's not going to live up to its hype. It's going to be very mainstream. I don't know that I'm going to like it that much, but hey, let's go. I at least get to go see the Eiffel Tower. Do some things I've wanted is unwarranted, right, this is going to come as a surprise to y'all, but Paris is awesome, like it is so nice, I liked it so much. I was genuinely surprised. I mean, really, it was like on day three or four. I'm like, wow, this is actually a really cool city. And it's like, well, no, kidding, like you know what I mean. Oh, you mean the place that's literally known as, like, the city of love is a cool place. What a shocker.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But I had so much fun. The food there is amazing. I mean it's amazing. We went to like some bad places and it was great.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. It's all the better.
Speaker 2:Maybe it was fantastic.
Speaker 4:I really uh man I loved it.
Speaker 2:Um went to a couple went to our first uh michelin star restaurant. Went to two different michelin star restaurants while we were there very nice that was cool. Uh, the first michelin star restaurant had the most unusual um item on the menu.
Speaker 1:Which was.
Speaker 4:I don't remember Pigeon.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Isn't that squab? Same thing.
Speaker 5:That's what they call. Yeah, squab, squab. I asked, pigeon is also called squab, like cows are called beef. Oh, okay. So I actually asked that question of you. When you sent that picture. I asked, oh, is it pigeon on the menu? And you said, yeah, it's called pigeon on the menu.
Speaker 2:It's called pigeon on the menu Because there's several restaurants that was always called pigeon. I never saw squab. We have that in America. I gotta find these restaurants. It was so good, it was juicy, it was like a really dark meat, like a duck or like a dark, really dark piece of chicken.
Speaker 1:Feature being like a Cornish game hand.
Speaker 2:Kind of yeah, very similar, because I had one of those at one point too, but a little bit better. I really enjoyed it. I was really shocked. I'm like man, this is the rat of the sky. How does it taste so good?
Speaker 5:We had neighbors growing up. Just as an aside, there was a huge palm tree. I grew up in Southern California, huge palm tree in our next door neighbor's yard and there were neighbors I don't know six, seven houses down the street that were from America, samoa, and they would come down every now and again with a BB gun and take pigeons out of the tree and go home and eat them.
Speaker 5:Wow, it was a thing I should have. I was young. I was probably I don't know six, seven years old, so I didn't know, man it was stinking delicious, I believe you. I believe, you.
Speaker 2:I love those. I didn't know this either, but a lot of those Michelin star restaurants are tasting menus, which means you sit down, you order the menu. Some of them will actually tell you what's on it, some won't. There was one place we went and they were like what won't you eat? And then you tell them, like Eric has a sesame allergy, he can't have sesame. So we told them that. But if you don't eat fish, they would have made note of that too. But we eat everything. So we didn't even know it was on the menu. We were just on for the ride. But the first place we went to we did know it was on the menu. We didn't get to look at it. I think there were a couple different choices, right, eric? I think there was a couple choices.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but not many.
Speaker 2:Not many, but a couple, and so we decided which one we were going to go with. You could do water, you could do soft drinks, or you could buy a glass of wine or whatever, but what I really liked was they had the wine tasting menu as well. Yeah, pairing with the menu yes and so every course, they pair it with a new wine. That's not dangerous. It does, yeah, it's dangerous-ish. But I will say this they're only giving you a couple ounces.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they're not pouring you a full pour of wine, correct?
Speaker 2:You're not getting a nine-ounce cup every time they. Can you imagine You'd never be able to walk out of that place.
Speaker 5:You couldn't, eric wouldn't get through his first glass of wine. I know It'd take forever. Listen, listen on both.
Speaker 2:We did the wine pairings on both and on both times they were serving us our next wine pairing before either one of us got done with it.
Speaker 4:It was like chug Halfway through.
Speaker 2:I'm like going back to my college years of like chug, chug, chug, but it's wine, not beer, so it's a little different.
Speaker 2:No, it was great. I really enjoyed it. I had so much fun. I do want to find more tasting menus here in America. So if you're out there and you're like, oh, if you like tasting menus, if you like multi-course deals, you need to check out this restaurant. Please let me know, because I would love to experience more of them. It's a lot of fun. You might get one you don't like, but if you're getting seven courses, you know. And again, the courses aren't big, they're fairly small courses, but you have so many.
Speaker 4:When you leave there you're like I'm not eating forever again.
Speaker 2:They're like appetizers yeah, appetizers. It reminds me a lot of Barcelona we were in Barcelona last year and a lot of the food there you can get a tapas. They invented it. I mean, it's their thing, right.
Speaker 2:Small plates, yeah, small plates, which is awesome because you're like I'll take the shrimp, garlic shrimp, which is usually like five bucks and you get like four or five shrimp, but they're prawns, they're big size prawns, and then you get this and that and that and ultimately you've spent 20 bucks and you've eaten like a king and it's awesome. You know, like in America you go to McDonald's you get a double cheeseburger and a Coke and they're like $25. And it's like well, okay. So I do appreciate that aspect, a lot about places that have the multi-course options. But no, it was a lot of fun, really enjoyed it, had a great time, like I said, went to the second restaurant. We told them. They asked us you know, what can't you eat Sesame allergy, what Can't you Eat? Sesame Allergy?
Speaker 2:And that was really cool because that night was actually sponsored by a winery. So everybody got the wine pairing because that's their deal, and everybody got a special menu that was not the normal menu. They were, and that was a two Michelin star restaurant and that was the weirdest experience I've ever had in my life. We, literally we knocked on the door and they let us in and they were like Mr Lee, mr Highfield, yes, they took our coats and then sat us down and brought the first course. There was no discussion of would you like this or that or none? Zero, here's what we're serving tonight, exactly no talk about money, nothing, nothing. Just like you just came to my house and it's like all right, well, here let's eat. It was crazy. It was so cool. That was 10 courses or so. It was a lot of food wow it was so much food, it was so good.
Speaker 2:Eric discovered a new fish monk fish. Was that what it was? Monk fish I don't remember I think it was monk fish. Is that meaty fish you really liked? Ifish, was that what it was? Monkfish, I don't remember. I think it was monkfish. Is that meaty fish you really liked?
Speaker 2:I think so I think, yeah, it was quite good. We had it a couple times on that trip. You know, at the very end of the meal get ready to leave, you step into the lobby, then they give you your bill and a credit card and machine and you just greatly, really quick, do it and then you're on your way. It was awesome wow freaking awesome delicious food.
Speaker 2:I mean they, you know they they age all their own stage, like everything is, um, their own stuff. It was kind of weird, though they had, um, these they look like refrigerators, but I know they're not and like inside of one, you see, like a bunny hanging upside down, uh, from the neck down skin, but from the neck up it still had like the fur. It's just like little weird things like that. Several fish hanging smoking, you know, things like that it was. It was very cool to see some of that stuff and that wasn't really like for the public to see. It's just a small place and that just is where that that section has to be.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure it's just a small place and that just is where that section has to be Sure, sure. So yeah, had a great time there. So, again, those were the nice restaurants. But I mean, just pop into a cafe or whatever. The crepes we got were great. I got my crème monsieur. If you go to Paris, you have to get a crème monsieur. It's a ham and cheese sandwich, but they're using different cheese and ham. I don't know how to describe it.
Speaker 5:It's um, maybe it's not Probably different bread too.
Speaker 2:Maybe. Yeah, I guess it's that non GMO stuff, um, and that Iberian ham is to die for and that isn't my favorite. I actually. I discovered the cramp once here we were in Dubai years ago. Um, the, the French pavilion actually had that and it was a lot of fun. Did the Eiffel Tower, as you do.
Speaker 4:Do you remember how expensive the champagne was? All I know is we had two servings.
Speaker 2:We did have two servings, so we were joking about it. The higher you got in the Eiffel Tower, the more expensive the champagne got. So if you're at the very top of the Eiffel Tower, that little bitty platform- oh yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 4:now, what the heck with that.
Speaker 2:It was like $65 a glass. Wow, I mean it was.
Speaker 4:Ridiculous.
Speaker 2:It was Moet or whoever the nice one is. It was nice champagne, but it's like I could buy a bottle for that. Like that's insanely expensive, wow.
Speaker 4:And then For the extremely romantic people.
Speaker 2:Yes, I guess, so I'm like this is solely so you can get your Instagram with your champagne.
Speaker 3:Like there's no other reason.
Speaker 2:It's complete ridiculous. And it was in a fancy flute and all this stuff right and then and you could also get caviar. Oh yes, oh oh. Are the French known for their caviar? I always thought of, like Serbia and Russia and that area right.
Speaker 5:Well, I think, when you're talking somewhere like Paris, where everything is-.
Speaker 2:They're getting it. The upper echelon, yeah, decadent, thank you. Okay, then you're doing caviar.
Speaker 1:Okay, if I said butter decadent, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:And they get that good Amish butter over there too, they import it from America.
Speaker 3:They do, that's funny.
Speaker 2:You go down a level on level two and the prices get a little more affordable. You're looking at like $20, $30 for a glass of champagne. You're not in Moet anymore, You're with a different one, but whatever, it's still decent. And then finally, on the first floor, which is not the ground In Europe. First floor is actually above ground.
Speaker 1:Oh, not ground floor, but one up. Yes, the ground is zero floor but one up yes.
Speaker 2:The ground is zero, usually in most of Europe.
Speaker 4:I call it the commoners, yeah.
Speaker 2:So on the first floor, if you're looking at the Eiffel Tower, it's where that giant arch comes together and it's a huge floor and they have a couple big restaurants on it and stuff. But they also have a little cafe outside Super cool, and the champagne is two for $20.
Speaker 1:Oh, there you go that was ours.
Speaker 5:There you go.
Speaker 2:So we got that and I mean you're still at that point. You know, 300 feet off the ground I mean you're still a pretty high visibility area Found a couple chairs Kicked back and relaxed and we were just going to be there for like one glass of champagne. But you know, after you're there and you drink a glass of champagne and you're looking out over uh, beautiful paris, or whatever it was like you're not in a hurry either you're not in a hurry, it was like we weren't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's another glass, right? So eric runs up and he goes and grabs them. Um, really cool. Those are in a more of a traditional looking plastic champagne glass, but nice, like hard plastic, and they were souvenir glasses. You can take them with us. So we have four of those now. You know that we're going to put under the counter and in six to eight years we'll throw them away Nice, Like you do as you do as you do, but yeah, that was that elevator or stairs?
Speaker 2:uh, so it is all elevator but between levels, uh, two, three and the ground, you can stare it, and eric and I did stare it down, not up. No, to heck with that. We elevated up and then we stared down. Okay, uh, but they won't let you from the second floor to the third floor of the summit. They won't let you walk that and it's it's far, it that like by far, like it's probably 500 feet straight up so it's elevator yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and is it? A glass elevator it is, um, it's kind of in the middle of the tower, but, uh, you do see all around and they have a mirror. Not a mirror, a window above you, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:So you are looking out the whole time and checking out the scenery as you go up and then, yeah, once you get up there, at the very top, there's a Gustav Eiffel, the guy that built the thing. He had an office up there and so we got to see the office and his little apartment up there and stuff and they've got it staged with him and Thomas Edison Like mannequins. Yeah, with him and Edison and it was very I didn't know all that was there.
Speaker 2:I heard rumor it was there but I didn't know. But when we got up there and you look in there you're like I'll be darned, it's just a public park. Um, you can go walk underneath the eiffel tower, doesn't cost you a dime, but to go up it cost. And then how high you want to go determines how much you pay. But it's not crazy. Like our tickets to the very top summit were like 30 euros, uh a person, so it's not insane. You know they could charge 100 people pay it um.
Speaker 1:Does that allow you access to all the floors?
Speaker 2:yes but you get to go all the way to the top at least, correct, yep, so pretty cool yeah and then, um, if you didn't want to go all the way to the top, but you just wanted to go to that second or third floor, or first or second floor rather then, the tickets were a little bit cheaper, maybe 15 euros something like that Sure which? The Eiffel Tower? I mean not the Eiffel Tower, the New York City, it's very Empire-ish.
Speaker 4:The.
Speaker 2:Empire State Building they do the same thing. If you go up to the Observatory Observation Lounge, you have to pay additional money to go up to the very top part of it.
Speaker 1:I see.
Speaker 2:It's not crazy and hard of. It was really cool to see it. One thing that kind of surprised me I knew Gustav Eiffel was a very successful engineer and and and did a lot. Um, if you look at the statue of liberty inside of the statue of liberty, all the framework that holds all that together, his firm designed. So he and his people actually designed that. So we in america we have a eiffel-built structure. It's the Statue of Liberty. When we were in Portugal, you remember this, jerry? In Porto there's a huge bridge and it's like two levels and a big arch going over the river and the bottom level is for cars, the top level is for pedestrians and trains. Right, Yep.
Speaker 2:And it's a huge bridge, it's massive. Eiffel built that and he did several others as well. So when it came time to build the Eiffel Tower, they wanted to build this thing and his scope was so large and so expensive they didn't have the money to pay for it. So he financed the project himself. He went out and got the lenders. So when you see on the wikipedia they talk about like this bank financed the thing, well, they actually financed eiffel. They didn't finance the city of paris. Um, so he, he financed it with the agreement that he would run it for 20 years. He would have 20 years to sell tickets and recoup his investment.
Speaker 2:And they he said that they thought it would take something like 12 years to recoup it and then the rest of it would just be profit. Um, and he did it in like 42 days. Wow, the paris exposition which is why it was built, which is a world's fair, was his. His thing was so much more um visited than they expected. People went nuts over it and he was able to recruit his investment that fast.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Crazy.
Speaker 1:So then the rest was just profit.
Speaker 2:The rest was just profit, and he's able to pay his bank loans back, and that's why he was doing all the experiments. That's why Edison spent so much time over there. It's really cool For me. I really like it because, like, not only is he famous, but he's a good businessman, right, you know? Like tesla not the car company, nicola tesla right, a genius man, horrible business person. And so it's kind of like I like that you're able to do both. You're able to be an excellent engineer and really hone in at that point, iron bridges and iron work, and then you're also able to figure out a way to make money at it and then be a successful business person.
Speaker 2:I mean, edison did the same thing, right, he, he did consolidated edison up in new york with electricity and and he was wealthy. But um, yeah, I just all that. I thought it was great, really, really enjoyed it.
Speaker 4:I was gonna mention um the field that was next to the eiffel tower yes they were doing construction, so it was completely vacant. Yeah, as opposed to any normal time of year non-Olympic year it's normally packed with people. So not only did we enjoy champagne twice on that level, we also got a perfect view of the grass and the architecture they had just started building.
Speaker 2:I don't even know what that's for.
Speaker 5:Do y'all know what they used it for in the Olympics Beach volleyball was right in front of the Eiffel Tower. Okay, so they built a stadium right in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Speaker 2:Kind of like an intersection of two.
Speaker 5:I don't know, I've only seen a picture of the stadium and the tower behind it. I couldn't see anything else around it.
Speaker 2:That's got to be it, because on the other side of it is a big government building.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'd imagine that probably was it Okay, because this was early June, so I could see them building that then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you were there just prior to the Olympics.
Speaker 2:So we were there.
Speaker 1:Starting ramping up for the building.
Speaker 2:Correct. Yeah, yeah, so like we still went to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, they're still rebuilding from the fire, so we obviously couldn't get it. But we could at least see it pretty easily. And then we, and it was actually nice, they had the grandstands built in front of the tower.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they had an open space directly in front of it. I'd say 100 feet.
Speaker 2:We did go to the Louvre. So Eric and I can say we've been to the Louvre and I gotta say they make a really good Havana Club rum and coke, because Outside the Louvre, that's all we did. They have a little cafe right next to the pyramids, the big glass pyramids, which I always thought it was a glass pyramid, but it's multiple. Yeah, the things you learned, uh, and all that's actually free to go inside. You can go inside that area and see a lot of this, like where films have been made. But if you want to go see the artwork you got to pay more money. But we didn't go down there, uh, we just hung out the cafe. Um had a, we had a burrata. What do we have there? We had some food I don't know what it was and then kept on walking, but it's, it's massive, like when people talk about online that it could take. You could spend a whole week at just the Louvre and not see everything. They're not lying. It's massive. I mean, it's ridiculously massive, it's crazy. So I I totally understand why. It's like you could be there forever. I'd be over it's. I can't even imagine walking that whole thing. I would be so done like I'd have to have a highlights tour I. It made the vatican thing look tiny. It is ridiculous.
Speaker 2:And then the, then the Arc de Triomphe, which is the most confusing thing on Earth to get to. Do you remember that? Like walking back? You get out, you go from the subway and you're in a tunnel and then you end up on the outskirts of the Arc de Triomphe because you know there's a road that goes around it, right? So you're on the outsides of it and it's like okay, so we got to go all the way over here to get our good photo op.
Speaker 2:And so then it was like, well, how do we get to it? And there's a tunnel to get to it. So we get, take the tunnel down there, we get to where they allow you to go up there and walk. There's two places. One is for you to go buy tickets to actually go up into the art of triumph, and there's a viewing platform up there which I didn't know was there.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize that, um, and I'm like I'm not doing that, I don't, I was just in the eiffel tower, like why would I want to get nothing? So we, uh, we're like we just want to do the free thing and they had it completely blocked off, you couldn't get to it. So we were like, all right, well, let's take the tunnel as far as we can and see it from that angle. And I mean it kind of looks the same. You know it's pretty two-dimensional. So if you see from the back, you've also seen it from the front. But we got our pictures in and then started our walk down the Champs de what's it called Champs de l'Elysée.
Speaker 2:That's the one, yeah, that's the one. I know these things from watching the Tour de France. Well, we got to walk down and see all of our best friends. We got to see Christian Douar. We got to see who else Louis Vuitton was there.
Speaker 4:Louis Vuitton is a that was a very unique building.
Speaker 2:They are not messing around. They are not messing around. They are not messing around. The building was literally one of their louis vuitton trunks. Wow, just massive. I mean like probably what eight floors high maybe something like
Speaker 2:that eight or ten floors high, maybe something like that Eight or ten floors high, the whole city block, just massive, no windows, no windows, beautiful, even had the wood grain around it where they bind it all together and had all the LV diamonds or logos and everything. It had the huge rivets, the handle, the little knob thing, the knob thing or like the little clasp. It had to be at least 20 feet tall, right, wow, huge.
Speaker 1:So is this road like Rodeo Drive?
Speaker 2:Yes, but only, but more like Fifth.
Speaker 1:Avenue, Fifth Avenue. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but cleaner, wider sidewalks a little bit easier. I remember that time you and I went down Fifth Avenue, it was a little bit of a cluster. This is way more open and really nice More trees. More trees Started raining on us, so we had to tuck into an arcade, which is not where you play games. In Paris, an arcade is just a mall.
Speaker 4:Enclosed mall.
Speaker 2:It's so sad I was going to get my Ms Pac-Man on Air hockey. I know right.
Speaker 1:So what happened after Paris?
Speaker 2:Got to mark another thing off my bucket list that I've always wanted to do Took a train ride through the Channel, wow, yeah, so we actually took the train from paris to, um, london, london, and, uh, those of you that know, eric and I, we love london.
Speaker 2:We've been there a lot, uh, many, many times. And, um, if you are interested in going to london, let us know. We'll be happy to give you some tips. Love london and we, uh, did the train there, then we did a train to our hotel and, uh, all that went pretty smoothly and we were sitting in our hotel having a aperitif I think it's our no digestive, so that's a drink after your meal and, uh, would you believe the surprise when we had two people walk in that we were not expecting, really? Yes, do you know who that was?
Speaker 1:Jerry the queen and queen. I know right. It was like was it London, england.
Speaker 2:Take a wild guess, jerry guess.
Speaker 4:Well, it was a queen that walked in.
Speaker 2:Two.
Speaker 3:I was going to say it was the queen and queen Nice.
Speaker 5:So who was it? Yeah, I was going to say it was the queen and queen nice so who was it?
Speaker 2:yeah, it was me and Don what yeah surprise that's a big surprise, and had we not planned it, it would have been really shocking.
Speaker 5:It would have been crazy had you not planned it some explanation how exciting yeah oh my gosh, it was great.
Speaker 2:I remember I was following their whole flight over from America and everything.
Speaker 1:You're like did they have the troubles we had?
Speaker 2:No, no, oh, everything they did went splendidly. I'll let you explain.
Speaker 3:Oh, it was fun. I mean because I learned. I learned when we went to Portugal. We did the very, very close flyover, then catch the international flight from JFK and that was a debacle.
Speaker 2:Diamond Desk got to save us for that one too, yeah that was a whole big old mess.
Speaker 3:So I learned from that trip. So this one we booked a whole 24 hours in advance. We went over at like 6 am to New York and stayed in a hotel all day and then the next day caught out of.
Speaker 1:JFK, nice, that's a good travel tip.
Speaker 5:That makes sense. Now why when we went to London before Christmas, we got to JFK at like 9 in the morning and we didn't fly out to London until 8 o'clock that night or something.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:So we spent the day in New York gallivanting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a fun gallivant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, yeah, I enjoyed that because you get into New York City and they have a luggage check.
Speaker 3:Bag. Check there Luggage hotel.
Speaker 2:Luggage hotel. Leave your luggage there. It's not cheap, but it's not too expensive.
Speaker 5:It wasn't expensive. No, it was worth it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was worth it. And then you know the city's your playground, you know, go and have fun. And I also like that because the first flight of the day is the least likely to get canceled and you know we leave at 7 am. Well, if that flight gets canceled, there's six more going to JFK before our flight. So you've got lots of backups.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I knew better and I screwed up, but anyways, I you were saying sorry so you arrive in london yeah, and luckily patrick and eric were there and and they were uh, that'd be awkward if we wouldn't have right what it made you we would have, but I knew beforehand that Patrick had everything planned out, so it was great having our London tour guide as Patrick.
Speaker 1:Wasn't he fabulous.
Speaker 3:Because he took us to all the tour spots. It was a lot of fun. I mean, we did everything from the Eye of London, which was awesome.
Speaker 5:Did you ride the Eye?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did. I think we gave you the keychain and everything. We got a group picture of all of us. Fun, that was really really neat. Walked me all over London like crazy Right.
Speaker 4:All 12,000 to 15,000 steps per day.
Speaker 3:That first day I looked at my Apple Watch and it was 12 miles. I clocked that 12 miles. I clocked that 12 miles.
Speaker 1:It was probably smoking. It's like I've never done this before.
Speaker 3:No, I did more in Italy. We did 14 in one day Because he kept saying, oh, we've got to be Italy, We've got to be Italy, and I'm like no we don't, we couldn't do it, we couldn't do it, we couldn't do it.
Speaker 2:I tried, big Ben was nice.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, did you Big Ben.
Speaker 3:Yes, got to see that yeah.
Speaker 1:I saw that you did the Uber boat.
Speaker 3:Did you?
Speaker 1:have to run for years.
Speaker 3:Nope, we were there plenty of time. We actually sat there and took pictures.
Speaker 2:No, but I did get yelled at.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you did. I got yelled at by the lady so apparently, um, you're supposed to.
Speaker 2:So you get on the uber boats you know there's the little post there you swipe your card and then you go and wait in line not anymore now. You wait in line and then before you get on the boat they have you swipe, right. When you get on the boat and oh, she was like. She was like did I tell you to swipe the card? And I'm like no, well then, maybe don't swipe the card. And I'm like okay, sorry.
Speaker 4:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:She was mean and then, immediately after that, she was the nicest person in the world. Did you notice that Immediately afterwards she was a sweetheart? It was the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, noticed that immediately afterwards she was a sweetheart. It was the craziest thing ever seen in my life. Yeah, london was a lot of fun. We got to see a lot of stuff. It's an amazing city that I would love to go back to like I cannot to this day. I still talk about it with don like one of the highlights was patrick and eric treated us to afternoon tea oh my gosh, which was amazing you wouldn't know it.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't know it when we walk in and they're like we don't belong here, what are we doing here?
Speaker 3:I felt a little out of place at first, but it was an experience to behold, for sure, afternoon tea is pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:Do it here. Wouldn't that be fun on a sunday?
Speaker 2:it would be. There's a tea house here, really. Yeah, I looked it up for with eric one time. There's one here, but we've never pursued it.
Speaker 1:Only one I can only find one, I see if we find it ourselves.
Speaker 2:Well, it's so. Do you know how to make a cucumber sandwich? Sure, why not?
Speaker 4:Salmon sandwich. Salmon sandwich, why not? I can Google it.
Speaker 1:I know. Recipes Maybe we all bring something different different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can you. If we do clotted cream, I'm on board.
Speaker 1:Uh, that was good you could probably buy that from a store somewhere well, you know, it was funny, right, they obviously were not expecting us.
Speaker 2:I think I had a reservation, but they didn't have a clue, because we showed up and they put us at the mommy and me uh out for tea. Uh, I mean, like the table was shorter than this table this day, if you're listening, yeah if you're listening and you're not watching. This table is what? 22 inches tall? 21 inches tall, it's a coffee table.
Speaker 1:It's not tall. Yeah, it's a coffee table.
Speaker 2:It's not tall at all. I'm telling you like a little bitty Fisher-Price table. I mean solid marble top. It was nice. There's four of us and we're in these little bitty low-to-the-ground seats low to the ground seats and, like you said, you're chewing on your knee because it's right there at your face and they're like give us a moment, we'll get you some water and we'll find you a better table.
Speaker 3:It didn't take long at all.
Speaker 2:It didn't take long at all. It was only a few minutes.
Speaker 3:It was an amazing experience.
Speaker 1:What was your favorite part of tea, other than the whole ambiance of?
Speaker 3:it that and just the different amount of flavor teas that you, I mean I had no clue oh okay.
Speaker 2:So I gotta say real quick, when you do tea, a lot of times you do them at hotels like the fancier hotels. Have them and, um, they'll have half a dozen to ten tea options, something like that A lot of them have like you can do champagne if you would rather instead of tea, or you can do like a cocktail instead of tea if you want. So they do have some options. Some even do like coffee, which I don't know why you would, but anyways, this place was an actual tea house. Oh wow. So they had literally like what, 24, 30 options.
Speaker 3:It was more like 30 or 40 it was pages and pages of tea.
Speaker 2:I've never seen that much options for tea wow in my life, it was bananas, it was a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I had like a some kind of cherry something, but it had cherries in it.
Speaker 1:It was really, really, really good yeah, and I know you like your tea.
Speaker 4:Yeah it was good. What did they bring it out in?
Speaker 2:Little teapots Ceramic.
Speaker 4:A whole pot just for you.
Speaker 2:A whole ceramic teapot. It was the cutest little thing. It really did have the whole. You know, when you see I've never had this happen in real life. But when you see like I've never had this happen in real life, but when you see like TV shows or movies where like the mom and the daughter are, you know the funny thing is the dad and the daughter having a tea party or whatever right, and they had the little ceramic teapot. It's like it was that Everybody got one of those.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they seeped it right there in front of you and they. It was all loose, so you had to use the little filter every time you poured it um, it was, it was nice, that's cool it was really nice it was.
Speaker 3:It was based on a time limit, so you had as much as you want to eat drink for three hours yep yeah it was great it was.
Speaker 2:Uh, we all left there in pain, right yeah, yeah, we all consumed a little too much. It was like oof, I was not on plan for that day.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But you're right, the clotted cream and the scone.
Speaker 3:Oh, it was so good. I think that was actually the first time I've ever had a scone.
Speaker 1:Those are good.
Speaker 5:It's amazing the difference between the scone in London and the scone in America. Yes, they're not serving you rocks.
Speaker 1:No, they're almost like fluffy biscuit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say English muffin, but they look and they are the size of an English muffin, but they are, that's where they end.
Speaker 1:They remind me of a good biscuit, though If you do biscuits and gravies or anytime bread is option for breakfast, I always do a biscuit and there are some very misses, but occasionally I get a really good hit where it's that flaky and it's the buttery.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's not dense and it's not airy, it's like the perfect. Somebody knew what they were doing.
Speaker 5:Like a sheep's head over at Skillet.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so that's what. When I remember going last Christmas time, that's what I remember the scones were like Were just kind of just small dainty and just hitting all the markers of a good biscuit. It's not the scones here. The scones here are a little. They're dry, they're cakey. Yes, they're fruit, and this and that and another, so we've, we fancified them well, that's an interesting thing too.
Speaker 2:The scones are so good over there. I hate raisin, I don't like them. If you give me a cinnamon roll with raisins in it, if I can pick the raisins out I'll eat it, but if you can't, I'm out. Um, I don't like raisins. The scones over there were so good that they give you a raisin scone and a regular scone and I ate the raisin scone and didn't say a word. Wow, I'm like.
Speaker 1:Well, by the time you had all the goodies on it, are you really going to taste it? Oh man, the accoutrement really help.
Speaker 2:They really do.
Speaker 3:And we had the wonderful fish and chips.
Speaker 1:Nice, which was really really good.
Speaker 2:Where did y'all get that at?
Speaker 3:The first place was all the first place.
Speaker 2:It's literally all they ate the whole time they were there.
Speaker 3:The pub that you guys had been to. Yeah, buddy.
Speaker 4:Is that?
Speaker 2:the shepherd's pie one. I can see them doing amazing fish and chips. Well, it's more of a meat pie, not so much shepherd's, but I told them to get that and they were like I'll take the fish and chips and I'm like okay.
Speaker 1:Did you try the meat pie?
Speaker 5:No, you know, patrick's not going to sample.
Speaker 2:Don had none of the meat, none of the gravy. Well, no, sorry, none of the meat, but he did, because I don't eat the bread bowl part of it too much, so he cut a piece of that off with the gravy and he tried that and he was like, oh my gosh, but I could see them doing good fish and chips.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:Was this before or after Harrods After? After yeah, we'd already walked and gotten her. Actually it was right there next to Har to Harris, I figured it was one or the other.
Speaker 5:That place is crazy too.
Speaker 2:It's just so big, you just get so overwhelmed.
Speaker 1:So you had a good time.
Speaker 3:It was amazing. I would love to go back.
Speaker 1:How many days were you there?
Speaker 3:Five.
Speaker 5:So five days and you came home.
Speaker 3:Nope, nope. Patrick said hey, let's continue the adventure.
Speaker 5:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I looked up last minute deals, right as you do, and I saw it going out of Dover, maryland, no, dover, england, which is only like what? An hour and a half hour, and 15 minutes, I thought it was Delaware.
Speaker 5:Delaware, you're right, is Dover Delaware, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:We took the train down to Dover. It's where they have the white chalky hills, or not hills, bluffs that go into the ocean.
Speaker 5:Okay, I've seen pictures.
Speaker 2:So, it's like you've got the green grass, the white chalky cliffs, yeah, and then blue water.
Speaker 4:It's one of the nicest ports I've been to.
Speaker 2:It was super nice and we got on a Carnival Cruise Line, Because when you're in Europe, you definitely want to take an American. Cruise Line it's the only way to go and we went sailing.
Speaker 1:How exciting A 14-day cruise. Oof 14 days. That long it was that long. It was yeah.
Speaker 4:Oof.
Speaker 5:Long cruise. It was a good time, so where'd the cruise take you?
Speaker 3:uh, our first, uh, couple days was at sea, and then we ended up in iceland, yes, which was amazing amazing.
Speaker 2:It was so fun. I I've been wanting to go to iceland for so long and I knew y'all kind of wanted to go as well. We had mutual friends that went a couple years ago yeah and so we saw the pictures, everything. It's like we gotta make this happen.
Speaker 5:I gotta ask the question iceland in summertime was it cold?
Speaker 3:when we got there it was like 35 degrees fahrenheit well, you ruined my joke.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say when we got there it was beautiful sunshine and warm and just gorgeous. In reality it was 35. Rainy, rainy, windy, windy, very cold, very cold. And to make things just a little better, it was a tender port, which means we actually had to take a boat, a little boat, from the cruise ship to the port. So when you're on the cruise ship, not that big of a deal, but when you go to get back on the cruise ship, you're just standing in line just getting rained on, cold, wet, agitated.
Speaker 1:They don't have any coverage for you. Huh, Nope.
Speaker 2:A 10-foot by 10-foot canopy, but that's hard to put a thousand people under. A 10 foot by 10 foot canopy.
Speaker 3:It definitely wasn't like the higher end cruise lines Carnival, just kind of didn't care, just deal with it.
Speaker 2:But we got to see the cool stuff there. Man, Do you remember the church?
Speaker 4:Yep With the rainbow painted stone Yep Path in front of it.
Speaker 2:This huge rainbow must have gone on for a half mile of stone pathway to it, made some really cool pictures and then where did we end up?
Speaker 4:Where would Patrick and Eric end up anywhere?
Speaker 2:Don brought us into a souvenir shop. I don't even know what that place was. They sold some crafts and some wool and some I don't know.
Speaker 2:it was interesting okay it was warm and dry, so it so it had some very, very, uh, very winning uh options. But um, yeah, as eric alluded to, we went to the next building, which was a pub, and, um, they were. They had some really good coffee, right, that's what y'all got, um. And then we did this first time in iceland, I don't order, right, what's iceland known for? Not certainly not alcohol. Um, so they had a local beer, so we got a local beer and, uh, it was good. It was crowded, man. We walked in that place. It was like a happy hour at a hopping pub. I mean, it was like packed, two-story. Yes, I don't even know if we realized it was two-story when we walked in. It was just like how do we get out of this cold rain weather? It was miserable. We would have all happily stood there to warm up, dry off and get some caffeine. It was.
Speaker 1:They have food, or just beverage, they have food.
Speaker 2:But we started late so we'd already had lunch on the boat. So this is like 1 o'clock 1.30 in the afternoon.
Speaker 1:Did you eat any local food other than your local beer?
Speaker 2:Not there.
Speaker 1:Not there.
Speaker 2:Not there. We saw Lots of people did. We saw quite a few people eat and I felt vindicated Because there was a couple of excursions you could do there but none of them really appealed to me. And we were sitting at that table and a couple of people came over and they had a little sticker that you wear when you're on a tour, and so we knew they were carnival people. So we just asked how it was or whatever. And they were likeival people. So we just asked how was it, whatever? And they were like not good.
Speaker 2:And I was like do it um so so their excursion didn't pan out, it wasn't great um, so I'm like you know I hate that for you, but at the same time I'm glad to know I made the right decision and yeah and didn't bother doing anything. But um no, we were there for like an hour, weren't we?
Speaker 3:a little well, a couple hours probably, but it was a little small town tiny town, yeah, tiny town not much to see not much, but breathtakingly beautiful.
Speaker 2:I will say this the weather sucked, but it was in a fjord, so you're surrounded in a valley, surrounded by mountains. There's I don't know 50 waterfalls. You could just turn around and see 50 waterfalls, oh wow. Now there were a couple that were big, but tons of waterfalls. We walked over and actually got some pictures of one of the waterfalls.
Speaker 4:Lupine's growing all over the place. They grow like weeds over there.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:If you don't know what a lupine is, it's this thing right here.
Speaker 1:Did you see the volcano that day they have lavender flowers.
Speaker 4:They stand up about nine inches tall. Yeah, grow in bundles or bushels.
Speaker 2:Yep, we left there and the next part we went to chilly but no rain.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's good.
Speaker 2:So yeah, once you get out of the rain, and it wasn't as cold.
Speaker 4:Not as windy that one.
Speaker 2:We did the super jeep tour I thought we were going to die y'all there's not many times in my life where I've been like we might have made a mistake. Yeah, that was one of them. Oh, the super jeep was a converted, you know, 1998, 1998 Ford 15-passenger van where they put a lift kit on it and four-wheel drive modifications. It looked cool. It looked cool. It looked cool. It had the suspension of nothing, whatever cushion those tires gave you, that was the suspension.
Speaker 3:It was brutal. The whole time she's driving that thing, she's just constantly back and forth oh my gosh, back and forth, and then she'd get faster and faster. Back and forth, back and forth. The whole thing is just back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 2:I thought we were going to flip, like when you're a kid and you're learning how to drive and you think that driving is just turning the steering wheel left to right, left to right. That's what she was doing. Wow, it was brutal.
Speaker 5:That's how I feel in the green van on 270 between Fida and the yard.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 5:That's where it's just crazy rutted.
Speaker 2:But the roads, oh yeah, the roads, yeah, the roads are terrible yeah.
Speaker 4:And it was an extremely long drive.
Speaker 2:Where were you going to? It was only a seven hour tour, right yeah?
Speaker 1:Seven hours in that thing.
Speaker 3:It was all over the countryside, all over that section of.
Speaker 2:Ireland, yeah.
Speaker 1:No paved roads.
Speaker 2:Some oh okay, and we also did some off-roading. We did off-road around a dormant volcano, but still a volcano. We went and saw these huge crevasses of where the magma settled and everything, and that part was really pretty. And then we went to a gorge. That was massive and beautiful, but my golly, the midges. Do you remember that? Yeah, I mean, you couldn't breathe without having a bug going up your nose. It was. I was starting, could you tell there at the end, I was starting to lose my mind. I was really breaking down into the child fetal position, losing my mind.
Speaker 1:I had regressed Driving bugs.
Speaker 2:I could deal with the driving, the bugs. They were just everywhere. It was like you ever been inside of a swarm of gnats and you just can't get rid of them. You just got to walk out of it.
Speaker 3:Imagine that if you couldn't- walk out of it, yeah it was brutal.
Speaker 2:They didn't bite, they didn't sting.
Speaker 4:But still the annoyance of having them fly right in front of your face and not being able to get rid of them.
Speaker 2:It's terrible.
Speaker 1:Needed a beekeeper hat Absolutely.
Speaker 4:I literally took my jacket out, put the hood on top of me and wrapped myself around it and walking around the whole time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the only thing I like this, the only thing exposed, and the next next day my arms were so sore Because of just doing this for a couple hours, just you know, that was brutal.
Speaker 4:And that's when Patrick went on the Amazon and bought some Hat nets To cover her face.
Speaker 2:It was rough the next day.
Speaker 3:The next little town was the one that had the hearts and the red lights. Oh, I forget the name.
Speaker 2:That was a big bus tour.
Speaker 3:We were on like a, a, a charter bus thing they had went through economic hard times at one point and the mayor of the town thought it would be uplifting to put hearts and all the red lights for the townspeople and oh so the traffic light.
Speaker 5:Red lights were hearts. Yes, interesting, the red lights for the townspeople.
Speaker 3:Oh so the traffic lights were hearts yes, interesting. And then later, whenever the town got better and they rebounded from everything, everybody loved it so much they left it. That's cool. Yep, that was neat.
Speaker 2:Yep, and that was really cool. We went down the coastline and popped in and just the terrain I mean that's what you go to Iceland for is that's what you go to Iceland for is the nature of the terrain. It was just unbelievably gorgeous. We went around the entire what do you call that? The peninsula? There's a huge volcano there. We got to see Alstendormit. It was just spectacularly beautiful. All the birds and stuff.
Speaker 4:Never saw any freaking puffins, but the rest of it was beautiful. Which one did we go to the Black Pebble Beach? The bus tour.
Speaker 3:Yes, I think it was that one.
Speaker 4:I really like that. Normally I don't like beaches because of sand getting between your toes and feet. It's hard to get it off whenever you're getting back in your vehicle. But to walk along a beach with black pebbles Unique I liked it a lot.
Speaker 2:It was very cool. It was weird too, because they had random metal pieces all over the Rusting metal pieces.
Speaker 4:Rusting metal pieces? No, we're talking like three-foot long pieces of steel. Yeah, big pieces.
Speaker 2:And apparently they had a boat wreck, a boat explosion several years ago, like 50, 80 years ago, and those parts and pieces washed up on the shore and they left them, they just left them for whatever reason.
Speaker 2:I don't really get it because I'm just thinking does everybody just get a side of tetanus when they come here? Seems dangerous. But it was beautiful and the water was crashing in and doing the big puff up and everything. It was really cool. I really enjoyed that part quite a bit. And then we went to that hotel the fish in that weird dining room. It was really cool. I really enjoyed that part quite a bit. And then we went to that hotel the fish in that weird dining room.
Speaker 3:Poor Eric couldn't eat anything because they never could determine no that place he ate.
Speaker 2:Oh, did he so the previous day on the Super Jeep?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the Super Jeep lunch, that one.
Speaker 2:Again, sesame allergy. You can't have sesame. The top of this fish has it looks like sesame black pepper.
Speaker 4:Whenever you get a bagel, and it's got everything bagel.
Speaker 2:Yes, it looked like everything.
Speaker 4:You don't know what all is in it.
Speaker 2:Yes, and they could not. That particular place could not care less about his allergy. They were just like, eh, it's fine, and it's like, well, we're not doing, eh, it's fine, you know what I mean. So we went to the next place. They didn't have any of that on there. It looked more like just a regular grilled piece of fish, and they were very cared about it, went back and actually checked with the chef and everything. So that one we actually got to eat at, but that was frustrating. So we found a table Like that one we actually got to eat at, but that was frustrating. So we found a table. There weren't a lot of places for four people, but we actually found one. And so we get the chairs and we set it all up and Eric and I sit on one side and Don and Jerry are starting to work their way to the other side. They're like long tables. You have to squeeze between people to get to them.
Speaker 2:Because they're like long tables, you have to like squeeze between people to get to them, and these two people, bless their hearts, push jerry out of the way and they grab those two chairs and sit down across from us what yes they didn't see that he was gonna take the seat they didn't care, and the reason we know they didn't care is because they were actually on the previous day's excursion with us flying drones in places where they weren't allowed to fly drones. We actually talked to him about it at one point and he was like, eh, you know, whatever I've got a license, I can do it I can do it and he's like there's no place that says no drones.
Speaker 2:Anyways, like Jerry and I pointed out five different places where it said no drones and he was flying it different places where it said no drones and he was flying it and like just a real bad attitude towards us and all the stuff. So it was like when they did that, it was like there's no point in this, this is going to be a fight. There's no reason to fight. So they got to sit with these people who were charming the whole time. Eric and I are eating there. We're not talking to people across from us, we're listening to their conversation. At the other table they're just laughing and and every now and then, and then that guy over there and that you know, and it's like how awkward.
Speaker 2:Like it was super strange, yeah. And then the people in front of us, the ones that cut them off, they set through the soup, which is the first course they got. We got soup and they ate that. And then they were like, well, we don't want to do this. And so they got up and they left and they went to, um, the grocery store next door to buy other food and then came back and ate that in the lobby. But by that point they'd already made friends. They're not gonna like turn around and move. So it's like, wow, you did all that for like 10 minutes of just a screw. It was very strange. So, but I did it at making friends with the family next to us so we were able to talk with them. It was weird.
Speaker 2:That cruise is was 99 percent, um, I'm gonna say, 30 year olds and up, right, no kids, none on the boat, um. So the family next to me had kids and I'm like there's not many of you on here. What made you, you think, to bring your kids to Iceland, like I don't know, for going here. There's a lot of places you could have gone. So it was kind of cool to get to know them and meet them for a little bit, but it still. It was just like wow, what a weird move. And then you're sitting across from nobody and I don't know how weird.
Speaker 2:Very odd, but the rest of that was cool. We climbed a mountain.
Speaker 3:I was about to say the mountain. Yeah, I still haven't got my wish.
Speaker 2:My wish is a little more long term. You want to explain the rules?
Speaker 3:So you evidently had to climb. I don't remember 100% detail, but you had to climb this mountain and you could not Going up the whole entire time, you could not talk and you could not look behind you. If you, before you started up it, you made a wish, and if you did those two things and made it all the way to the top, then your wish is supposed to come true.
Speaker 2:So very close, there's an arch. You go under a pergola.
Speaker 4:It's an obvious start. It's an obvious start.
Speaker 2:It's an obvious start. So at that point you can't talk anymore. Like I said, you can't look backwards. You do have to walk all the way to the mountain. In the very center is the ruins of a temple that used to be there. And you get there, look to the east and they actually have it marked off for you and that's where you make your wishes. So I mean, I guess you could have already had your wish in your mind when you went up there, but that's actually where the wish-making took place.
Speaker 1:And yeah, how long is this mountain? I?
Speaker 4:noticed one of the ladies when we got to the top. It's where the steps stop and it flattens out, and one lady thought she was already at the top and, oh my gosh, she was complaining. Oh, and then when you realize you're up there, that's not the end of it. It flattens out and you still have to go to the middle of the plateau area, and that's where the end is and you're supposed to get your wish.
Speaker 2:And it's still. It's not flat, flat, it's still uphill. So like when you get to the top of the steps it's like, okay, well, I still have to walk uphill to get there.
Speaker 4:It's just the steps. Stop, but you're still climbing up.
Speaker 2:She was not having it and she was going to make sure everyone knew it was ridiculous.
Speaker 2:The lady on the tour bus said you are climbing a mountain, a hill. I mean really it's a hill. You are climbing this thing and it's a clear path and there are steps. We're not blay on. No one's putting mountaineering gear on. We did it in our tennis shoes and other people are in sandals. It's not crazy. She says it's a pretty easy walk. I've done it a ton of times, but if you do have any kind of mobility issues, you may not want to do it. And this lady's, like you, said it was going to be easy. It is not easy. I mean just full Karen, just hmm, was it flat.
Speaker 3:By no means Was it straight up.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, it was a gradual Lots of places to step off if you needed to take a break, but don't look behind you. Don't look behind you, yeah, but they didn't say anything about just stepping aside and taking a breather. That's fully allowed.
Speaker 4:You just can't look behind you.
Speaker 2:Oh man. You can't talk yeah.
Speaker 1:So when she went full, karen, did anybody talk to her or you just walked right by her? No, everybody ignored her, true Yep.
Speaker 2:And then when the tour guide finally got up there, she really let her have it and she was like, well, I did say you know what I mean, like it was, yeah, it was interesting and it really honestly it was not that bad of a walk, like it really wasn't.
Speaker 4:I was a little embarrassed for her.
Speaker 2:Yes, I felt the same way. It was super odd. What was really funny we made a joke about it is, once people got up there and made your wish, then you're free to talk. You're no longer under the spell, we're talking and people are looking at us. It's like they're not sure if they should talk or not. It was very funny on the way down. Then they had some dogs. People were playing with the dogs. It was great. It was really. That was really fun. Port um that was another one.
Speaker 3:That was like a long, seven, eight hour trip wow and then we went to the last place in iceland, which was, uh, rickovic yeah which was the first city that we've seen, and, yeah, went to the blue lagoons that'd be we're five days.
Speaker 2:This is the first city we've seen you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Like it's been a while everything else was all country yeah, uh went to the blue lagoon that was an amazing experience are those, the hot springs yes not natural.
Speaker 2:No, I did not know that. I thought the blue lagoon was a natural phenomenon. It is not. It is actually, um, they have a hydroelectric not hydroelectric a thermoelectric plant. So thermoelectric is they take these giant pipes, run them deep into the earth and connect them, and so cold water goes in one side and when it goes down there, it gets superheated. So it comes back up the other side of the pipe as high pressure steam, right, and then that turns a turbine and then it goes into an evaporator coil so it turns back into water, goes back down, and it just keeps repeating itself. Right, this is the runoff.
Speaker 2:So when they have too much water, it runs off into these pools, and people started going to them because they're full of minerals, because they were just so deep in the earth. By the time they get to the pool, they're not scalding hot by any means. Um, and so the companies got smart and they're like, well, if people keep coming to these pools for free, what if we closed it off and made it an attraction? And so that's what they did and, uh, put a really nice resort there. Um, and so they have a day use area, which is where we're at, and they also had private rooms, uh, but as our um hotel rooms on the other side great.
Speaker 3:I mean had two service bar areas that you could go up. They give you a in the back in the water, yeah, and the package that we had, we uh gave us part of the tour. You get one drink and then the rest of them you can purchase if you want. They give you like this little waterproof watch band that you can, you know, and then the rest of them you can purchase if you want. They give you like this little waterproof watch band that you can, you know, and then you pay whenever you leave.
Speaker 2:That was super cool. It's super cool because it's like a little like just a bracelet. It just looks like a bracelet. There's nothing on it. It just looks like a bracelet and it's got a little RFID in it. You use it as your credit card because you're in this hot and and you use it as your credit card because you're in this hot and they tell you like, don't bring anything with you, it will ruin your cameras, it will ruin your credit cards.
Speaker 4:It will ruin your hair too.
Speaker 2:It will ruin your hair. Yeah, literally it will ruin your hair.
Speaker 3:They have special conditioner for your hair that you have to use. And they say leave in your hair while you're in the pool and then rinse it off when you get out.
Speaker 2:It's very volatile, much mineral. It's great for your skin, it's not good for anything else. Um, so yeah, these little, these little rubber wristband things. And so when you go to the, the, the thing, like I said, it was pre-let it with one free drink and then and it anything alcohol. Uh, wine, they had wine beer. They didn't have any like hard liquor, but they had wine beer. They had, um, they had cocktails no, it was just normal.
Speaker 4:It was just normal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, alcohol a couple, couple different beer options, couple wine options or a couple reds, couple whites, and like a sweet, like a prosecco kind of thing, and then they had um full soft drink menu option selection. And then they had um water and you could buy however many drinks you wanted, but you could only get three alcoholic beverages.
Speaker 1:They did limit you that that's because you're in that hot.
Speaker 2:That's because you're in that hot water. They don't want you getting wasted. Could you? Can you imagine how crazy it'd be if someone got drunk in that water? So and then not happen till you step out of the water I know, or or just floating around and you're like, whoa, I need a bench. We get, of course. Now that's crazy. There's a line right like you get over there because everybody gets one free drink and so this pool's huge. I mean, like, how big would you say it is?
Speaker 2:it's the most olympic size it's. I think it's bigger than olympic yeah it's bigger than olympic and it's not. It's not rectangular, it's very like there's these curves, these little sections. There's an island like. It's really neat.
Speaker 3:And it's all centered in the middle of a lava pit. I guess you would say that's pretty cool. All kinds of ash and lava all around. It's literally down to the center of it. It was crazy Like to get there.
Speaker 2:So this is where the active volcano comes in. On the way from Reykjavik to here, it's about a hour long drive. It was an hour and 45 minutes for us and they actually they didn't take away our time, uh, from the time in the pool, but they actually didn't extend the time of the tour. And we knew this ahead of time because, as you all saw in the news, iceland was having an active volcano yeah and it's right by this, and so the lava fields were coming down.
Speaker 2:They cut off the quicker route, so we had to go like way around this ridiculous route to get there which I kind of appreciated because we saw a lot more stuff by doing this and then we literally had to drive over cooled brand-new fresh hot lava Steam is coming off the road, like if you've ever been down in the South and it rains on a hot day, the steam comes off the asphalt yeah.
Speaker 2:It was kind of like that. It was a trip. Only it's cold outside, so why is there steam coming off the asphalt? You know it's fresh lava and you literally got to see like this is what fresh cooled lava looks like against old, you know thousand year old lava and uh, you know, is it. That was sad, because I mean, there's a whole town there that's completely cut off. If you live there, they're allowing you to go back, get your stuff so you can leave, like, but you're not allowed to go there and like, state your house, anything, and it's and it's a big town that's completely cut off and they don't know if that town will be rehabilitated or if it's just going to get leveled and everybody's going to get relocated.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's sad.
Speaker 2:It's very sad and I heard that and we've been to these other Icelandic towns where it's like real small and it's like, okay, well, you're displacing not many people. This is a pretty good-sized area. It was a lot. It was a way bigger area than I thought it was going to be, a way bigger town and it was just. I mean not that that makes a difference, it's still a tragedy, but it's just more like holy cow. It's just more like holy cow. Getting there was a crazy trip. And then they did say like if you hear a siren that goes off, immediately go to the bus. We don't care what bus. All the bus drivers know they will rendezvous and they will sort the people out once they get out of the danger area. But if the siren goes off, they were like just get to the first available bus and leave.
Speaker 5:Wow, I remember, before you guys left, there was concern of being able to do this because you had heard they cut the roads off and then, like a couple days prior, they talked about the reroute, kind of thing, I'm glad you got to see that.
Speaker 2:The news I saw said it was reopened. Well, the Blue Lagoon was reopened. The road was not, but yeah, it was great. The road was not right, so, but yeah, no, it was, it was great. I uh, the water was the perfect temperature it was, and it was kind of cool because there were areas that were a little hotter than others. So if you did get a like I'm a little overheated, you could literally just swim 30 feet.
Speaker 2:Wow, and I say swim, I mean the water was only four foot deep, or whatever yeah, you just float over to the, to the other area and cool down a little bit. It was not cold or cool anyway, it was just not as hot. Right, they had these little private areas where you couldn't bring a cell phone, you couldn't get to keep quiet. We went over there and hung out for a little bit as well. That was kind of neat, the bridge going over it. They had another section where they had beds under the water where you could get massages and facials and they do pedicures and stuff while you're in that water. It was really like they ain't joking around. It's really nice, that's cool. And then the other. So that was so I told. So, like you mentioned, you had the bands. You can go get your drinks. What was the other booth? Because it was also interesting. I think Don was the only one that did it.
Speaker 3:Oh, the facial mask.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm like really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that was part of the package as well. You can get this special facial mask and put on and everything. And Don was the only one that did that. How was it?
Speaker 2:It was so weird, I didn't do it. It was so weird.
Speaker 3:I didn't do it so it looked weird. He never said if his skin was softer.
Speaker 1:Was it made with the?
Speaker 2:volcanic minerals and the algae too that's in the water. It like came out of a bucket and they like scooped it up and just put it on your hands. And it wasn't for me.
Speaker 1:Do you rinse it in the water?
Speaker 3:They had fresh running water going into the pools and you can go over there and just use your hands to wash it off, but then it goes into the water.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then the fresh water no, not where the fresh water was, because there was a little. No, yeah, I guess it did go in the pool, didn't it? The nice thing about the fresh water, too, was it is drinking water. So they did say, like if you have a cup or whatever, you can actually just go there and get water. You don't have to buy the expensive water. And Icelandic water is like Fiji water or like Right.
Speaker 2:It's really delicious, great water, and it's so. They're like why buy a bottle of water when the stuff coming in the tap is literally like we ship it all over the world, didn't? I did end up buying a bottle of water. It was like a dollar fifty who cares? Um, but that was only because I wanted to be able to seal it and take it back on the bus with me, um, and I actually drank all my water and then refilled my bottle from the tap. They had two or three of those taps around the pool, which meant you always had to wait in a little bit of a line, but not much. It was just great. It was super relaxing. It started raining Remember that? It started raining on us while we were in it and it was just like who?
Speaker 5:cares.
Speaker 2:It was great. Only weird thing, only weird thing. I think I've said a couple weird things, but I think the biggest weird thing I think I've said a couple weird things, but I think the biggest weird thing is the in and out of the pool procedure.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It is everyone. Everyone is required to take a full nude shower before being allowed into the pool. Really, every single person.
Speaker 1:So are you nude getting in?
Speaker 2:No, you wear trunks or swimsuit in, but you cannot shower in your swimsuit. You have to actually get fully naked, completely wash off, and then you can put your swim trunks on.
Speaker 1:That is weird. Very odd, because I think your swim trunks would hold a lot more than your body. Laundry soaps, fabric softeners.
Speaker 4:I don't make the rules we heard from them. It used to be open shower yes, no walls, and there still is.
Speaker 2:Both men and women. They do separate us. Obviously they do have the open showers Because in Europe and in some places around the world really people don't care about nakedness.
Speaker 2:It's just not a thing, right, us prudish pilgrims yes um, we're the ones that are like, oh and so, um, they had a bunch of private showers, uh, but they were nice and private, but it was weird. They were, um, translucent glass and it was just a shower. There was no area to put clothes on or take them off. So, like, I walked in with my bathing suit on and then close the door, and then it's pretty small, so you gotta figure out how to how to take them off and throw them over the door, because there's literally attendance, like they're paying attention to make sure you're doing this. So throw the swim trunks over the door so they know you actually are showering.
Speaker 2:And then they had the body wash and the shampoo and the conditioner, like we talked about, which are all really high-end products. You know, when you're showering, you can tell like, oh, this was expensive, this was all really nice stuff. They were not trying to be weird or scrimp on anything, it's just they want to protect that pool water. You do that and then when you come back, obviously you have to as well. I guess you don't have to have to.
Speaker 4:But you want to. But after being in that water, you want to.
Speaker 2:All that salt on your skin and all the minerals and stuff. You want to get it off you.
Speaker 4:Plus if you ended up with it in your hair people who put conditioner in their hair got to get it out.
Speaker 2:Well, I had to wash my hair regardless. I don't have the hair, it would be an issue, and it was pretty short at that point. But I did shower and condition my hair afterwards, because you could just tell I don't know how to describe it? Incredibly hard water. That's what I Imagine, the hardest water you've ever experienced. And then multiply it by 10. And then take algae and put it in your hair, or silica that part was wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it was a wonderful experience. We were the last people back to the bus, very, very.
Speaker 1:Was that the end of Iceland for your 14 days?
Speaker 3:Yep. From there we went to Ireland.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh. What did you do there?
Speaker 3:That was kind of a quick part of the trip. We actually only had what?
Speaker 2:four or five hours in dublin now, we had longer in dublin, but we did, we, we didn't have an excursion.
Speaker 3:No, we didn't have an excursion yeah, they took us to the city of dublin and they were like, okay, just back here in like four hours, yeah, the whole trip the whole excursion was like six or seven hours, but you only have four hours in Dublin.
Speaker 2:They dropped us off at Art Museum and we did what everybody does responsibly and we went straight to a tavern. If you're in Dublin, you got to go to the pub. You got to. Even if you go get a Pepsi and have some cheese, you got to go to the. That's a thing where I come from Pepsi and cheese. Anyways, you got to go and experience a little bit. Listen to the guy playing the guitar and singing the Irish songs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the ditties and it was a lot of fun. It was really cool. The food was great. Packed it was a packed house. Went to Temple Bar in Temple Bar area like the OG of OGs.
Speaker 4:We were able to get a table together.
Speaker 2:We were able to get a table together. Everything was exactly the way you thought it would be. I kept telling them it's like when you go to Disneyland and you go to the Irish pub at Disneyland and it's like, wow, Disney really studied these places and got all the right parts and pieces and everything. This was like that, but 600 years old. It's been that same thing for ages.
Speaker 4:Their greenery on this world, oh yeah plants, flowers everywhere.
Speaker 2:Like it was it was. You could definitely tell it was old and you could definitely tell it was kept up and it was. It was really nice.
Speaker 4:I was um trying to figure out do they did they do it better in london or in dublin? Like the greenery, did they do it better in London or in Dublin?
Speaker 2:Like the greenery.
Speaker 4:Man, that's a tough one.
Speaker 2:I thought Dublin was a little extra. Dublin felt more authentic and I think because it doesn't have the money behind it that London has. You know what I mean. Like Dublin's not a highfalutin, like I don't think we saw a Louis Vuitton store, I don't think we saw a Christian Dior store, like they didn't have that kind of stuff there. A lot more local stuff, a lot more local. That was one thing too about that area. Remember I said I don't like those Disneyland-type places or whatever. There's people living above us. We're at this bar and above us is apartments. You know what I mean. People just live in that area. It's kind of like if you go to New Orleans and you go to the French Quarter people live in the French Quarter. You're actually in someone's home turf. I really appreciated that.
Speaker 2:One of the restaurants we ate at we were in Dublin was really good food. It was huge portions, gigantic portions. None of us finished what we were eating. But that was a local dive restaurant. It was not on the main strip, it was not whatever. It just had 10 000 positive reviews. So we kind of sought it out and went to. It had a great meal, um, and it was actually very reasonably priced too. It was. It was really good. I think y'all got the fish and I did okay uh, yeah, and so that was really fun.
Speaker 2:Did we go to Belfast too on that trip? We did.
Speaker 3:Where they made the Titanic. We didn't explore that, though. They talked about it on the tour that we were on Belfast was a little weird for me. It was more. It is northern ireland, yeah ireland there's a big difference, you know what's the word I'm looking for, though? It's more um just conflict, and, yeah, it's war-torn yeah, I mean, it is the site of like.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's Wartorn, I like that.
Speaker 2:It's a site of where they.
Speaker 4:You'd say it's politically tense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they had the IRA. That's where the IRA is based out of. That's the Irish Republic Republic. Yeah, and they.
Speaker 4:It's where, like all the car bombings happened and stuff and all those I was going to say it's not politically correct to go into a bar and ask for an Irish car bomb.
Speaker 2:Do not do that, and so I do all that. But it's been decades so I figured by now it would be fine, but it's not at all.
Speaker 5:Well, their ceasefire, their treaty is still relatively new.
Speaker 2:Yes, and they still have a wall that divides the two areas, um, and it's still. They close the wall every night and reopen it the next morning, and all the walls have police presence and at any moment, if things get too hot, they'll close it and shut it down. That's the kind of stuff that was shocking. I had no idea that part of I don't want to say civilization, but whatever, still existed.
Speaker 2:I didn't know. I wouldn't expect that at all. I knew we were going to go see the wall. It was part of the tour we were going to do. I thought we were going to go see. This is what is remaining of the old wall this is the active wall. This is the active wall and we have to keep the piece. That really surprised me. How tall would you say the wall was?
Speaker 4:25 feet, 30 feet, something like that, at least two stories tall, with the net barbed wire on top of that.
Speaker 2:And it's two-sidedsided, so there's one wall here. There's a big gap, uh, but they actually neutral zone it's kind of, but they actually businesses, businesses and stuff there, so they're, they're using that space. It's not uh like cleared out, like uh, other other places have done um, but it's still it's you know, at nighttime. It's no man's land and they have another wall on the other side. The wall's completely covered with political propaganda and it literally depends on which side of the wall you're on as to what they have. It was the strangest thing.
Speaker 1:And can you go between the two if the gates are open?
Speaker 4:If the gates are open. It's totally fine. We did Until the gates close at night.
Speaker 1:And which side do you want to be on when they close?
Speaker 4:Depends on your beliefs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think neither how to put this. Neither neighborhood felt like this is the safe one and that's the unsafe one. Right, they are just two very different minded people. Both neighborhoods seemed about the same level of safe. They seemed like they had the same level of safe. They seemed like they had the same type of houses. They like there was no like. Oh, we've crossed the tracks and now all of a sudden we're in a slum.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Nothing like that. Um, it's just two people who don't get along.
Speaker 1:And foreigners are welcome in Belfast.
Speaker 2:Yep, um, there's a big Jewish population, there's a big muslim population there, obviously, uh, northern ireland, the whole thing is catholics versus protestants, so that definitely depends on which side of the wall you're on yeah um, but it was very interesting.
Speaker 2:Now when you go downtown ireland the wall's not there. Our downtown belfast, rather, that wall's not there. It's only when you get just just outside of downtown that the wall starts. But they had a lot of buildings where you could still see where the bombs were happening and such. There was a huge area where a movie theater used to be and they blew the movie theater up and so they'd actually erected a temporary um pub like an outdoor pub with like concert grounds and stuff. I don't know. It's kind of weird. Um, which is meant to be a temporary thing but it's permanent now. You know, at this point it's been there for years so I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's really interesting to see there's a lot of that. History is still there.
Speaker 4:It's not that far removed from it at all, and they have two types of division. One of them has to do with their religion Protestant Catholic. The other division is the people who want to be a part of England and the others that want their own country.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. There's the whole loyalist versus the nationalist. It's just very interesting yeah definitely. It was not at all what I was expecting. I feel very much like you. It's shocking. So if you get a chance, go, Just you know.
Speaker 1:How long were you there for?
Speaker 3:That was another.
Speaker 2:That was a pretty long trip, five hours maybe, yeah, five hours.
Speaker 3:Uh went and saw the capitol building was beautiful, yeah, nice the whole titanic things where they built that and everything in belfast. He, he said they liked to joke.
Speaker 2:Uh, whenever it left there it was, it did not functioning yeah it was properly functioning, but it left um, so we left there and then, uh, was that it that was it that we were. We were back on the boat, our back to the dover a day at sea and then we uh back to dover and uh, part of the reason why I get a little bit of this confused or blurred a little bit is because when we got to Dover, Jerry and Don got off the ship, took a train, waited two days and then flew home.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:A little bit of a scheduling mishap, just a little Just, neither here nor there.
Speaker 3:Now we did have a little trouble coming back home. Once we got back to, uh, uh, leaving, leaving london, uh, we were okay, but when we landed in, uh, new york, uh, we stayed at a hotel that night, got up early the next morning, they had really, really bad fog.
Speaker 3:Uh, we ended up having to sit on the runway for like almost two hours just sitting and waiting in the plane yeah, we were, we were taxing, taxiing out, and then they had a whole lot of them and they just stopped all of us and we had to just sit there yep yeah, but we finally got out and then made it back home wow that's rough yeah, they let you get up and serve you cook water, coffee or anything like they would.
Speaker 3:They would get a little bit of a clearing or something and they'd let a plane take off and everything and they kept coming on and they would say, you know, like, hey, if you need to go, we want you to go, but you, you have to be seated, we can't move on the taxiway if you're outside your seat so it was kind of like that point of you know, if you've seen someone get up, you're like sit down we can't move.
Speaker 3:You know. But on the other hand, if you had to go, they were like I've got to go.
Speaker 2:And then we would have to sit there. Don had to go at one point and he started walking away and Jerry yanked him right back to his seat and he's like 10,000 feet, you hold it a little bit longer. Oh wow, I didn't even know about any of this, because Eric and I stayed on the boat and we were up in the pool area where they had the Lido deck and just kind of watching the city, taking pictures and stuff, just really appreciating Dover, the cliffs and everything.
Speaker 2:It's really, really beautiful. They got a big castle up there on top. It's beautiful. I look over and guess who I see.
Speaker 1:Not Jerry and Don.
Speaker 5:No, jerry and Don left already.
Speaker 2:It wasn't us no it wasn't us, my dad and my sister. Really Wow, another surprise, another surprise. Wow, another surprise, another surprise. Thankfully, again, we planned it. Wow and um so no, they had actually flown over the day before and they uh took the train down there and they joined us and uh, we went on a cruise.
Speaker 5:It's funny. Since they're not there here to tell their story of travel, I'll share what I know about it. Pray tell. So they were supposed to fly from here in Columbus to JFK and then on to London. Their flight got rerouted through Detroit and then JFK to London.
Speaker 2:Oh, it did. I forgot all about that.
Speaker 5:I remember that text message oh yeah, lots of travel issues this summer. Oh, and they freaked out too. I remember this text message oh, yeah, yeah. So lots of travel issues this summer.
Speaker 2:Oh, and they freaked out too. I remember this, like when they reassigned them, they assigned Melissa a seat Right and did not assign Dad a seat Right, correct. So they're like so does this mean Melissa's going to make it? And I'm not Like what's happening here and I'm like you should really talk to your gate agent. And they were like we're inside the restaurant at the airport eating and I'm like that's not a good place to be.
Speaker 2:You need to get to the gate agent, like now, and so they did. When they got over there, they said seats have not been assigned because we have to manually sign them. Melissa must have just got her ticket in just before the system locked them out of it. But they're like, you're on the list and you have a seat. We just haven't literally manually put it in yet. So, yeah, once that was done, their flights went pretty good, but I forgot all about that.
Speaker 5:I'm looking forward to later on in our story time.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know, I know you are. So yeah, melissa and Dad got there and we began our adventure.
Speaker 1:Did you do Iceland again, or was it a different adventure?
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:Because you didn't get off the boat.
Speaker 2:You know what we should? Do yeah, let's find out next week. Yeah, good idea, all right, yeah, good idea.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 5:Yeah, a little cliffhanger.
Speaker 1:Y'all have a good one A cliffhanger.
Speaker 2:Ah, that's funny.
Speaker 5:Enjoy a cliffhanger.
Speaker 2:A Dover cliffhanger, a salty cliffhanger, that's awesome. Look, I know we didn't talk a whole lot about their company this show. We hope you've enjoyed your time. If you like what you're hearing, please hit that like and subscribe button. Touch all the buttons, you see. If you don't like it, hit the thumbs down. It still helps us.
Speaker 1:Just a quick little intermission between summer to catch up when we come back.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:We're going to have all those trucking questions and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2:Next week, you're going to hear part two of all this. We're going to hear part two of all this. We're going to find out about our second loop around Iceland, or will you? Oh yeah, and then we've got some more exciting stuff I can't wait to hear about the Lokshire summer, because I already know some things and I'm excited about that.
Speaker 2:So join us next week. You can catch us on YouTube. You can hear us through the podcast version of this, anywhere you get your podcast from. If there's anything you want to talk about season three, drop us a comment. You can email us at theouterbeltpodcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:Like, subscribe, share the friend. We're on all the socials.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. We're on all the socials.
Speaker 5:Absolutely yeah, sounds good to me.
Speaker 2:All right. In the meantime, stay safe. Make good decisions. Don't leave money on the table.
Speaker 3:And keep as well as a turner.
Speaker 1:Good night, thank you. We'll see you next time.