So... Alright - Cruisin

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

Geoff takes a cruise, then writes this description in third person. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit PCFinancial.ca for details. Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum I am back and I am feeling fantastic, which has not been the case for a while. When I last checked in with you, it was four in the morning. I was jet lagged.

I was about to get back on a plane. I did do that. I survived that trip. However, on the way back from that trip, I got violently ill. I was violently ill for about four days. And then, well, I was violently ill for about four days. And then, well, I was violently ill for three days and then maybe not so violently ill for a day

and then very tender for a couple of days. But today I woke up feeling, yesterday I was like 95%, 90%. Today I feel like 110% for the first time. I feel fucking great. I'm very excited to finally feel like 110% for the first time. I feel fucking great. I'm very excited to finally feel like myself again and to have energy and to be sitting down to you to do a So Alright with a little bit of energy for once.

So much has gone on in the last week, even though I haven't been at my best, let's say. Lot of regulation stuff. As a matter of fact, if you wanna hear the story about my violent illness I know this is my podcast to tell you stories about my life but it's uh, I Told it really well on the regulation podcast. I think so I believe it's

episode 50 and I out the gate I tell it it's probably a 25 minute story, full of color and all kinds of disgusting details. So if you're interested in that, I encourage you to go listen to episode 50 of the regulation podcast, at least the first 25 minutes or so, because that'll give you a better story than I'll be able to recapture here right now in the moment. And so I'd rather you guys hear it the right way than me trying to remember all the details now of almost a week after I told it last time.

My memory don't work so good no more. Not when it comes to telling detailed stories. However, I promised you last time we spoke that I would probably put my thoughts together and get back to you about this vacation. I just went on through Greece and the Greek islands and then through the Turkish coast and then up into Istanbul.

Started in Athens, ended in Istanbul. Went to a coffee shop this morning for the first time in three weeks, not going to a coffee shop, but the first time I did my ritual, which is to go sit down at a coffee shop with my laptop and my notes and headphones in, not listening to anything just to block out the world and just dive into soul, right?

I missed it and I had a blast doing it. However, I discovered that my notes over this vacation are so fragmented and varied and all over the place that I don't know how I'm gonna tell any kind of a cogent story. There's also so much to talk about. And a lot of what I wanna talk about is history that I learned, the history that I learned, because you know,

I was at Ephesus, I was at the Parthenon, I was in the Blue Mosque, I was in the cisterns under the city of Istanbul, I was in old castles. I went to the underwater museum. I went to the Oracle at Delphi. Like I did all of these insane and awesome things and each one of them could be their own episode. So I don't know how I'm going to put it all together. But looking over my notes, I think the thing that makes the most sense

is for me to do a little bit of research. I came home with a reading list that I got from the different tour guides and books that were mentioned that sounded really interesting to me. So let me just tell you my homework from my vacation. These are the books that I bought today on Amazon that I'll be reading. And as I read them,

I will dive into the things that I found so fascinating about the history of Greece and the history of Turkey. I bought the trilogy about Byzantine by John Julius Norwich. It's just called Byzantium Trilogy. And it was hard to find. I had to buy used copies on Amazon. The three books, just fair warning,

the three books together cost me $167. However, I fell in love with Istanbul to such a degree that I gotta read them. I don't care, I fell in love with Istanbul to such a degree that I gotta read them. I don't care, I gotta read it. I also bought the memoirs of Hadrian and I bought Inside Hitler's Greece. Holy shit, I learned a lot about Greece in World War II.

Heartbreaking and inspiring and fascinating. So once I read those three books, or I guess that's a trilogy, and so once I read those five books, or I guess that's a trilogy, and so once I read those five books, or as I'm reading them, I'll do episodes here about particular things. Today, I think we'll just start at where it started. I started on a cruise ship.

I'd never taken a cruise before in my life. I will be honest. I've never wanted to take a cruise. They don't look fun to me. The idea of being trapped, I like boats, I love boats. My retirement plan, which I don't know if I've ever, I don't know if I've ever expressed this in content via Rooster Teeth or Regulation or here or anywhere else.

I must have at some point. But my very quiet, it's gonna sound really dumb and really lame. But my very quiet desire is to retire someplace. And I realize Michigan's not going to give me this probably. Maybe if I end up somewhere on the coast of one of the lakes, but like not Lake St. Clair, where I'll probably end up. It doesn't seem to have it, what I'm looking for. But I would like to get up, walk from my house down to a dock. And not like, don't, think like what Cannery Row was in the book,

not what it is now. If you go to Cannery Row now, there's a Bubba Gump shrimp, there's theme parky stuff, there's like a Ripley's, and it's just like a tourist attraction. But a working servicing dock where boats are going out to fish and commerce is happening, right? And sit on a bench and just watch the ships, as the song says, watch the ships roll out

and watch the ships roll in. I may sound boring or silly or lame, but it's what I wanna do. I wanna smell saltwater air and I wanna watch people head out at five in the morning to go fishing, whether in big commercial trawlers or two dudes in a little fishing boat. I want to watch the day beginning and end

at a port or a dock that's in use commercially, that's in use for more than just tourism. Think, if you've ever been there, think Astoria, Oregon. Whole little town, and this is the Goonies town, right? The kindergarten cop town, the short circuit town. Filmed a lot of movies in the 80s there very briefly and you can still see like the kindergarten cop school. The kindergarten cop school you can walk to,

you can walk from the kindergarten cop school to the Goonies house. It's fucking wild in your head when you start to put all that mythology together. Mythology, you know what I mean. I had grease on the brain. Think of that town, you walk, the whole little town is up on a hill looking out over the water

and you can just watch people go about their day working in and around the water and that's desperately what I want and I don't think it's something that I'm gonna achieve until much later in life. Probably, hopefully I'll get there in my 70s. But I just wanna be in a sleepy little coastal town. Makes the most sense probably in Northern California.

The God knows I'll never be able to afford that. So maybe somewhere on the East Coast, I don't know. And it could happen, inland, it could happen in a place like Michigan. But I do feel like it kind of needs to be saltwater. I don't know. There's just something about that. You know, all of the different commercial smells

that are kind of wonderful and hideous and gross all at the same time. It just makes up this. Unbeatable, for lack of a better word, ambiance. And I've had it on vacations a little bit here and there where I've gotten to go kind of play out this fantasy. And it is, well, it may not be your fantasy, but it's mine, right? And so I do love the water and I love boats

and I love swimming and I'm not scared of deep water or the ocean. I don't wanna be water adjacent. I wanna be in the ocean. I don't want to be water adjacent. I want to be in the water. I don't want to be a sailor, necessarily. I don't want to command the seas, but I do like to be in and around them. But for some reason, a cruise seemed like a nightmare to me. Being trapped on a boat with a bunch of people, you don't know that you have to

essentially exist around socially because there's only 300 or 5,000 people on the boat, depending on how large your cruise ship is. And the whole idea of pulling into a port, I was seeing Key West sometimes when the big cruise ships roll in. Key West could potentially be a great place for me to have this fantasy,

although it's a little hot down there. And you know, it's very Florida, which works against it for me personally. But for whatever reason cruises do not or did not appeal to me. Oh yeah, I was talking about how you always see the people like humping off the cruise, going down the gangplank, and then going out into a city, into a place.

And then four hours later, they're running back because the boat's gonna take off, and it just seems like a lame way to see stuff. Well, let me tell you, after spending 10 or 11 days on a cruise ship in Europe, I no longer feel that way. I'm a cruise ship guy. I think I am. Now, I should preface it by saying,

I was on a very small cruise ship. It didn't feel small though. It's dwarfed by these giant, what is the biggest cruise ship? World's biggest cruise ship. I was on a, I think it's Windstar ship. It's pretty small. The Icon of the Seas is the world's largest cruise ship.

So operated by Royal Caribbean International. It weighs 248,663 gross tons, measures 1,200 feet long. So Icon of the Seas, and God damn, it looks like a floating town. The Icon of the Seas has a capacity of 7,600 passengers and then 2,300 crews. So, you know, there's 10,000 people on that boat. There were 240 plus crew on my boat,

so maybe 350 people max on my boat. Was that Windstar, is that what it was called? Let me look that up. I don't know why you guys. Yeah, Windstar. It wasn't a Windstar cruise I was on. was called? Let me look that up. I don't know why you guys. Yeah, Windstar. It wasn't a Windstar cruise I was on. I was on a different company's cruise, but they had a partnership with Windstar.

So that was kind of interesting. Like 75 of us on the boat were a part of something different and the other people were a part of Windstar stuff. So we had different rules. Our stuff was all inclusive. There's wasn't, so I could use room service every day, which by the way is fucking awesome if you can use room service every day, which by the way is fucking awesome if you can use room service every day

and it doesn't cost anything. But throughout the course of being on this boat, I fell in love with it, I really did. And let me tell you what it is that's awesome in my estimation about being on a cruise. First off, I did one of these sort of adventure trips a couple years ago where we went to Italy. We started up in Lake Cuomo

and then we made our way down to Rome. And so some days you'd be in a bus, some days you'd be on a little boat, some days you'd be on a train, but you were constantly spending a day here, two days here, a day here. It's just cool, but you're checking into and out of hotels every single day,

which is fucking stressful I hate to say it. What's awesome about a cruise is We moved in and we unpacked we were able to hang up all of our clothes and put them in drawers and essentially hide our Suitcases under the bed and we had a little sitting area and even like a little door You could open up to get some breeze of called a deck but you couldn't fit two people on it, shoulder to shoulder, like it was really tiny. But more than anything, it was just like a big window

you could open up to get some fresh breeze. But you have a little home and I instantly fell in love with that because we left from Athens after spending a couple of days there. I think the first place we went through was, well, we had to go through the Corinth Canal. I don't know if you are familiar with the Corinth Canal.

It's a big deal to pass through it. You actually get a little pin. I have a little pin saying that I traversed the Corinth Canal. It's a canal in Greece that connects the Gulf of Corinth to the Ionian Sea, which is in the Cerronic Gulf, I think. Yeah, a G in sea. Anyway, this thing is dug right through the Isthmus

at sea level and it has no locks or anything. Like think about the Panama Canal. It's just like this narrow strip that's carved out of this mountain with a, let's see, it says, it's four miles long and it's 80.7 feet wide at sea level. And so the boat had two meters of space on either side. So about six feet of space on either side that was free.

So you couldn't like quite reach out and touch the rock on the other side, the walls as you will. But if you had like a broom handle, you might've been able to, but it was like incredibly narrow and you go through it very slowly. And I mean, this thing has been around since seventh century B.C. There were a million different ways that they tried to dig this thing out and use it. And then they built bridges over it that failed. And it's just been this fascinating plot of land

that sailors have been navigating and dealing with. And ancient architects, not like in the, you know, history channel alien type ancient architects, but ancient architects who were trying to do very real things have been trying to navigate and increase in size and use for many, many, many years. The modern canal though, I think it's been around since the 1800s. And it's really neat.

So the first thing we did is go through there, regardless. That's just as an aside. I wanna say we spent like a day at sea at that point, which is also just super relaxing. These boats have these gyros on them that keep the thing pretty steady, you know? And the boat was five stories, I want to say, which is another thing, by the way,

it's a surreal experience. When you're in the hallways, it just feels like you're in a hotel hallway. And then you, I'm sorry, the boat was eight stories. Then you take an elevator. You can take an elevator up and down while you're in the ocean, which is a trippy, heady thing. But it's so stable, you really don't feel the ocean much.

At night, maybe if you're looking at the curtains, you can see them move a little bit and you get kind of a gentle sway. But I didn't get nauseous once. I had one of those patches behind my ear just to be safe, and that might've, it might've worked so well I didn't get nauseous, but I didn't get the sense that I would've at any point either.

It's just, it's a pretty smooth experience. But we go through and then, oh, the first place we went to was Delphi. We went to the Oracle of Delphi, which is one of the more beautiful places I've been in my entire life. And I didn't really know much about the Oracle of Delphi other than the name and seeing it referenced or mentioned, but fascinating story.

It's basically this lady who was just getting high off her ass all day long, hanging out by this little brook up in the mountains. And then people would come from all over the known world at that time to ask her, you know, what land should we conquer next? What direction should we look to grow in? Where do we build our next settlement? And she would give some. Intentionally vague answer that could be interpreted one way, but then if they go and they try it and it doesn't work,

they come back pissed off. She can go, no, no, you misinterpreted what I said. Flip it around. Yeah, you got it wrong. So she could technically never be wrong. But anyway, they were so impressed by this that they're just building temples to her and they're giving all these gifts.

And so there's all these, you know, 5,000 year old structures and crumbling buildings and excavations going on all around it on this mountainside overlooking one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my entire life. And I felt this a lot throughout the trip. I felt, I'll probably get into this more at some other point, but I felt this a lot throughout the trip. I felt, I'll probably get into this more at some other point, but I felt such a profound

and genuine connection to humanity on this trip. This trip, the point of this trip was to go through the birthplace of Western civilization essentially, which is what they call Greece and Turkey as well for that matter, because it's so intertwined. And you feel it, you genuinely feel it. Like I don't feel a lot of connection to common man. I'm not a, other than in a everyday kind of way, you know,

but I don't feel a huge connection to history, let's say. I'm not religious and so I don't have that connection in the way that a lot of people do, I guess. But going to the Parthenon and looking down over an old theater, and then you find out, oh, that's the first theater. It's debatable. It's either the first or second theater, but they believe it's the first theater ever. And you're like, well, what does that mean? They're like, well, that's where they invented theater, the concept of theater. And you get a sense of true history

when you can visually see it built, civilizations built on top of civilizations, built on top of civilizations, reusing elements from old civilizations to be built on top of civilizations. And there are many instances where you go to places like the Parthenon or the Underwater Museum or wherever the fuck you go, right?

Ephesus is a real heady place to go. And you can just see it. I walked down a road that's still there, still impressive, that fucking Cleopatra and Julius Caesar both walked down. And I don't know why that Blew me away, but that blew me away. It was a port town. I'm talking about a thesis which is in Cusidasi anyway, and you go and you stand there and you genuinely

They have a mount a side of a hill in a thesis that's been uncovered and under it they found what are the equivalent of like rich people mansions from, I don't know, fifth century BC. And as they uncover it, you see plumbing, running water. They're so, they were so elegant. You see these beautiful art frescoes of people going about their life or monkeys or tigers or these other creatures that they've heard about or discovered and the art is still there.

It was preserved by all the earth and everything that covered it and it's beautiful and you realize that you're a part of something that's unbroken. You know, I think that's the thing that's maybe the most fascinating to me about the whole deal is that they invented democracy in Greece. I don't know exactly how long ago when was. All right. Democracy was invented in sixth century BC. So around 508 or 507 BC.

So think about that. Think about how long ago 507 BC is. And that was where democracy was born. That wasn't where those civilizations were born, right? Democracy is what they came up with as they figured out how to exist and coexist and create complex societies that fed into other complex societies where they created philosophy and all these brilliant and aspirational ways to live and interact. It on a daily basis just floored me being in these places and feeling the gravity of that unbroken chain of humanity. You don't

get this. Even when I went to Italy and we're going through Rome and Florence and all these old museums and you're seeing David and you're seeing all these, you know, amazing paintings and sculptures and you're getting a sense of that history. It's all 3000 years old, right? And you're like, wow, that's so old. You go to Greece and you're getting a sense of that history, it's all 3,000 years old, right? And you're like, wow, that's so old. You go to Greece and you're like, wow, that's nothing. This is so much older. And I guess to go even older,

if I wanted to explore even more history and earlier history, I'd have to go to Egypt and probably China, and maybe I'll be lucky enough in my life to do that at some point, because I have never been more interested in humans and my place in humanity in that unbroken line as I was every single day I woke up. And now, you know, Greece may have invented democracy,

and I'm talking a lot about like that moment in time, they lost it a bunch over and over again. They conquered, they were conquered, they had some fucking brutal times. It was a constant struggle and a constant fight, but in the end, democracy always won back out. They may not have it for 400 years under, you know, some Ottoman rule or some other rule,

but they got it back and they always fought and they always eventually resurrected and continued that line. I don't want to get hung up on democracy itself, although I think it is what it should be and what it started as. It's the fair rule for the people by the people through elected representatives. In theory, it's the most equitable way to create and run a society. And I'm not trying to have a discussion

about the philosophy of democracy then versus now and the injection of capitalism into democracy and what that's done. I'm not trying to enter into that discussion at all. I'm just trying to illustrate that watching how hard Greece fought for it and has continued to fight for it is really aspirational. But you just, if you've been there, I assume,

maybe you could even, you know, send me an email at ericatjeffsboss.com if you've been to these places in Greece or Turkey and you Understand what I'm talking about I'm sure you can put your thoughts far more eloquently into words than I'm than I'm capable of right now But I was impressed every day at every ruin every archaeological dig site every every bit of it just dripped

the Awesomeness of humanity. Also the terrible nature of humanity. There's a lot of bad, there's a whole lot of death, there's a whole lot going on in this very complicated history of the world that I just went through. But at the end of the day, it's just fascinating. And to be able to see it and be able to stand in it, it feels different.

I don't know, it really does. I wonder if the Greek people have something really special in their DNA, something really special getting to be there and to be from there and to live amongst that and to be able to see the hallmarks of this rich history all around you and to live in cities that are, you know,

mixes of ancient, old, and modern, all together, existing, ancient, old, and modern, all together, existing, and shedding light on the past, and revering it, and also being honest about a lot of it. They're pretty pragmatic, the way they explain the history and stuff over there. And then also an interesting thing too, you got to enough museums over there, you realize how much shit,

how much shit got taken away from there. There's so much in the museums, like in Athens, you go to a museum and there'll just be a hole on a wall and a little plaque there, say like, this is where this important statue would be if you wanna see it, go to the British Museum. There's a lot of that. And you really

understand how much was taken out of Greece and those areas over the years, how much was pillaged and hopefully I know that they are trying very hard to recover a lot of their very historical and important artifacts. And I hope that they're able to continue because when you go to the birthplace of democracy in and Western civilization You can't see half of the relics because they're in other museums in other countries because they were ransacked it's uh You start to understand that a little bit too. You know what I mean, but we're supposed to just be talking about ships and cruises and The thing that I thought I would hate getting off the boat and doing three hours in a place

and then getting back on the boat, turns out I loved. It really was awesome to be able to pull into port at Bodrum, Turkey, a little coastal beach town at the tip of the Turkish Riviera, which I'm desperate to go back to someday. And Bodrum might've been my favorite place out of everywhere I went.

Bodrum and maybe Santorini. Santorini was very cool, too and Go get lunch we had right on the water this pizza restaurant that I walked by it I was overwhelmed by how good it smelled and It was one of the best experiences. They had this Like hot they had this like spicy olive oil with peppers in it that you could drizzle out

over your pizza that was, I've, I had some fucking flavors over there, let me tell you. But to be able to do that and to do a little bit of shopping and to go tour a museum or whatever and then get back on the boat, your boat, where you live, where all your stuff is put away in drawers, where you have laundry service, and you feel like you live there for a little while,

and then you go to bed on that boat after getting dinner, and you wake up the next day, and you're at a different island, you're like, oh cool, Lemnos, let's see what Lemnos is all about. So I finally get it, I get cruises, if you're like me, or like I was, and have just always kind of obtusely said, no, that's not for me, that looks lame. I don't think that'll be interesting.

I'm sure some of those bigger cruises, the icon of the seas may be amazing. I don't have, never had the experience of a large cruise. So I tell you what, I'm way more open to the thought of it now than I was four weeks ago. But you know, I guess I'll fall into the don't knock it till you try it camp. Because I was genuinely blown away.

There were, I don't know, five restaurants on the boat. Like a seafood restaurant, like a steak restaurant, like a buffet style restaurants. There, like a regular sit down fancy restaurant. And so you get a little bit of variety and then the whole time there's room service. You can be like, you know what? I just want a hamburger.

I'll just have it delivered to the room. There were little common areas, clubs, if you will. There's bars everywhere. I obviously don't drink so that was lost on me, but a lot of places to socialize. Every night they had trivia and the family, because I was there with Emily's family, we would all get together.

There were six of us. We would go and we would compete in trivia. I think we did it five nights and we won three times, maybe, or we did it four nights and we won twice. I don't remember exactly, but there were bands that just played music all the time. They would have barbecues for lunch out on the deck. There were a couple of hot tubs.

There was a swimming pool. I thought I would spend a lot more time in those. I got into the hot tub and the swimming pool on day two and not again at any point, not for any other reason than I was just having fun doing other stuff. I didn't feel cramped. I didn't feel like I was on top of people and they were on top of me.

I didn't feel, most importantly, most importantly, I didn't feel trapped. I thought I would feel trapped and I didn't at any point. I really, I don't know, man. It's a really interesting way to see the world. And there's a lot of river cruises you can do. There's one down the Danube that I would love to do. I think there's a bunch of river cruises up in Norway

that seem pretty awesome going through fjords and stuff. I wanna do another one, I really do. I would love to hear from someone specifically who's been on a small cruise and a large cruise and can kind of compare and contrast the experiences. I'd love to know your impressions because I know I now have you know the A data and I need I want to hear your B data on what a larger cruise is like because I'm super intrigued. I liked everything that I thought I would hate about it. I genuinely liked and it wasn't a problem. Was the food the best I've ever had in my life? Not really, but it was decent. It was okay, you know.

It was better than average and the buffet style, like every lunch I had was a buffet on the boat. And those were great because I would just make big ass salads of everything that I wanted and then I would just go to town on those. And there was other stuff. They made tacos one day for lunch that were pretty good and so you'd mix and match here and there. But food was was largely good. The accommodations, like I said, were good. Those common areas where you could go and sit at the bar and drink if that's your thing

or do trivia or sometimes they would have lectures. You could go sit in on like, you know, the history of Constantinople or, you know, Byzantium or whatever. By the way, how many cities have had the fortune of having three just banger names back to back to back? Byzantium is an awesome name for a civilization and then it becomes Constantinople, which is an awesome name for a city. And then it becomes Istanbul, which is equally awesome.

Like each name is as cool as the last. That's pretty impressive. I would love to go back to these places in the summer because it was pretty cold in April. I was surprised at how cold Istanbul was in general. And you know, we went to Mykonos and Santorini, these Greek islands that are beachy vacation destinations. And the cool thing about being there in the off season

is that they're empty. Other than locals, you know, we were the only cruise ship there. We were the only tour groups there. So we kind of had the islands to ourselves, which was really nice because you feel like you get a sense of what life is like in the, when the tourists leave. Very cool. Even a lot of the, they had just, actually they just had a lot of floods there. And so, uh, especially in Santorini and Meekinose, a lot of the infrastructure and stuff still being repaired. There were some buildings that didn't have electricity while we were there yet.

They were, uh, they were, but most of the stuff was just, you know, businesses and shops were opening up late because they were playing catch up from these crazy rains that they've had. You learn so much about the climate there and how dry those places are. And then all the, I got to find all this fascinating information about like how they live on these islands that, you know,

don't have natural water supplies or don't have nearly enough. I believe it's, Mykoninos has these five cisterns and they talk about how they truck water in on Santorini. And it's I don't know. It's fucking cool. And they're beautiful. And. It seems like a really, at least in the off season, a really relaxing and mellow and beautiful way

to live on those islands. But I'll be honest, I was going down a thread and I have gone down so many off ramps, I'm not sure where I was trying to get back to right now. But I guess it probably laddered up to I'm just interested in cruises. I'm interested in other cruises, not so interested in themed cruises or anything, you know, like if you went on a Star Trek. Actually, I am. If you went on a Star Trek. Actually, I am. If you went on a Star Trek cruise or, you know, a wrestling cruise

or a heavy metal cruise or a furry cruise, or I've been reading a lot about cruises, I'd be interested to know what that experience is like to like a fandom cruise or an enthusiast cruise. But mostly, I just want to I just want to know about cruises in general. You know, if you've ever been on the fence about going on a cruise like this, I recommend it. I think you'll be surprised. It's not all the things that I thought I would hate about it were just not present.

You know, I also figured that I would be annoyed by the people on the boat and I would hate the other cruise patrons. But that was not the case. Everybody was pretty lovely. And honestly, one of the coolest things I did was in one of those common areas, they have games, right? They have tons of board games and and all kinds of ways to entertain yourself. And I thought we I had even brought a couple of games about one night werewolf. I thought it would be really fun to teach Emily's family

one night werewolf and play that. But we didn't get to it because they had puzzles and we would just have these big ass tables and we would just put out a puzzle and get to working on a thousand piece puzzle. And then you'd walk away for a while and come back and somebody else will have worked on it for a little bit. And then you go eat dinner and go to bed

and you get up the next day and you come down and the puzzle's halfway done or it's done and somebody started another and this whole idea of these like constant communal puzzles. I participated in like seven different puzzles while I was there. There actually was a couple who I talked to a little bit. I would love to have talked to them more. They were speed puzzling duo and they compete constantly and I watched them. They those fuckers did a 500 piece puzzle so fast. It was really impressive. And they got me really excited about the idea

of puzzling competitively. I really lit a fire under me for that and so I really kinda wanna look into that a little bit more and start learning, not only, well really learning how to do puzzles faster. For me, puzzling has been a therapeutic and relaxing and calming endeavor, but I would love,

I'd love to sprinkle a little bit of competition into that. I'd love to see how fast I can get, you know, we did the puzzle competition and competition in regulation, kind of, the other guys didn't compete. I think I did my 1,000 piece, no, I did my 500 piece puzzle in about four hours, which is not fast enough. They told me they saw somebody do a 500, or maybe it was a team, do a 500 piece puzzle in like 24 minutes, which blows my mind. I think that's maybe some sort of a record.

But I think I could get my 500 piece puzzle down to, I think I could cut that time in half probably. Especially depending on the puzzle. Would that be enough to compete? Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. But I like the idea of testing myself and seeing how much faster and better I can get at it. And then, you know, I can always do a puzzle slowly

if I feel like it. I don't have to do it quickly. I don't have to lose that therapeutic edge, you know, by turning it into something competitive. But Idol Time on I was never bored. I was never bored on the cruise. I never ran out of stuff to do. You know, there's internet. So I had my phone. I still was connected to the world. Emily and I were able to keep up with like Survivor and stuff on the laptop. So it was really cool. Have you ever been on a Winstar cruise specifically when there's small boat cruises?

I'd love to know that as well. Or if you can recommend others. I hear the Norwegian cruise line is really good. I hear Viking is really good. Some people said that Oceania is as good as it gets. I don't know. I'd love to know that because I want to do this experience again Not anytime soon. I don't want to get in a plane again anytime soon

I'm exhausted after all the travel the flight home the 20-hour flight home with the 15 hours of rest then flying back out Of town again for a day and then coming home sick and then being sick for a week that it took a lot out of my Desire to do it again anytime soon. But someday when I'm ready, I wanna get back on another cruise. And I'd love to know what cruises are out there and what are available and what other interesting places I can go and learn about. Because man, Greece and Turkey, you have a fan in Jeff Ramsey.

I love your countries. Oh, another cool thing about Turkey. I really gotta read these books and then do recaps on the history because most of what I was interested in was just like, you know, 2,500 year history here, 7,000 year history there, 1,400 year history there, 4,000 year history there, and it's all different.

But one of the coolest things about Istanbul in general is, and I didn't know this going in, it is the kind of not like exactly split down the middle, but kind of, it's a big ass city, right? There's 16 million people that live in Turkey, or sorry, 16 million people that live in Istanbul. And our guide was telling us that if it takes about two and a half hours

to drive from one end of the city to the other, it's that large. Through Istanbul is the dividing line between Europe and Asia. And so Istanbul is the eastern most part of Europe and also the westernmost part of Asia. And those two cultures just kind of sandwiched right into the middle of this amazing city of Istanbul. And you can feel the influence from both sides everywhere you go.

And it's this amalgamation of old and ancient and new and I don't know what I expected. I don't really know if I expected anything, but every expectation was blown away. Really fascinating places and I can't recommend them enough. If you could only go to one, Greece or Turkey, I recommend Turkey, but you'd be hard-pressed to have a bad time in either location All right At the RIT let me let me go over my notes just to make sure I'm not missing any okay here Like here's a couple little things. I really loved Visny I don't know if you're familiar with that. It is a drink over there. It's a sour cherry drink

Visne I believe is how it's spelled if you ever get a chance to try it, you gotta try it. It's fucking awesome. They have so many little drinks and teas and tinctures. And, oh, by the way, also, it's a great place to be sober. It's a great, because it's 98% Muslim in Istanbul. And so there is drinking and the cities like Bodrum and Kusadasi, they have the coastal cities are all pretty Western and that they have a lot of bars and stuff. And that's cool. That's fine.

I don't avoid that stuff, but it's cool to not have to worry about it. You know what I mean? Like everything they give you is alcohol free. So you don't have to be like, I'm sorry, is there alcohol in this? Which is something I have to do constantly throughout my life, right? And it takes that load off immediately when you get to Istanbul, which I really appreciated. But try the Visney and man, try anything they give you.

If you've never heard of it and they tell you it's good, it's good, it's really fucking good. Sorry, going through my notes here. I learned that the word gymnasium translates to place of the naked people, and that gymnasiums used to be places not only for you to go and work out your body, but also your mind, because they, especially in ancient Greece,

they prized the physical and the mental equally, and so they wanted you to go to a gymnasium to learn, you know, to get in shape physically, but also to to learn and to become wiser and smarter, which is kind of a cool idea. Like a YMCA in a library all in one, but everybody's naked. Anyway, I'm running long, so I should probably wrap it up here and say that I'm a cruise guy. I love the history of Turkey, the history of Greece. Uh,

it was awesome, like awesome, but also like in the truest sense of the word awesome to stand amongst all of that history and to get to learn about it and to feel my connection to it. And I highly recommend anybody if they have the opportunity to go to one or either of both of those places places if you got to pick one I know I would probably pick turkey, but I'd be lucky to go back to either place and a couple notes here I talked about growing up in Beaverton a while back and

Somebody asked if I knew what streets I lived on and I said I didn't but my mom does. She contacted me and let me know that the two streets I lived on, I don't know the addresses but for those of you in Beaverton who wanted a little bit more information I lived on Camille Terrace and I lived on Settler Way. So those were the two streets where I lived in houses growing up, probably from 1980 to 1983, I wanna say, so from five to eight or so. I lived on those two streets in Beaverton, Oregon. I finished Love Never Lies Poland and immediately jumped into Love Never Lies Sardinia,

which I watched sick in bed the entire season in a day and a half. I'm a huge fan of this Love Never Lies Sardinia, which I watched sick in bed the entire season in a day and a half. I'm a huge fan of this Love Never Lies show on Netflix. I think that there's another one in Spain, there's maybe one in South Africa, and then I might be all out of them. I thought there was one in India, but I guess there's not. I must've misread that. But if you've never seen Love Never Lies

and you're looking for a salacious reality TV show that can also be heartwarming in the end. It's a pretty good one. I owe you guys. Oh, you know what else? Before I go, right before I started this podcast to wet my whistle, I grabbed a diet Dr. Pepper or a Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar Blackberry. I saw it at the grocery store.

I love blackberries and I love distracting myself with new sodas. I thought I'd do the taste test on camera. So it's just been sitting here open for a half an hour. I keep reaching for it and then reminding myself that I haven't tried it yet so I can't try it yet. So this is gonna be my unfiltered opinion. I'm a little scared. It's a purple Dr. Pepper can.

Something tells me that if it's intense, it'll be too much. So let's see. I medium recommend Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar Blackberry. I think I could drink one, a second one in the same 24 hour period would be too much, for sure. But it's okay, it's okay. It's no Visny, I'll tell you that. Now for a song of the day, so I can get out of here. Oh, somebody else asked me, you know,

I mentioned that I've kind of changed how I'm doing my baseball card collecting. And I'm instead focusing on getting a low grade PSA slabs of the hundred greatest baseball players of all time. And somebody in the comments or in an email asked me how many I'm up to. I'm up to 50 total cards, but some of them are dupes and other stuff.

So in terms of knocking out the top 100, I think I've gotten 28 of the top 100, my most recent being Al K. Lyon and Jim Palmer cards that I got, and I'm taking a break right now because I had to pay taxes and I don't have any room for new cards and I'll get back to it here and I don't have any room for new cards. And I'll get back to it here. I don't know, eventually, but really loving vintage card collecting and.

Really loving this chase. So I don't know if any of you out there collect vintage baseball cards, but if you do, you know what I'm talking about. Let's do a song of the episode. I think we will do actually, I I know what we're gonna do, because I bookmarked it earlier. It is by the techniques. I wish it would rain. Go ahead and listen to that old song, really fun song. I wish it would rain by the techniques. And then, I don't know, be good to yourself.

You've been you've been working, doing whatever it is you do. You've been busting your ass. You're a little exhausted. It's already been a tough year. You don't know if it's going to get any better. It will, I think, but either way, be nice to yourself this week. Do something nice for you. Take yourself on a little you date, buy yourself a treat, you know. Buy yourself a treat, you know? Cut yourself a little bit of slack and then come here next week and hang out with me. It's so all right. And we'll talk about, honestly, I don't know, but we'll talk about

something. And, uh, and I'll be looking forward to seeing you here. Thank you so much. I love you all. All right. This is the end of the show. What?