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Episode 13 - Trip-a-Palooza Pt 2
18 Plays2 years ago
Gregg and Ross discuss Gregg's trip to the Middle East.
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Transcript
Introduction and New Year Musings
00:00:06
Speaker
You're listening to Unmotivated and Unprepared, a podcast where we take a break from the everyday hustle and bustle to muse about life, liberty, and the pursuit of randomness. Now here's Greg and Ross. Howdy folks, it's Ross. And it's Greg.
00:00:36
Speaker
And this is episode number 13 of unmotivated and unprepared. Not sure why I felt compelled to say howdy folks, but you know, we're getting close to
Travel Tales: Germany and Austria
00:00:47
Speaker
the new year. So maybe I'm turning over a new leaf, but hey, Greg, we're, we're triple Palooza-ing it still. Cause I know, I know people are, I know people are waiting to hear about, okay, we heard Ross Germany, Austria, yada, yada, yada. But you, you're a, you're a cruise extraordinaire.
00:01:05
Speaker
No, no, no, definitely not. I could tell you about cruise extraordinaires for sure. But I did want to go back to one thing I think we kind of glossed over. There's some traditions in Germany and Austria. Did you see any unique ones? I mean, I think you talked about St. Nicholas. Anything specific about St. Nicholas? I know it's a specific day on the holiday, December 6th, but anything specific happened? Yeah, so we
00:01:28
Speaker
So looking around we ended up that we were in Vienna on St. Nicholas day and the night before and you know the traditions which apparently is very popular in Salzburg still is you know if you got St. Nick and the children put out a boot and they put you put chocolate in their boots outside and so St. Nicholas brings them chocolate and also he has his
00:01:54
Speaker
kind of evil, the evil side, not of St. Nicholas, but the evil Krampus, which also comes around for all the bad boys and girls. And I did look for a Krampus loaf, a Krampus run, but I couldn't find any Krampus runs. But it was funny, we were at the Hilton Vienna Plaza and
00:02:14
Speaker
I joked with Monica. I was like, I don't have a boot to put out. So I don't think we're going to get any chocolate. And she's a chocolate fiend, let's be honest. And she was a bit upset with me. And we wake up early in the morning at the Hilton and open the door. And no kidding, there was a
00:02:38
Speaker
like huge chocolate St. Nicholas outside of our door at the Hilton. So Bravo to them. Yeah. They went and put it all out there and we went and told him at the front desk. I was like, happy St. Nicholas day. And thank you for the chocolate. So this is really cool. I realized what I should have done. I should have put a sticky on the door. It says like,
00:02:57
Speaker
Iqaba kind of boot or whatever, you know, like, like, I don't have a boot, you know, just to something funny, but they put some chocolate out there for us anyway. So yeah, very into the traditions. We heard a lot about that. And we did get the St. Nicholas chocolate, even without sans boot.
00:03:17
Speaker
So you didn't have shoes out. You didn't have shoes out there. No, no. I mean, I would have put one of my running shoes out there, but they'd have been like, was American. Come on. But I mean, let's be honest, the Hilton's are very Americanized hotels. You know, the other hotels we stayed at were were a lot more kind of integrated into the culture of Vienna. We actually stayed one interesting thing at the now that we're talking hotels. So now you're going to get me spun up about hotels. We stayed at a hotel in Munich.
00:03:47
Speaker
That was one block away from the original SS headquarters, which is kind of wild. That's where a lot of the German SS had stayed. I'm like, well, I don't know if I want to stay here, but it was just the history you learned about from some of the tours that you do.
00:04:07
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I could, I could probably do an entire segment on some of the weirdness of the European hotels. Yeah. But, uh, but they'd be like, no, but days aren't weird. They're actually normal everywhere else. Ross. But so I like turn crank windows. I think that's the best part of European hotels. Turn crank windows windows. That's yeah. Yeah. Are the one that you make a mistake on all of a sudden the window opens this way, like almost fall out the window.
00:04:34
Speaker
That would not have been an interesting way to go. You unlocked the wrong one and all of a sudden you're outside the hotel hanging on like Spiderman, right? Yes, flipping out there. So yeah, but the tradition, the traditions were, were, were, were fun. And it was, it was great hearing about them. We did go to a Christmas, Christmas museum and I got a, we both got a picture with a big like life size stuff, like Krampus and then a big Saint Nick. So they're, they're very into that still. So it was a lot of fun.
00:05:01
Speaker
So let's talk about you. So you went on a cruise and where, where, where, where did you, where did you go? Cause you went to, you went to a couple of places, right? So yeah. So I,
00:05:14
Speaker
I think we got to start at the beginning, which was ultimately, I mean, not for the fate of heart to do these trips.
Greg's Dubai Adventure
00:05:21
Speaker
I went from Charlotte to Atlanta, Atlanta to Istanbul, Istanbul to Dubai. So I was in Dubai for four days. And you have to say it that way. I can't say Dubai is anything other than Dubai, because everything is like said that way. Like I know it's Dubai, but like everything is Dubai. Like you're in Dubai.
00:05:38
Speaker
It's like when I say Minchin earlier. Yeah. You're in Dubai. Yeah. So I ended up in Dubai and I stayed at a Thai hotel in Dubai. Wow. Talk about different cultures. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, so the first thing you have to, for anyone who hasn't been to Dubai, the best way to think about it is it's like the Hunger Games movie. You know, the city that's perfect, right? The absolute, like, you
00:06:04
Speaker
with the Metro system and everything looks super futuristic, but then outside it's all squalor and indentured servitude and death. That's kind of Dubai. That's what it looks like. It's like major city, beautiful, but then outside, as you're going on the Metro, you can actually see kind of the squalor outside. Like you can see the indentured servitude and all the people that are abused to keep it going.
00:06:30
Speaker
There's a lot of things in perspective I learned from this trip. Most importantly, you realize how lucky you are to have an American passport and be able to get visas the way we get visas. We can go to any country in the world. We may not be able to work there, but we can go to almost any country in the world, no problem.
00:06:45
Speaker
I mean, these are people who, so I ended up, I was by myself. So for the first four days when I was at the hotel, I kind of just, I picked the hotel because I wanted to go to the restaurants. I didn't realize the restaurant didn't have any alcohol till I got there. They apparently had changed their policy the year before I booked it, or the year after I booked it. And I was like, well, wait a minute, there's no alcohol anywhere in this hotel, okay.
00:07:07
Speaker
So we're sorry, sir. Our Scotch broker. Yeah. We just don't have it anymore. And it's to form, I mean, basically the Emirati that owned the hotel. Right. It's like a franchise. The brand manages the hotel, but the hotel itself is actually owned by an Emirati. He doesn't want to make money off alcohol anymore. And that I mean, that makes sense.
00:07:29
Speaker
But being there, I got to know a lot of the staff. And that was the weird part for me, because I was by myself. I'd go out the other day. I'd go do different things. I went to the aquarium. I went to the mall. I went to the Dubai frame. I did a bunch of different things in Dubai. Because I was waiting for the cruise. And I really had to get over jet lag. And it was three days of kind of getting over jet lag. And I kind of made friends with the staff. And I didn't even know what I was doing. I was just talking to them at breakfast. Or I'd eat at lunch at the restaurant. Or actually, I'd eat mostly dinner at the restaurant.
00:07:59
Speaker
And there's a bunch of really ferocious, by the time I left, they had 18 people from the staff of the hotel come down to have breakfast with me. That's like the most Greg thing ever. Where's my that's so Greg sound to play. I don't have it. I think I made friends with nobody in the staff.
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, the head of food and beverage, the head of food and beverage came down. So cool. And yeah, the head of housekeeping and the concierge desk, the person came up. Like all these people came up to have breakfast with me on my last day leaving. And I just came down for breakfast. Oh, Mr. Greg. Mr. Greg. Yeah. Yeah. Then I grew up like, we will miss you on a plate and took a picture with me and the whole deal. It was definitely a unique experience.
00:08:47
Speaker
But yeah, so I made friends and I got to do cool things as far as smoke hookah by the giant Burj Khalifa. I mean, the hotel had a view of it, it's a good picture. But overall, it was tough being by myself for that long in that city, just because I didn't wanna go do the things you should do in that city, which is spend a lot of money and go to high class restaurants and be, but it's like Vegas, it's like Vegas.
00:09:15
Speaker
If you're not there to party, there's not much to do if you're a tourist, right? Yeah. That's, that's fair. That's fair. You can, you can find a couple of days worth, right? Cause we've talked about my Vegas trip and my massive high roller budget. You get a couple of days in Vegas and then you're good, right? Like there's not a whole else lot after that. Yeah.
00:09:33
Speaker
But the part that was troubling is that we ended up getting on the cruise, I ended up getting on the cruise on Thursday, and then they tell us, oh, we're gonna be stuck in Dubai for another day. I'm like, really? I can't get out of this city? I'm stuck in the city for about five days. Five days in Dubai, man. But I got to go to Bollywood World, which is a theme park based upon Indian movies. I don't suggest that theme park to anyone.
00:09:58
Speaker
The rides are terrible. Absolutely terrible. But the theming is fun. So if you're really into Hindi movies, it's kind of fun. Is there a Salman Khan roller coaster?
00:10:12
Speaker
Uh, no, there's the Amitabh Bachantan one for Sholay. There's one for Amir, Amir Khan for actually, no, no. And Shahrukh Khan has several. Salman Khan is popular. They had a look alike there. I actually showed up. I got the itinerary for the day before and it said meet and greet with Salman Khan. And I'm like, really? Salman Khan came to Bollywood world. Yeah. And not going to happen. No, no. So I talked to the guy at the front desk. No, no. It was a look alike, man. There was nobody. Yeah, no. No, it was a look alike.
00:10:42
Speaker
Yeah i was gonna say someone can you you would have been the only one signed up. Yeah it is it no but but people did want to go to get the picture with the lookalike guy. Sure. I did two theme parks there i did motion gate which is right next to by world because it was basically the same price to buy two parks as it was for one part sure. I made the mistake of going on a day where there's thirty five hundred school children there.
00:11:05
Speaker
So so the bad part of that was when I was walking around being a single male, my being a being a single male and there's a bunch of kids at the park, I bought the tickets. I didn't know kids were going to be there. And at one point I had found myself in in the. What's the Kate Beckinsale movie with the vampires and the lichens?
00:11:27
Speaker
Oh, Underworld. Underworld, right. So I was in the Underworld 4D movie, right, that two parents who are shop-roading this stuff have come in to the video to watch it with me, right? We're the only three people in this thing. And they speak English. It's an English school. So I start talking to them. And I'm like, oh, yeah, you guys are here with the students. They're like, are you? I'm like, no. And their face is crinkled up. And we're like, why are you at a theme park
00:11:55
Speaker
on a Wednesday, like, I'm like, well, because I'm on vacation and I thought it would be fun to come to this theme park. But yeah. Okay. We half believe you, creeper. Yeah. Yeah. So that wasn't the only theme park I did. Cause in Abu Dhabi, when the crews ended up going to Abu Dhabi, I did end up, end up going to Ferrari world and a water buzz world.
00:12:19
Speaker
which was very cool.
Theme Parks: Hits and Misses
00:12:21
Speaker
Roll on the fence. So was Warner Brothers World your favorite? No, actually, Warner Brothers World was terrible. It's cool. The inside of it is the most amazing theming I've ever seen. It puts Disney to shame. It's absolutely the coolest looking. I mean, if you want to see comic books come to life and actually see what it would look like physically to have Metropolis and physically to have Gotham or at least pieces of Gotham. That's cool. It was impressive. I've never seen anything like it before.
00:12:49
Speaker
but the rides were terrible. And again, same phenomenon with little kids. It's everything's made for like seven year olds. So just walking around and going, I can't do this anymore. I've got to go. Well, I get a grown man, not just appreciate movie magic anymore.
00:13:04
Speaker
but Ferrari World was very cool. And I wrote- Did you get to drive a Ferrari? I drove a Ferrari. I ended up driving a Ferrari. How was it? It was, I mean, you just pull it out and pull it back in. It was cool though. You're not gonna take out like a second loan to get a Ferrari now, right? No, no, no.
00:13:22
Speaker
No, it's cool to sit in them. I just don't understand the joy. But I wrote on all the roller coasters and I'm not a roller coaster guy. And at one, they have the fastest roller coaster in the world. It goes 240 kilometers in 20 seconds or 15 seconds. That's moving.
00:13:37
Speaker
And it doesn't stop. It's not like you know, where you like, you have a moment where you stop and slow down. It just goes fast. It just goes fast the whole time. And they make you wear goggles. They actually make you wear like plastic goggles. Oh, yeah. From from an eye eyeballs. Yeah, protect the eyes. Yeah. Man, that was intense. I never have to ride that again. Ever. I don't ever have to say you've experienced that level of speed once you don't need to experience that again.
00:14:02
Speaker
No, but you get a feeling of what it feels like to be an F1 racer, though. I can definitely see what it feels like and how that's a very special person. And you can probably see how if you have that adrenaline junkie in you, that you would never have enough of that. Like, you just keep coming back for more of that. Like, you've got to, like, it's just a hit. Yeah, I'm a fan of, yeah, okay, I've done that once. Don't need to do that again. That's for sure.
00:14:27
Speaker
Yeah, I don't need to do that again, I don't think. It was really, really fun to do though. I enjoyed that. The cruise itself was interesting because there was a lot of people on the cruise for the World Cup. Cuz originally I had World Cup tickets. And I actually, sadly enough, when the quarter match final came out, I had England, France tickets that I had sold a week earlier.
00:14:51
Speaker
I would have liked to have gone to the World Cup. A lot of people on the cruise actually ended up leaving the cruise and taking flights to Doha. But me by myself, I didn't want to try to figure that out, make it back to the ship, all those things.
00:15:05
Speaker
That would have been too difficult. But yeah, so I did all of United Arab Emirates, I did Oman, and then I ended up in Mumbai. But the cruise itself is interesting because it's, the last one I went on, which is the only other time I've ever done a cruise with the old people, I had so much fun. Everybody was on vacation mode, everybody was just, yeah, it's great, we're on vacation, everybody's having a good time.
00:15:27
Speaker
This one was a lot of people complaining. I've never seen people complain about milk for their cappuccino. It just didn't foam right. They were upset and arguing that the fat content of the milk wasn't right to make a proper cappuccino. I'm like, you're in the Middle East. Like who are these people? You're lucky it's not camel. Like stop it.
00:15:45
Speaker
Right, who are these people? Same age group? I mean, not to be ageist. No, no, most of the people, I mean, there were younger people on the cruise. I think there were some people in their 50s. There was a few people in their 40s. I met a friend with a guy that was 42, but most people on the cruise were in their 60s and 70s, most people, most people were in their 60s and 70s. And that's standard, because this cruise line that you do is a smaller, it's a smaller cruise line. It's a small ship, right. And it
Cruise Chronicles: Highs and Lows
00:16:15
Speaker
was the itinerary.
00:16:15
Speaker
It was the itinerary I was after. I wanted to do something that I felt familiar with. It was the area and the region. It was the timeline that I was at. So I wanted to do this cruise ship. And it was cost effective for me based upon how much it costs for a hotel and food and everything else. But I ended up making friends with all the staff anyway. So I was just friends most of the staff. Yeah, that's your thing. It's less about the people on the boat, the people paying for it. It's the people getting paid that you're like, hey,
00:16:42
Speaker
I want to learn. I want to meet you. I want to know how you are and everything. Yeah. And I like the people. I like the people. I had friends by the end. I had made friends with a set of Canadians that had wanted to go to the World Cup, too, that were kind of fun. And we we got along and had good conversations. There were there were definitely some highlight moments. Everybody thought I worked on the cruise, though, because one of the nights it was it was probably the day we were leaving.
00:17:07
Speaker
We were leaving Oman. Most people thought I'd worked on it before, but then when we were leaving Oman to go to Mumbai, we had a big sail away party on the deck and I'm dancing. I actually had several times I was dancing, but I was dancing and I was dancing with everybody and everybody's just watching me dance. And it was like, everybody's like, well, aren't you part of the entertainment team? I'm like, no, not at all, man. Like I'm just doing that. I'm just having fun, man.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah. Mistakes for part of the entertainment. Well, that either means you must mean you can dance pretty well then, Greg. Because the entertainment team isn't going to just throw someone out there that's Elaine Bennis doing the little arm swing thing. No. What did someone say? Someone said that I was a Michael Jackson marionette on steroids. That was the description I liked best. A Michael Jackson marionette on steroids.
00:17:57
Speaker
There's something you put on your tombstone, man. That's a description you put on your book. Here lies a Michael Jackson marionette on steroids. Not sure what did him in, but you can draw your own conclusions. But it was fun. It was a fun trip. The excursions were interesting. On one of the excursions, we ended up doing a mountain safari four by four. And what was interesting about it is the original description
00:18:25
Speaker
The original description talked about how we were going to see, you know, the lush greenery and see the water and see what and also see this is the best part. The pygmy looking dwarves that live in stone huts that are shy that that oftentimes are elusive. And you have to you have to look carefully because they run and hide in their houses. And I'm like, where are we where there's pygmy looking dwarves? We read a description off of Willow.
00:18:52
Speaker
Right. So, so the whole time sitting there going, what? But, but they changed the description before I got there. Oh, they pulled the old rope to go. Switcharoo. Yeah. We're going to see farms or whatever.
00:19:07
Speaker
They're like, first, the milk's bad. Now I don't get to see pygmy dwarfs. No, no, this is the thing about these cruises, man. There are certain things like logistically you have to do. Like have bathrooms is important. If you're going to do a four hour excursion, you have to have bathrooms for people. They have to go like every hour and a half.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yes. 100%. There was no bathrooms on this four hour tour. Oh God. So anyways, I'm in, I'm in, I picked right. I, for the mountain safari four by four, I picked right. My, my truck had fun people and I had a Serbian couple. I met that I had a great time with.
00:19:38
Speaker
and then a lady from Australia. People who had a bladder that could withstand more than two hours. But it was just a four-hour drive, man. Literally, we just drove through the mountains. It didn't go anywhere. It wasn't a safari. We didn't go have good sightseeing points. We just basically did a four-hour drive from the cruise ship out to the mountains back to the cruise ship.
00:19:59
Speaker
And everybody hated the excursion so much, but I laughed because we had a blast. My group and I had a blast. And my favorite part of that, and this is why I say my trip to goat jail at one point, and we had a great driver at one point, I look over, I'm like, why are there all these goats outside the pen? But then there's a few goats in the pen. And the driver goes, well, that one probably did something bad. And I said, what? He went to goat jail?
00:20:22
Speaker
He went to goat, he went to goat jail. He went to goat jail. And the guy's in the bag, the guy in the bag, his name's Alex. He goes, he goes, hey, that's what you get for eating that leaf. And I was like, yeah, all the goats walk by and laugh at him.
00:20:36
Speaker
go to jail. So that's good. So yeah, so you know, there was a lot of fun highlights in that that particular trip. But the last night I was there in Mumbai as I'm getting off the cruise ship, it's three o'clock in the morning and I'm getting off the cruise ship and I didn't know like that I booked a guy earlier that day to like book him and he said, yeah, I'll be there at three or whatever. And so he shows up and I overpaid for the cab, but that's not a big deal. I got
Adventure and Challenges in Mumbai and Beyond
00:21:04
Speaker
to the airport. I don't care.
00:21:05
Speaker
But what's scary about it is as I'm walking off the cruise ship, I have to walk from my cruise ship to the port gate. Then I have to leave the port gate to get the car. And apparently the mafia owns all the caxi cabs by the port. So all of a sudden while I'm getting into this car, this guy knocks on the window with a weapon.
00:21:23
Speaker
And he's like, hey, and the guy has to roll down his window and they're having a conversation in Hindi. And apparently he has to give a cut to the mafia because it was unsanctioned. And I was like, whoa, whoa, three o'clock in the morning in Mumbai. That's an event right there, man.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah. That's, that's one where you're like, all right. Um, maybe next time I'll do something different. Yeah. Yeah. But well, it's a, it's a good story though, but you, uh, so that's why it's so expensive. Cause some, cause everybody's got to get their cut from the, yeah, that's the other cut from the trip. Yeah. What was the, what was the, I know you said you didn't really eat like
00:22:03
Speaker
a lot of the fancy places like in Dubai and stuff. But what was the what was the best food you food you had? I mean, the Thai food in the Thai hotel that I actually ended up cooking because I took a cooking class in the hotel with the chef. And so I actually took classes with him. The food in the Thai hotel was amazing.
00:22:21
Speaker
That's good. As far as other food, the cruise ship was mostly contemporary. It had Italian. It had some Asian influence food. But again, the majority of people who take this cruise have a melanin deficiency. So all the spices are kind of devoid from the plates, right? I mean, it's just one of those things.
00:22:42
Speaker
I like the way you put that, Greg. Very well put. Stuff's bland. Yeah, it was pretty vanilla. They need to work on their creamer, but other than that, stuff's pretty bland.
00:23:01
Speaker
You mentioned, so you made friends with all of the staff and everything. When we chatted about Germany and Austria, you mentioned the people and just in the lounges, are they friendly?
00:23:21
Speaker
How about the how about the people that were people friendly like you ask them for directions or you ask them for You know something. I mean obviously the waitstaff there in the service industry, of course they are But what about outside? Did you interact with anyone outside of your kind of sphere of? Yeah So so me and the Serbian couple Alex and Andrea they're they live in Vegas and
00:23:44
Speaker
uh we decided to walk so we went to we took the shuttle bus to casa which was you know the bustling metropolis of of of like four stores like it was like so we go in there and they're like hey we'll just walk around so like we'll go see these you know the tourist sites whatever we'll walk from whatever and we we ended up getting
00:24:06
Speaker
Unfortunately, the streets aren't exactly well marked. So we ended up in other people's driveways a lot and people had to like roll their windows down like, hey, you probably don't want to go that way. You probably want to go this way. That's hilarious. And then we end up in this alley and like a series of alleys that we walk through and people would help us as we were walking through like, oh, you got to go this way.
00:24:25
Speaker
They could tell we were tourists and they were very nice to us. Sure, sure. Yeah, we got to see a bunch of little kids play in, yeah. Yeah, it's like, yeah, you don't want to go that way. It's probably, probably best. No, no, no, you're just going to go into somebody's house. The street just went into somebody's house. Imagine if the main thoroughfare all of a sudden just drives into somebody's house.
00:24:45
Speaker
Oh my gosh, yeah, it's like never. There's a little pathway to the right. That's what you got to keep walking on, right? That's where the rest of the cars go. So you wouldn't know. The paved road goes right into somebody's driveway, but the unpaved road, that's the one you really want to be on. It just ends, and then that's where it goes. Wow, that's cool.
00:25:01
Speaker
And that just shows you what's priority, like infrastructure and all of that stuff. That's not what's priority. If you're from there, you know where to go. Naturally, you just get around that way. So that's fascinating. That's fascinating.
00:25:20
Speaker
Did you buy any souvenirs? Did you get any little chotch keys or anything? I bought them for my nieces. I bought some stuff. But overall, I don't need any more stuff. Would you go back? To the least, no. I've done Israel. I've done Israel. I've done UAE. I could, I guess, see Saudi and stuff if I really want to. But they're all relative variations of the same thing.
00:25:47
Speaker
Ultimately, it comes down to who you're spending time with and where you're spending time with people. Those are the best stories, right? Those are the stories that matter. Going to see stuff, it's kind of like one of those things where it's like, oh, it's great that I want to. That's the thing about cruises. I realize that people are a country like they're checking off a list of countries they've been to. They want to say I've been to 70 countries or 80 countries or 100 countries or whatever. Yeah, it's less about the experience for them, or at least for some. It's more about like
00:26:13
Speaker
It's like, oh yeah, I've been to this place. I landed in the airport. I went out for a day. I'm good. Yeah, I'd rather say that I have a, you know, 15 friends in 15 countries than say that I have, that I've been to 70 countries and seen. Yeah. Yeah. Just checking this, checking a box off. Cause then you remember, then you remember those things. Like we'll remember, we made some friends on our, on our, on our trip. Like we met with, we made friends at the,
00:26:38
Speaker
Australian lady who was about to head to Norway and stay in one of the glass dome houses to see the Northern Lights and then do dog sledding. I'm like, I want to do dog sledding and see the Northern Lights. That sounds amazing. But I have to go home in three days.
00:26:58
Speaker
But yeah, it was but it was fun like hearing about those like here meeting those people and hearing about like, how their travel went and what they had done and everything. So that was that was fun versus Yeah, I've been here check.
00:27:09
Speaker
What I'm fascinated by is people who can't tell stories do more things. They go do a lot of things and you ask about it, it's like, oh, that was nice. No, you gotta tell the story, man. You gotta tell me what happened, what's a funny story about that unique moment. I mean, for instance, on the cruise ship, a good point was, okay, so I didn't go to any shows on the cruise ship towards the end. And really, it was because I felt guilty.
00:27:33
Speaker
So I was with the, I was with the, the, they do this thing with solo travelers where you go and meet, have drinks with other people that are flying solo and Josh and Hannah, which are two of the performers in the concert troupe.
00:27:48
Speaker
or like a cabaret troop, they ended up doing dinner with me one night and they're, you know, they're probably early thirties, right? So they were closer in age. So we had a good time talking and they would have to eat downstairs at the mess so they could actually eat the good food with me. So that, so they wanted to go to dinner with me, but I didn't know. It's one of those moments where like, Hey, you can have the night off. Like I'll go do by myself. And they're like, no, no, no. We want to spend it with you. Okay. Okay. Fine. Okay. Well, we all go. So we ended up going, um,
00:28:14
Speaker
I ended up hanging out. So after I had dinner with them and had a great time with them, I was like, well, I better go see them perform. Like, that's kind of crappy that I had dinner with them. Yeah, you want to see, yeah, you want to see them, you know, like actually their profession or support them. So I went to go see them perform. And it was a good show. It was a really fun show. I mean, it's I've actually saw two shows. But the funny story about the show's part was that my Serbian couple of friends, they decided that they were going to come to the shows with me because I started going to certain shows. Well, the last show
00:28:46
Speaker
One of the cabaret performers, she's the soprano of the group, started doing this pointing thing. And I'm like, she's just acting. All she's doing is acting. She's pointing me out and calling me out, and the lights are coming on me, and she's basically stage flirting with me, right? Sure. And I'm like, it's just an actress. That's just what actors do. I'd flirt with you on stage. Whatever. No, Greg. She's really flirting with you. I'm like, no, she's not.
00:29:09
Speaker
I'm like, no, she's not. And then I go talk to some of the staff. They're like, oh, dude, that girl was really flirting with you on that on the stage. Like, because like she always seen this show like seven times and she's never done that. I was like, what did I do? I did nothing. I did nothing like nothing. Nothing. It's Greg. That's what it is. So the so how were the the the how do you
00:29:32
Speaker
How do you end up having dinner with some of the performers? Talk to them afterwards? Are they mingle around or what? There's plenty of ways to do it. There's a lot of people go on cruises for a lot of days, but ultimately they have this thing called solo travelers.
Connections and Reflections
00:29:44
Speaker
So every night you go downstairs and you can eat with all the other people that are flying solo, flying single.
00:29:49
Speaker
And as an benefit from the cruise line, now this only happens on these kind of special cruise lines. They have people from the cruise director, the assistant cruise director, the cast performers, the international hostesses, they will host a dinner. So they'll go with you to dinner and sit and talk to you. So it's like the guests, yeah, they're like one of the people that can, okay, okay, that makes sense then.
00:30:14
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's good. That's good. Now, would you do this cruise line again if they were going somewhere else? Are you still like the small boat? Maybe. I don't know. The places I want to go now, the places I want to go now, I probably would do by myself because this was a good way to do this part of the world and get a taste of it because cruising, you just get a taste of something.
00:30:36
Speaker
You don't get a real feeling of the country and of the people. Yeah, like I was entrenched in Germany and Austria. I got the culture, which is fun, which is great. But versus an excursion, you're like, oh, there's some goats in jail. And you just keep going. You're not getting a lot from that.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know if I would do a cruise. I don't know if I would. I like the cruise thing in the sense that you make lots and lots of friends. And I think I made a lot of acquaintances and I got to be around a lot of people. And for me right now in my life, the fact that I work remote, which that's going to have to change soon.
00:31:15
Speaker
It was important that I would do something like this. The people interaction was good. Yeah, but I think from a travel vacation perspective, I think I would choose because I want to do either Vietnam or Indonesia next. I could do the country by myself. I don't need to do a cruise. Also, the other problem with a cruise ship is that it parks in a port. Nothing's near the port.
00:31:37
Speaker
You have to go to like the center. You have to go somewhere else. Like it's not like you're staying at the city center and you're walkable to everything and you just decide I want to go here. It's like, no, you're at port and that's it. Right. Like it was interesting when we years years back when we went to Auckland, New Zealand, we stayed
00:31:58
Speaker
right near a cruise ship port, but the way it set up there was it was easily walkable to some of the main city stuff, which was really cool for us. So if you ever decided to do a cruise to New Zealand, you might actually have the advantage of you port there, and then there's a lot of places you can go and walk around in the city and see. So that was a lot of fun for us.
00:32:23
Speaker
I think next time we should talk because we're coming up on the new year or if depending on when we release this podcast it is the new year yay 2023 we should talk new year's resolutions I agree do you have any have you ever had any do you keep them do you not keep them do you think they're like
00:32:43
Speaker
What are they? Fairy dwarves who are, what did you call them, who hide away and they're hard to find on your excursion? Like do they not exist? All those things. So I look forward to talking through some New Year's resolutions because I have some definite opinions on them.
00:33:03
Speaker
All right, Greg. Well, episode 13 is a wrap. It's in the books. We're in double digits. There's no stopping us now. We just hit Baker's dozen. We're going to keep going. Now all I want is donuts. All I want is donuts. All I want is donuts. And I know someone upstairs who probably just wants donuts as well. All right, Greg, until next time, sir, have a have a wonderful rest of your day, man. You too. Bye.
00:33:34
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Unmotivated and Unprepared. Join us again next time as we continue to meander through random topics at a pace defined by our mood, the weather, and what happened five minutes earlier.