And That's Why We Drink - E343 Cute Mishaps and Emoticon Etiquette

Episode Date: September 3, 2023

It's episode 343 and is it Saturn return or is it just us messing up our Zoloft schedule? This week Em brings us an amalgamation (or smorgasbord, if you will) of ghost stories from Yosemite National Park. Then Christine takes us to the open seas with the nearly unbelievable story of the sinking of the Costa Concordia Italian cruise ship. And just remember, you can't have vein surgery on your Saturn return... and that's why we drink!

oh look another fine day of em and christine's voice in your ears that's how i feel today uh we we did our usual thing where we were we essentially did a sad happy hour before we got on here and usually we're done recording by now and now we're starting so um my brain's a little shot which should make this for make an interesting episode i guess i gotta say my zoloft is not working today you know what i mean no i no um i was talking to eva about this before you hopped on and the zoloft has helped so much with my tummy aches like i used to get a tummy ache with even the slightest like nerve excuse me slightest girl girl delete that jack he's not gonna delete it um i used to get a tummy ache with even the slightest like anxiety like nerve you know like my tummy would just be constantly flipping upside down

and the zoloft has really stopped that from happening when it's unnecessary but sometimes something breaks through the zoloft and i'm like no my tummy and we've just had it like kind of a weird week you and i and like back from i'm back from my trip and i know not everybody listens to the listeners episode but if you want to hear what i ate on my trip you can go listen to that um but yeah i just feel like we're in a weird space i don't know if this is my saturn return i'm not really sure what that means but maybe in a weird space. I don't know if this is my Saturn return. I'm not really sure what that means, but maybe that's what's happening. I don't know.

I feel like I'm unsettled. I'm like reeling sort of. And so I think I need to take a little bit of anxiety medication. I'm sorry about it. But it's just been a long time since my tummy aches won't go away. Is it like you need like a potty or your tummy aches just you just have a constant flippiness um both but thankfully for you i'm drinking a venti coffee so that'll help i don't know about that but okay um i know i feel the same way i feel reeling is a good word and i don't know why i feel like there's something going on

in time and space. I keep saying tailspin. Like, I feel like I'm in a tailspin almost. You too. You've said it a lot today. Yeah. You're like, yeah, please stop. It's annoying.

No, it's just, it's become the theme of today. I described it while I was described or I use that term while describing something that happened in the car. And then I went, wait, wait, wait. I want to clarify. I was not literally in a tailspin because I was driving my toddler home. I was not in a tailspin. But mentally, indeed, I was.

But yeah, it feels like we're reeling. I don't know. Isn't it weird? I feel like something's off. Something feels very off. Right? Okay. So if anyone else is feeling that way, and we're back to recording on our usual programming.

When you hear this, if you're listening on the day that it releases it's pretty close to the time same week yeah yeah this isn't like months in advance anymore so like we if you're feeling it we're feeling it can someone confirm that you're also feeling it because something's going on tell saturn to knock it off is it saturn's fault today i don't know man i just keep seeing the word saturn return and it off is it saturn's fault today i don't know man i just keep seeing the word saturn return and it sounds cool okay great um also would you yeah go for it ah i was just gonna say how are you why do you drink what's the haps what's the tea i don't know what the haps is i was supposed to have another vein surgery tomorrow and I canceled that shit because I'm over it. Yes.

And I. You can't have a vein surgery amidst your Saturn return. OK, like, let's all be real. Girl, please. That's what I told them on the phone. And they said, this is L.A. We get that a lot. And they went, you're like the third person today. We'll wait for the planets to align.

No, I want to get a second opinion because i really i think i complained about this to you i don't know if it was on the show or off the show but like it was kind of i don't want to say shady i would like to trust that they knew what they were doing and they never like implied that they didn't know what they were doing but every time i went in for a checkup they would say like oh you need another ablation i'm like you should have fucking told me about that by now so i see it feels a little, my spidey senses are going up. So I'm going to go to a different doctor and get a second opinion. Anyway, what's going on with me?

Not much, but I really not. Today's Monday. It's not for people listening, but for you and me, it's Monday. Well, Monday is my cleaning day. And so every time that we record, I also know it's not for people listening but for you and me it's monday and well monday is my cleaning day and so every time that we record i also know it's cleaning day and so i get a little overwhelmed because i used to take a nap after we would record uh and now i like have to go into like kind of an intense cleaning mode because i'm not one because i i want to i have to clean once a week but i never clean it's terrible it's part part of my agreement with myself and also with Allison.

I'm trying to contribute more. And I don't, not that she, there wasn't like any like big kerfuffle about it. I just want to be better about that. And so I realized that I can't, I'm not one of those people who can do like one room a day. Because then I just feel like I'm constantly, I have a task that's never been finished right so I I have to clean everything in one horrible day and then I have a week to relax in my very clean space that sounds terrible yeah that's how I feel right now where I'm like oh I have to do a lot of cleaning after this I feel like your house is always clean but I don't know a girl i mean i live in a that looks more like it now that i can

relate to for those of you on youtube this is the troll hole this is why i have a new background recently because i just look like i don't know my closet and my suitcase all vomited so okay i feel better about myself because that is almost what that is what my house always looks like always looks like like it is not you have first of all that's not true and also you're you have a baby a dog two cats and a blaze and yourself so like it's what do i and in your house you also like are one of those like 90s sitcoms where you live right next door to all your family members who are always coming in and out a la kimmy gibbler style like you've got i am telling you i don't and i don't clean i don't i'm not good at it i'm bad at it i wish i were better at it i should probably make an agreement with myself and blaze because he

cleans everything and does all the dishes and all the laundry and i sit there and go like i don't know i'm in a tailspin what am i doing i'm literally just spinning on my tail it's saturn it's saturn why doesn't anybody understand now i'm i just picked up this dirty shirt i was sitting next to so i was like what am i holding i will say i feel like this agreement i have uh i like that it's smart that you have that like i think that's a nice structure thank you well it'll have to change when we move one day because i mean i only have like 1200 square feet i have to care about if i had your house i wouldn't even be able to begin to clean i just leave it alone like i just let it be so overwhelming it'd be so like the other day i walked upstairs and they have like a vent on the side of the wall and i looked at it and i went oh my god it was like just animal hair oh we have one of those it wouldn't have

animal hair it's just like dust because we're accumulates we're a couple that um some people are not as lucky as we are but i made one very specific demand when we moved anywhere. And I was like, we have to have central AC. We have to. And then it has to be running constantly, even if it's cold outside. And so it just collects so much dust. It's just disgusting. Yeah.

I walked past it and went, oh, God, how many of those or similar trinkets are in my house that I don't even notice day to day? And I'm like, oh, oh my god there's an entire new animal built out of dog hair I'm honestly if I had an animal I would also be more overwhelmed because just the human dust that is like on things

I get so overwhelmed like I have like all my little chachkas I'm saying next like a million of them and I just know hang on like just for fun let's see the finger swipe oh no don't do that yeah like i got i got clean let's see yeah oh no it's hanging off my finger it's hanging off it if you can see that yeah nasty i'm a dirty little rat i am a dirty rat and that is why I drink also I'm home from Sweden I don't have too much to say except that was wonderful um and I'm home and um and to reiterate because it is a miracle story that your baby was lovely on the plane I mean okay it wasn't

like easy but it wasn't as stressful or I mean, it was stressful. I haven't even told you. We got on the plane and we had a layover in Detroit and then an overnight flight to Amsterdam. Right. We get to Detroit. An hour late. Miss our flight by like two minutes to Europe. And they're like, oh, my God, the next flight is tomorrow evening.

And we're like, oh, my God, it is two o'clock in the afternoon and they're like well the next flight's tomorrow at six so we got stuck in Detroit for a whole day and I had to do an instacart from Walmart to get like new clothes and because I'm not one of those people who follows the rule of pack you know your toothbrush and everything and pack your in your carry-on I just don't do it and so I had to order clothes from can confirm as someone who's traveled quite a lot with you I just like don't I'm like well then I'll just buy a toothbrush I don't know I don't have time to coordinate whatever so anyway we're literally in Detroit I'm supposed to be I'm getting like emails so the reason I went to Europe by the way guys is I got um a new car for the first time ever I was very excited about it it's a Volvo am I allowed to tell people that I guess right um

and I I wanted I wanted so I've been driving my Ford for many many years I love the car a lot but I needed a bigger car so I was getting a Volvo And then we found out that for free, fun fact, you can get, well, not for free, it's for the price of the car, which is pricey, but you have to, you can, they'll fly you to Sweden and they'll pay for your ticket. And so since Blaze and I, and you get to drive the car there. So since Blaze and I were already going to Europe this year to visit my family in Germany and bring his parents to Germany for the first time we were like perfect we'll just combine the trips well so I'm getting emails from Volvo being like your pickup your your factory tour of the Volvo factory is in an hour and I'm like I'm in Detroit like a I don't know a airport hotel it was just so basically we got to Sweden. We had about 12 hours there, which was a real bummer because it was so cool for the 12 hours we were there.

And drove through Denmark, got on a ferry to Germany, drove to Austria, then drove back to... Really broke in the mileage on that Volvo, huh? I think it was 2,600 kilometers kilometers I don't know what that means anyway and now they're like I guess shipping it back to me um and I have to pay for it so they just give you a little test spin it tests been I went through four countries with it it was pretty cool it's a cool program so if you're looking into getting one um it's a cool idea. It's a cool concept. I am very fortunate I was able to do it, but it was very chaotic. But Leona, I'm telling you, she's a trooper.

I feel like we hit every possible roadblock that you can hit traveling. We literally ran out of diapers because I didn't pack enough. Every little thing. And she was just such a trooper um we forgot the adapters for the european outlets so we got to amsterdam and i was like we have to charge leona's tablet so she can watch dino ranch and then the tablet died and i said oh my god duty free shop is out they're sold out of the adapters. It was like every little stupid thing. But all that said, she did great. It was really fun. I, the idea, and this is, this sounds like me whining about what it would be like to have a child, but it's supposed to be a compliment to you as a parent.

Because I, I, I, the idea of just packing enough diapers to go out of the country for several days, weeks, I don't know. That alone, I'm like, that's its own suitcase. I don't want to lug it. I can't do this. It was a lot. How many diapers do you pack for something like that? I don't know.

I mean, but to be fair, there's diapers everywhere. So like, you know. But that thought alone would over i can't i can't even figure out how many shirts i need to pack to go somewhere i can't imagine packing for another person and they have so many more needs than me oh my god like i brava just well done well thank you it is it is a lie and hats off to people who like my mom used to travel solo with us as a single mom to europe and i'm like fuck that with both of us and I'm like no no no no no no and this is pre-tablet days you know like she like I don't know pre-dino ranch pre-dino ranch can you

even imagine so it was just like uh hats off to you and I am very well aware that like I had I mean Leona had both sets of grandparents there like Blaze's grandparents I'm sorry Blaze's parents were there my mom and stepdad were there and then we visited my dad in austria so like at all times there were multiple grandparents and my brother went you know so it was like there were plenty of people around to help so that was part of why it was manageable um but how long of a flight is it to waltheby over there i think it was like seven and a half eight hours oh that's not as bad as i was imagining no so it was like it was like seven and a half, eight hours. Oh, that's not as bad as I was imagining. No, so it was like... It was like flying to LA.

No, LA is like about four. From where you are? Yeah. It's three hour, 45 minute, I think. Exactly. What? That's crazy. To Richmond or DC, it's like a six hour flight.

Well, for me, DC is about an hour and a half an hour so maybe that's why i don't know i don't know i don't know anyway is this is the least interesting conversation anyway uh i just loved my time there it's been a long time since I was able to go to Europe. So it was nice to be there. And I drank a lot of beer and had a great time. So I'm back and I'm ready to get back into the swing of things if Saturn will ever give it a rest. She won't. She's an evil, evil, dirty rat.

Speaking of dirty rats, this is your weekly reminder to drink, you thirsty, dirty little rats. I'm drinking some coffee with a pumpkin in it. I am going to crack into it. Oh, we're doing that again. With my Bevragino, a San Pellegrino. Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's our favorite combined flavor. Those are my favorite. I love blood orange combined flavor those are my favorite i love my favorite i um we just bought like our first like multi-pack of these i feel like i've only ever bought them as like you like walk past them in the store and there's like the individual cans i buy the boxes

of them this is my first time having multiple at my leisure because usually i see in the fridge i'm like i'm gonna save that as a little treat when i do something good but now i have so many i can just drink it whenever i want oh yeah you can okay well let's tell what's my topic we don't even know i i did know it and then i went to bed and then i woke up and i forgot oh okay um okay so this is uh another one of those i don't know what to call them in my mind i call them amalgamation stories what a word because because uh i i prefer the stories where i've got like a beginning middle and end and like these are the ghosts and this is how the house you know got haunted but there's some places where it's just really like there's a lot of ghosts and so it becomes one of those i'm just kind of spitting out random bullets. An amalgamation, actually.

I'm so sorry. Anyway, here's your smorgasbord of ghost stories in Yosemite. Yosemite? National Park? Whoa, I didn't know there were ghosts in there. Oh, okay. I was like, do I have to tell you what Yosemite is? I'm sorry.

It took me a minute. I was like, in Yosemite. And then I thought you were a minute i was like in yosemite and then i thought you were gonna say like hotel or something sam i thought you were gonna say like oh it's a yosemite official hotel i don't know i should have said the whole park i should have said yosemite national park as like the closer. Okay. I'm now in it. I get it. I'm following. Okay. Well, yeah.

So apparently there's a lot of spooky stuff going on there. I will say in advance, this is like me prefacing the fact that at a lot of national parks, any of the spooky stories end up having some sort of vague indigenous roots. the spooky stories end up having some sort of vague indigenous roots and a lot of times that maybe they're true but also i don't totally love the idea of me a white person parroting like alleged curses right like i don't like that so especially because a lot of times i mean it's hard to like put into words but i know exactly what you're saying and i feel like the way i've heard it best explained was on lore podcast once aaron mankey said something like uh you know it is kind of a cheap cop-out to just blame any sort of paranormal you know and i got i'm now i'm just trying to

reiterate what he said but he basically said in a really like um just a very uh poignant way of like eloquent yeah very eloquent way of just saying you know like it it just is an easy cop out and it also puts such a bad spin on something that like it's like fear-mongering almost you know what i mean just emboldens like othering them and yes exactly exactly especially i mean with how and this isn't like new information. I don't think I'm like giving like a particularly original PSA here. But like, just like how in times where I've covered burial grounds or even haunted houses and they claim that there was some sort of, you know, indigenous tribe that lived there and they cursed the land or something.

It's just, it's always gives me a weird feeling to talk about it. It turns it, it's like, oh, they're're the they're the bad guy they're the enemy it's like also that they're they're spooky and they're eerie and they're taboo like it just it really paints a really bad 100 yes just it just paints additional negativity on like a group that's already suffering like like right exactly that this last thing they need and i like the way you put it up like it emboldens people i didn't know you were so eloquent emboldens people amalgamation okay all right calm down that one sounds like a little that one sounds like an actual curse so that one now i feel like you're cursing me a hundred percent yeah no but just as i'm telling these stories like i'm not trying to perpetuate anything.

I just if I'm going to give you the facts, I just want you to also know like where the lore is coming from. That's great. OK, so Yosemite National Park. This is where I also want to mention that this was once and still is an ancestral homeland to the Southern Sierra Miwok Nation. They still exist today today and in 1851 can you guess what happens to them they're forced out of their home something great they're forced out of their home

here's like the extra weird kick in the pants where I feel like this was like supposed to be I don't know some sort of perk to it I don't know like a redeeming yeah some some sort of like we're kicking you out but and it's like not even really totally worth it i guess um so they were forced out of their homeland and many of the original indigenous names of the area

were kept so you know there's like a lot of canyons or whatever you can't live here but we'll name it after you exactly exactly it's like like that's just a big fuck you super um and the one name that they did not keep was awani which is the name of the valley that became yosemite oh Oh. So they renamed Yosemite. After Sam. But let everything. I get it now. Uncle Sam, you know?

I'm sorry. Yeah, Uncle Sam indeed. Womp womp. Yeah, so they dubbed it Yosemite. It used to be Awani, A-H-W-A-H-N-E-E. And it was the original name of the area. So Yosemite, here's an additional kick in the pants on top of the other kick in the pants. Yosemite is a word that is like a corrupted European word for grizzly bears, which is what they called people in the indigenous tribes.

Fucking hell. Okay. Wow. Not like because there were grizzly bears. God forbid. That's what I thought was going to happen, but it was so much worse than that. They could have also like, they could have just never, they could have just said, oh, for the grizzly bears. And then just like not fucking added on to that.

Like why even, right? Yeah. Man, I'm just, I'm just so sorry. After that, people moved into the valley uh i'm sorry white people moved into the valley what people people discovered it you mean yeah sorry i'm like i'm telling you saturn is making me real i like how it's today this is where like blaze would roll his eyes because he's like it's not saturn it's your zoloft like yeah you uh are jet lagged and taking your zoloft at the wrong time of day christine that's literally all it is so uh yeah so that by the way like yosemite being like like a clunky version of grizzly bear which they used as a slur like makes me not want to call it yosemite like no that's disturbing i didn't know that um after that so white people move into the valley

and uh they move basically into the sierra nevadas for golds and tourism becomes this huge industry so by the early 1900s uh hotels are making pretty good money in the area and in 1927 um a hotel opens there which gotta love another kick in the pants the hotel is called the awani hotel so they'll call the hotel ran by white people if they can make money off of it right i'm assuming white people owned it because it just feels like an extra mean thing to do maybe indigenous people opened it and this was like an homage i don't know the situation i don't know the history of the name but but it just feels like a, hmm. We could call the hotel that, but not the actual fucking area that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. Fun fact, the interior of this hotel is allegedly the inspiration for the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. No way. And I especially like that because the Overlook Hotel was haunted. And so was this hotel. Okay, there we go.

So some of the ghosts in this hotel are a former manager of the hotel named Mary Curry Tressiter. She was a manager who lived on the sixth floor. I like that one of her perks was just like living in her own hotel. I love it. I actually really do like that because it's kind of like being of the people. It's like, I know what it's like to live here. Yeah, it's like undercover boss. It's exactly, she was the original undercover boss, I guess.

She's like, you're not dusting the blinds well enough. And I can see it with my own eyes. It's like your blinds, ours look like christine's shelf where dust is dangling off our fingers just hanging off of it that's part of the mystique you know part of it so mary uh she lived on the sixth floor and when she died her the space that she lived in ended up becoming several guest rooms so i guess she maybe had like the biggest room for it to become multiple rooms for her um she's still known to check on the guests, which makes me sad that even in the afterlife, I feel like they're trying to make it like, oh, she just loved being here so much.

But also like maybe she's stuck in some eternal work hell. You know, I feel like you tell those stories a lot where it's like people who worked at a bar and now they're still serving drinks and people are always like, oh, and it's like no that's terrible they're working the only job i can imagine is fulfilling um in forever even yeah forever is being a podcaster i mean literally is just getting to hang out with your best friend and talk and even that would get old after 500,000 years. I'd still only haunt you like once a week, just like I do right now. Right. A limited amount of time for sure. Yeah. But I can't imagine like a physical labor or like a constantly being worried about other people. So much work.

Oh, you're supposed to rest from that now. But not her. She's still chugging. Not a break. So she'll check on guests she cleans up after them especially if you're on the sixth floor a lot of people will wake up to their clothes folded and their rooms tidied which feels like such a fuck you it's like it's like i just couldn't i couldn't wait for you to leave because this was so yes it's like those tropes oh i almost had a different but yes i now see what you're saying like oh like okay let's wrap it up to me it's like that trope of like your mother-in-law visiting and to be clear i don't have the

situation thank god but like your mother-in-law visiting and like cleaning up her way you know because like yeah like and like she can't get it off her mind like she's monica gellering like she's just like oh i'm sorry i noticed that there was a bit of a mess so i handled it for you you know that kind of thing is the vibe i get from somebody else coming into my room and folding my clothes. In that world, Allison is so lucky because if an in-law... Because you don't clean her shit. Well, I was going to say, if we're doing the in-law trope of someone coming and cleaning for you, Allison does not have to worry about that with my mother because my mom like barely has any vision left.

Oh, God. Well, it's a normal fact in our family. I didn't know that. She has only like maybe 20% of her vision, 10% of her vision. What? I just saw her. I had no idea. She makes it look easy, apparently. I don't know. But she's always, and she really, I feel like we forget a lot that she really can't see all that well. She doesn't have her peripheral vision or her depth perception.

So she's just kind of walking around with a third of her vision. Cool. Cool. But it's always worked out as a child because if things were messy, she never noticed. It was really... It worked out very well. She couldn't even see the dust hanging off my fingers meanwhile my mom walks around and goes like um the hell is that and i'm like what she's like that giant stain of purple on the floor and i'm like hasn't that

always been there and she's like it's all wet and i'm like oh it must be juice you know what's wild though is for a long time my mom had like heightened senses but now she also needs like hearing aids so like it's getting easier to trick her you know that's just, though, is for a long time, my mom had like heightened senses, but now she also needs like hearing aids. So like it's getting easier to trick her, you know. That's great. I'm sure she'll love to hear that. Oh, no, it's it's become a bit of a running thing in the family. But she's she's she's got like a real bloodhound like nose, though, which is it's scary what she can smell.

That is actually frightening. It's crazy i'm like i'm like blown away by her nose every time but uh with her eyesight though it was always like even like cleaning up the kitchen like it was a very lax life that i lived because no one was ever as if you told her it was clean over there she doesn't have her peripheral vision she just go oh it's clean it's great you know it worked out very well it was also lax in my world because my mom just cleaned everything and then oh yeah that's another good way and i went wait i don't want to do it and no one else gonna do it would also be well it's also like the opposite would happen too

where if i actually did clean she wouldn't even notice so it doesn't even feel like worth it you're 100 right what's the fucking point? I just spent multiple weeks with her. And now that I'm constantly in my, like, I've got a clean zone, I would clean. And then she'd come home and just not even notice. And I was like, well, this isn't worth it. So I'm just not going to do it. Well, fuck me then, I guess.

No, it's, I wonder if she was in this hotel, if someone was folding up her clothes, if she'd even notice. She'd be like, oh, I don't know. She would be like, how dare you? I put a lot of work into this. I know. Yeah. No. But in the trope of an in-law, Allison's got it made in the shade because we can just tell my mom the place is clean.

She's like, yeah, excellent. You have a bunch of Febreze since she can smell so well. Just spray Febreze everywhere. Honestly, the only thing you have to do is take out the trash. She's good. She's good. She's set. It's perfect.

Anyway, so this person would be, this ghost would be really disappointed if my mom were in the room and didn't appreciate what she's doing for her. But other people have noticed that all their stuff is like moved around or that their clothes are hung and that things just look a little neater than they left it um on top of that she's also seen walking through the halls which is like kind of its own usual ghosty thing just walking through halls but she opens doors she flickers lights does she i think it's like they say that she's just checking in on guests, which makes me think she also peeks around doors, which freaks me out. Nope. And in the 1960s. So we're done with her.

Apparently, this is part of the amalgamation situation. I see. This mortgage board is in action. OK. It's like there's no good flow to it. I'm just like, open that bullets over. Next. So in the 1960s jfk stayed here apparently

and he had back pain so he requested a rocking chair um that's what i'm feeling nowadays people are like i request painkillers and a massage but i guess can you imagine at a hotel i don't could you even request a rocking chair anymore? If you're the president, probably. That's true. Or we could just pull a Christine and just like Instacart, Walmart, a rocking chair. I will find a rocking chair and I will not have to speak to a soul, which is my superpower. If I can avoid talking to any human souls, I can still get you what you need. A rocking chair? I'm on it.

There's nothing Christine loves more than getting like settled after a flight and doing a target delivery just the best just fucking go for it and then also a drizzly drop off of course all and then they all show up at the same time and i'm like oh it's all for me and they're like um are you okay and i'm like no thank you bye christine has i don't think there's ever been a time you've come to los angeles and didn't have both a Target and Drizzly order already prepared. You're just waiting to press order when you get on the plane. Yeah, I do it on the plane. It's only four hours, as you know now.

Well, yeah, apparently. So in the 1960s, JFK requested a rocking chair when he stayed at this hotel. And once he left, the chair was removed from the room. But apparently people still hear a rocking chair and one will just straight up appear and vanish at random times now that would be a fun trick on my mom i'd be like oh where's the rocking chair that's mean uh no but like apparently just shows up that's so weird so it's like do you think it's because jfk was in it like i don't understand why i don't know it's so strange to me like a lot of oh there's some stories that say that they think jfk is like coming back which i okay i've never loved a hotel enough where i'm

like in the afterlife especially if you're in pain while you're there right like if his back was hurting yeah i'm sorry but i don't think a rocking chair fixed it they say either he um they say either he comes back or this is my personal favorite is that some other ghost saw him in a rocking chair and like saw that that was like something i guess he could now do and so now he he haunts with his own rocking chair apparently i don't okay he's like i'll bring my b-y-o-r-c he's like i just didn't bring my own rocking chair i'm gonna do that to the next hotel we go to just like oh i brought my own rocking chair don't mind me honestly in today's world there's nothing i love more than like smart tech and like

smart gear like tech gear. Yeah. And a lot of shit is like collapsible. If they could make a collapsible rocking chair. Uh-huh. I would eat that shit up. I would travel with one every day. I know you would.

And now I'm worried that it exists and someone's going to tag you in it and now we're going to have to add it to our fucking luggage list. Can you imagine if there was a collapsible giant adirondack don't can you imagine i kind of think they are collapsible right like isn't that part of it well if you take the nails out they collapse pretty good okay i thought some of them fold up no not that i know of i mean i think they oh i know what you're saying i think they they do fold up but they're still so wonky and like they're still very big yeah i'm thinking like you like lift up a hate like there's like an arm piece or something and all of it just kind of like folds into a perfect little like my travel stroller where

you hit one button and it like yeah i'm so glad you actually have that i've been wanting to ask you because it's all over my algorithm which one the collapser. Oh, there's a lot of them. I don't know. There is. Oh, there's only one that keeps popping up and it blows my mind every time. I don't know if it's yours or not. Can you send it to me? Yeah, it's really tiny. It's like it ends up being like this big. Oh, no, that is not what I have for sure. Oh, so mine's better. OK, got it. Your stroller is better than mine. What else is else is new so anyway apparently there's a ghost who's just like ran with this and theoretically it's ran with this rocking chair idea and it's like that's not that bad of an idea president jfk yeah i'm gonna do that now so people just

see it hear it and there's a haunted rocking chair okay i mean it is spooky. The next thing, next bullet, is in 1857, there was a park ranger named Galen Clark. And he was on a hike when he heard a wailing crying. And he said it sounded like a lost puppy. Oh, no. He ends up running into a group of indigenous people who were hunting and asked if they lost one of their hunting dogs. And they apparently told Galen, oh, that's not one of our dogs. That's actually the spirit of a little boy that drowned nearby and people still hear him crying. Oh, don't worry about that.

It's not our dog. It's something much more sinister. It's actually much worse. Don't you wish it was one of our dogs? It's actually deeply upsetting. Don't you wish it was one of our dogs? It's actually deeply upsetting. Don't you wish my dog was lost? Oh my God. And apparently people will hear this wailing out in the woods by themselves.

Oh, that's horrible. But if you try to get in the water to save somebody, then apparently you'll get pulled under and you become one of the ghosts that haunts the area. Oh no. Also, this was in 185757 i wonder if they knew about like whirlpools and riptides and shit like maybe it's not the ghost of a little boy maybe you just get yanked under i don't know maybe it's the little boy they didn't know about riptides they were just like it's a ghost i don't know or maybe it's part of like really like it's like important lore i don't know what the i don't know all the importance of it.

But in my mind, I feel like today someone could just say like, oh, dangerous waters. Right. Right. Right. Right. I understand what you're saying. If I heard lost puppy, I wouldn't be consoled to then hear. Nope.

Dead boy. Like. No, certainly not. I just feel like that's just the sound of the water. It's like literally worst case scenario anyway uh today that spirit is still known ever since the 1850s or whatever it's still known as the crying ghost of grouse lake and people still hear them um also in yosemite is uh taniya canyon taniya or taniya i think it's taniya um and it's also known as the bermuda triangle of yosemite what which i've never covered the bermuda triangle but i do have notes that i'm

building for that so i do now that i'm excited for uh it's called the bermuda triangle of yosemite because that location is known for its many helicopter rescues, disappearances, and fatalities. And exploring this canyon is heavily discouraged. It's so dangerous because the terrain has waterfalls that you have to climb, mandatory swims, mountains you rappel down, and ice-like slippery cliffs. Okay, this doesn't seem much like bermuda triangle more just like a very dangerous area yeah it just seems like yeah bermuda triangle i feel like part of that is there's a mystery mystery exactly like this is like uh i know why people go missing here yeah um others say that the canyon is very dangerous because, again, it is allegedly cursed by the native people who lived here.

Allegedly, the chief watched his son be murdered and then the chief cursed the murderer. But then that doesn't make sense because if he only cursed the murderer and not the land, then why would this land still be problematic? Yeah, it doesn't quite track. So anyway, true or not, this curse has become like classic urban lore for climbers and backpackers. And they'll say like, oh, well, my hike didn't go well, but it's because of the curse. Not like because you're like underprepared. Because I have to climb a waterfall. It has nothing to do with that.

Right. Another indigenous curse here is said to be of Pohono, who is a spirit who will lure hikers to the edges of cliffs and push them over. Oh, no. Pohono is said to lure you with a, quote, hypnotic rainbow in the mist. And those who fall end up haunting the cliffs i was gonna say what could possibly drag you to a cliff and then i was like oh a rainbow that's what i thought i was like hypnotic rainbow in the mist yes and i've seen them before and they are luring em and i are screwed walk right off that cliff totally there are also plenty of ghost

stories on the general campsite so people people will hear like howling and footsteps and screams and wails at night some campsites have their own legends um including campsite number six where someone allegedly died and now if you look out of your tent in the middle of the night you'll see them peek peeking at you from behind the trees that's bad in 1965 another hotel opened uh for yosemite tourists and it was called wawona hotel okay the wawona hotel is known specifically in the when it comes to the spooky stories i don't know much about the wawona hotel except for the fact that it has this suite called the moore cottage okay so in the 1920s a pilot actually crashed a small plane near the hotel and they brought him in and let him stay in the moore cottage until a

doctor got there but he ended up dying from his injuries oh shit oh no today people still see a pilot wandering around moore cottage and they see him in like full flight garb so he's in like his scarf and helmet and goggles and some say he might be a residual spirit because he doesn't actually acknowledge anyone or anything he just appears and vanishes but he was also like incredibly injured when when he was there so why is he just walking around well so don't they say that that like ghosts sometimes come back in like a more healthy form maybe but also i feel like that's usually when people are like getting visitations and stuff right another theory is that um his has healed, but he's confused about where he is. So he actually can't cross over.

Oh, well, that's sad. Yeah. But I don't know. I'm reporting the news, man. I don't know what to tell you. How dare you tell me that. But no, I hope it's just a residual spirit of him less injured versus like him actually not being able to get anywhere you know being lost yeah that's sad in 2018 there's a review of the hotel online that says one of the guests in more cottage actually claims to have witnessed the residual haunting or reactions of the crash of the plane crash well in the middle of the night they heard people rushing around outside of their hotel room um shouting outside of the door lights turning on by itself footsteps it just sounded

like a whole party was like running through the halls freaking out and the next day the guest asked about what was happening and he found out he was the only person in the cottage that night no ew do you think that's why it was able to like play out because it was just so empty do you know what i mean they were like okay there's plenty of room to replay this scenario i hated that christine gives me shivers i don't know that sucked or do you think maybe it happens all the time and you just don't notice if it's... That's true. If there's like a lot of people around, maybe. Yeah. I like to think yours seems more powerful.

In the worst way. In the worst way, for sure. For sure. The next day, the guest asked about the party next door, found out they were the only guests that night. In 1985, guests in the same hotel room were watching tv when a 10-foot rug in their room levitated off the floor and floated towards them another time in this hotel uh there was one night where the manager show you though i'm sorry can you imagine if you just hopped on it

i wonder what would happen yeah what it like floated towards you to do what like what to take you on a magical ride i don't understand also a 10-foot area rug wasn't being held down by anything like how big is this fucking hotel room great point like not even a single table leg was on it right anyway okay just money bags that sounds great all right uh y'all your big rugs everywhere i couldn't afford a 10 foot area rug oh my god i've got this little dinky ikea one i was like that's too much damn money and it's by the way held down so it can never levitate towards me in a million years that is why i put furniture on my rugs just in case they float away you know you never know you know uh people have also claimed to get uh pictures of weird things in

these hotel rooms including one guest who allegedly captured a screaming face in her window oh no and one night the manager was alone in the kitchen and the fire pole station um its alarm went off and this is some sort of alarm that has to be physically activated so it doesn't just go off by itself um and they were alone in the kitchen and this alarm goes off so the manager goes to turn off the alarm and realizes that the pole station that had been activated was only 10 feet away from him yeeshesh. Another mystery in Yosemite is, of course, say it with me, the severed deer heads. In 1998, there was a ranger who was hiking several miles from his car and he came across a deer head that was not on the deer's body. deer's body um and he realized that the deer head had been it wasn't like i don't know in what world this is of natural causes but he realized very quickly it wasn't of natural causes and that the

deer head had been freshly cut with some sort of blade the ranger has then been quoted saying any type of hunting was and is illegal in yosemite and as I was looking around wondering what was going on the hairs on my neck really started to stand up as I realized the body of the deer was nowhere to be found oh ew it wasn't like nearby ugh and there was no blood at the scene that meant that someone had intentionally killed the deer somewhere else and then intentionally taken the head and left it right there in the middle of the trail. Yeah. And it happened to be seen.

You said he's a ranger, right? Mm hmm. Yikes. So the ranger buried the head and kept walking and found another severed deer head. He then buried this one, too. And he started to think that whoever was leaving these might be watching nearby. I was going to say, like, you would. That would be my first thought.

Me too, like fresh blood pouring out of a deer head. He then finds a third severed head, but this one is now mainly just skull because it's decomposed over the last few weeks. So that let him know that this is happening now and was happening a few weeks ago. Yeah.

Good point. Okay. The ranger tried to radio in about this to other rangers but he didn't have a code word for severed deer heads you don't say and so he ended up being afraid that maybe someone was watching him and over was overhearing him so he didn't want to say anything that would startle anyone and he just said never mind and just finished his patrol and walked away and it never got figured out i just picture it when you say never mind that he was like trying to hint at it like taboo like you can't say certain words no severed heads here

like yeah and they're like that's good and he's like you know what forget it you guys aren't picking up what i'm putting down i feel like you probably just got frustrated yeah uh that's why you gotta have a code word. You gotta have code words with the people that matter. For everything, including Severed Deerhead. You and I actually probably need a code word. Allison and I have a few code words. I was gonna say, we don't even have one. I feel like you and I

would be the first culprits to have our own code word and we don't have one. Wait, yes we do. We do. We do. We do. Now I have to tell you the code word without telling you the code word i know hang on let me let me text it to you okay i could i can't even whatever it is i've it's been lost to me and i would have never even thought to say it i think you would i think once you realize what hang on i'm so waiting okay i just sent it

it's not coming to the group chat I'm looking okay yeah you're right I remembered Eva said oh my god I was about to send it yeah that was the one we came up while traveling because we were like if we don't want anyone to talk to us like each other if we're having like a crisis if we're in a tailspin this is the word yeah if the three if one of the three of us needs to be left alone and not spoken to and it's not like oh i need to fix what's going on it's like just don't talk don't come near me i don't think we ever really used it because i think we ended up using it we ended up using it as an over an overall like a catch-all word for when other people were pissing us off we would use it amongst each other we use it completely incorrectly from its original intention intent it ended up being if any of

us were overwhelmed by like something going on at the venue right right right right right which was by the way this is not like it was like all like backstage stuff so if anyone's like getting paranoid you didn't know no no no no it was either either like our luggage disappeared or you know shit like that or people like like certain venues were uh let's just say going on tour we've learned quite a lot about the the ways of venues and we learned that there's quite a lot of misogyny yeah there's some um cute mishaps miss mishaps that occur when when three people who walk in and sound very feminine are the only three that they can speak to uh we found out that a lot of people don't like to take orders from wrong women or feminine presenting people um i know it's anyway that's when we would start

using that that code a lot so they didn't know we were talking about but we'd warn each other eva would come up to us and just give us the code and that's how we knew that it was gonna be a bumpy ride red alert red alert okay so anyway where were we severed heads so right apparently the uh he just like left and then it never got solved. I don't know. That makes me think that no one was watching because they definitely watched you pick up multiple severed heads and then like oddly not mention it on a radio. I would think so. Yeah.

Unless he's covering for himself and he did it. I don't know. But that doesn't really make sense either. Now that's the true crime brain of Christine Schieffer. I'm just saying he who smelt it dealt it. And that applies to severed deer heads. How convenient that he'd be the one to find these heads. Extremely convenient.

So fun fact, Yosemite is also where people saw the second sighting of the Fresno crawlers, night crawlers. That's right. I remember the video. So I actually have the link for you so you can rewatch it creeps me the f out dude it creeps me out too i think i forgot how creepy it is incredibly unsettling it actually like does not make fucking sense no it's like really uncomfy to watch like really just sent it to you it's i'm gonna it will post it on our instagram for people but um it just makes no

goddamn sense i'm gonna mute it and watch it oh it's so unsettlingly creepy so for those of you who are smooth yeah like glides and then there's another one i forgot about the other one it feels like it has to be like drunk people wearing sheets or something like it looks a little like a drunken stroll but um yeah it's almost like too intentional with its legs like yeah here i go well so for those of you who are not on youtube or on your instagram right now i hate it um basically in 2011 after the first sighting uh in fresno of the fresno nightcrawlers in 2011 the second sighting was when a couple aimed their security cards at their uh their security camera at their driveway to monitor potential break-ins and they caught in their yard these two fresno

nightcrawlers walking very weirdly it's so creepy and these uh anyway so that's that's i just wanted to mention that because we have talked about the night crawlers before that was episode 277 if you want to go listen to it it was a great episode the night crawlers are also some of the most beloved of the cryptids a lot of people say that they're just very friendly and sweet although there's some people who say that what you're seeing in the video of them walking like that that's them walking slowly and if you and they can actually like charge at you why would anyone know that i want to ask the person who who explained that to be like okay what's your fucking like resume that you can tell me that like how would you know that how could you possibly know how fast they can walk? What do you mean?

Maybe that was a Fresno Nightcrawler in the basement just typing it out. Maybe, because I don't understand how else anybody would know that. But I hate the thought of it. And I'm mad about it. Not only does Yosemite have potentially Nightcrawlers, but they also have theories about aliens and UFOs. potentially night crawlers but they also have theories about aliens and ufos and they're the main reason that people think there could be aliens ufos beyond the fact that it's like this big eerie mountain where there's caves and you know all that good stuff is that there are a significant amount of missing children's cases oh shit and this is another thing where i'm saying

like aliens and ufos is like maybe a more light-hearted way to try to look at that but it's still like really intense trauma that children go through so um maybe it's aliens maybe it's something much more real maybe it's us trying to make ourselves feel better by saying it's aliens yeah well so i will say if there's a good thing to these abduction cases, they all follow this really weird, similar pattern where all the kids are usually just you're going to be fine. Hang on. The kids are usually 18 to 24 months old that are going missing and they disappear near huckleberry trees. But the real wild thing is that all of the kids or at least most of the kids are found completely unharmed but the weird part is that they're in unexplainable locations okay i've heard about this phenomenon it's very weird like multiple like tens of miles away from where they

went missing and i've heard like no scratches they're perfectly clean and like fed yeah they're barefoot which is weird sometimes um one boy was found 12 miles away but also two mountain peaks away so like oh come on like he would have had to have climbed two fucking mountain peaks to get where he was explain that some of the kids have also been found thousands of feet higher in elevation which would have required like professional climbing gear and the ability to do that yeah and i've also heard with those cases as well it's like uh there's like a natural instinct for humans like if you're lost there's like a very natural instinct of trying to find your way and this does not follow that pattern at all like they end up

in very weird places that don't like fit where a kid or a person would normally try and find their way back just weird weird shit so people have blamed aliens like picking them up and then like five seconds later realizing they don't want their responsibility and dumping the kid back this is a lot of work it's true people have also said apparently there's a pterodactyl like cryptid that has been known to lurk around the mountain so they think they're getting picked up and dropped by kids and like it's just taking their shoes yeah i guess so uh people have also said i mean that there's apparently bigfoot is an option and then the most realistic besides like hikers oh besides actual hikers maybe truly trying to abduct children um they also think that it could be really big birds picking them up thinking they're prey and then they're too heavy

and dropping the kid but then that wouldn't explain why they're not dirty or crying or bloody or why they didn't say um big bird picked me up right well to the same reasoning a lot of people think that maybe it's bears um because all these kids are being taken by huckleberry bushes um but also like most of them are being found completely unharmed so anyway it's very odd it's just a really weird thing it is speaking of bigfoot a lot of people have seen bigfoot out here or at least some sort of big hairy monster again could just be bears but one camper in yosemite has heard heavy footsteps heading for his tent and saw what he called it a furry goliath my favorite thing about this story is that it's like a one sentence story of like oh i saw what i thought was bigfoot and it ends with both of them screaming and running away from each other

wait both of them it's like they it's like they like freaky friday or something and scared each other um there's also a creature out there called the devil ape or devil fang but it's also been recently called the watts valley wolf ape because it's been seen near the watts valley cemetery and this wolf i've never heard of that me either it just sounds kind of like um kind of another bigfoot like a skunk ape type thing yeah yeah so it's this gray mangy haired human ape combo hybrid kind of thing sure sure sure sure he apparently coughs and foams at the mouth so we're thinking rabies or covid with all the coughing that freaks me out oh no uh and one time a photographer was in yosemite and actually saw a pack of them run up to his tent and then we don't really hear how that ended all these stories

like you never hear how they ended i want to know like if this happened to me i'd be like you better believe i'm telling you every single fucking second of what happened yeah it's like the fact that it was anticlimactic every time at the end makes me think this story isn't real don't feel like finishing the story like come on it's like oh first of all a pack of them so there's more than one a pack of them run up to you and then you just like went to bed what okay um another time a wolf ape uh went into a one-room schoolhouse that apparently is in yosemite which now i need to know more about yes you do imagine you are at a one-room schoolhouse and a cryptid shows up like i know that i would die out of bliss i'd be like well your dream that's it now i've seen it all that's it uh peaked so there's a one-room schoolhouse which i need to figure out where that is

and a wolf ape apparently came charging in and terrorized the students and the teacher and the teacher like locked themselves in a closet during school during school no for fun the students and teachers hang out together at the school house i thought it was like a current story like it's just a school house that was like historic or something i don't know it sounds like they like literally were trying to put all their desks on each other on top of each other to like try to like blockade this wolf again guess what we don't know how it ends but i guess at least someone survived to tell the tale um and then the last time one was seen it was in the 1990s a wolf ape was said to be drinking water out of bass lake so anyway that is just a sampling a smorgasbord and amalgamation

of the creatures and the spookiness that is yosemite national park what a fucking adventure what a journey you just took me on thank you well i'm about to take myself on another journey when i figure out what this schoolhouse is all about um oh before we even get into your story i gotta say speaking of school houses oh that was geo yes sorry uh speaking of school houses i uh got back in touch oh well nowhere really that special i just wanted to this is where the podcast becomes more of a phone call where i'm just telling you things and i don't really i don't you guys no one really wants the update you don't need to listen to this part just pretend we're talking pretend your ears dropping yeah just um make some small discussion groups around amongst yourself and we'll be back in a second talk amongst yourselves for a moment but while i have you christine uh

so fun fact my before i went to the school i went to my kindergarten and my preschool were a school house and so i recently got back in touch apparently there's like an alumni facebook group of people who went to my school house like your preschool yeah like it was like preschool and kindergarten alumni um the group was created by actually a friend of mine i didn't even know that i was scrolling down to see how long this group has been around it said like that like someone i know created it and i was like i didn't even know that this was a thing why didn't they invite you that's awkward i know we're fighting now they don't know that though um but anyway i got back in touch with my um like the i don't know if they were the principal or whoever but

it was a married couple who ran this schoolhouse and their names were mr rick and miss vicky and stop not miss vicky miss vicky was a peach i love miss vicky and mr mr rick and i are facebook friends now mr rick i mean come on and i literally in the group in the alumni Facebook group, I like still feel weird as like a 31 year old person to call him anything other than Mr. Rick. I know. Right. You get that weird like Leona's teacher. It's like Miss. Yeah. Like Miss Kate or Miss whatever. And it's like it feels so weird to say that. But it also feels weird to just say like Kate or, you know. Yeah. I'm like, do I onon-one do I call you Miss Kate well so I always I always wanted to know like the history behind like why we went to school in a house like what was it whose house was it what was the story so I was I wrote into the Facebook group and I was like Mr. Rick can you tell me about the house like wait that's so cute did he respond yeah he responded

he told me all about it but um was it anyway it was not his house it was a cardiologist's house um and he you know the tables have turned i mean you should go back and it used to be a farm i guess and so they ended up he ended up moving away i guess but it used to be his house and he had his office there. And then I guess when his practice closed and he was like retiring, it just they bought it and turned it into a school. But yeah, it was like a three room schoolhouse. And I now I'm starting to wonder, like, is that why I'm so into schoolhouses? So anyway. I didn't I don't want to say I didn't know you went to because maybe I did.

Maybe you mentioned it. But like, I don't remember that fact about you I don't think I I mean I knew like because I'd been in the building but I never actually like called it out loud a schoolhouse before and then I was like interesting maybe that's why I like the one room schoolhouse thing because mine was so like it was tiny and cozy and there was I can still remember like each room very specifically and I'm also going through a lot of my um old family pictures right now so i've found a bunch of pictures of the schoolhouse so anyway that's what led me to looking it up online finding the group facebook group i love

that the end anyway that was just like something wholesome before you tell us something really awful excellent uh good timing because now i have something awful to tell you okay this is the story of the costa concordia sinking the hell is that i mean it's a sinking i was gonna ask if you remembered it um i guess not uh that implies we've talked about it before no no no like if you remember it when it occurred in the news i meant no no i don't okay so it was 2012 um oh okay we were busy being young and stupid probably i was 20 so yes definitely young and stupid all right so before i tell you, also, there's something I wanted to mention up top that I completely forgot. So I'm going to throw it in here that Megan, our Megan, our wonderful social media person, even though it really irks us to say that with a name like Megan, has actually made like show pages like a page for all our episode like an episode guide

on the website so like because when you were mentioning um like the episode you did on the night crawlers and all that um megan like totally revamped it like let me go if you click into let's see how does it work oh i don't think she's even posted it yet but if you like click in you can see all the different uh like show notes and links and stuff in each episode it's very cool and it's something i'd always hoped to have and just thought we'll never have time for this um so i'm very very thankful for that so if you want more information you can um go on the website and the episodes will now have like all the deets there so nice that being said this is the newest one to add to the page the costa concordia so the costa concordia was an eight-year-old italian cruise vessel sailing under costa cruises which

was a subsidiary of carnival cruises and you know how well things go for these cruise companies i have an opinion about carnival cruises yes i do oh yeah why no comment no comment you can't say i have an opinion. No comment. I guess you can. You just did. Look, as I've gotten older, I am aware that, you know, cruises are... I know nothing about cruises. Like, I've never been on one. I don't know anything. I'm totally out of the loop.

The older I get, the weirder I feel about them because I know they're, like, definitely, like, they represent a lot of not-so-good stuff. But at the same time i used to be i'm from a cruise family you're a cruise fam yeah yeah yeah um and i you know when i think about just selfishly what i enjoy i do love a cruise yeah um and we were always told that carnival was like the party one and it was there's some good things to it where like if you've never done a cruise before it's a very this is so like uppity but this this is a regurgitation of what i've heard my whole life and i was always told don't don't do a carnival cruise you gotta do these these but apparently carnival cruises are like the party cruise and

since i was always like the the 20 like once you can drink it's the cruise to go on but i think because a lot of people who go on there are a little younger and make maybe not the best choices sometimes apparently um there's a lot of incidences on the cruises like they catch on fire a lot because people just like oh good like it just sounds like um like a house party on the water which to some people is great but i was always with my cruise family aka a hmm a more she she group if you know what i'm saying and they were they were not interested in the carnival cruises so i was always told to have an opinion about them but to be fair i've never actually been on one so for all i know i need to

like just shut the fuck up i mean i have no idea like i don't know how much you know about beachy sandy um but it's another podcast i do i was gonna say i've heard about it yeah i've heard of it uh and i have this whole running gag where i found this forum called cool cruiser called cruise critic.com and my mom runs that i think she might it's all these cool cruisers that's what like their usernames are called cool cruisers and it'll be like miss vicky cool cruiser since 2012 you know and it'll be like and they have a lingo and so it'll be like my dh my dear husband that would be mr rick obviously uh dh wanted to do a carnival crew but they always say eek and like my brother hates it because every every i'll like read a forum and like every five minutes i'll just scream eek and they have like

emoticons but they don't show up on my browser so they'll just say like colon like colon smiling waving yeah you know like colon eek and uh there's sometimes people don't get it. And so they'll write like colon sits down at bar and orders a drink. And I'm like, that's not how the emoticons work. But it's like a delightful place because it's so much fun to read. They're like, it's just chaotic in there. And so my only knowledge of cruises is from that forum, which I learned more than I ever thought i would without having to go on a cruise um for what it's worth but yeah there's a lot that goes into i mean people have like countdowns for like months years oh yeah like it's intense we're in that group

it's like a lifestyle my my grandma was also a big cruiser and we would just get told she always knew the day she'd be like oh 108 days left until this cruise oh 97 days until this cruise oh my god it's like a big thing and like so anyway fun though like oh they're to me they're the the best i love it because i love doing i well first of all i was also very very fortunate that i was like the kid that got to like just follow my parents on the luxury cruise lines with every amenity you could possibly imagine it was very I was also very very fortunate that I was like the kid that got to like just follow my parents on the luxury cruise lines with every amenity you could possibly imagine it was very like just deliciously grossly lavish and so uh I just remember having a lot of really good memories

as a kid of like they have so many floors like i mean especially like we're a royal caribbean cruise line family and so they or if i like that it just has the word royal and i don't know anything about it but royal well royal so i feel like these days it's kind of i i don't know what it is anymore but i know that like the top one was norwegian cruise lines and that one i never i never did one of those those were even more lavish but that was also very like elegant old money and royal caribbean was supposed to be more for like the family experience where they had things for all ages so they had literally like carousels they had full ass what the fuck like a whole floor looks like a circus like they have what um they have carousels there's a whole um they have ice skating

rinks they have rollerblading rinks they have movie theaters multiple movie theaters they have like 10 pools they have uh they had one bar that wasn't like uh i forget what the bar was called it's called like the sky deck or something but it's a bar that's an elevator so they have this massive elevator and put a bar in it so you can go up and down. And it's glass walls so you can see all the floors of the cruise as you're. I mean, it's like, it's like, I don't know, way too she-she. But as like a five-year-old, it was like a magical fairyland. It was like, I didn't even know things like this existed.

Well, you know, my dad. They have like mini golf on the roof, everything. Basketball courts, tennis courts. It does explain a lot about you because sometimes you'll no i'm serious like and i don't mean that in a bad way at all i just mean sometimes you'll be like so excited about something kind of random and i'm like what and then i'm like oh because it'll be like oh there's mini golf on the roof and em will be like that's the most amazing thing i've ever heard and i'm like okay this is making a lot of sense now that you had these experiences and it's reminiscent of those family vacations and stuff.

Yeah, it was also like, because I love water stuff, but I hate the beach. And so it was a way to be on the water. There's like a water park, but it has chlorine in it, so don't worry. I'm not kidding. A lot of the Royal Caribbeans on the top deck now, they have two to three water slides. I mean, it's everything you can imagine from every type of theme park or destination or whatever.

And then in between every other day, you dock at a whole new town, so you get to get off the ship and explore. And then when the day is over, you're still on this whole ship with a bunch of crap to do. So anyway, I very much liked the cruise life as a kid. I was very lucky to be a cruise kid. Yeah, I mean, I get it. I always had like a... I was told to have opinions about them as well.

And I don't think they were necessarily fair. I just don't know i don't know much about them i get why they would be so fun and i'm sure as a kid i would really want to do one i've heard a lot of horror stories now so i'm slightly more skeptical however here's my however what if we did a fun little like cruise like a i don't know a A true crime crew? No, that sounds bad. It's a murder. No, like a paranormal crew. Well, that already exists. Like a Jim Harreld's paranormal crew?

Yeah, I know. I'm like, I would do that. I would do something fun if it were like themed or built into like. I would do Jim Harreld's paranormal crews with you. I would love to do that. That would be my dream. We have not been invited, but I would love to do that. That would be my dream. I do not been invited. I do. I know eventually my mom and I have always talked because my so my grandma was the big cruise person and my mom became a big cruise person. And because of that, I like cruises. I don't do them don't, we don't have to pay for that. Well, so I think, I think, um,

so my, my grandmother who I think she's, so there's certain like memberships, not memberships, but, um, like, uh,

like a gold medallion. Oh, I know all about those people post there. They get trophies and shit. Yeah. Yeah. So my mom, my grandma,

I think was only like three away or something from a hundred cruises, something crazy. And so she's, once you grandma, I think, was only like three away or something from 100 cruises. Something crazy. And so once you hit a certain number, you're silver, then you're bronze. But so I don't know what the numbers are, but I know once you hit 100, you're gold, I think. And she's still here and she's still with it. So I think we're going to try to do three cruises to get her the 100. Fuck yes! And then that might be the end of my cruise life.

I know. So that's fingers crossed. That's like the probably the last of my cruise era. But it would be cool to be with my grandma on her 100th. I love that. And you know, my dad is actually going on a cruise for the first time. He's in his 70s. He's going on a cruise for the first time this week in his life.

What which cruise line do you know? He's doing a very fancy one in alaska i don't know the details all he said was it's not like a normal cruise and i said i don't know what that means because you've never and you don't know what that means because neither of us have been on a cruise before if he's on it it's not going to be a normal it's not a normal that's true that's true and so he's like uh he's going to alaska and then they like do a week on land and then they do like a week oh interesting i don't know it sounds crazy i was like have fun i don't know i don't really understand what's happening but um he's doing his first in his 70s

so it's not too late for me in my 30s you know that's the truth yeah still get it in there but um i hope this doesn't come off um you know uh what's the word like glib because this is obviously a very tragic story i'm about to tell um sure sorry i really came i came in hot by saying i had an opinion about carnival cruises that was probably the most elitist thing i'll ever say in my entire life but um anyway the end no no i i i we needed to get it in there because like i know cruises are something you and i've always had like such intense varying opinions on just for me with my lack of experience you with your just massive amounts of experience um so i knew we had to get that in there somewhere so basically carnival cruises owns uh the the costa cruz line and i believe this is like a european subsidiary um and so it's an italian vessel this costa concordia and essentially it is one of these massive ships that

you describe em i don't know if there's like a fucking carnival on it uh carnival uh what do you call it a uh what did you say it was on one of the floors like a circus i mean it's it's ironic that i i won't go on a carnival cruise but i will go on the carnival on a cruise but you want a carnival on your cruise you don't want yeah so i don't know like what all was involved in the ship itself. But it was 114,000 tons and it carried 3,206 passengers. And so this cruise was scheduled to be a seven-day Italian cruise from Civitavecchia, which is a port in Rome, to Savona. And this is January 2012. And I want to say again, I don't know.

I just want to be clear here with all our blabbering about cruises, you know, hard line here. This becomes very, very disturbing and upsetting. And I don't want people to think we're taking this lightly, if that makes sense. So in addition to the passengers, there were 1,023 crew members. So total 4,252 people aboard. And this is a big ass ship. The captain of the ship was 52 year old Captain Francesco Scatino. And he had grown up on the Mediterranean coast and came from a long line of ship owners and seafarers. And according to his sister, Francesco loves the sea. He has always worked as an officer.

He has a long career behind him. So he began his career working for a ferry line and was then hired by the parent company Carnival to work for Costa Cruises in 2002. And at first he worked for a while as second in command on a ship. And in 2006, he was promoted and became captain of Costa's brand new cruise ship, the Costa Concordia. On the day of its launch, some superstitious people already felt like there was a little bit of a red flag in the air. think I'm superstitious, but then has like deeply rooted OCD compulsions and ticks. I am probably not one to deny anybody they're superstitious. I feel like it was something people were like, oh, that's not a good sign, but then didn't take it super seriously, if that makes sense. Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Basically, which we talked about in the queen mary uh on the queen

mary tour when i originally did the the history of the queen mary there is a maritime tradition do you remember the maritime tradition to like uh to when a new ship is about to embark on its journey i don't remember what you smash a bottle on the hull of the vessel you smash like a champagne bottle okay on the hull and so this is like an 18th century maritime tradition they did it on the queen mary um and this was part of the tradition so typically the bottle is smashed and then they announce the ship's name and this is like the like welcome to the it's like its own um debbie it's like a ribbon it's like it's like a ribbon a ribbon cutting yeah it's like presenting them to the world you

know what i mean like a ribbon cutting can you imagine if you just hit someone in the face with a champagne bottle and went this is the name of this person. Welcome. Introducing our special TED Talk host. Welcome to society. Now who wants to marry this beautiful belle of the ball? Okay. So, sorry, she's covered in glass. So they smash the bottle and announce the name of the ship. And the ritual traditionally is supposed to invoke fair winds and calm seas for future sailings. On smaller ships, they usually smash the bottle against the hull by hand.

But on big cruise liners like the Concordia, the bottle is actually tied to a rope and then released like a pendulum. Damn. And it's meant to swing down and dramatically explode on the hull. Love it. So in 2002, the Concordia's champagne bottle was dropped, hit the hull, and did not shatter. Oh, so everyone should. The red flag.

Red flag. It actually bounced off. And in the video, you can hear the onlookers kind of make sounds of disappointment. Like, aw, it's supposed to, like, dramatically explode. And according to tradition, this was a terrible omen for the ship's career at sea. Just saying. In 2008, the ship suffered serious damage when high winds in an Italian port pushed it into a dock. And there was also an issue in general with the crew. So in 2010, Francesco,

the captain, allegedly caused damage to another cruise vessel when he entered a German port going way too fast. And a leaked letter that came out that was sent from his employer to him accused him of damaging the ship. So they kept it hush hush. But later this letter was leaked revealing that he had like sped into a German port and damaged another ship. Francesco wrote back in this letter, I did not know the speed limit and have not received notification of an infraction from the relevant authorities. conclusion here but it's also not comforting to read that the captain admitted he didn't even know the speed limit and was just like bursting his way through like that's something you can find out you know okay yeah and especially if you're driving a 71 000 ton ship like maybe check the speed limit instead of saying well i didn't know the speed limit like that doesn't get you out of a ticket so why would it get you out of smashing into another ship i can't imagine the i mean i i can't think of a worse excuse of like oh well i didn't know how to drive this what

what i didn't check the law it's like well that's okay that doesn't really work but all right um but i guess it did because it seems like that kind of got brushed under the rug um so on friday january 13th did you catch that on friday the 13th you caught that nobody seems to mention that but it was the first thing i saw uh interesting no one else cares the the way that we care about that i'm mean, I'm sure people noticed it. I don't know. I think it's pretty ominous, but that's just me, I guess. I feel like if this is a story already rooted in superstition, I mean, yeah. Well, whatever. Okay.

Maybe it was just not the news. Maybe the news articles were not really, you know, pitching that angle. So Friday the 13th, January 13th 13th 2012 the concordia was underway on its six-day journey around 9 p.m the ship would pass the tuscan island of gilio and many ships pass the island on their routes usually uh two to three miles away from shore and the concordia's route that night was meant to take the ship past the island to get this six miles from the shore however so the planned route six miles away from shore right however some vessels participate in sort of a sketchy tradition which you just love to hear it

uh a sketchy tradition called a sail by and on gilio island uh this practice is known as an inchino or a bow and it involves lighting up the ship as bright as possible deviating from the planned route to sail much closer to shore and honk the horn as like a spectacle for all the people on the land oh god okay So this is sort of like a wink wink. Like we just do this. We kind of deviate from the route for a few miles and put on a little show and then go back to the route. Apparently, this is something a lot of ships do. And officially, it's not a recognized practice. But the mayor of Giglio, this island, said many of them passed close to Giglio

to salute the local population with blasts from their sirens. It's a very nice show to see. The ship all lit up when you see it from the land. And I feel like as a person, I would be get, as a person on shore,

I'd be so stoked. It's kind of like when you're on the highway and you should like pull your hands around the trucks and they would honk back and get so thrilled. Absolutely. Yeah. I could see why it would be fun to put on that show for people. Yes. I totally, totally get it. And adding onto that, the sailbys were also sort of salutes to crew members of different ships who often retired to the island. So they're like living on this

island and they see their ship go by or like another ship. And they're sort of it's sort of like a wink wink at like the people who were in their same field, you know, like. Yeah. Retired crews, I don't know, captains or whoever was part of the staff in the past who's retired. Now you can give them like a little like nod of acknowledgement and go on your way. And so, yes, it's nice in theory however deviating from the route uh which was pretty intentionally created to keep the ship safe uh obviously can be hazardous so i mean i probably don't even need to tell you this but

there are rocks uh there are shallow water uh things that are not meant to be driven over by a 71,000 ton ship. So on January 13th, Francesco finished his dinner and headed to the bridge at little after 9 p.m. And this is from MarineInsight.com because I didn't know what a bridge was. Do you know what a bridge is on a ship uh in my mind it's like the captain's lap like where he goes to bed or or like the where you like watch the wheel and the speedometer and everything no oh i don't make oh yeah i think you're probably right because i was thinking the brig and i'm like that's a different thing like a jail yeah i'm like isn't that a dungeon what's happening i think going to like going to the bridge is like the area with all the like

equipment okay i think you're right so i copied and pasted the definition here from marineinsight.com the bridge is the main control center of a vessel you're so smart from where i watch a lot of i watch a lot of below deck also so oh that's right i was gonna say you've been on so many ships but you've just watched a lot of reality tv oh so eva probably knew that one right away she likes that show i know that well that's why i also thought it was like the captain's like lounge or where he goes to sleep because on yachts there is a lot of times oh they're connected so that way the captain's always near the bridge now what if you knew that about yachts because you've spent so much time on yachts that would be funny it probably would not sound any better than me spending a lot of time on cruises so i'd probably be worse uh okay

so let's see the bridge is the main control center from where the captain and officers are able to man the entire operations the vessel is generally located in a position with an unrestricted view and immediate access to the essential areas of ship so yes you were right so he goes to the bridge around 9 p.m to initiate this sail by of julio island at 9 34 p.m he told the helmsman jacob to turn the rudder to manual mode he then phoned up former captain mar Palumba, who he used to work under when he was second in command. And Mario had basically pioneered, like created the sail by tradition. So Francesco was like, okay, I'm calling you. You're like the expert on this sail by thing. What's the safe distance from shore? Mario tells Francesco, you be all good uh if you're 0.3 to 0.4 miles off the island

that's 1500 feet they're supposed to be six miles off the shore yeah they're really really flirting with trouble 0.3 like that is a dramatic distance off route yeah in my opinion so mario's like oh yeah you're totally fine if you're like 1500 feet away from the shore. So Francesco sets the radar for point five miles from the shore. But then he started using his binoculars to estimate the distance manually. deal either. The wind was really rough. So the water was choppy. And that obviously makes it very difficult to see hazards like rocks, that kind of thing. It was also partially cloudy and nighttime. So like just not the ideal time to kind of go off route for funsies. Yeah. So Francesco once said in an interview, quote, I wouldn't like to be in the role of captain on the Titanic having to sail in an ocean of icebergs. These days, everything is much safer. It is easier to navigate thanks to

modern technical instruments and the Internet. So what he does is he turns everything off and decides to estimate it with his binoculars. OK, so basically he just said. I don't know if you caught the irony there. He basically said driving a ship. I don't know if you caught the irony there. He basically said, driving a ship. I don't know if you drive a ship. Do you drive a ship? I mean, there's a wheel. That's true. You captain a ship.

He said, I would not want to be the captain of the Titanic. Everything's manual. You don't know if there are any hazards. But at least now we have technology. And now he's turning off all the technology to do it manually just to clarify so he's relying on his senses very dangerous over technical instruments to navigate a dangerous maneuver uh ironically fun fact the date was only a few months away from the 100 year anniversary of the titanic sinking. Oh, okay. Well, that's also

a really sad fun fact. Yeah, terrible. So in an interview, former Captain Mario said that Francesco was always a daredevil who frequently had to be put back in his place. And that was his former boss. So that's not a good sign now obviously when sailing people use the term knots to denote speed um we're going to use miles per hour just thank you so we are not constantly trying to convert them at 9 40 francesco told jacob the helmsman to increase the ship's speed from 3.5 miles per hour to 18 miles per hour and to turn toward 310 degrees. Now, at this point, the ship was still following the route on the radar, passing about half a mile away,

but Francesco ordered the helmsman to deviate from that course to follow his own, like, manual eyeballing. He's like, just go that way, that way like by sight and this is where some controversy starts with jacob the helmsman okay because ships have what is called a work language i did not know this and that is the official language of that ship that crew members are all expected to speak and understand at least somewhat fluently to make sure everybody can communicate it's for safety reasons jeez okay i would think all ships would have the same language well no no like i'm talking like english italian oh i think you're saying there's like a work jargon that every individual ship oh no no i'm I mean, like each ship has to have an official language that everybody needs to speak to be able to like effectively communicate with the entire.

Yeah, because it's like over a thousand people on the staff and they were all expected to know the same language. And on this ship, the language was Italian. Makes sense. It's an Italian ship. Most of the crew is Italian. And so this common language was meant to be used in emergencies so they could understand orders so that they could direct passengers. Everybody could be on the same page. And like I said, the Concordia's work language was Italian. So everyone on the bridge, especially the helmsman, should be fluent in Italian. But because English has become, you know, pretty ubiquitous, there are some times this assumption

that everybody should speak it or does speak it, even when their first language is not English. But there was no reason that Jacob the helmsman should have been expected to speak English when the work language was Italian. However, Francesco claims that helmsman Jacob barely spoke English or Italian, which caused miscommunications in the bridge. However, recordings from the bridge seem to contradict that claim. Basically, to contradict that claim. Basically, Jacob was not fluent in English

and Francesco's kind of using that as an excuse, even though he was supposed to be speaking Italian because that was the language of the ship. So, the ship's black box

recorded Francesco giving commands at critical moments exclusively in English, which was not the language Jacob was expected to know. At 9.40 p.m., he ordered Jacob in English to direct the ship to 325 degrees. Jacob repeated 315, and the first deck officer, who also apparently struggled with English, corrected him with yet another incorrect number saying, no, 335. Oh, OK. So these are already three different numbers being bandied about here.

Francesco then repeated 325 and Jacob finally understood and said, OK, 325. and Jacob finally understood and said, okay, 325. Minutes later, Francesco gave another bearing in English saying 350. Jacob repeated, 340? Oh my God. And Francesco told him, no, 350. He said, otherwise we'll end up on the rocks. Soon, the boat was half a mile closer to the island than initially planned.

Oh, God. So Francesco looked ahead, realized there was a problem. There were waves breaking against rocks straight ahead, and they were basically on collision course with disaster. He started giving orders to Jacob to turn the ship to 350 degrees. But there was another major issue because now they were going 18 miles per hour, which is way too fast to turn the ship to 350 degrees. But there was another major issue because now they were going 18 miles per hour, which is way too fast to turn efficiently. So Jacob directed the boat to the correct bearing, but they were still only turning 327 degrees,

which is still under what they needed to avoid the rocks. Oh God, what was that? She found it on the web. Who was that? Girl, that was siri what are you talking about was that your siri no that was your siri it was not mine it wasn't mine that is so weird we both heard her right yeah but it came from like over here no but it came from over here what the fuck that's weird so they start to turn but they're going so fast that the turn they're not going to make the turn in time if that makes sense right they're still going under the amount that they need to get away from the collision track exactly you got it you're so smart uh you

know obviously went more about boats than i do even though i had took sailing lessons for years that's my douchey thing to say i took sailing lessons for years i fucking hated it because it was always summer vacation and it was like 6 30 in the morning and my stepmom would make us go out 6 30 in the morning to sail i'm like i'd rather do literally anything else um why well whatever i probably saw you on a cruise ship and waved and then our test at the end was that we had to take our parents on a sailboat by ourselves i was like nine that's that is illegal that has to be illegal and like and for your final test we're going to watch you kill everybody the guy

literally sat on the shore i was like this can't be right i'm nine that can't be right of like he literally that can't be right you know put everyone you love on a boat and sink it oh my god the only thing i remember is starboard starboard and starboardboard. That's what I said. And port. Yeah, left and right. Yeah. Which one's left? Port.

Yes. That's all I know. So anyway. Okay. Okay. So let's get back to this. So he's saying steer further and further to the right. Starboard. Are you sure it's not starboard?

Starboard. It's starboard. I don't know anymore. Whatever. Okay. It's to the right. And so he's saying. It's not port. It's not port. I wish it were.

Not port side. I could say that very easily. So he keeps instructing him to steer further and further. And as they passed the rock, the captain ordered Jacob to center the rudder and then port 20, which is 10 degrees to the left. But Jacob mistakenly turned right instead of left for about eight whole seconds. And to me, eight seconds is a long time to be turning in the wrong direction. Yeah. Right. Like if you're trying to avoid a rock. Oh, my gosh. So eight seconds in the wrong direction. So he turned hard left because he realized he was going the wrong direction to correct the error. But it was too late. The second deck officer shouted that the ship was going to hit.

And then there was a loud crash as the rear left side of the ship collided with the rocks, tearing open a 174 footlong hole in the hull of the ship. Oh, my God. Immediately, thousands of tons of water began flooding the ship. Upon impact, the ship's speed reduced to 9.5 miles per hour and lost propulsion of both engines, and the Concordia was now officially adrift. Only 22 seconds after impact, all engines were flooded and had all failed and there was a ship-wide blackout keep in mind it's nighttime it's like after oh my god

it's like 9 30 10 p.m something around there francesco ordered the closing of all watertight doors crew ran to the lower decks to assess the damage and found that in only six minutes, water had entered the workshop and the engine room, affecting the main electric switchboard and the emergency switchboard. So the crew stood in oncoming water and used a screwdriver to manually reboot the emergency power system, but damage to the cooling fan made the safety system continually override their attempts because a high temperature warning kept shutting it down so they would like try to manually start it and then the emergency device would say high temperature and shut it back down so they like could not access the emergency protocol emergency power system so the ship like i said had a shipwide

blackout they lost all power meaning lights rudders even the bilge pumps which are meant to push water out in case of flooding all of them all of them were shut off so this thing is just now floating and taking on water yeah and also no one else can see them it's like someone else could hit them true and now it's dark right true no lights so at 9 54 p.m the bridge made a ship wide announcement that there was simply an electrical issue and they were addressing oh my god yeah so this is where this becomes more of a true crime story unfortunately although francesco should have already been initiating emergency protocol he instead assured everyone on the ship that everything was under control and they could

just go about their business but they know there's like a massive hole in the hole and the boat is sinking i don't know if they know that. No. Okay. Because, again, it's one of these massive ships where like 170 feet is big. But maybe not. Or not compared to the rest of the ship. Right. Maybe not big enough that you would, if you were in your room playing cards, you'd maybe not know what that noise was and then the power went out and maybe you just think oh they just had like a system failure you know then they announce oh

it's just an electrical issue and you trust the captain of the ship right like it's an abuse of power really um so internal emergency batteries within the ship shortly were able to at least return power to the lights and communication, although everything else was utterly functionless. So they had no way of, you know, pumping out the water, nothing like that. So those like M who have been on cruises will know, which I did not, that on the first day on board the cruise everyone has to go to and tell me if this is true everyone has to go to their designated meeting spot and listen to the crew discuss emergency protocol yep is that right and it's sort of like the talk uh that flight attendants give you know like if anything were to happen oxygen maskygen mask, blah, blah, blah. Like that sort of a emergency protocol conversation. That way, in the event of an emergency, everyone knows where to go. Having felt the crash,

like you mentioned, many passengers were already kind of leaving their cabins and putting on life jackets and going to the designated emergency spots, thinking, well, we've been told what to do in case of an emergency, so let's follow that instruction. But when they arrived to their emergency spots, they were told to return to their cabins because nothing was wrong. Oh, my God. Yeah. The deputy chief officer contacted the bridge to inform the captain

that at least three of the ship compartments were flooded and the ship began to list to its left side. And for those who don't know, that just means to to shift, like to to lean to the left side. Francesco called the Costa Company's crisis coordinator and reported the incident and said that water had reached the main electrical panel. Costa headquarters misunderstood which compartments were flooded, didn't realize there was a blackout, and suggested they just use their propellers to steer the ship to safety. Now, people ashore who were expecting this big, like, light show and like honking, you know, could tell that the Concordia was in trouble. I mean, now it's literally like leaning sideways. Oh, my God. The Savitavecchia, I hope I'm saying that right,

harbormaster contacted the ship to assess its situation. Francesco told the harbormaster that they were addressing a simple blackout and everything was under control. Oh, that's the worst of it. He's blatantly lying. He's like, they said said do you need assistance do you need rescue he said oh it's just a he didn't even tell them we drove into a giant rock that that was that's the moment because that's a true crime that's when you should have said

i need help thank you for seeing there and like this isn't the titanic when you're in the middle of fucking nowhere yeah like people can help you. That's what makes it so dark, too, is they were so close to shore. And people are watching these people now on their way to death. It's horrifying. Exactly. I mean, you've really just nailed it. That's exactly what's happening, which makes it so much more dark because it could have been it could have been saved, you know?

Like at what point does like someone on the on shore just be like, fuck with this guy saying we need to go out there and check on them? I don't know. I don't know if you're allowed to. Like, how would you? Yeah. The ship is so massive. Like, I don't know how you maybe if you send, like, your own boats out to get people. But there's only so much.

Like, they could have called, like, like the Coast Guard or something to come in and help. Like anything. They might have. I'm not really sure. I mean, it sounds like their version of the Coast Guard called out and said, what's going on? And he just blatantly lied, said it's just an electrical problem. So, in fact, the first deck officer and deputy chief engineer had just determined that four of the ship's compartments were now flooded.

And at this point, there is no saving the ship. They were like, this ship is going down. We cannot save it. Minutes later, Francesco contacted the fleet crisis coordinator to tell them, let me guess, to tell them that the ship is going down? No, no. He told them, actually, it's all good. It's just a blackout.

Don't worry. Oh, my God. And I'm just thinking he's trying to save face, I'm assuming. And he's just he's just embarrassed. His pride. His pride got ahead of him. Yes, it's it's tragic. The passengers on board started contacting family members to tell them something didn't seem right.

The ship was listing to its side more and more. Passengers families then called the police who contacted the Coast Guard, we'd call him. There was back and forth again with Francesco, his crew, and Costa headquarters, but still nobody at Costa or in the bridge had declared any actual emergency, prepared passengers to disembark the vessel. Even the ones who, by the way, were prepared to disembark and put their life jackets on were told to go back to their rooms. They even told the harbormaster that they were not in an emergency and nothing was going on. Just don't worry about it. an emergency and nothing was going on just don't worry about it but the harbor master was suspicious obviously so he sent out a boat to assess the state of the concordia and at nearly 10 30 p.m francesco finally contacted the coast guard but requested only tugboats to tow the ship he lied and told them that the flooding was confined to compartments that protected the ship from sinking and everything was under control. He also said there were no deaths or injuries, which was a lie because he didn't he had no way of knowing that he was just right.

He was just guessing. Yeah, I was just guessing. It's like, well, the boat isn't totally underwater. So everyone's probably fine. Yeah, he was hoping everyone was fine. yeah he was hoping everyone was fine many have speculated that at this point francesco was in absolute denial about the situation refused to believe things were as dire as they really were however others believe he knew the gravity of the situation but was trying to lie to protect his reputation uh to like we said his ego his pride got in the way

especially because he was the one who had instructed them to go close to shore you know what i mean like this was his idea and i think he's trying to backtrack so indeed minutes after he told the harbor master that everything was under control he called costa headquarters and told them the real situation. But Costa didn't contact emergency services either. Now the ship is beginning to list to the right and water starts moving upward through the ship. And by now, this gives me actual chills, the kitchen and elevators were underwater.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Is this not terrifying? I mean... Oh my God. Oof. So by this point, as you can imagine it is total chaos aboard the ship passengers are now very aware that the ship is sinking but staff keeps telling them everything's under control and even asked them to return to their cabins what the

can someone is someone not like um I can't get to my room. Because the elevators. Have water in them. My room's underwater. What do you mean? Nothing's broken. Hello. Nothing's wrong.

You want me to go swim into my room? It doesn't make any sense. So. The passengers. Were like. Fuck you. Fuck this. We've had enough. they started jumping they started

loading each other into lifeboats themselves because they were like the staff is not the crew is not putting people on lifeboats we're gonna put ourselves on lifeboats and you know one fucking person on that ship was like i've seen the titanic yeah like bye bye we're getting on a boat so they started to load each other onto lifeboats themselves and wildly local television stations were broadcasting the scene live from shore and they're showing a sinking ship and they're showing showing passengers like putting each other on the lifeboats oh my god first of all round of applause to like the humanity and those people seriously uh yeah you're gonna round of applause for somebody in a minute too which is we'll get there the chief engineer told francesco it was time to give the order to abandon ship

but he didn't oh my god meanwhile the engine crew working in the lower decks contacted the bridge for permission to abandon their stations, which were flooding and they were going to die. And Francesco told them, no, stay at your station. I'd be like, fuck you. I'm leaving anyway. Finally, a safety officer actually took over like a mutiny almost and told the engine staff to evacuate. If they had actually waited for Francesco's permission, they would have drowned. No doubt. They would have drowned.

Oh, my God. So despite Francesco's command to wait, other crew members began to take charge, and it became technically a mutiny. They basically, you know, he's the captain. The rest of the crew said, we are no longer listening to the captain's orders. We're mutinying and we are taking over. Good. Oh, my God.

Wow. Good, good, good. If ever a mutiny was in order, I would say. I'm for it. Yeah, this is it. So at 1033, the general emergency alarm was finally raised. And another announcement informed passengers that the situation was under control and so it's almost like they're fighting back and forth like he's like no everything's fine and

they're like nope there's an emergency finally minutes later the passengers were told to go to their emergency stations this is nearly a full hour after impact oh my god if they had just evacuated at impact probably everyone would have survived oh my god he should be so lucky that people are defying him or else he would be in jail for a lot of death a lot so the ship then sent a distress signal signal finally to the coast guard who prepared to send rescue units to assist the evacuation of the ship. The captain told the Coast Guard he was trying to maneuver the ship towards shore to aid evacuation, which was a lie because there was no power to the engine or rudder, so he couldn't navigate the ship anywhere. So he was just lying.

At 10.50 p.m., more than an hour after impact, Francesco finally decided to give the abandoned ship announcement. But he was afraid it would sound too intense so he rephrased it oh my god and the new announcement was let passengers on shore oh okay so just no sense of urgency whatsoever if they feel like it like no pressure feel like it like let him off if they want taking control mutiny his second in command got on the intercom and shouted abandon ship good imagine hearing that they're like uh let passengers off board and then another voice grabs the mic and says abandon ship that must be so scary i've also like i want to know like is anyone in the

room with the captain at this point like are they looking him in the eyes being like are you this fucking stupid yes they are and they're saying like no we are giving this command and he's like i'm the captain you know and they're like we don't care people are gonna die like in my mind he like kept being in a room by himself at least so So like nobody else had to deal with this bullshit. But like him being in so like at one point it was maybe in the beginning. Okay, well, he doesn't know how bad the damage is on the ship. And now it's like he's fully blatantly lying because he because of his pride. But that makes me rethink how early on did he know there was a problem and he was in denial?

Because like I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I feel like wherever I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, he probably knew before that. But he's the captain. Like he's the one who gets all the information. Like nobody's like forgetting to tell him. You know what I mean? Like they told him right away, hey, our emergency system is down and we can't turn it on. Hey, there's a shipwide blackout and there's tons of water coming onto the ship you know when like his second in command went abandoned ship you know he had the

nerve to look that guy in the eyes and be like how dare you say it like i'm captain yeah did you not hear me already tell them that when you thought you could do it better you know he had some sort of nasty snide remark some sort of and the wild part was they announced abandoned ship but they gave the command in english and again this is an italian vessel the language is meant to be italian you can't just expect the thousands of people on board to to know what abandoned ship means if they're prepared for an italian phrase that means abandoned ship so it's just all a big clusterfuck. And the ship began to drop lifeboats to transport passengers to shore. Luckily, due to the very cause of the sinking, the shore was only a couple hundred feet away.

So at the very least, like the ones that were able to get onto the lifeboats could make it to shore pretty easily. But unfortunately, they'd waited far too long for a rescue mission, and the ship began to list so dramatically to one side that lifeboat evacuation became nearly impossible. Oh, my God. The boats that had already dropped started making trips back and forth, unloading passengers on shore and then picking more up from the ship. And to get onto the lifeboats, passengers had to climb down the side of the ship on a ladder but the ship was nearly completely sideways with half of it underwater this is so upsetting uh other passengers started

jumping off the ship into the dark seawater where some were rescued by coast guards but others were pulled underwater by the suction created by the sinking ship and drowned like it probably looked like a good option because you're not far from shore and you can probably think hey i'm a good swimmer i don't want to take a spot on this lifeboat but if you jump in and there's that top riptide basically pulling that current pulling you under you know what are you gonna do i mean yeah it's horrific and this is when earlier today m heard me just gasp when i um yeah was was looking uh up photos um i'm gonna send you a photo of uh what this someone jumping no no no it's just like what the ship looked like and we can also put um these on instagram it's just like a shocking sight uh oh jesus it's like fucking sideways

i i cannot believe so was the captain like hanging sideways and like making decisions that the boat was fine? Oh, it's just an electrical issue. It's like the electrical issue. You're fucking 180 degrees. What are you talking about? I mean, oh, my God. Yeah, the lifeboats. You can see other lifeboats they can't even use hanging off the side because they waited too long.

It's too long. It's too late. Wow. There's some really upsetting photos like, you know, if you want to Google it. But there are also photos inside the wreck. I'll send you one of those, which are, like, really unsettling. I mean, it makes you think of, like, I mean, it makes you think of the Titanic, you know? think of the titanic you know like yeah the sight of of like what it how fun and cool it was now turned into like such an eerie wreckage yeah like here's um oh my lord oh my god here's a picture of

like slot machines you know and they're just it's so dark it's just infuriating that someone just like didn't have like for their own to save face. Really? Was it worth it? You know, like you don't even have the morality to just just fucking say I need help. Just exactly. Exactly. Wow. Oh, my God.

You know, people trust you. You're the captain of the ship. They trust you with their lives. It's incredibly dark. So anyway, like I said, the ship is really going down now. People are trying to climb out of the ship, jumping out of the ship, but they're getting pulled underwater, dying, drowning, you know, from the suction. At 1130, the crew abandoned the the bridge giving no more announcements or orders there are still 300 people aboard the ship and they just were like bye the island's deputy

mayor arrived and actually took a lifeboat this is the mayor took a lifeboat back to the ship and climbed aboard the ship himself after the crew had abandoned the ship. Now that's a man of the people. That is, that's a hero. Wow. He took a boat. He's like, fuck this. He took a boat, climbed aboard the ship as it's like dramatically sinking.

And like, guys, look at the photos. We'll put them on Instagram. He searched the ship for someone in charge because he was like, we need to go over the evacuation plan. Guess what? Everyone had already peaced out. The whole was gone so he found nobody however there were still 80 people aboard the ship francesco though was nowhere to be found he had get this changed out of his captain's uniform and put on a suit why to go down with a ship or something? No, to get on a lifeboat

and not look like the captain of the ship. Oh my god. Yeah. So he wasn't in that much denial. He knew what was going on. He was ready to do a costume change. Wow, he was literally about to disguise himself. And by the way, for all of his i'm the captain i'm the captain you're abandoning your post while letting other people die on the ship crazy crazy uh like beyond yes basically put on a suit jumped in a lifeboat with other passengers just kind of sailed away while there were still people aboard the ship. So he'd already snuck off. Yeah, he had snuck off. Yes. Oh, my God.

Yes. Yes. Basically went to save himself as the ship continued to sink behind him with people aboard and didn't even have the gall to the cojones. I don't know the right word to own up to being the captain that he was so proud of a minute ago. Right. being the captain that he was so proud of a minute ago right so the deputy mayor gave up his search and started direct like start gave up his search of the crew because he wasn't going to find them they were gone directing people he started directing people to safety with the assistance of a single officer and a ship's doctor the only two people who stayed behind wow one officer one doctor both of them helped rescue efforts until the very end the coast guard called francesco and asked him why he abandoned the ship with passengers still

aboard the coast guard's like hey fuck you why did you leave and he claimed this is a real thing that he said m he climbed he had he claimed he had fallen into a lifeboat by accident oh my god i'm sorry it's not funny it's not funny it's just like the most outrageous thing i've ever heard what it's absurdity at its finest that's like when people who are like who cheat on someone they're like oh i accidentally slept with them what like i actually fell into them it's like that's not no that's how one of this works i fell into a life boat and i accidentally fell into my uh citizens my my regular citizen uniform i fell out of the bridge into my tuxedo and then all the way onto the other side of the ship into a lifeboat and onto shore before i knew

before i rolled like a can of chef boyardee all the way home all the way home without any understanding of what was happening um he said he fell into a lifeboat by accident and the coast guard this is don't tell me they believed it paraphrase nope paraphrased for english translation told francesco get the fuck back on the ship yeah okay yes this line became so famous in Italy that people started selling t-shirts that wore the phrase get the fuck back on board that's great t-shirt went viral get the fuck back on board however shocker Francesco refused to get back on board he instead took a taxi back to his hotel oh my god and he was interviewed on the way there and he told the news he was the last one to leave the ship oh what a piece of shit what a piece of shit but everyone you know he's still he still doesn't think he did anything wrong probably yeah

he's probably talked his way into like i did the right thing but everyone could plainly see that people were still being rescued and still dying and this guy's like outside his hotel in a suit saying oh yeah i was the last one aboard like blatant lie and they i want they had to interview him be like why aren't you in your captain's outfit yeah he had to be like oh i fell into fell into my suit. I fell into this pants. I don't even know where they came from. I swear, it's shocking. Now, the rescue operations were declared complete at 6.17 a.m. So, like, the crew abandoned the ship at 11.30 p.m. Oh, my God.

And now it's 6.15, 6.17 a.m. the following morning. And they're finally declaring rescue operations complete. Now, the ship came to rest halfway underwater, lying on its side against submerged rocks. 24 hours later, while banging on cabin doors in the part of the ship that was not submerged, that was still up, like, above water, rescuers found, get this, a 29-year-old couple on their honeymoon who had slept through the whole thing. Ah, I fucking love them. Good for them.

That's you. That sure would be. I certainly hope so. That's you, for sure, being able to sleep through something like that. Which, like, where your bed flops onto another wall yeah yeah you're literally sideways now and you're like huh what happened i wonder if they just got like really just like piss drunk the night before and they were just like so like

like unconscious like they having the best sleep of their life yeah they apparently woke up which must be absolutely traumatizing woke up in this like ruined ship but they couldn't get out of their room like they were trapped well yeah because the door is facing the floor now yeah exactly so they don't even know what happened they can't get off the ship they're just stuck in their room so when they were finally rescued they were apparently cold and wet, but uninjured and in good spirits. So that's nice. Thank God.

Oh, my God. I mean, hey, talk about it. Not trying to, like, totally make fun of this, but, like, think about the two truths and a lie you get for the rest of your life on that one. Oh, jeez, for real. Like, my honeymoon was a little more dramatic than most people's. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, OK, at least they're unharmed. But that's still how to be. I can't even imagine the when you wake up and like your whole room is upside down and you're like on the ceiling. You have to think you survived a shipwreck. Yeah. You know, you're on a ship like, you know what has happened. And it's silent because there's no one else. They're silent. There's water in your room. Like they were all wet. I mean, it must be terrifying. And I mean, of course, it's a silver lining.

But unfortunately, there would be no more happy endings for the remaining missing passengers as divers searched the submerged cabins. Ultimately, 32 people lost their lives in the disaster several people were discovered underwater on the lifeboat decks where they had been waiting for crew instructions that never came oh my god because the crew said don't worry we've got it handled and they trusted them so how many how many people in total passed 32? 32 people lost their lives. And is that... Go ahead, sorry. Oh, no, no, no.

I was going to say, do you know... I don't know if you know this, but does that include everyone, including the people that went missing with the suction under the water? Yes. Like, okay. Yes. My God. So others that they found were waiting on one deck and were told to walk back through the sinking ship to another deck to access the remaining lifeboats.

But while trying to navigate the treacherous halls, they were sucked into flooded elevator shafts by moving water and were drowned. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That's awful. Oh my god, oh my god, that's awful. One waiter who worked aboard the ship drowned while helping passengers escape, and yet another man died after giving up his spot on a lifeboat to someone else. Oh my god, that's horrible.

In the wake of this tragedy, survivors had other problems to face, because many of the crew came from disadvantaged circumstances and their families back home relied on these earnings they were making. And crew staff are often underpaid, work long hours and remain on ships for weeks or months at a time. One crew member said they were all paid in cash and with no way to deposit the cash when they were on sea, they would keep the cash in their lockers until they went home. So they lost six months of savings in the sinking. And that was meant to feed their family back home. Oh, my gosh.

So following the sinking, Giglio locals were commended for their assistance in the rescue efforts. There were almost four times as many people aboard the ship as there were residents of the island. So it required monumental community effort to support the survivors after the rescue, like to bring them in, get them food, shelter, water, like heat. And so they were definitely commended for that. Although Francesco, of course, maintained his innocence and insisted he simply fell into a lifeboat. He became, of course, a social pariah and was blamed for the entire incident. Yeah. Costa and its parent company, Carnival, were happy to use him as a scapegoat, despite their own failures during the incident.

It also turned out there was no protocol which required the captain to have route changes approved. So technically, Francesco hadn't even violated any rules when he diverted toward the island. So like wild, he wasn't even breaking the rules at that point. Still, he and several officers had carelessly endangered thousands of lives and then failed to react at all, according to emergency standards. And the reality, which is the sad part of this, the extra sad part, is that the crew had plenty of time to get everybody safely off the ship. Everyone could have survived. Everyone could have survived, especially considering how close they were to shore.

Not a single person needed to die, but the captain's failure to act the lack of organization failed everyone on board and even the people who did survive like think about if you have kids with you like how traumatizing especially like you don't know if you're going to survive i mean this is like a life-threatening like yeah terrorizing experience so it's also been suggested that the presence of a non-paying passenger named Dominica Semortan played a role in the captain's response or lack thereof. This woman was a dancer that Francesco brought aboard because they were having an affair. Francesco brought aboard because they were having an affair. She was on the bridge during the sinking and was later caught on camera telling passengers to stop recording the incident because they weren't allowed to.

What? Okay. In July 2013. So basically they're saying he had this woman on board. They were having an affair and maybe he didn't want it to leak that he brought this woman on board without, you know, he brought basically his mistress aboard. He didn't want to get caught. No, he didn't want to get caught, exactly. In July 2013, five people were found guilty of manslaughter, negligence, and wrecking.

2013 five people were found guilty of manslaughter negligence and wrecking roberto ferrarini the costa crisis director received a two-year 10-month sentence several officers were also sentenced to serve prison time as well as jacob the helmsman but jacob fled italy to indonesia to escape prison time francesco insisted that jacob's error was the cause for the crash, which like. I would argue that's one small piece of a much bigger issue. Yeah. And once again, he blamed his lack of language skills, but he was giving commands in English and the ship's language was Italian. So that's a bullshit excuse. So that's a bullshit excuse. But a naval admiral testified that no matter how Jacob steered, once the ship was on the course that it was on, the one that the captain himself had set, it was doomed to crash no matter what they did. So basically, his initial directive was the worst cruise disaster since the 1912 sinking of the Titanic.

And that was almost exactly 100 years earlier. Oh, my God. And he had even said in that interview, I would hate to captain a ship like the Titanic where there's no technology to help avoid disaster. Right. It's just wild to me. The irony. It is so ironic. So Francesco was found guilty and ultimately sentenced to 16 years in prison, which he is still serving in Rome. Good. And that is the story of the Costa Concordia. Wow. Certainly a

wild story. Very, I don't know what to say. Just sad. You know, it's sad and it's horrible because you really trust someone like a captain of a ship. I mean, what else can you do as a passenger? You trust the person in charge who's supposed to have your safety at top priority. supposed to have your safety at like top priority it's also it could be really an easy transition into um like talks about like conforming to authority and like things like that and i mean like just because someone's wearing a white coat doesn't know that they i mean i'm not trying to like poo-poo all doctors but there there is a significant amount of people who will just blindly follow whatever someone in authority has to say to you and there have been a few times where even with my veins right now it's like i know a doctor is telling me that things are wrong but like i'm gonna get a second opinion because

just because they're a doctor how how do i know that they actually pay attention that day in vein school you know like yes totally and and it's dangerous here to think like on a ship you don't really have a second opinion you know and if if a ship ship is sinking and you don't know what to do because you're a lay person you look to the captain like who else are you gonna look like you don't even have a choice yeah you don't have there's no plan b either you listen to the captain or maybe either you do or you don't and either you survive or you don't have there's no plan B. Either you listen to the captain or maybe either you do or you don't. And either you survive or you don't. Yes. And even if even if you take it upon yourself, you follow the people jumping off the ship and then get sucked under and die.

You don't know you don't know about water suction and reptiles and things like that. So it's like you were supposed to be guided to safety and you were left to your own devices. It's very, very very very very very tragic um just like how this could be an example on like following authority it which by the way like i was not trying to like victim blame there it's just an interesting no no i understand because it's like that's that's when it becomes dangerous you know this like people in authority that's when it can become so dangerous it's also um i mean i don't think it would surprise anyone here that listens to us but it would also be a really interesting example to

you know the male fragility of pride and like yeah oh you're a captain and you messed up and you're afraid to admit it and how far are you willing to go before you ask for help and apparently 32 deaths is still not the answer so isn't that horrible it's like not one person needed to die well man what a disappointment i know i know it was fun to start in good spirits with you christine i know it always is isn't it um well i will tell you this uh what i have some fun um little quiz a a true crime related personality quiz for you for our after chat um what are we calling it i meant to write in we we polled uh patreon we got some great names um you and i like

the same ones i remember on Slack. Oh, good. But I'm trying to remember. Uh, closing time. After hours. I think last call is good too. Last call, the hangover or something. I think last call or after hours. I like last call or cause closing time just makes me think of that song and it'll get stuck in everyone's head.

I think maybe after hours cause it's an homage to our after chats. Okay. Okay. After hours. Yes. I love it. Oh, okay. Great.

Cool. Cool. I was just picturing it in my mind's eye. And that's why we drink. After hours. Yeah. I love it. Oh, great. I love it.

We can do a little neon sign. After hours. Yeah. Okay. I love it. it after hours i'm writing in here on slack after hours it is even though nobody knows we're like even talking about it okay well if you're on patreon and even following our after chats apparently now we are turning it into after hours and uh probably because they are after chats turn into multiple hours um but if you'd like to go listen to this week's after chat um you can do that i will be giving em a personality quiz about uh true crime excellent and then i guess next week it'll be my turn to prompt you with something i can't wait okay and that's why we drink