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We're back from Europe and giving you the downlow on where to travel to.

In Episode #485 of 'Meanderings', Juan & I discuss: a tit for tat recounting of our European travels, a garage door mishap and newfound Zen, the unique experiences of staying in hostels, the stereotypes of Germans/French people that are way too true, the beauty of Switzerland and the livability of Zurich, the luxurious yet expensive allure of the South of France and a call for more places we should visit.

Huge shoutout to Lyceum & Cole McCormick for the support, we greatly appreciate it!

Timeline:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:00:29) Garage Zen Mode
(00:06:28) London Experience
(00:11:14) Juan's Rome Adventure
(00:18:50) Hamburg & Hosky Summit
(00:24:42) Exploring Southern France
(00:39:54) Berlin Lines & Munich Drinking
(00:46:14) Florence & Pisa
(01:00:23) Zurich & Switzerland
(01:07:57) Montenegro
(01:15:12) Boostagram Lounge
(01:17:30) V4V

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[00:00:05] Kyrin Down:

Hello.   Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Mere Mortals Meanderings.   We are live here on   Sunday July 13, we just recorded the monthly goals. But this will be coming out probably three or four days afterwards a little bonus episode midweek to just   say a thank you for everyone who has missed us for all this time and, and   was wanting us. We We were traveling and we're going to be talking about traveling today. You've got Kyrin here on this side of the microphone. You've Juan one here. I'm wearing my sunglasses coming off the back of Europe. Very sunny over there. He's awesome warm because he because he was hungover and drunk half the time. That's why.   But   yeah, a myriad meanderings episode. Before we get into the musings after this is just one way we kind of go off the cuff. We've got some stories,   rough travel stuff related to some recollection, something that I found some perhaps weight changes.  



[00:00:59] Juan Granados:

But once got a little story to kick us off with, which I don't know about either. So I'm keen to hear this. Well, I thought everyone would be excited to hear a random story. That's not Europe, but I will tie it back to Europe because   I think there's been a market change for me, a markedly different change since coming back from Europe in a lot of ways. There was relaxation,   maybe I was more settled, more Zen and all those things we can talk about, you know, how it came about,   fun that we had from from from all of that, etcetera.   But what I did find   with the,   of coming back, so that that zen sort of feeling behind it, right, I went, okay, how is that gonna apply to my everyday life? And it's been applying in lots of various different ways. Fantastic. Well, something in particular happened   yesterday.  

Sure. So I drove back, went for a long run. We caught up, did another run,   went to soccer for my daughter's soccer   and we came back home after   going to the cafe. Came home. I reversed the car back into our little garage. It has a roller door. Right? And so I've I've parked it back. Now this hasn't happened before, so it was the first time I've done this, but I didn't reverse it far enough. Sure enough, the roller   door, bang, hit the car, smacked into the car. Now it's smacked right into the license plate of the car. So no real damage to the car. Thank goodness. But the roller door got messed up. It went all jittery.   It what specifically I'll get to the point. It had messed up it's like,   distance correlation for the mission for the motor. So then when we tried to close the door and open the door, it didn't know where it was in its position. So it would either like smash a door   into, like, an open mode or just close to about a quarter of the way. So here I am, like, oh, no. However, I guess coming back off Europe, I just felt more relaxed, more zen. I was like, ah, you know, one of the paths would have gone, a little bit stressed. I've got to call up someone to come and deal with it. And I don't know. Again, it probably has been that, like, just quieter time over the last month and a bit where I've gone, no, let's let's work it through this. This is doable and using some AI to figure out, okay, what's the machine name, how to fix it, looking up some videos and sure enough to figure it out. However,   here comes   the point of the story is to get into this machinery, you have to unlock it, the key.  

And we did not get given any of these keys when we moved into our place.   So   we're like, I know how to fix this. I need to go in here,   turn it into manual mode, move it back to its reset position and let it go. Right. And Can I guess what you're   Go on? Yeah. You gotta guess. So this is where Juan does revert back to like brute force and he just rips the cover open. That's what I believe. Okay. See, you might you could have said that. You could have said like try to just manually rip the door of it's like   hinge and it's, like, of its gearing to return it. This is what you would have thought one to do.  

No. One, Zen, Khan was, like, thinking it through. And what I did indeed do, now I didn't pick this up through Europe, but there's a lot of pickpockets there. You know,   to doing nefarious things. I broke into the lock. Okay. I got and I don't have it here, but I basically got a You got it. Like,   it's a flat piece of metal and I also had a little tooth, not toothpick, but just like a thin metal sharp thing that,   my wife uses for her hair. I basically, we're just in there in the lock just   I locked it open, broke into the lock, opened it up. Yeah. That  

[00:04:23] Kyrin Down:

sounds more luck than scale.  

[00:04:25] Juan Granados:

It does however, however for those wanting to know it's a high really, really, really shitty locks which I thought that was gonna be, as long as you Jimmy them enough into the movement and you use   two metal sticks, one pushing in a bit of like a a lever, one down and one up, you will get it. I get it really easy to break.   So, newsflash, if you're using cheap blocks, they are easy to break, but I break into it, open that up, fix it manually, move it and I went honestly and I was saying to my wife, I was like, you know,   honestly, I think the only reason I did this is because I've come into like a Zen mode from Europe in the holiday. So that's the beginners off to say. I now know how to break locks and also   it's all thanks to having a big European trip. So if you're having a midlife crisis, a bad time in your life, you're depressed,   pay exorbitant amount of money to go to Europe and have a really long holiday trip and you will be fixed and you will be fixed.  

And you too, you will solve all your problems. You will solve a $5 problem. Akin   to, you know, if you're you're homeless, just buy a house as people say. So, you know, it's an easy way to solve it. But anyway, that's that's my little story that happened yesterday just to kick us off into Europe. So one things the app, the awesome things that came from me from Europe was I feel much more relaxed, much more at ease. And it was because a lot of my holiday   was relaxation   total   basically every day. My like   stressful   eventful part of my holiday was the wedding week where for a lot of people that I've been talking to that was their like holiday portion of the holiday that they were in. So because we didn't explore that much when we were all over the place. So that's one big thing in Koala that I go like, man, I just got a lot of that.  

Doesn't have to be in Europe, could have been anywhere, but it just, we maximized for that and it I'm seeing its rewards now.   Sure, sure. Oh, that's that's awesome. If you need to break, if you break into a lock or anything now just yeah, yeah. Don't   say it was me. Just like yeah like use like an alter ego or something. But you know, you can rely me now now for that. You'll know if it didn't work because it will be just broken open manually by here.  

[00:06:25] Kyrin Down:

All right. Well, that's a great story. Thank you. Thank you for kicking us off that one. So I was gonna give just a little brief rundown of my trip in total. And then I've got   one,   I want the first half of this to kind of just be like some observations   of the places perhaps we're at. And then the second half after the bootstrap lounge can be   our   changes and perhaps interpretations of our self loss traveling. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. So should we go tit for tat like you talk about your first place and observations. I'll go to first place. Yeah, sure. Sounds fun. That's found found fun. And I do have a big one, which is hinting at the title, which is I do see the title of fashion. I think it was fashionable feminine Florence versus   monetary masculine mindset.  



[00:07:12] Juan Granados:

So I've got a very, I think,  

[00:07:14] Kyrin Down:

a unique observation that perhaps no one else in the world could make. So   okay,   well, but that's that comparison.   Yeah. So first first place I went to was England, London, and I   was absolutely surprised. I'm working on a theory   that we're all being lied to. And so my theory is, you hear what do you hear about London and The UK in general?   It's gray, it's dreary, it's sad, people get the seasonal oppression,   affective disorder,   you're gonna have like mopey time. That's just the general vibe I get. It's cold.   What do I get when I'm there? It's sunny, everyone's happy. We're out in the streets having beers and SoHo.  

Perfect weather, like nice in the day,   not hot in the evenings.   And I think it like rained once on a time when I didn't even want to be outside. Yep. And my working theory is   everyone says all of these things, keep away to keep the tourists away so they can keep it to themselves.   So yeah, that's that's my working theory of London. And it's actually like that all the time. Okay. Okay. But I,   I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Camden Markets was really cool. I   loved being there. That was,   you know, like a rave store, which I wasn't expecting.   The it was expensive there as usual. Any place where the Aussie dollar   is the weaker of the pair as in, you know, 2 Australian dollars will go by £1   or something like that.  

And prices are usually higher there apart from alcohol. So   alcohol   in in London. Good job, guys.   Cheaper than Australia. Other than that,   yeah, I got kind of what I've expected.   Me food. Like I didn't have any special Yeah, I didn't do a Sunday brunch.   Or Sunday roast. Sorry.   I had the opportunity. I didn't do it. Probably should have because that's probably like the most English thing you can do.   Other than, you know, the big English breakfast, which I'm not a fan of breakfast, so not going to do that.   Stayed at a party hostel, highly recommended.  

I love I love hostels, man. It's a weird thing to say, especially now that I'm like, in my 30s.   A lot of hostels have a cut off at thirty five. So   I'm just sneaking in.   And   but I the the atmosphere, the vibe of these places   is just fantastic. I love that you can meet random people. There was there was two people there.   Who one was like,   he was essentially Jack Black, a young Jack Black. Just imagine that. And that's what this guy was. And then there was this other   Canadian girl with a guess, like a   Indian heritage.   And   when us three like linked up,   we were saying the most fucked up things. And the best thing about these other two was they just wanted to laugh. So it didn't even matter if it wasn't that funny. They were they were so fun. It was so fun. So I had a blast in England, met up with our friend Vipin,   just before he came back to Brisbane. Thanks.  

And I'll probably be able to link up with him once here before he goes back. I think he's already flown back. Has he? I thought I saw a place a couple of days ago at the international airport. Yeah, shithead because he said he was going to be here for much longer. So if that is the case, then that dude. Dude, mate. You're dude. But   yeah, I, I really enjoyed London   more so than I was expecting. Also. Well,  

[00:10:48] Juan Granados:

I was just gonna say the, I believe,   again, directionally correct that   UK is the single place where the most millionaires have left the country   in comparison to anywhere else in the world. So it's   like all the rich people are basically leaving The UK. Mostly tax Fleeting to Australia. Mostly tax reasons.   No,   the places are UAE UAE is where the most going to. Yeah. But Australia is pretty high up there. Australia is pretty high as well. Correct.   Yeah, like my first location, so I'll go by city and I'll just kind of evolve it based on how you're saying it, but, Rome, Rome for myself. Okay. I've heard amazing things. So you didn't go to Rome? I didn't go to Rome. So look,   good again for us and I'm going to go from an angle obviously of a family.  

You know, we used to stay within the city walls, which is a pretty big area, right? Near the Colosseum, near the Spanish steps,   kind of weird to have Spanish steps in Italy. I always thought that's kind of like strange, but they are just a set of steps.   Someone a couple of weeks later when we were there, try tried to drive down those particular Spanish steps with like an old person that got stuck. Oh, yeah. I thought about this. I was like, oh, it's kind of funny.   We went to all the all the places you're supposed to see and all fine.   The Colosseum was cool. We didn't the line to go into the Colosseum would have been probably like   four hours and   my wife had been in there before. Yeah. And I was like, it's really not that worth it. So I was like, you know, with our daughter,   nah, we're not gonna wait around. We're gonna walk around.  



[00:12:14] Kyrin Down:

Lines are the death of me. That's probably why I enjoyed England. I don't think I had any lines anyway.  

[00:12:19] Juan Granados:

We we're not finding ourselves   walking a lot. If you are a parent, if you're taking a pram, Rome is not a friendly pram place in the sense of like, it's cobblestone paths. It's, you know, old school Roman setup. So it's gonna be difficult in that particular way, but walking around   was pretty easy. I did enjoy seeing the Italian way of having coffee in the mornings and at the like the bar. So obviously Rome is going to be a more touristy place, but I got to experience another side of Italy a couple of times and, you know, the traditional, they're basically going in the mornings before work, they actually stand at the bar, get the espresso shot, drink it and get on with the day. That was really cool and have the cornetto or something like that, freaking awesome. So that was cool to do.   We stayed there for like two nights and it didn't and it was enough, like that was enough to see everything we wanted to from a walk around perspectives. We we weren't there to see   churches and a few other things. It was more like the beginning of our journey   and I I kind of went and I I wanna hear this from you as well for each one of your locations. I went   cool, great as a place that I might come through transit but I wouldn't go back again to ever like visit again pop up and be like oh I need to stay seven nights again in Rome. Nothing like that. No particular interesting stories although some interesting people in the just   Italian people, one of the things that I did find interesting, so, staying in Airbnb is here in Australia and other places,   I'm usually accustomed to you just rock up to a place as a key, well if you go, whatever, it's very like informal that way. Every time in Italy, we found this, it's like, no, no, they   like the person whoever's renting out or if it's a managed thing, they come to your place, they come to the place, they'll show you around, they'll be like, this is the toilet, this is how a toilet works, this is the shower, this is your kitchen, this is how you make coffee.  

So they're very, they're very hands on and you're like chicken behavior, which is,   I hadn't experienced that before. So I was like, yeah, that's kind of cool.   But all in all, I went, yep, I enjoyed it. It was really nice for everyone who would like, if you've never been around yet, I think it's worthy of going for that one time. At least you can be like, Yeah, I'll be cool. So, so.  

[00:14:28] Kyrin Down:

Yeah, any interesting stories from and one thing I have heard about Rome is in multiple recommendations was   stay out late until two to 4AM and get lime scooters and   hit the streets.   And that is apparently a really fun experience because it's just dead quiet and you can be like   lime scootering around the Colosseum.  

[00:14:51] Juan Granados:

That's what I've heard. There's a very fun day. Yeah, I did run   early morning in Rome around the place and because   like a lot of Europe, they're not like a really early morning person. So I guess it could be for like nighttime. Yeah, I was running around the Colosseum,   you know, the Spanish steps everywhere else with like nobody around, which was really cool. That was really cool. Yeah. Yeah. That that that would be a nice experience.  

[00:15:14] Kyrin Down:

What two experiences I neglected to mention,   I passed by the Big Ben and basically spat on it.   They call that thing big.   What an underwhelming   building  

[00:15:26] Juan Granados:

that that is probably the most was like the Brisbane Tower size.   The Brisbane Clock Tower.  

[00:15:33] Kyrin Down:

Yeah, yeah. Equivalent. If that if it's come on, come on London. What's going on? It's got the finery. There's no doubt you look at it and it's okay. Wow, that is,  

[00:15:44] Juan Granados:

regal. It's in comparison to other places though, that like people have been like,  

[00:15:49] Kyrin Down:

there's other churches, man. You'd be like, what's the name? I was just expecting it to be bigger, to be honest. I was expecting it to be much, much taller. That's what everyone says about Cam when they see him naked.   Yeah. Sorry guys. Sorry girls.  

[00:16:01] Juan Granados:

Or guys. Oh, guys. Yeah, exactly.  

[00:16:04] Kyrin Down:

The other one was   I finally   got to use my splits   in a   correct context,   which was   in the party hostel,   drunk in a bar, night nightclub slash bar. I whipped them out to impress a girl. And it worked. So yeah, it was all that all that fun.   I would have done the front because yeah, side is   more likely to split your pants if you do it. Unless you got the right pants on. So yeah, front splits worked.   Hundreds of hours put to productive use. Productivity   It's paid off. Yeah. Another little travel recommendation. So   from   from London, I went to Hamburg.  

And   one travel recommendation. So I'm in I'm in London, I might I need to get to Hamburg. What are my options? Well, I could fly there or I could take a train   flight eighty minutes with Ryanair.   I had baggage much extra baggage. So I knew it would be more expensive, but it still wasn't it was, you know,   €130   or something. So a couple 100 Australian bucks.   Looking up the travel times in the train. I was like, Oh, my God, like,   I have to take a transfer. So in Amsterdam, I think and then   it'll take probably like ten hours like fuck that man. Eighty minute flight. I'm gonna choose that even though it's international and flying whatever. Eighty minutes.   That was the incorrect decision to make. I should have taken the train because I left my hostel in London at 10AM.  

I arrived in my hostel in Hamburg 7PM   It took fucking forever.   I was going from Stansted so you got to take a big train in there. Free, you know, got to get there early. And man that place was   chockers.   Ridiculous lines for security to get through wasn't like zero customs in,   in Europe for in flying from place to place. So you're essentially pretty good with that. But,   man,   I felt like I   had maybe I go to the airport with maybe like an hour   extra spare.   And which is like a comfortable amount, you know,   flight got delayed. I think every flight I took in Europe got delayed.   And then   in Hamburg,   captioned train, it was just like, I thought it was going to be eighty minutes turned out to be a full fucking day. So   I would have preferred to have taken trains because at least you can get around on the train. You can move a little bit.  

It's, it's more comfortable,   way more comfortable. So   incorrect decision. Yeah. And especially price wise, they were pretty much identical. So you got the choice, take a train instead of a flight is what my personal recommendation is. Okay. Okay. Got to Hamburg.   There was kind of a little staging zone for myself before going to the Hoskie summit. I might wrap this up into two because it's Hoskie related as well.   And Dimelix was there Dimelix   fan of the show is   sometimes popping into the comments.   He's an awesome guy in person I loved love meeting him.   Beautiful guy, beautiful family   spent time showing me around Hamburg, we went to the Reaper Barn, which is just an amazing name for a suburb.  

Reaper, Reaper Barn. And   I got to see the red light district there, which are not as infamous as the Amsterdam one is still well known.   Hamburg itself as a city.   It's okay. It's just a city. I can't say I   loved it. But I love seeing him. I got to watch his son play soccer,   you know, in a random   location outside of Hamburg.   Yeah, I just had the people make the place as well. So good experience with the people though. Sure. And I got to experience this ridiculous German thing, which is   they built this opera   house,   well over budget, well over time, and I'm talking like 10 10x over budget. And then they were trying to charge people to enter and all the Germans that were like,   fucking outroar.  

And so what they did is they made it free, but they had all the electronic gates and stuff built for it. So   if you look online, it says, Oh, yeah, to enter there to go up this like really fancy escalator   with this like,   shimmering Mirage walls.   It costs €5 or something. But if you just go there in person,   there's this there's this like booth,   a little hut and you go in there and you ask the guy, Hey, can I have some tickets? And he goes, Yeah, okay. And just hands you as many tickets as you want. And then you walk the 20 meters from there to the electronic gate, scan the QR code and go in.   And   but they like still try and fleece tourists. Yeah, of course. Of course. So I was like, this is the most ridiculous German thing I've ever seen. Like, you know,   why not just get rid of the electronic gates? And   because you can enter in for free. But no, you got to follow the rules of getting off course. They're gonna make money somehow.  

So   German.   So yeah. And we then drove from Hamburg to Poland, myself,   Dimalik and surf and we had all of the Husky stuff. So we're crammed into this car with  

[00:21:18] Juan Granados:

merch and   the image looked like it was pretty packed. Yeah,  

[00:21:23] Kyrin Down:

that was a nice drive. You know, even though it was long.   Nine, ten hours   going across got to see the German countryside and Poland countryside.   Pretty nice.   Better drive than in Brisbane for sure.   Poland, we arrived in Danksk or Gedankks.   And that is a very pretty city. I thought it would be the prettiest.   I was incorrect.   There was one place that was more aesthetically pleasing. Okay. But it is well worth going to for that.   A little bit.   It's touristy, but also   for Polish tourists, which is I think forgivable. If it's if it's just foreign tourists. Yeah. If it's like international, it gets it gets a bit gross. But it was mostly Polish tourists from what I could tell.   And yeah, the Hoskie Summit was, I think, a good success. I   loved this fucking bag   all around Europe   to just to be able to   set up the Hoskie summit. So if you go to the Hoskie YouTube channel, that's all my work there.  

You'd be the judge of how it looked and sounded   things sounded   reasonably. But it was   considering it was all just me. I think it was pretty much a Yeah, for a one man band type of thing. They're like, Yeah,   the main live stream didn't cut out. And so it it was the full kind of five hours   with break time in the middle as well.   The live stream I did out at the kind of welcome party cut out a bunch of times, but I was moving the laptop all around. And so you know, I had little control over that. I wish I'd brought a microphone there, that would have been the only only thing that I could have improved there.   And,   did I do any other live streaming stuff? I think that was it.  

Really fun time.   Glad I did it.   Yeah, it was just awesome meeting all these people in real life. And   yeah, getting meet the boss dog and meet all these people I'd kind of like interacted with   over the past couple years. Just very nice. You know,   it was internet friends. So there is   a little bit of a,   I don't know these people that well. But   I got to know Dimalix and surf, for example,   the two   really cool guys. And I'm glad I was I was with them in the car because could have been other people and it would have been like completely weird. Yeah, it was like nine hours ten hours drive. Yeah.   Got some good workouts in   at a calisthenic part nearby. Just everything was pretty top notch apart from getting bedbugs that sucked   in the fanciest hotel that I stayed in, which once again gets to the point of like,   why do I not buy expensive things because they fucking disappoint me and get broken   and all these sorts of things. So for the cheap go for the go for the cheapest ship. Yeah. At least have the right expectation. The cheap party hostel. You're gonna have a good time. And,   then we drove back to Berlin and I got dropped off in Berlin.  

And yeah, that was that was pretty much that. Just just a nice time. A big portion of it. Not not the peak of my travels. I was thought I thought for a point like all this could be that'd be Yep. Maybe if Hoskie price had been   home in all time highs. It could have been different. It wasn't so  

[00:24:39] Juan Granados:

yeah, it was, it was. Shifted the subtitles a little bit. Okay.   Where did you go after Rome? I'll go, I'll do a couple here in one go. So we ended up going to stay in Italy. We took a train tonight. You were talking about the train versus plane ride.   Yep. You know, if you're going to take trains, absolutely do it. Make sure you book them on the right like a day of the month and time because we, we went to the train,   thinking like, oh, the train's going to take at 9AM. So we have to get up early and move our way there. Cause we walked over there from where we're at the accommodation.   We're like looking around for this train. We're running back and forth to like, oh no, I think we've like missed it or whatever. So I go to the ticket person and be like, look,   it's this one, where is this? What? And they looked at me and again, kind of Italian slash English and they kind of go,   again, it was   the June, it was like June 2 or June 3 or something like that particular day and they were like, sir, tickets for the May 6. We were like, what the hell? And it's because we accidentally, when we were here in Australia, we booked it one month early   and then we had to rebook it again with the right date. So my wife had given me the wrong email and we're here trying to look, in fact, our train came three hours later. Oh. So then we were like,   ah, nice. Sykes.  

Your dates and your time, right? In any case, we're able to get the right train in the end and get going. I mean, it's good that you called, but did you hang around there for three hours? We did. We did. Which actually ended up being okay because the train station there was good and made for an ability for my daughter to fall asleep,   like to have a nap with me. So it was like, it was fine. It was, it was a good station to hang around. I had a lot of cafe shops and shops in general that was around, so that was good.   We went to a place called Cinque Terre or Five Earth in the translation to English.  

Really nice, like really, really nice. It's kind of,   kind of like the Amalfi Coast, just in another area. Not a lot of tourists from like an international   way, but a lot of French tourists and other Italian tourists that go there. So that was cool. It felt a bit more traditional.   The, they call it the five hearse because it's like five townships that you can get around between trains and boat rides.  

[00:26:39] Kyrin Down:

What'd you think of the food?  

[00:26:42] Juan Granados:

Like the food was fine. I wasn't ever like an absolutely gigantic fan of Italian food per se, really fresh   fish and seafood because we were by the ocean. So that was nice. Yeah.   But that that that was awesome. They were quite busy,   places. So they were like really, really busy,   very hilly. So a little bit hard to get around and explore all the places. But all of those five major areas were very similar in that. Some had markets and similar shops and touristy things.   More often than not, though, it was kind of like they were   giving you a vibe of like fishing village with a nice little beach and for us again,   time spent there was being at the beach, just relaxing, maybe going through a couple of markets, but it was a good combo of   nice food. Yes, expensive, but not very expensive   and   enough relaxation   things that it was like, yep, this was wonderful. Really, if I was gonna recommend stuff as well, where we say which is called Reimagieore,   there's a walk that goes between there to the next town. That walk was like phenomenal, like amazing.  

But similar to, I guess, maybe like in Germany here, they try to get tourists to pay. So it costs 20 or €25 per person to do that particular walk. However,   the little annoying thing, I'm assuming, I don't know if everyone gets sold this, but if you are staying in one of those townships or like one of those little towns, you get free pass to do that walk   as part of like what's called the the walk pass, but you have to get it approved by someone who is like around there to do that, you know, ticket off and submit it through online and whatnot. So that has to be done before you can actually do it, so you can get the free ticket. But I would imagine that it'd be quite a few people who just   kind of like pay because they're like, oh my God, I want to go for this walk. And they'll just pay the costs of that without knowing that. Similarly,   at least in Rio Maggiore, there's a, it's quite steep to get from the bottom to the top. There is one elevator that takes you all the way to the top, mostly where people are staying in the accommodations and whatnot. That elevator costs money. It was like €2 or €3 and again,   unless you just literally walk up to the person who's there and say, no, I'm staying here and then they'll let you let you in. Otherwise,   it's like, no, pay me the €2, pay me the €3. So it's like, again, it's like it is free, but it isn't if you don't like ask the right incantation.  

So it's a little bit annoying in that way, but overall, like I really loved it. Like very picturesque, very beautiful,   lots of just little hidden alcoves in the boats and whatnot. Fantastic.   And then   from there, we ended up going on a bus. Now   the interesting thing to call out here between Italy   to France   to Croatia   to,   Greece,   like,   there was no passport checking, no customs checking. Man, you could have been smuggling whatever you wanted to. This was it was nuts. Like, I was like, what is going on? So when we took the bus from   Chincoteira, we went Chincoteira to La Spezia. La Spezia on a bus to Genoa. Genoa was a piece of shit. I hated it. Okay. Sick around for a little while and I was like, I don't wanna be here again. So if you're from Genoa, my apologies. That's what it felt like. And then we got the bus from there to Nice and we went over the border from Italy to France.  

And in that, someone did come on the bus to check everything. Now I had the passports at the radio at the back of the bus. My wife and my daughter was sleeping. So I had them ready for go. The guy came over, just, like, looked at me and and, like, my sleeping family and was like, okay. I was like, I like about to show I was gonna show you the pathway. Like, you don't wanna care. I was like, what is going on? Like, it was it was pretty like wild.   In any case, so and then we arrived in these we rented out a car for the entirety of our Southern France stay.   And I'll, I'll give basically this in high level caveats.  

All of Southern France was great, would I ever visit again? Not unless I was like really rich. You need to have some proper money to really enjoy yourself   well in a lot of these places because   all of the South Of France is expensive, especially if you want to be at the good places. We went to Monaco, Nice, Marseille,   Antibes,   Jain   De Cap, whatever that's called.   Went to   Saint Tropez, went to Cannes,   all of them.   Okay food to good food. Very, very, very, very expensive, especially   Monaco, holy   squaggles. I'm so glad I didn't stay in Monaco because that was so expensive and not much to do. Yeah. Unless you have a truckload of money. So you had a truckload of money,   go for it. Blow it all. You'll, you'll, I'm sure you'll find enjoyment. See, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see   in, in the South Of France. It it's like it is unique in its in a way in that, you know, similar to you would have seen when we were in Mykonos, there's, like, a truckload of,   super yachts and yachts and people are kinda hanging around. It's similar to that vibe where if you have the money to partake in all things,   you would have just a ball of a time because it's   events and parties and gatherings and   there's a,   of Saint Tropez or car. I think it might be Saint Tropez. There's like, LaGuardia, it's called. It's a restaurant basically on a on an island that you can only go go there by paying some good money. And it's just, like, out of control   parties, but fun and dancing. Look it up if you want it, LaGuardia.  

It's pretty well known in that space, but you only do it if you got the money, right? Because it's always expensive.   But it's like it's like ludicrous experiences that you can have,   but to you and me, I'd be like, it's not worth  

[00:32:16] Kyrin Down:

that for that particular purpose. And there's, I take it back. You know, if you go to Afghanistan, or, you know, even just random places along the Australian coastline,   you don't have as much money as you want. But if you're staying in, I think it's   $14.46.   I can't remember the name of there's a random Australian town   up up north from here. And it's it's called like 1733   or 1840. Whatever.   That's the name of the town.   It doesn't matter how much money you have.   You're gonna get like an average hotel. Yeah.  

[00:32:48] Juan Granados:

What the way that I like to own that is I think for those other friends is it has an a very,   it doesn't have a limit to the extent of fun and variations that you can find, but you have to pay a pretty penny for it. Beautiful to drive around the countryside. There was some beautiful places to go to and explore for sure.   But at least as a family   unit, there was some good beaches. It wasn't the absolute best. It was nice, but, again, I'm not rushing back to go there. Lots of interesting people. One thing that I've said in private, I guess I'll say publicly,   fuck the fucking French about speaking in French motherfuckers. Fuck the French.  

Because Italy, right, I can speak very, very few Italian that I can make myself understood with Spanish. They were awesome. Like, really cool from the most part. Yeah. Especially in the second return to Italy. That was really cool. But the French,   like, I tried to, first of all, speak French. I like to speak in the very, very subtle just to ask for coffee or a croissant or little things and they were just like, now fuck you. In all places really, unless and this is what I'm saying, unless you, went somewhere with a lot of money and then they don't give a fuck and they're like, well then they speak. Then they have to be nice to you. Yeah. Yeah. Plus then they speak a lot of English. So that's what ends up happening. But at the places where it was just like   general,   man, they I went from trying to speak French to like just being shut down to then   like in French asking, do you speak English being shut down? And then   it's like saying very little French of just like, merci.  

We still shut down. So I was like, fuck it. I'm just speaking English. Like, there was even saying things in French that were like, no. Don't say that. Yeah. Oh, I understand. Fuck you. I'm  

[00:34:23] Kyrin Down:

just gonna do some time that I just spoke Spanish just to fuck them. Yeah. Just to be allowed to speak Spanish. Nice. See what you do. My   so I guess this sticks into me because I was in Germany and it's like, current you learn some German. Were you using it? Almost zero. Almost zero.   I would use it. I would start off with it.   They would   then immediately basically speak to me in English. But it wasn't in a rude way. It was just,   okay,   this is, you   know, your will speak in English, it's easier for everyone.   And I was okay with that. So it was it wasn't.  

And if I continued to speak in German, then  

[00:35:00] Juan Granados:

we could have So it wasn't. Okay, that's all right. I didn't get the wrongness. This was mine. Like, I would go to a place like by the beach, like it's touristy.   I would go and I'd say, bonjour.   Cafe, s'il vous plait. Yeah. Okay. Hello.   Hey, coffee, please. Yeah. Response would be,   what?   Yeah. And I was like, and I would tell them they'd be like, coffee.   Yeah. And they'd go, what?   I'd be like, a coffee.   Yeah. That's Like, I was like, man, come on. Like That's that's pretty I'm sure there can be a little bit of   misunderstanding but that one is a pretty straightforward understanding   and I was just gonna shut down. I was like okay I can see why people say that the French can be pretty bad with French. Yeah, that's that's that's the reason why people say that in the language but in in other ways, they're really nice. I will make a little small caveat note here in Monaco.  

So Monaco, we drove there rather than taking like a bus or a train and stuff like that. We parked at a particular car park. It actually isn't that expensive   park there as maybe other people believe. Don't stay there because you can just stay somewhere outside of Monaco and just go in there if you want to explore. I got to drive around the actual race track itself because it was still a couple of weeks after the Formula one race. If you're there for that, you can drive around that. Fucking awesome. That was really good.   If you're gonna find if you're going there for food, like, good luck or everything's expensive and we chose to go to the most expensive place possible as a family.  

Yeah. I'll tell you this. We knew we were an expensive place because   we went to the first of all, there's a downstairs and upstairs area for the Monte Carlo, hotel.   The downstairs one was like just drinks upstairs. It's if you go in for some food. So it's like, oh, you're a baller if you go in upstairs for some food. And then, so we're like, We're hungry. We're like, We're really hungry. We need to get some food. And we went upstairs   and you straight away were like, Oh no, like this is, this is going to be a next level because you had the like   really   rich people. I'll explain why that is. And then the people who were there purely for like the influence for the photos and whatnot.  

Almost everyone I saw as I looked around this top area, which was maybe a 100 tables,   everyone was just having a drink, taking photos and leaving. That's it. That's all that we're getting.   We were hungry, so we're like, God dammit.   Anyways, we ended up getting,   like steak and some chips and a little bit of salmon and a drink for me and my wife,   a little bit of food for our daughter ended up being   $400   always for like this little bit of food. Again, not not obscene, but it was like quite a lot. That's still. Yeah. You know, in comparison to like a couple of people   not eating much, we were like, oh damn, that's that's quite a bit of food. I mean, quite a bit of cost. However, you then saw the like absolute   over the top people who obviously just got a bit of money so they can do whatever. There was a guy there who was having his food, his lunch, and he was just kind of overlooking the the actual casino   and next to him having a full blown meal like steak. Now this steak's like $150   whilst his little dog just chewing up one of the steaks that he ordered for him. I was like, yeah, okay. This is like, there's some interesting levels but very cool. Obviously, if you're a car fan,   I know people like Adrian Portelli is over there at the moment with an AMG one and it's just crazy cars all over the place, which is really cool. So   for that, obviously recommend. Otherwise,   man, I just would not recommend at all. And beyond that. Yeah, sure. Once again,  

[00:38:22] Kyrin Down:

teeing me up perfectly for Berlin, which was,   did I experience any   particular German food there? No. Did   I experience   a really great time there? No. What did I experience? Lines.   There was fucking lines for everything, man. Just just lines   left, right and center.   So I went   I did have,   Duna because Turkish is basically considered German food now because I had so much immigration. So   duna kebabs and   I   went to   a I saw one which had a line. So I was like, Okay, I will   go to this place because everywhere else I'm seeing is just there's nothing really authentic that I can go to. And I was looking at restaurants   and things and it was just   I didn't see anything that made me go, Oh, this will be a German experience. So I went, Alright, I'll just go to somewhere that's   popular. And so I went to this Doona place was called Gamusa, Gamusa Doona, which basically means like vegetable   donors. And so it was a vegetable,   vegan,   maybe vegan vegetable, certainly vegetarian.  

Massive fucking line in it. I think I saw three or four Gucci handbags   in this line. So I was like, Oh, okay, this is not even like, known for necessarily being good.   It's   the influencer   crowd where you take a picture of yourself with this fucking doona.   So I got it.   It was tasty. It was tasty. But   yeah, was not worth the forty minutes. I waited in line. So that's a long time to get this thing. Yeah.   I honestly, Berlin,   it's got the history and stuff. So I did kind of see some of,   you know, the Brandenburg Gate, the,   the big park they have there, the cathedral   at a very nice probably like the third most beautiful experience   of of the trip.  

Second, being in Danx looking down the canals   was I was just walking around, came across the cathedral right at night. The sun was just setting at 09:30 p. M. Or whenever, so it was very late   and there was   people playing   piano and violin on this bridge. And I discovered this really like, you know, reflection of the water was like, Oh, well, this is a very pretty moment.   I arrived at the perfect time because half an hour earlier or half an hour later wouldn't have been special. But I just got there and was like, wow, that's really pretty.   Continued on. I did some handstands there in general.  

A bit dirty, to be honest. Okay. And I think Berlin is the place for lines, because I didn't go to KitKat or Burghane or any of the big clubs.   But what I've heard is you go you wait in the line, and you got a 30 to 50% chance of getting let in, depending on how you dressed as well. So you know, you need to dress up in like leather and shit. Like I don't have any of that. So   not my scene, even if I wanted to go in   it. If I could be transported in and see the inside one of these clubs like Kit Kat and the   people having sex against the wall and just   hardcore trance and rave and culture and stuff.  

Sure. But I'm not going to spend the five hours necessary to make this happen. Yeah.   So I got out of Berlin pretty quickly. I was there three nights train down to   Munich.   Munich   was also   disappointing at the start because I just stayed in a shitty area.   This is the problem with travel, you can have very bad experiences   in what is otherwise a very nice place.   If you just   get this wrong series of events.   I was staying because I was traveling with all this luggage.   I was like, I'll just stay at the train station place right next next to the train station. And that was kind of the scummiest part of Munich from what I could tell.   Just all this weird,   weird behavior that I saw in Guatemala, for example, where young men hanging around in the middle of the day,   these kind of money exchange places,   it gave off bad vibes. And it wasn't just me who was experiencing this.  

But I did meet some Aussies. We went to a beer hall to one of the   Hofbrauhaus.   So got to experience the traditional German folk music while drinking steins.   That was really fun.   The ate a lot of bratwurst there, which was nice   German food.   Tasty,   incredibly ugly looking. My brother was sending messages because I was sending these in the group chat. He's like, Are you still in a concentration camp?   Is this the rations you're getting fed?   Because Yeah, sure. It's potatoes. It's it's meat.   There's not a whole lot of salads and pretty looking things. So you're getting a lot of yellow   to brown   yellow to brown looking food. So yes, it's not  

[00:43:11] Juan Granados:

particularly the prettiest  

[00:43:13] Kyrin Down:

prettiest but   it was nice. I did enjoy it.   Okay. After that I   moved. So I was eight nights in Munich. So it was pretty probably the longest place I stayed.   My friend Dani was there. The girl that I had met randomly in Brisbane, and then like three years later, managed to see her again. She showed me around she showed me some of the more like   hip butts, I guess of   of Munich. And that was really cool. I went to a bar, which was a ship   that was on top of a railway track   in   like the outskirts.   And we   met I got absolutely stooed because she's like, Oh, we're gonna go meet a friend and we'll watch and she wants to watch this guy who she's like, kind of interested in   performing just in his like little mini   pub music,   live pub music. So I was like, okay, cool.  

I I get there. Instead of one friend, it's five. And they're all Peruvian,   or Latinas in general, Peruvian, Colombian, Mexican.   And of course, they're going to be speaking Spanish. So I was like, Oh, fuck. Well, I haven't used my Spanish in two years. But alright, let's dust it off and try and communicate with these rapidly talking Latinas.   I did okay. I   did better than I thought I would. So that was a nice experience. A nice win for myself, whereas like, yes, sweet. Still got it in the tank. That's good. It wasn't fluent. I   screwed up a lot of things. But I was able to communicate and partake in the conversation wasn't just sitting there on my own.  

So that was really nice.   Kind of   like ships passing in the night. Danny,   I she's a really cool chick. If I was staying in Germany, or if she was staying in Brisbane or something like that, I think there'd be a chance at a   relationship of some sort.   Unfortunately, not. So   we life goes on.   I also met some other really cool people. They had really nice calisthenic park in the Olympic Munich Park.  

[00:45:10] Juan Granados:

I  

[00:45:11] Kyrin Down:

and I met a couple of cool people there, which was yeah, it's also about finding your vibe, right, of finding   the things that you like to do. I was going to Calisthenics Parks and I met some really fun people there. I met a movement guy in Hamburg.   This girl, Hannah,   I don't have it on me, but she reminds me of my friend Bree here in Brisbane, who you met for the photos.   And   she gave me   I asked her because she was really small. I asked her like midway through meeting her like, Oh, how tall are you? She's like, Oh, I got a card for you. Then brings out this card, which is like German humor, like, Hi, if been Hannah, if been like one point five four five four meters small. And then all of these jokes about how Yes, she can see over the steering wheel. And yes, she's the perfect height to put your beer on top of it. Like, it was it was really funny. It's like, oh, yeah, such a weird, like,  

[00:45:59] Juan Granados:

specific thing to do, but makes it like so, so memorable. Yeah, she was unique. And  

[00:46:05] Kyrin Down:

that was what I enjoyed about Munich, the kind of uniqueness of it. Going out to Neuschwanstein   and the I think it's Lindenhof Castles.   Very beautiful.   Well worth going out to to see. It's touristy, but it's it's still   in like where else are you going to see something like that? Like, yeah, very few come between. Very, very nice.   And then from Munich, we I flew I flew to Mykonos and we talked about that a lot there. So yeah, we did. So I think we can skip the bit. I'll quickly. Unlimited goon is probably the highlight of Mykonos.  

[00:46:40] Juan Granados:

There's a lot of goon, there's a lot of goon. On one of the boat tours. I'll, I'll quickly, I'll get, I'll quickly go from basically out of France and I'm France, by the way, food wise, we, I know traditional like French food, to be honest, like none at all.   And whatever, I wasn't, I don't think I felt like I missed anything. We went to Croatia   and we explored the Provnik and Split, and we did a bus ride in between two of them. So we got to see the the countryside of,   of of Croatia.   And this will be a thing for the in the future as well from Montenegro, which we went to visit as well, given the fact that all that area was Yugoslavia, right. Which is all very similar,   not too long ago, twenty, whatever it was, thirty years ago, something like that,   thirty five years ago. So a lot of that, there's a lot of similarities in food and what it looks like and whatnot, but the Brotnik was beautiful.  

The Old Town was as amazing as you could possibly imagine. It was, I've never watched Game of Thrones. I've watched like 10 of one episode, but   I could tell like Game of Thrones vibe   very so I'll give you this, like, the Old Town Dubrovnik is   beautiful in its aesthetic and its purpose of it, but fuck me dead. They made it as touristy as possible. So you walk through this old town, which I'm I think a lot of people do still live there and you can stay in like upper areas of it. But as you walk through the main town, it felt like I was like Disney and every shop was a Game of Thrones or some other type of selling.   It actually took away a lot from where I was. I was like,   what is it? I feel like I'm in a Hollywood studio than the real place. So that was   a little bit split   differently. It did have an old town in the same way but it was less touristy, it was more traditional and that was awesome. Although Split, I didn't enjoy as much in its, like, holistic how what how not. It was a bit more dirty,   a little bit more   the not   less touristy, but more big city type bar that I didn't really enjoy. Whereas in the Provincet we stayed away from the old town, out towards more of the suburbs,   one and a half kilometers away near a beach called Sunset Beach. And man, was that beautiful. That was   unbelievable. Some of those places, Sunset there was   like amazing. There's this beautiful walk that you can go around the point in the headland.  

Any Australian who's done like headland   walking around, like beach walking, we have really beautiful spaces in Australia to do that. It was   akin to that but probably even more beautiful than I've seen just in terms of the position of the houses, the aesthetic around the water was   clear as could be like as clear as you know, the Great Barrier Reef type like absolutely see through. We saw this   in Greece as well when we were swimming around. There was places where it was three, four meters deep and you could literally see the bottom. This was like same but it was like 20 meters down. You could see into the ground. It was like out of control and I did a really beautiful morning run around there And it was like the easiest run because so gobsmacked by what I was running by. It was like that sort of intense   area. So that was really cool. I really enjoyed it. Great food, really good people,   quite cheap as well for a lot of things, Croatia and Montenegro even more so, but that was a bit later. So Croatia, I was like, yes, loved it. I wish I'd stayed in Dubrovnik   way more than I did split. Like if I could have swapped it out and just stayed in Dubrovnik four nights or even more,   we've really enjoyed it. So, but be prepared for some steps. There's again, a lot of steps   up and down in terms of mountain living in those areas, but   heavily, heavily enjoyed. And then we can also, we did all that. So I think that's, that's fairly straightforward. We'll skip that because people go and listen, listen back to that. Yep.  



[00:50:09] Kyrin Down:

Yep, for sure. So we said our goodbyes,   in after Juan's wedding, which was very pretty, very beautiful.   I don't know if there'll be any photos. Will you put any when you get the photos back? Maybe.   Yeah. Well, if not, I can tell you it was very pretty, very beautiful.   Once again,   very much a   I one thing I noticed   is   between men and women just differences, but like innate differences, I think   we went to the beach. So we all go to the beach, we lay out our stuff. And what's the immediate thing that the men do versus the women, the women, they get down, they start sunbathing, they're gossiping, talking amongst themselves. The men, we go out, we go for a swim, like active thing, then we find some rocks, and then we just start throwing them at this buoy that's   30 meters out or whatever.  

And it was just such it was such a like, I yep, that's a very boy thing to do. Like, just start throwing rocks at random shit.   That's  

[00:51:08] Juan Granados:

how it is. It's some some distinct differences between a female and male. Yeah, that's right there.  

[00:51:15] Kyrin Down:

So   I went to   where did I find I flew into Florence, so flew into Florence, and I'll talk about the experience with my ex there. But Florence is a city very beautiful   and also has a like a dark underside, I would say to it. But I'll leave that for after the boost to Greenland because I want to get through this stuff   quicker.   Italy just in general. So   I did a day trip out to Via Reggio, so I got to see a beach that was awesome. Seeing beaches with mountains right next to it. That was an experience for me that was going like,   Yeah, I'm like, I've never seen this in Australia. That's fucking cool.  

Or maybe you can in Australia, but I haven't been to a place like that. So that and the experience of getting   a beach deck   or what is it? A chair,   staying under the towel   under the umbrella.   I get it. It's still weird to me that you can't just go to the beach and   and just be there. It's like no or if you do you there's like a little section corner for the peasants where   you go yourself so   I find that a little bit weird, but   whatever cultural difference.   And the worst meal of my entire trip was at one of these beach things. Good fucking disgusting pasta.   It was   awful.  

And I don't think I would have pasta once in my holiday. Really? Okay, you did well because Italy,   I'm sorry.   Average pasta.   Average   pasta. And   I tried and experimented a fair few places,   even what I would describe as like expensive.   And   even then, I was just like, this is overrated.   The, the, the one place where I had nice pasta, it was just because there was I had a bucketload of like parmesan cheese that I could dump on top, which masked   the flavor essentially.  

[00:53:09] Juan Granados:

Yeah, severely underwhelming in terms of pasta. I take it back. I did order pizza   once once we were in Rome and it was some cachio e pepe. Okay. La Spezia. Cachio e pepe and cachio e pepe is very like   plain in itself. So the expectation was well met. Yeah. Nice.  

[00:53:25] Kyrin Down:

Nice.   Leaning tower pizza. The most touristic thing that I probably did and also the best. I love the leaning Paratice   Tarapisa.   You don't need to spend two nights there like I did. Due to reasons   I was just kind of spending time there.   Also explained shortly afterwards, but I went to the tower three times. And every single time I was like, this is fucking awesome. Look at this fucking tower. This is ridiculous.   What I liked about it, there's so much space around, I thought it was gonna be really crowded.   And there was a lot of people there. But I didn't feel a Rossy area. I didn't feel crowded. And   I was able to get, you know, like, a couple of handstand photos next to it.  

It's also kind of it's one of the places where Yeah, you're doing the leaning thing. And it's funny. And so like the different ones where it's coming out of your butt or whatever.   I think it's still funny. I think everyone's getting into the joke of like, yeah, it's silly and whatnot, but everyone's doing it. So it's it's kind of like meta in a way.   So   that was awesome.   Two events that I saw   one   that I planned and one that was random was Cacio Stordico.   So I did end up going to see that what a ridiculous sport.   The first time I've ever seen live fighting.  

I can see the   appeal of it   of in terms of being an actual   spectator of the just the spectacle. But then also,   if I was to put myself in one of their shoes   of the the violence and the   combat, you know, the fear the I can understand why people do this.   I dislike violence in general.   If it's consent,   consenting violence, which in this case, it kind of was because it's there's rules around it.   Maybe that is more, more certainly more acceptable.   Yeah. If people want to do violence against each other, and   they're either   it is no rules, and they agree to that, kind of like war.  

Or it's in a cage match type thing like MMA or causa storica. Yeah, sure. People can do whatever they want.   A spectacle also very uncomfortable.   You're in the you're in the heat. You're crowded in with people.   You like,   couldn't take in you could take in bottles, but you had to take the cap off.   So you couldn't have like I thankfully I took this big ass water bottle thing because I thought this would happen   and we were chugging it myself and my ex, Andrea, the entire time. And it was like, thank God we had that. Otherwise it would have been   really bad.  

So that happened. And then there was another version in Pisa, which I just came across, which was I think,   Giogo del Ponte,   which is like game on the game on the bridge. And basically,   imagine a tug of war, but the opposite direction. So they're pushing against each other.   In this,   I've got a video I can maybe put in the discord or something. The it's essentially like two rows or multiple rows of these just wooden posts and you lean up against it and you're pushing   back and then the other team is pushing back. So you're on this kind of right,   I guess, like a seesaw type deal where it goes back and forth, and you're just trying to push them until   we reach the end. What an incredibly boring game, because what happens is like,   starts   and then nothing happens. They're both equally pushing as hard as they can. And then five minutes later, like the announcers, like, what a combat the fierce, you know, fighters are giving everything. Nothing's moving. They have not moved from this thing. And then gradually, like, you'll   take one step. And then that's the team that's going to win. Like there's no fight back. If you give any ground, you're gonna lose. And so it's incredibly boring. And you have to watch it from ages away. There's no ability to get close to watch it. It doesn't sound like a very interactively or something you want to know. It's like  

[00:57:29] Juan Granados:

one or two things will happen. That's it. That's the whole thing. But it's like over a span of five minutes, ten minutes. Yeah, exactly. And they play eight of these games and they're all  

[00:57:37] Kyrin Down:

identical. It's hilarious. But they did have a big parade beforehand. So you see people dressed up as knights and throwing sticks up in the air and music and stuff. So, you know, it's a spectacle.   Florence again, then to Milan for two nights Milan, you don't need to spend any time in unless you love fashion.   You can walk around that in three hours like I did. And   so you've seen   it. I did do a day trip out to Lake Como. Very beautiful place.   Taking the ferry.   It's hard.   Yes and no. In   respect, I went out there with   a very lovely gay Australian guy. And   we who was   exuberant. He was fashion, like   all of the   all of the adjectives for like a really   flamboyant   is the best word for him. He had he had it. And,   yeah, he really wanted to do it. So I was like, kind of feeding off of his energy.  

It was nice. It was also very hot. And I was spending a lot of time hiding out from the sun.   But I saw the   I'm gonna say   third or fourth most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life.   On on this little random cruise.   She looks like,   do you know who Rose Huntington Whitley is?   She was, I think, in the second Transformers movie. She married  

[00:59:08] Juan Granados:

Jason Statham. Yeah. Okay. I think so. I think so.  

[00:59:11] Kyrin Down:

Yep. Looked   almost exactly like her, if not even a bit prettier, perhaps.   And yeah, she she was just there. I was like, What the fuck? Like, this is crazy.  

[00:59:22] Juan Granados:

Please tell me you approached.  

[00:59:23] Kyrin Down:

It wasn't the time nor place like it was a   random   it would have been   incredibly difficult logistically, like,   incredibly difficult.   So no, I   didn't.   The   but that coastline that that area. Yep. Very, very pretty.   I can   see why people   would spend €12,000,000   to buy a place there when that I know that for a fact because they had the real estate agent and it was in Italian   at the top   in terms of like list the listing details like Italian, I think it was Spanish, and then Russian. So I imagine there's quite a few Russian oligarchs   probably have bought property   along Lake Como.  

Big day. But yeah, it was nice. And look, if I was going to spend all that time in Milan, it would have been boring as fuck. So yeah, well, it was nice to go do that. Yeah. And   then I'll just finish off because I've only got five days left of that. From there, I went,   took a train through to Switzerland and almost immediately I was like, in love with Switzerland.   Stunning. Just the train ride through even though I was going through mountains,   half of it and couldn't see anything.   Parts I could see everywhere I went, I'm like, Wow, that's beautiful.   Arriving into Zurich,   went and stayed with my friend in a kind of his share house that he's in   commune share house. I'm not sure how you want to call it.  

Claude from conversation number three, I believe it was. So you want to go all the way back to that and know who I was staying with.   And   Zurich is the most livable place outside of Australia I've ever seen.   And New Zealand. Yeah, I would.   I would move there if   for whatever reason I couldn't live in Australia or New Zealand or I'd try to move there because   just everything man like all the small things that had fountains,   like fuck, like just free drinking water and also written a really pretty way. So just be coming out of a fountain literally into this basin. So you can, you know, put your bottle under and it's feels more magical than at a bubbler here, Australia,   the self cleaning toilets. So   they they had those I use one of those for the first time was like,   this thing's fucking incredible.  

Just just the way they live the cleanliness,   the types of people,   the ability to use English.   You know, I tried a bit of German there, but once again it was like   English was predominant. Yeah. Well, English, Italian, German and French, they all do equally well, basically.  

[01:02:06] Juan Granados:

All polyglots.  

[01:02:07] Kyrin Down:

Oh, dude. Dave. Yes. 100%.   Polyglots.   Just everything about that place screamed to me.   This is a really wonderful, beautiful place to live. Obviously, I was there in summer, I didn't experience the snow. I'm not that a fan of cold. So   and it did drop pretty quickly in between temperatures whilst I was   there. I want to go back to Switzerland. Everywhere else. I would say, Yeah, I could go back to Greece for like a little bit.   And see.   I forgot to mention Athens, but I'll talk about that a little bit later.   Switzerland is the only place where I'm like, I want to go back here and see more and   see more of the countryside, the Alps,   the different cities there.  

Lausanne   or   Geneva.   Yeah, I probably  

[01:03:00] Juan Granados:

out of everywhere. That's where I want to go back. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's good. Whoever you're speaking about, it makes me be like, oh, man, I want to visit. I want to visit that, that space. I thought there was another place that I could go to that. That would probably be it. Okay.   Look, I'll tell you about that. And I actually think it's just from a timing perspective, we might have to do some boost to grams. So we might hold off like do like a part two, not of the like travels, but I think of learnings and relationships. I think that, that itself has like a lot, there's a lot of that, that  

[01:03:27] Kyrin Down:

it'd be worth Yeah, we're already at an hour. So  

[01:03:30] Juan Granados:

I'll talk to a lot. So similarly for me, we, after sort of the wedding honeymoon piece in Greece and I will say to people though, I would go back to the Greek Islands. Not exactly, it could alter itself without been there twice   or Santorini, but   like the amount of islands that exist around that area or maybe just other islands in the Mediterranean area, I would go back in a heartbeat as like a bit of fun because they're way cheaper, like really much cheaper. Best best bakery I've ever seen in my life was in Mykonos. I was not expecting that. Yeah. But that place was really good.   But then we went to Austria, Austria, Vienna, and that is currently ranked as the second most livable place in the world. And I'll tell you what, yes, in a similar way that you're saying Switzerland,   holy heck, that was a mixture of beauty   with architecture,   with   old school styles, a lot of green spaces,   good like   massive variety of food, good   shopping   in terms of like food availability,   good food as well. Like the quality of stuff is nice.  

The city center with   you said this like similarly,   in I think it was in Italy where you'd be walking around and you just see, like, someone playing piano on a big, like, crowd gathered around,   violinists.   You'd have   all all of the restaurants were   nice in a non pretentious way. People were good.   In Vienna in particular, though, they do have a say they even have a saying which is called weenie grant.   Weenie grant is,   a grumpy Viennese person. Okay. When a when a Viennese person is grumpy. Yeah. They apparently use the term weenie grant to go like, hey, you're from Vienna, you're being grumpy. So it's like someone local in Vienna being grumpy. They have a, they do have that word so they can be grumpy in a way, but it's just grumpy not like annoying or bad. So yes, yes, I did experience a little bit of that, but in all in all was really cool. Like it was a really cool experience.   We should say there more days to explore more of it. I think I saw   the main city, I saw all of it. And then from like the outskirts of like the greenery and a few other places, I saw like   an eighth and it was huge, man. And I ran one day I ran like seven or eight kilometres trying to see a lot of it and I barely even scratched. So yeah, so it was really cool.  



[01:05:44] Kyrin Down:

The one of the things I loved about Zurich was they've got this So there's a, like a big river or well, sorry, there's a big lake. And then there is a kind of tiny little rivers going through the actual Zurich itself.   And   one of them they have they've built this offshoot thing,   where essentially it's like a mini canal that's maybe   25   meters wide with a very kind of like slow moving current. And this is a place where you can   finish work in the city.   They've got these dry bag things.   Put all your shit into it, change into swimmers. And   you can put in like your your phone, your camera valuables,   jump on this dry bag thing, jump from a bridge into the river, which is what me and my friend Claude did.  

Float down holding on to your thing. He had that I had to swim like an idiot. So definitely get the floating thing.   And you're just surrounded by like,   music,   little restaurants off the side. That's cool. That's really cool. And you're just floating down and you can   you know, we floated down and then got out and walked the   300 meters back to where we started to get the rest of our clothes and stuff. But the that's fun. Yeah, it's kind of like   Southbank in a way with the Southbank with the, you know, artificial beach in in the in the center  

[01:07:06] Juan Granados:

of the city, which currently empty. Is it in Brisbane? Why is that? It was leaking for the last couple of months. It's sort of drained  

[01:07:12] Kyrin Down:

it. Doesn't drain away. Well, sorry people who came to see that. Exactly.   But it is winter so it's the time to change it. The   that   I think that's probably why I enjoy it. It's similar to Brisbane. It didn't feel  

[01:07:27] Juan Granados:

felt homely in a way. It's a homely  

[01:07:29] Kyrin Down:

I doubt you're gonna get traffic there. It'd be very hard to see. There's a lot of bicycles. So   I can't imagine you'd hit much traffic there.   Much like Brisbane.   I was actually talking to a girl from Sydney yesterday and she's like people complaining   about traffic in Brisbane are idiots.   She was she was outraged at how little traffic there is here. And yet people are still complaining.   So I think that's kind of why I like Zurich.   It felt   like home. Yeah.  

[01:07:57] Juan Granados:

Yeah. Yep.   And the last last place I'll talk about was Montenegro,   very much a place that I'll say this right now in about five or six years,   you will see a lot more people going there. The infrastructure that they're setting up now is like in preparation   for five years, six years time, where it'd be like, holy hell, you have to be here. There was already like gigantic super yachts parking up next to like really pretty hotels and you can tell the amount of money they must be spending there versus what the like normal areas Montenegro look like. So they're spending   like so much money and it was still affordable in a lot of ways   just because it's still being built. So we went to the most expensive places we could and it was still like really affordable in comparison to the places that we've been.  

There you kind of mentioned about going to the like into the ocean   alongside mountains. This is the like   the perfect example of that. There was I I probably need to check, but, the mountain would have been, like,   I'm gonna say probably like a kilometer high, maybe like a 100 meters behind you within, like, the most pristine   water in front of you and like hot, it reminded me of swimming in Milford sounds, but it's the ocean and you're just surrounded by mountains and like the most lush green view you could possibly think of. It was like,   there is no other place I've ever been to that's like that in terms of like an ocean,   that backdrop like   bar none. And we started a place the second day,   again, basically morning to the evening, paid for a seat,   two seats, apparently a giant bed by the beach and we, it was a place that just played music, brought us drinks, it was by the water and you got 180 degree view basically from left to right of the entire,   alcove, I guess you'd say of the water we were in.  

And yeah, like if you have to define for me at least   a great relaxing day and where I would be situated, it would have to be there. It was just like incredible in terms of every time you would just look, you'd be like, what in the world am I seeing? When you got warm, you go into the water. So Montenegro was like really fun.   Even just like the people really nice. We found ourselves like our favorite coffee shop. We went back there, I think five times in four days that we were there. Spent like hours there each time. It was really, really good. So   that's how it marked the final place. And then we went to Italy, and we stayed one day in the outskirts of Italy. So we weren't even near Rome.  

Basically no English. So it was just like maybe one person that we stumbled upon that spoke English, but that was really nice. It was very like living in the burbs,   really rustic.   I mentioned it around the beginning of like people going in to have their coffee at the bar. This was like,   yeah, everyone was doing it because we were there. We went to the cafe during the morning and it was, you know, friendly people. I spoke a little bit of Italian and they they loved it. Like, they were really, like, happy about that. They continued to speak Italian. Like, that was a nice thing. Yeah. They could tell that I wasn't an Italian speaker, but they continued to speak Italian. I spoke like Italian Spanish. Yeah. Yeah. And we made ourselves on the suit and I was like, this was really nice. It was a good way to end it.   And then,   final one I'll say is that the Rome Airport, fuck me. It was expensive. Holy shit. Do not go eat at the Rome Airport. We went to like one restaurant that we were gonna eat and it was like on par with Monaco level of expensiveness.  

Yes. But just shit tasting food. We were like, I think we got like   a like a a salad or something,   like a sandwich, some water and a little bit of chips for my daughter and it was like 80 Australian dollars I was like it was so,   so bad. Like it was poo. I wish I remember the name so I could tell you people never to go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.   There we go, man.  

[01:11:34] Kyrin Down:

Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah. So   Zurich is expensive.   Switzerland is expensive.   But if you work there,   it makes up for it. So my friend Sandy,   my friend Claude, Sandy's wife, she's my friend as well. She is a school teacher. And I believe she's on   80 To 100   Ks Frank. So that's like, okay, wow, that's like 160   to 200   Australian   a year. So   yes, it is expensive there. But if you work there, it's like an equivalent to paid. It equals out. Yeah, it's not like it's cost of living there is expensive for them. It's just   they're really good with their money. The Swiss, you know, good on them.   The neutral, the gold, the banking capital of the world sort of deal that they've got going on. I don't know if that's still the case anymore. I don't know if that's changed a lot. I think I think there's still a lot of   aspects about their culture. Claude was explaining it to me,   kind of the history and then also the present day of they still have that kind of   neutrality, which makes them a good place for storing of wealth.  

So I believe that still is the case,   by and large, and,   you know, their, theirs is the most expensive money that I've come across so far. So Yeah.  

[01:12:51] Juan Granados:

The other I think the reason I say this, I know like other other places is like,   Malta has a very it's a very easy way to really, influential or rich people to get into the European Union because it's very, like, low cost of entry,  

[01:13:04] Kyrin Down:

through a Maltese passport. You can just buy away. Same with Italy. Switzerland, I don't believe so. I believe the if you wanna become a Swiss citizen I would be you gotta learn   German, probably maybe a bit of Italian, like Swiss German at that. Yeah. Yeah. One of my one of my  

[01:13:22] Juan Granados:

cousins would be, I guess I would, like she was Colombian and like became a Swiss,   like national. Yeah. It would be. And yeah, it was a very, very, very, very long. Yeah. Long, long, long journey. There was a Russian girl I met on the plane  

[01:13:35] Kyrin Down:

going coming back home who is a Swiss   permanent resident or national now. And yeah, she was saying, yeah,   her citizen test, she had to know who like the mayor of was of   her of her town of the local county of the   you know, you'd have to like. No, we fail that now.   I've got no I've got zero, zero chance of of doing that. You've been kicked out of Australia.   Abu Dhabi Airport.   Very glitzy.  

[01:14:03] Juan Granados:

Yeah. Very gigantic elevators. Yeah. And very  

[01:14:07] Kyrin Down:

I liked how impressively   large it was.   I didn't get to see outside of the country or anything.   Flying with Emirates was just straight through.   Last thing was I also found a the one place that I repeatedly hit apart from the bakery in Mykonos was an ice cream shop in Florence,   which had this chocolate mousse ice cream, which was just fucking crazy. And   very, very the ice cream that was nice and   affordable. I would say like, it wasn't.  

[01:14:39] Juan Granados:

It was probably about Australian prices. But it was nice. The funny thing I think for the whole trip for me as well, just food quickly. Pizza's average. Yeah. I was gonna say from a food perspective, I couldn't tell you right now, there wasn't a single place that I went like,   Oh my God, that was impressive. Maybe the pork I had in Mykonos near that beach. That was like, really high up there.   Greek food. Greek food. Greek food is good.  

[01:15:01] Kyrin Down:

Probably the the highlight. And I didn't even get to eat Halloumi or any of the seafood there. So   yeah, that I also kind of feel like I missed out. Missed out on some aspects of it.  

[01:15:11] Juan Granados:

I'm gonna just jump in the boost agreement and just tie us off and then we'll just kind of say some final words. So  

[01:15:16] Kyrin Down:

how are we going back? Probably to  

[01:15:19] Juan Granados:

We're going to the June 4.   June 4.   Because we did that episode. Sorry. But, Peter had one from the June 8 and the next one's July 4. Okay. So I'm gonna go from the fourth one. Sure. We might have already read it out last time, but Oh, I don't think we have this one because Colmic Comic said we need the mere mortals to return. My philosophy has not been effective in ages. Now 500 sat set using fountain. Thank you, my friend. And we've got a couple from, Elysium just sending through some, I guess,   streaming. Yeah. Just that these hats being sent through True Fans. So that came through quite a bit for quite a few episodes.   And there was one actual,   boost, I guess, was in particular. Have you been to Aristotle school, Elysium? Have you watched the TV program, Aristotle's Lagoon on BBC?  



[01:16:01] Kyrin Down:

No, I've done neither of those things. And but that was four twenty sat sent using true fans. Oh, nice. Four twenty. Thank you. Thank you. Last name. Martin Lindeskog.   Yes, those are the boostograms. I guess you get. Yeah, I guess boostgram specific. Obviously, we have. I do need to read some Aristotle at some point. I don't think I've read anything by him, but I don't think that'd be that's, that's a  

[01:16:23] Juan Granados:

for the future, the future to be done. Look, so I think we just pause it. They look like we'll talk about this as part one. I think that was basically like travels. We just talked like specifics on travels, which actually saves me because I was going to do an episode myself just on like my travels.   Here it is. That's out there. Nice and good. I think we'll do it. I think next next week, we'll do another part where it's more a little bit about the personal stuff. Recollection. So I'll change the title as well. Or for that to the next one. Yep. That'll include my Florence  

[01:16:51] Kyrin Down:

specifics as well. Florence alliteration   and the insight. So yeah, stay tuned for that one.   As and yeah, that that one will be more about our   experiences, I guess, whilst traveling in terms of like,  

[01:17:05] Juan Granados:

changes to our personality or character. Yeah. Take this one. I think take this one as, like, this was the General travel advice. General travel of ours. And then the next one, I think it will be like our personal takeaways, some of the personal learning. For sure. Some of the other again, might not be as applicable to to the example that might be for you, but just as   a pry into the lives of us and how that travel might have changed the things that we experienced, etc. Yep, yep, for sure. If you want to support the show,  

[01:17:33] Kyrin Down:

The couple of different ways you can do that sending in comments   and   reaching out via social media, liking, posting all those sorts of things.   If you have any travel recommendations, things that you've enjoyed things that you would   say are worth  

[01:17:50] Juan Granados:

We just said, you know, Austria Vienna was really awesome. You said Switzerland, have you got an example of this somewhere else in the world? Sure. Pull it out. Where else in the world feels like home? That would be that'd be kind of cool. Or even like Juan said with the Montenegro,  

[01:18:03] Kyrin Down:

the a place that will be amazing in five years. So you can kind of like get in before it does become   super amazing   or before  

[01:18:13] Juan Granados:

it becomes too touristy. One thing, one thing Jason, Tim Ferriss went to Taiwan not too long ago and he make a comment about how when he was there, people there were kind of,   like not oblivious. That was just   uncaring as to whether China invaded invaded them or not. They were like, oh, okay. If it happens, if not, if not, but they continued this like   nice,   mindset   of what it was being. But I remember him saying something along the lines of, yeah, you never know what is going to happen in the next five, ten years. So Taiwan would be a cool place to go visit now versus Canada. So there's another place like that, that you're like, look, if you go, you kind of have to go now before the next five, ten years, because maybe it is changing. Like I just said, Montenegro, but it'll be for the worse, not for the better. What sort of places that would be cool to know as well, because I might be like, okay, I'll go to those places. Yeah, yep, for sure. And also Asia, because that's probably  

[01:19:02] Kyrin Down:

where I will be going next year, at least for a portion. I think if I if I had to say, and maybe even yourself or other people. I mean, I've been to some some parts of Asia. I mean, I've been to Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan. Yeah. Malaysia.   Well, I'm more thinking like Southeast Asia in terms of that. But yes. Meanwhile, we're going to go to Cambodia.  

[01:19:23] Juan Granados:

Finds out the killing fields. Absolutely two episodes in there. Good Lord.   They're still listening to it this time. Yeah. Yeah. Might be get that joke. You can also reach out via PayPal and  

[01:19:35] Kyrin Down:

send us some PayPal or a boost on a mod podcasting app like Fountain,   True Fans,   Podcast Guru, Castomatic, places like that. There was these two comments and   they were from your mom, I believe. And she was asking about  

[01:19:50] Juan Granados:

a song.   And I forgot to ask you this. Yeah. Do you know what the song is? Because she kept asking me and I'm like, I don't remember. I do know. I do know. Here we go. Because here we go. My sham. So this is the official  

[01:20:00] Kyrin Down:

song. So every trip that one myself and Joey have taken. That's sort of an initial song. There's been a song. Penau Gold was the one for Japan. Yep. We had Tigger. Tigger's taste   was in Mexico.   And so the song,   the official song for this was Too Cool to Be Careless by Posa.   So I will. To be careless. I'll be sure to send that on to you so you can send that on to your mum. But that was the song that was coming on this Greek radio   almost daily as we were just chilling out in Mykonos. So that was the,   that was the official song of our trip. And it was, it was pretty, pretty good one. Cool. Okay, I like that. So yeah. Thanks. Thanks everyone for joining in. Yeah, pretty much.   Episode this one and  

[01:20:45] Juan Granados:

it's good to be back. There'll be plenty more episodes coming out. I mean, so much more man. So much more. So much more. So much more. A lot. A lot of good fun. And we should be consistent  

[01:20:54] Kyrin Down:

at this 9AM   Sunday,   Australian Eastern Standard Time. So correct. Let's look out for that in the future.  

[01:21:02] Juan Granados:

And yeah, one take us. Believe it, me and mortal lats, wherever you are in the world.   Buckle in. It's going to be fun for the next couple of months. Oh, yeah. Wine out. Good.