The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Iceland Travelogue, Plus Life Advice

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

Russillo documents his solo summer vacation to Iceland day by day (0:47), before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:19:12). Host: Ryen Russillo Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the six-part Icelandic travel podcast. So I guess you could check out my Instagram. I can put up some pictures there. Ryan Rosillo, pretty self-explanatory. I hope you enjoy it. I try to have some fun with it. I think it's a little less than an hour, and then we'll have a life advice at the end like we would in a normal episode. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared

and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping? Total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region.

See app for details. The Rosillo Road Trip, the first 24. I'm in Iceland. I've been here 24 hours. We're going to do morning updates after each 24 hours. The plan is I think seven nights. I check nothing. Uh, people wonder why I travel alone a lot. Um, probably cause I'd be brutal to travel with cause day to day. I'm not a hundred percent sure what the plan is to just get in the car and go, uh, why Iceland? Um, couple factors. Uh, I don't know. I think I saw a travel show once where I was like, Oh, that looks like a cool little fishing village. I don't know. I think I saw a travel show once where I was like, oh, that looks

like a cool little fishing village. I bet you that'd be like a great little artist retreat. Right. Like, yeah, you could probably just write at home. There was also a model that came to visit us in local radio, I believe 19 years ago. I do remember her name. I did look her up. years ago. I do remember her name. I did look her up. Um, it appears 20 years later, she has a family, which is weird. And so, um, yeah, I kind of was like, wow, is that the deal with Iceland? Which I think is pretty explanatory here. Uh, and then you also have, uh, the books that I've read, not some of the sagas of the fjords, but,omerang, Michael Lewis. I love The Big Shore. I like Boomerang better. There are different chapters about financial disasters around the world. And the one on Iceland is hilarious. It kind of plays into one of the things I despise about the

way the media works in that we constantly try to come up with a reason for a result that we can't explain. And so when Icelandic banking was the envy of the financial world, people were like, man, they just get it up there. Reykjavik, forget about it. They see all the signs, they're streamlined. There was also an argument that because the Icelandic line was more pure, that they were better at banking. Do you realize how insane that is after the fact? And obviously, like a lot of places, like, nope, it's actually just fraud. That's why the Krona, when you hand in, I think I did $1,000 US cash, it was supposed to be $130,000 in Kronas. And honestly, this is the rookiest move ever. I mean, you're better off buying a case of water at Hudson News than exchanging your currency at the airport.

Because they're like, no, don't you want to exchange more? And you're like, yeah, why don't I want to exchange more? You know, why not do a little bit more? It's because they hammer you on the rate and it's way worse. So whatever. Just guys sitting here with stacks of Corona on the way over. Flight in. You know, that's one of those moments where you're like, why don't I do this more often? I don't know if it just means why

don't I go to Reykjavik more often? Because from LA to Minneapolis, we know how we feel about the airports in Minnesota. Three hours, no problem. And then to Reykjavik, you're there five and a half hours later and you're thinking, what if I did meet somebody here? You know, and be like, well, look, yeah, you know, I don't know that I want to see you all the time, but it's only like five and a half hours. It's a good airport. Minneapolis, you'll like it. There are a lot of options if they're open. The Central Food Court, pretty good. Strong gift shops. I could do this every other month, the Reykjavik. What's the big deal? And then you land and you go, oh, wait, I'm in a foreign country. And it's not like I'm in Tanzania here.

90% of the people speak English. So this isn't some massive European international leap versus somewhere else in the world. But you land and you're like, oh, yeah, that's right. I don't know what's going on. And it's super inconvenient. And I'm in a foreign country. Get the rental car. Did not go cheap.

Went with the new Defender, Land Rover, figured, hey, I'm going to be driving. There was other options. I think one's called the Skoda Pass, the Duster, which felt a little bit like the book Eli, but I did not go with that one. And honestly, it wasn't that much more to get this. I was

100% convinced I was going to show up and it was going to be a Kia with a tire on the back being like, it said Land Rover or something similar. But no, they actually gave me the real guy here. So we're going to be doing a lot of driving. By the way, on the flight, the Von Dutch documentary from Hulu, highest of recommendations.

And one of my favorite stats of me ever is I didn't buy a Von Dutch hat. Like tattoos and cocaine, my generation just kind of missed that window. All right. Bad start. First 24 hours here. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. And a lot of it's on me. But that virtual day, I don't know, man. Some people can say like, oh, Navy SEALs, these guys will stay awake for two or three straight days. And I'm like awake a day and a half, but not even really, but it feels like that. And I'm

dying. And then you're like, well, how do the Navy SEALs do it? It's like, well, probably because they're afraid of getting shot. And I'm deciding whether or not I want to go look at a waterfall. So I think the motivation to keep yourself awake is slightly different for that, but I just didn't do well with it. Um, the first 24 and then because you get the car, it's like 8am and you can't check into the hotel where I'm expecting to stay in Reykjavik, which I booked like on the flight, uh, which again is my own deal day to day. Um, I was like, well, let's get this exploring on. And there's this inner circle to the east of Reykjavik and I'm hoping to do the entire outer circle around the entire country, which I don't know if I'll be able to pull off or not.

Efficiency, we're going to have to work on it. And so I'm like, let's do the exploring. So, I mean, it's Iceland. Wherever you're driving, it's gorgeous. You absolutely love it. And then I hit this like little countryside. And then I know these little tourist spots. Like I was trying to like before I go to the region, go, okay, what do I want to see here?

And then it's like a million people pulled over in this parking lot. You're like, all right, we got a lake here, cool ravine, volcanic crafting, if you understand the topography. And then that was P1. Shout out to the P1s. And then I pull up a little bit further. I'm like, okay, this one's called P2. What's going on at P2?

I walk in. The guy's trying to tell me, you know, P2, P2. I go, what do we got that waterfall I've been reading about? He goes, yeah, P2, done. A lot of yogurts and croissants just on the fly, trying to keep the caloric intake up. I know I'm going to lose a ton of weight just because I'm not eating like I normally would. And I hit this waterfall and it was like, you know, 10 minute hike. If that a million people, a million people, parking lot, everybody, you couldn't find a spot. And I'm kind of like, all right, this isn't really, this isn't really the plan. And then the flies out of control, like Java Chamberlain in Cleveland, just through the nostrils, swallowing a few here and there. Some people had nets on, on their faces. And at first you're like, oh my God, what's this guy doing? Florida would hate

this guy. And then you're like, where can I buy one of those nets? I had a fly stuck inside my eyelid for about 45 minutes. So I was like, you know what? Maybe I'll see if the hotel let me check in a little bit earlier. Cause we're not, we're not kicking ass right now. I get to Reykjavik, I get to the hotel. I have a burger at the restaurant at the hotel bar. The hotel bar restaurant was called La Cock. That's K-O-C-K. Pretty amazing deal. Roll in, order a burger,

and it was an NBA-themed setup. I know. It's crazy. 80s and 90s basketball cards, Pooh Richardson, shout out, John Koncak. They had cards on all the tables with plexiglass over the top of it. And then playing on the TV was the Steph Curry Oklahoma City game at OKC in 2016, where he hits the three from 30 plus feet. I think he had 46 in that game. Durant Westbrook on the other side. And that game was playing.

I was like, did they know I was coming? So Berger, and then I'm like, just stay awake, even though you're tired, and take it all in. Walk around Reykjavik. It's a gorgeous city, right on the water, but kind of slow. Felt a little slow. Temperature-wise, we're in the 50s, solid 50s.

I'll give it this, though. The air, it could be the placebo effect, but it's a bit like taking two, I don't know, Poland spring ice cubes and sticking them up your nostrils in the deepest breath ever. And you're like, this is the cleanest air I've ever smelled. And honestly, it should be right. So I don't think that that's just me playing to the, uh, to the crowd here. Uh, the guys let's size them up. Cause that's what you do for Massachusetts. You size up every dude you ever see.

I don't think that ever goes away. I can't quite figure out the best way to explain it yet because it's not just full blast Swede, like the Nordic thing where like that guy's good looking and he's 6'4". And we're like, no, look at that guy. He's 6'4 and a half and just as good looking. That's kind of what it felt like. Switzerland's entirely different. I think a lot of people screw that up. I like to make that joke. Icelandic people, they look insanely healthy. Kind of like when you watch

a surfer documentary and you're like, oh, those guys look pretty healthy. I'm like, yeah, they're just outside, sunshine, minerals, saltwater, whole deal. It would make sense that they'd be healthy, right? But these guys, they all look like they're ready to go for a hike. Maybe the best way to describe it because all the kids running around are as toehead as it gets. They all look like future bobsledders. Again, I don't know what that means, but it just kind of pops in my head. And then the men, a lot of bald guys here. So I'm telling you, if you want a bald paradise, you might want to look into it, but I think you have to give an explanation of why you would want to live here more than three months if you're out of the country. I think it's a three

month visa. I imagine on the paperwork, if you're like, Hey, you know, I'm losing my hair. And I thought this would just be a better speed for me. I don't know if that would get approved, but the guys, maybe the best way I was thinking of it this way, like think of all the different versions of Walter White right before he becomes like a total psychopath at the end of Breaking Bad. They all kind of look like a different version of Bryan Cranston in that TV show. The women, we're not going to do a small sample size here we're here for a week looking around observing everything

just like Zero Effect one of the great observers of our times I'm just going to wait before we come to any conclusions on that might not be to the right places so far and I've only been walking around one afternoon. Again, small sample size.

We're not going to freak out here. Okay, what else? Air, water covered. Everyone looks healthy. Grabbed a pizza a little later on the first night at Flatty, which is an island near the fjords, western fjords, obviously. Excellent service. very efficient.

You walk in, table for one, understood. What do you want? Pizza, I'll have a peroni. And then that's kind of it. They just bring you your food, they don't check in a thousand times. I don't see anybody doing bro hugs. I think a lot of the social interactions

of the Icelandic people, it's super, super efficient. Yeah, I don't know. It just reminds me of a batter that just works the count. You know when this guy comes up to bat, it may not work out, but he had a great approach. It's like everybody's a Billy Miller. What else do we need here? Yeah, then I got pretty tired, obviously. Went back to the hotel room and I got a long journey ahead of me here. So I wanted to try to recharge the old batteries here.

But then BBC game show comes on called Naked Attraction. Every time I watch some show in Europe, whenever I'm here, I feel like I've traveled 20 years in the future because we can talk about like the moral debates that we have in our own country this show was a dude comes out female host and they have five women behind this plastic box and then all of a sudden like the box raises and we're just five wide of we'll just say it earmuffs of badge and then it goes up to the

the breast area and the guy's like eliminating him based on his preferences and they sit the whole the guy has to sit there he's a clown too but he has to sit there and just like go oh well you know we got something going on here or whatever and the host is like into it it's crazy uh then when it gets down to the final two i thought he picked the wrong one but it gets out of the final two he takes off his clothes to be fair credit where credit is due even if i didn't like him he was jacked jacked and he's just naked standing in front of those two and then he picks one and then i guess they didn't have much of a connection um but aggressive stuff i feel like i've only seen this or heard about it from japanese video

games or excuse me not video games probably though uh. You're like, that's a real show. And then here we were BBC. Another thing on the BBC, maybe it's because of the Cerruti thing on this whole Essex boys thing about like England, how like these Essex boys are the shit pass hardest of passes. Um, watch a dating show. The guy was tanning bed, brought a comb, had to explain how his comb, he talked about how he gets his eyebrows trimmed all the time, ordered sex on the beach. I guess this Essex boy thing is like kind of the epitome of what English girls want. I think you're all making huge mistakes, but that was just one show. So maybe a bit of a small sample. So I'll admit the first 24, not in a great mood,

didn't get a workout in, nothing physical, no physical exertion, which is usually a problem for me if I don't find one thing to do a day. So that could be it. There is a gym here. So I'm going to hit that.

I'm going to hit the road and then I'm heading up. I'm going to take a ferry to this massive waterfall and drive through this area, which everybody has told me, don't do the other things. You've got to hit up this western area of Iceland. So we shall see. We'll be back in 24 hours.

Day two from Iceland. And I got to apologize to everybody for part one. That was on me. You know, one of my favorite things ever is when someone has literally no one else to blame but themselves wants a pat on the back for blaming themselves. So that's what I'm doing here. Mood entirely on me. But that's day one of international travel.

Not to be unexpected. Thank God no one is with me. Day two, an entire 180. I feel great. How do we recap the day? Started it off, Hotel Reykjavik, decided to hit up the gym. That probably helped a little bit. Do you want a recap of what happened in there we'll give it to you um 50s no 25 kilos close enough uh we repped out 100 reps flat went 10 20 20 20 and then 30 at the end really really put the pecs to work and then did an incline close grip thing 50 reps of that and then i did the uh I think it was 55 reps I'm trying to do nine now like if you do eight like why not just do nine and uh then I did the push-up closing thing which sucks uh

usually it's 10 by 10 with more weight but I went eight by eight so eight push-ups and then eight lying on the ground reps which a lot of tricep in there, um, 10 kilos on that. So we went pretty light. All right. So moving on, uh, the plan was to drive to the Western fjords. Uh, if you look at a map of Iceland, upper Northwest, uh, entirely different scene up there. And I know from my plan of doing the entire outer ring and trying to just flirt with the Arctic Circle. The first member of my family to reach the Arctic Circle, I believe. I'll have to ask my elders about that, but I'm pretty sure that's going to be true. Anyway, I kind of mapped it out, asked people, I said, what's up? And they were like, Western Fjords, man, Western Fjords. Sometimes I'd say

Fjord just so people would have a lower expectation for when they were talking to me um sometimes i'll just give you a full blast hello and then sometimes i'll put a little little european twang on it which i don't even know what i'm doing there but it's almost to get people to kind of like have just all right this guy's already lost i want to go into every conversation with somebody thinking they have to help me as opposed to me pretending i know what i'm fucking doing here because I don't. So on the way up to the fjords, they were like, nah, you got to stop in, I don't even know what the name of that town is, Steikerschmieden. And, you know, the great thing about driving around that I've noticed, it does remind me of Germany, a little bit of Lucerne when I was in Switzerland, maybe Bern a little.

Who brought the asshole uh it's just different you know it's not like new york city's just out of nowhere the woods and then the city starts and then we have different places like houston to me was fascinating the first time i visited i was like wait is the city still going or are we not in the city because i think we've been outside of the city for an hour and saying, eh, kind of no, yes, no, not really urban sprawl. The towns, uh, here in Iceland, in the different villages are very much like other European places. You know, the influences are not far off from, um, you know, Sweden, Norway, et cetera. So you're kind of in a town and then you're like, wait, is the town over? And then everything's

small, very efficient. They want to keep the property taxes down based on the square footage, although I think the tax is pretty high. I don't know how much we're going to cover taxes here. We might. But I'm constantly just sort of impressed where you go, this is this cool little neighborhood, but then all of a sudden we're into the town and it just kind of melds in perfectly. There's not this abruptness to the start of, you know, some of the smaller cities here.

And then again, some of these towns we'll get to are just straight up out of nowhere, driving for miles and miles, not seeing anything. And then boom, you're in a village. So the other thing that's kind of funny too is like if you're driving in between towns and you're like, I'm kind of hungry. And you're like, oh, what's that store? Like, oh, I wonder if they have baked goods in there. And you just can't tell because you're a foreigner and you just go, oh, they make snow plows.

Like, I have no idea. Like that sign over there, what's that sign say? All right, subs, no ball bearings. So you just don't know. And it's part of just the little mystery of being overseas. So we get to the town with the ferry and they were like, here's your ticket. So that was good. As a Martha's Vineyard dude, trust me, the ferry anxiety, I know it all too well, especially when you're younger and you're not much of a planner and you have Red Sox tickets and you're in the standby line at noon and first pitch is 7 o'clock and you're listening to it on the radio driving back from the ferry because you couldn't get off the island. Again, that's without a reservation.

But this time we had a reservation to get on the ferry. And remember the pizza place that I said, Flat A? That was pretty good. Well, that's the island. And we stopped there. When I went to Greece, I was like, how do you do this? Do I just jump ship here? And from Island to Island? And they were like, you can, but sometimes they just stop. I'm like, well, what's that mean? They're like, well, it could be scheduled for like a three or four hour deal. And you think you're just going through a nice cruise through the, the ocean from Island to Island. And then they just kind of stopped,

dude. And I was like, well, what does that mean? Like, well, I don't know, three hour trip to be cruise through the the ocean from island to island and then they just kind of stopped dude and i was like well what does that mean like well i don't know three hour trip to be eight hours like so i could burn an entire day in greece just stopping he's like yeah so then we did all planes for that trip which i would also recommend here they told us they're like we're stopping a flatty and then to get to the the base of the western fjords I forget what that town's called. Um, it's going to be like three hours, maybe. No, I think they said two and a half at the stop.

It was like three. And the great thing is, cause the sun never fucking goes down. You're just like, Oh, I guess I'm road tripping here, even though it's super late. So I drive up to,

um, I believe it's called, uh, let's see here Dinjandi I don't know we're not 100% sure the other thing too

was I stopped by Flattie I'm like who would live here I guess five people live there year round at one point it was the cultural center of Iceland which seems a little hard

to believe but I guess they had a church before everybody else but then I feel like a bit like a hypocrite whenever I look at a place like that I'm like who would live here

like well you actually kind of are from there but I don't really look at it that way. Martha's in, you're way more popular than people realize six towns, I think 12,000, 14,000 year round residents. Uh, this is more like Cuddy hunk. Look it up. Elizabethan islands. There's like four kids in the entire high school. So back to, uh, the George's here. So we're driving up to this waterfall and all right, just stop everything you're doing. Google this stuff. Look it up. This is the audio part of a travel podcast. It's probably not the best as opposed to television, but I've never driven anywhere like this in my entire life. It's arguably the best

road trip I've ever had. I'm serious. And I've done some cool things. This was, you know, I've done the Amalfi Coast. There's coastal stuff in New England. It's incredible. I love driving through Vermont. I've driven through parts of Canada. I would say some of Iceland reminds me of, again, because I did the trip a million times living in Burlington, Vermont, going up to Montreal. But Montreal, as soon as you get past, and this kind of makes sense, when you look at state lines, you're like, oh, wow, this is geographically, or perhaps again, that we're topographically influenced. You're like, all right, this is good. Those are the mountains. You can have the rest from here on down. Although we almost kept Canada in a transaction with the British, but you have to look that one up Ben Franklin style. drove through these fjords because some part of it looks like the moon. If you took a black and white picture and said, this is the moon, you would go, oh, very interstellar. Two scenes from

interstellar were filmed here, not the place that I was at. I'm surprised that anybody looked at that and said, this won't work, but they went glacier and then they went some other part. It's the most spectacular stuff I've ever seen and pretty hairy too. I mean, dirt roads, It's the most spectacular stuff I've ever seen and pretty hairy too. I mean, dirt roads, not much traffic until you get to the waterfall, which is massive. And there's people there because it's spectacular that flows right into this sea where some of the sand is black from the volcanic runoff. And then some of it isn't like as pitch black as maybe you'd expect it in other volcanic beaches. The waterfall is incredible, but the drive, the drive was unlike anything I've ever experienced. And like I said,

like if you were kind of screwing around on your phone or like one turn, you're done. There's no guardrails, nothing. People coming the other way are constantly getting mad at you while you're getting mad at them because there's not a ton of space and you know i'm not saying it's like the most dangerous thing i've ever done but it's so spectacular that you're kind of reminding yourself like i better pay attention to how i'm driving here because i cannot believe how amazing the scenery is and it looks like a completely different planet uh one of the best things i've ever experienced so start banging it through these little like inlets as it's kind of like a palm and all the fingers are spread in this western fjord area here. And you just go miles and miles. You don't see anything.

And then you'll see like a house. You're like, who lives there? It does remind me a little bit of driving through these northern Vermont, just south of the border in Canada, towns where you're like, who lives here? What's it like? Could I kick it here? Would I like it? Would I just meet a local? And then that would be it? And again, I don't want to start getting weird here or anything, but I would know the answer is always an emphatic no. But yeah, I mean, are you kidding? Oh, cool. We got a hot bath. We got the ocean. What are we

doing? We're farming algae. We can hang out here for a couple of years. No. Anyway, props to the people doing that. Speaking of algae. So I made it over to this town called Bindelur, a small town, 200 plus, got there around 10, saw some camping. I guess people would camp there because the camping thing is very restricted now. I guess you used to be able to just pull over. I don't know if I mentioned this in part one, sleep wherever you wanted. Granted, they wanted to shut that down because there's a lot of tourists here. And if they're sleeping wherever they want, they're not spending money and also not adding

to the tourism flow. So, uh, I make it to this town. It's almost 10 o'clock. Uh, this town used to be this pretty wealthy fishing village. As you can tell, it's spectacular. There's even an airstrip there that's in the water. And then I saw this ship that was stationed by these nets that didn't look like fishing nets. Not that I'm a huge expert on all

the fishing industries patterns here, but you don't understand. You're like, that looks like a stabilized thing, maybe a shellfish deal or whatever. And it's actually, I think, algae. The fishing restrictions by the government kind of ruined the industry, at least in this village, but they were able to put this algae manufacturing plant together that just scrapes the minerals and they just keep it going. And you could tell the town was like really, really nice. But again, it was 200 plus people. I roll into the one place that looked like it was open. It was closing. It was kind of this old school general store type deal. Those stores that you just love character, but then they'd have a full bar kind of behind the counter, which is also something that happens here a lot. Europeans are just way different about drinking than we are.

And then I went to the kitchen and I was like, are you closed? He goes, yep, we're closed. He goes, maybe I'll make you a chicken salad. I didn't know what it was. I just went, yep, I hope it's not going to be like this mayo induced chicken salad sandwich thing. But I just had to go blind trust because I'd been driving all day and was pretty hungry. It was a salad salad. There was chicken breast on it. Everything was pretty good, but there was a healthy, healthy just drizzle of mayo as the dressing. The one out of 10 chance of me eating that anywhere else, probably zero out of 10, but I didn't want to be. It's kind of like when you see those guys on Lonely Planet eat like a seal heart and then it's like, I really don't want to do this, but I'm in this

hut. So that's kind of how I felt. Not nearly the same, but I just was like, Mayo is dressing. Anyway, thanks a lot to the guy. That was incredible. Another thing that I read, there was top 31 things to not do when you're in Iceland as a tourist. And it was a slideshow. So I don't know if Bleacher Report was behind it because it sucked. And it was a slideshow, so I don't know if Bleacher Report was behind it. Does it suck? And it was just a bunch of absurd things like don't be rude. Oh, okay, cool. On to the next one. There was another one that said don't tip. You don't have to tip anywhere here if you don't want to.

Things are expensive. The food is crazy expensive. This guy made me something after they closed, whipped it up, didn't charge me all that much for it, so I left a $10 tip, equivalent of a $10 tip with them. Guess what they liked? They liked the fucking tip. Yeah. Shocker. I don't know who wrote that blog. It felt like an Icelandic Mike Florio. He'd be like, who actually thinks this way? Who would write that down? It was like, don't tip, but if you do, don't make it a big deal. Like, who tips and then goes, hey, tipped her.

Everybody gather around. Foreigner here. Yeah, you. Shford. Check it out. Tipped her. Yep. 1,000 krona.

What's up now? I'm liquid. So, I don't. You can tip people. And guess what? They actually like it. It's okay. It's going to work out.

So, leave Bindelar and then was desperate to find a hotel. Made it to Taktinj for Jor. That hotel wasn't all that great. It's where I am right now in the parking lot in the morning. It was expensive, 300-something bucks, but it's right on the water. It's another village. The sun didn't go down. All it did was get a little foggy.

I haven't seen the dark again. I'm not going to see it the whole time that I'm here. So that crosses off the Northern Lights experience. Asked about a gym this morning. They said no. I was a little fired up because I tried to watch Commando, which was the only thing that was on that made sense. Still holds up. But Commando is not great if you're trying to fall asleep. So not a great night's sleep. That's fine. Twin bed deal. Just fighting it again. Waking up with this earthquake down the middle of your mattress. This twin bed thing.

I don't know. I don't know what to say about it. So no gym, whatever. All right. So the plan today is I didn't want to take that ferry again, but I'm going to drive to Akurey. It's, I believe, the second biggest town in Iceland. It looks good. I don't have a hotel room, so it's going to be about an hour plus drive to the ferry.

The ferry is going to take forever, and then we've got a drive ahead of us. So I will check in from Akureyri tomorrow morning. That's part two. And Iceland is amazing for spatial-ness, if there is such a word. Part three. We are just above the border, the southern border of the Arctic Circle, so I'm just inside of the Arctic Circle, next to the Greenland Sea,

which I can walk to and will walk to. Looking at it now, I'm just north of a town called Raufahrhofen. I think that's close. We're going to go with it. I made the drive yesterday from the ferry situation, which wasn't great. I think we'll get to that later. I just doesn't feel significant. If you're going to do something from the Arctic circle, I think you've got to do some different content and then we can get to some of the trivial stuff a little bit later. But yeah, waking up, um, in Accuary, Aquary, whatever, and you're like, wait,

the Arctic Circle's two and a half hours north? Sometimes when you travel, you're like, well, I'll just do that next time. There's a pretty good chance there's not going to be a next time where the Arctic Circle's two and a half hours away. So it doesn't exactly work out great for the planning, but that's not really what this trip

is about. Not big planners on this one. And this is unbelievable, man. Uh, there's scenery that I've constantly referenced here, but then you start getting really North where like Icelandic people are like, you're going up there. You know, that was like when I drove from Tuscaloosa to Starkville once and people in Tuscaloosa were like, you're going to go to Mississippi. And I was like, all right, you know, I'm in Alabama, relax. So it gets really flat. Um, you also can understand I'm reading the river of doubt, uh, right now, a lot of chapters on the evolution of the rainforest species. Interesting. Larger mammals, uh, did not learn how to interact with humans. So a lot of them got wiped out in the jungle quicker where apparently in Africa, humans and animals learn to kind of live next to each other.

And the animals kind of figured out how to not. They just knew to fear humans to a certain degree where I guess the river forest didn't get them. Amazon did not get that memo. Rainforest, a lot of rivers though. So technically not inaccurate. And so this, just this unbelievable,

like I can't imagine what you would farm here. These rocks are everywhere, but they look like sheep. So there you go. A little evolution for you. Uh, let's stay with the historical stuff because I mentioned the sagas of, uh, the Vikings and I wanted to try to give a little bit more history on this. I guess Iceland is argued that it's the only country without its own indigenous people. If you go back to the

eight hundreds, uh, that's, and I looked a lot of this stuff up and talked to somebody about it, but apparently the first people here were the Celtic monks. They bounced from Ireland. They're like enough of this shit. The Vikings are just kind of not great hangs unless you're on their side. And, um, the Celtic monks got here in the eight hundreds because they were sick of being persecuted at home and everything else that was going on. Papors, papars, I guess that's the term. No one, if you're going to rank the toughness of monks, I don't think you'd have Celtic monks ever in the same bracket as the Shaolin monks,

because as they were hanging out in Iceland about a thousand years ago, the first Vikings started showing up, mostly Norwegian, some Dutch. And once they showed up to Iceland, it was just like, all right, you guys can have it based on my research. And you can go online and look at a lot of this stuff. I'd say I read a lot of articles. I have not read specific books on it. So some of it contradicts itself. So I'm not presenting myself as, but you know, I'm kind of summarizing enough of it where it's like, all right, this is it but you know if you're a Viking scholar or Icelandic scholar maybe you know you can fast forward so the Vikings show up Eric the Red badass his father was banished from Norway for murder and then like, all right, let's get the boys and build a boat.

And aside, just the ballsiness, like not to get, but the human ballsiness of those times to just carve out a boat. I've looked at some of the sails and museums.

Doesn't look great. They're not big. And you're just like, let's row in that direction. I mean, even the Celtic monks who were just like hey i heard there's something up there so why don't we just go that way so eric the red's father heads over uh here and then the same thing happens with eric the red where he has um there's a neighbor next to him they start a landslide from some work that they were doing. And then, um,

the neighbor killed all of Eric, the red slaves. And then Eric, the red was pissed about it, obviously. So he killed that guy and like some of his sons. And then he went off to another Island here in Iceland to try to kind of figure it out. And then he was like,

hang onto these beams. And I understand like, you know, good lumber, especially here, as I mentioned before, they're burning down the entire forest. Um,

they, they basically got banished to this Island. Then he came back looking for his beams and they couldn't find him. So then Eric, the red killed all those guys. And so then he left Reykjavik, uh, in this dust up again,

he's just murdering dudes, which is basically Tuesday back then for Vikings. And then they went to Greenland. So I think a lot of us grew up uh knowing about the greenland iceland thing whereas it really called greenland because it's worse and they wanted to trick people to stay away from iceland uh that's not entirely true but i know that we've all heard that apparently because eric the red was like all right i murdered the neighbors and then the sons and then i took off for a bit came back to look for my wood beams. You guys stole them from me. Obviously I'm going to murder some more people. And it was labeled as a feud historically that the people, whatever judgment was handed

down, it was like, you can't come back for three years for murdering all these people. It's like, all right, understood different times. And so he went to Greenland and he loved it. The Southern tip. He's like, this is awesome awesome so then he just named it greenland and he was doing it to actually encourage people to come here even though well there because i'm not there um instead of iceland so that's more the truth of the story because he wanted people i guess there was a lot of a lot of wailing or whatever was going on and so that was it. So is Eric the Red the original, the OG influencer? Scholars have argued. So that's where we're at. So I'm going to head south from here, recapping everything from yesterday, made it across the ferry. The boys at the Steamship Authority

in Woods Hole would not be super impressed with this operation. You buy a ticket, it is a reservation. And like I mentioned earlier, the anxiety of all of that, uh, on the ferry, they actually had me being skipped by everyone. Like I lined up and then they were just started waving on all these other cars and you don't know what the hell's going on. You're like, wait, am I actually going to get left here? Cause if I didn't get on that ferry, the next one was in six hours. So I would have just drove around the entire fjord to just head back into town, which honestly I probably should have done because it would have been more driving, but it would have been less time. So that's a tip for you if you're leaving the fjords.

So they actually pulled my truck on to the ramp and then backed me out and let three other cars in because they were trying to figure out. I've never seen anything like that. Like it took them 45 minutes to load this thing up. seen anything like that. Like it took him 45 minutes to load this thing up at the steamship. Um, I was going to do the accent there. The, uh, the boys at the authority, the steamship authority, not a tight operation out here in Iceland, just to be honest. So get across. And then it was just all driving, a lot of driving. Hey, volcano over there. Like I said, you want to stop every five minutes. I get to the hotel. I felt a little lame because I was like, you know what? I just got to eat because I've been eating a ton. Um, as long as the food is fresh, I don't really care.

The hot dog hamburger situation here, it's everywhere. Most of them are terrible. Uh, these gas station stops, rest areas. Like I think at least when we go into fast food places, we're just going, okay, we expect this. It's kind of the same thing. It's just, I don't know what any of these things are called. So I'm grabbing bananas left and right. Once I got to the town, I ate a cheeseburger and it was fine. At least it was fresh. We're good to go. Nothing exciting

on the going out front. Feel a bit soft in that area, but I was exhausted and I didn't really have any adventures that drove, drove, woke up the next morning, hit the gym world fitness. a lot of big guys, bad form though. This is not me summarizing all Icelandic weightlifters. Cause we also know that that's not true. Cause some of these guys are absolute beasts, but some of these dudes, but again, it was like a suburban kind of gym thing.

Although I think there was like a power lifting thing downstairs and I looked at some of the girls and I was like, Oh my God. So I stayed away from there. Um, but yeah, I mean, there was like a couple of kids in there. So, but it was really nice gym. Awesome. Good to go. Some guys though had form like huge tatted up. I was like, Oh, here we go. And I wasn't in there necessarily put on a show, just seriously, just maintenance, you know how it goes. And, uh, left that, grabbed some food and drove to the Arctic Circle. So here I am. There's a car.

It's the first car I've seen in like an hour. Real quick, power rankings. Spoons. Wooden spoons. Used a couple for a yogurt. Got to tell you, pretty impressed. Maybe we could pivot back to wooden spoons. Much lower on the spoon power ranking.

Paper spoons. Bought a yogurt this morning. could pivot back to wooden spoons uh much lower on the spoon power ranking paper spoons bought a yogurt this morning and um that did not work well i wasn't even a third away into it the thing it's like cutting a piece of the back of a street and smith's into a spoon shape and trying to feed yourself you're like wait who does this who makes it through the entire yogurt before this thing becomes a piece of just a wet. So we got spoon rankings there. Hotel roulette continues. I will be driving now for four and a half hours

southeast. I'm going to head to the eastern towns and pick one the closer I get. Maybe a stop at the baths on the way in. I'm not 100% sure that's going to work. I'm going to try to avoid the roadside cheeseburgers and that's where we're at. Part four, let's do it. All right. After I left the Arctic Circle, I headed down the eastern coast.

The plan was to hit up one of the Eastern Coast cities. I'm just telling you the further east and south that you go, the hotel situation, a little bit more challenging than the north. There's just a bunch of tourists here, man. I don't know what to tell you. Driving is very, very easy. It's basically like one option for a lot of roads. And again, I'm trying to conquer this outer ring here, which I will be able to pull off. It's just a lot of driving. We'll tabulate all the miles and hours later on. But basically, the plan has been after I do the thing that I want to do, then it's like,

okay, first place that looks reasonably decent to eat. Every single place has pizza. I've never seen... Naples would be like, dude, Iceland has a lot of pizza, kind of pushing it a little bit. So, um, anyway, I ended up in this forest, one of the very few forests here. I do apologize if there's anything that's repetitive on this podcast, because sometimes I'm like, wait, did I end up saying that, um, about the forests and how they were all burnt down? I think I did mention that in the Viking part, but it's went from 30% forest to 1% Vikings. Uh, you know, just didn't want the trees around, man. And you know, you see these farms without a single tree on the entire property. And I'm

talking like a couple acres. I'm talking like an entire town. Like you'll see a sign towards a road and the road is just to the one house that usually is some kind of farm. And I can't, I need to look this up crops wise, but it appears they're just, I don't know. I think it's like feed, you know? So, uh, you know, I'm not seeing a lot of corn. Somebody did tell me that they, uh, grow tomatoes here. So I made it to, uh, this little forest, beautiful little spot, nice hotel, kind of off the main road.

Uh, you shoot down and had some hiking trails, some, they gave me a map and everything. I was like, ah, you know, whatever. We're going to do glaciers, uh, tomorrow. So, uh, we'll get to the glacier part here soon. But one little observation, just a travel rule that I have, they're big on the hot tubs here. So they were like, Hey, you know, make sure you use the hot tub. And then she said, you know, I'm supposed to close it because I'm getting these hotels pretty late. Uh, it was 10 o'clock and she goes, I'll leave it open for you until 11. And then I was like, you know what? That sounds like a good idea. You know, the sun's still out. Why not just hop in the hot tub,

get caught up on River of Doubt. I got this Cormac McCarthy novel that I've never, never read that I can't believe I haven't read. So I was like, I'm going to do that. So I go to the hot tub and it's three old people and they're pretty old and I have a rule about hot tubs if it's old people or kids I don't go in it I remember the kid one was I believe I was out in Virginia Beach back when I used to go to Portsmouth for the Invitational Portsmouth Virginia but I think the first couple times I did it I stayed in Virginia Beach I think the first time I did it was like oh cool you know you watch hoops, get back to the beach. You're like, yeah, super inconvenient, terrible idea, awful traffic around that area. But that was a rookie move.

But I remember I was in a hot tub at like a Virginia Beach Holiday Inn or something because I couldn't afford anything back then. So I was just staying in whatever was available that was cheap. And two kids got in the hot tub, like. I don't know, junior high, freshman girls in high school, and then the dad came by, and he just sees me sitting in a hot tub with two, and I went, you know what? I was in here first, but I agree with you. From that on, and the older person thing may sound like ageism. I'm sorry. Anyway, the funny thing is, is the next morning when I got up and I was getting ready to get breakfast, uh, the front desk was like, yeah, we had a complaint. Was that you in the hot tub? We hit noise violation at 1130. I was like, yeah, no, no,

no. It was the old people. Cause here's the thing about older people in hot tubs, especially when they're internationally traveling, they don't give a fuck. They're just going to go for it. So I just don't know that I kept it, kept up with speed it really isn't even ageism it was just you know i'm not i'm not ready for this all right so the plan for the day was to do this glacier hike so i actually booked it online and the drive through i could tell you about every single piece of scene like the first part of the drive is this massive cut out from what eventually i assume been some kind of glacier lava flow thing, where it's just waterfall after waterfall after waterfall. And you're just driving down.

And every five minutes, there's a new cascading waterfall coming off at one angle. Then there's this kind of longer river. The fly fishing situation here must be incredible, I would think. Just watching guys out there casting, got pretty jealous seeing that. And then there's another part where it kind of reminds you of the Iron Islands from Game of Thrones. The Iron Islands,

that scene is actually filmed in Northern Ireland, but you just, the massive rock structures that you'd be pulling in. Although whenever I'd watch those scenes in Game of Thrones, I think, imagine being

on a boat that long and then going there. And you'd be like, man, Iron Islands, like, it's not a ton to do almost feels a little bit like you know worcester people will understand that reference uh that listen to the podcast yeah so iron is anything open um but there's this southeastern point past these rivers and waterfalls that i first hit up whereas the black sand beach starts to really pick up. We're talking like black, black volcanic sand. And there's just these, there's this one section where these rocks

are just, I don't know, not, you know, not even 50 yards off the coastline, off the beach, but they just protrude. They're just straight up. And, you know, it had to be, I don't know how high it was. It was, it was huge, you know, more than 10 stories. Um, and then I hit up Hoffman, I think is what it's called. And the beaches just start becoming more and more extreme. So I'm sitting here in a Land Rover and I go, Hey, cause you were like, I know some of you were asking any danger. Yeah, we had some, we had some. So I'm thinking, well, wait, there's a track. Like I see where somebody in a four wheeler, not a four wheeler quad, but four wheel drive, like drove down to this beach, you know, a couple hundred yards. I did rent this thing. So, you know, why not? Why not take this thing down and

do a little four wheel drive action? Well, uh, if you do notice that some of the cars are really souped up for four wheel driving here, like big time alterations. These are not stock jobs. And as soon as I pulled in, it was this soft, soft sand combination with like soft pebbles, which is even worse than just sand. And I sink right in. And I'm on the side of the road and I'm in the middle of nowhere. Now, granted, people are passing you, but you're not near a town at this point. And sometimes this road, there's really long stretches where you won't see a gas station. Like if you don't fill up before you leave each day,

you're playing with fire a little bit, unless you really know the area, which I do not. So I'm sitting there trying to get out of this sand thing, but I'm trying to get back up onto the road, which is like a 45 degree pitch roofing. That'd be a steep roof, but maybe in a snowy climate. I'm going, are you seriously going to do this? Are you seriously going to get this car stuck here? Because I don't know what the plan is. Like you could flag somebody down, but then they're going to like your whole day. This is going to be your whole day because you were going to be like, hey, I'll do a little off-roading. And I'm kind of wondering why the Defender isn't operating a little bit better. I remember, you know, when they'd have the dealerships and they'd have all the demonstrations and you go up this rock and

then you do this or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, where's all that stuff? Like, I'm just trying to get, but it was so bad. And then I get out and look and the back, the back right wheel is, is half into the sand situation. mean it was just it was just brutal however um finally go to into the kind of lower gear neutral four wheel rocket back and forth get the wheels turned side to side get up and then just get out of the road and was like all right and i was in the best mood because i'm like that was going to be the worst there's gonna be the worst part of the trip look at you okay so so make it to the glacier hike area where it's kind of a little tourist stop. And it was this terminal.

At least that's what it was on the website. I walk in. I'm like, hey, I'm here for the three o'clock. And they go, we don't have a three o'clock. They're like, oh, you're with the other one. I was like, oh, where are they? They're like, oh, they're like another 15 miles back. I'm like, the way I just came. I'm like, well, then I'm not going to make

it. I'm like, why? Why does it say in the website? Yeah, it happens every day. I was like, okay, it doesn't seem like it's my fault. I was like, well, she's like, I'll call them and tell them you're going to be late. I was like, why don't we call them and tell them I'm canceling and I'll just go with you guys because they had a hike coming up in like 30 minutes. And the guy said, yeah, we got room for one. Always have room for one. So the really funny thing about it was the girl behind the counter was like, no, I'll just tell him you're going to be late. And I was like, how about I cancel it? Because I'm here and I don't feel like driving back. And I just drove like four and a half hours. She's like, no, no, I'll just tell him. I was like,

well, can I talk to him? And she was just like, no, she wasn't having it. She wasn't going to let me get on the phone. She's like, they're not going to let you cancel. So don't even bother. I was like, yeah, do you want to just, uh, you know, give me the old phone. Let me see if, uh, cause I was going to tell him everybody keeps coming to the wrong place. It's wrong on the website. It gave me these directions and now I'm here and I don't want to drive back and I'm going to be late and screw up the rest of the group. And I can just hike with this group. So she just, you know, Viking heritage, but, uh, she was not confrontational at all. Maybe she wasn't

from Iceland. I shouldn't assume anything. Anyway, so I show up, I'm there. I drive back to 15 miles. Hey, how's it going? Hey, what's up? We're waiting on you. Get into the harness. They give you the equipment for it. And then I had to take a piss. And I was like, hey, do you have a bathroom here real quick before we go on this hike? And she's like, nope. She's like, you just go over there. So everybody's gearing up, ready to leave. And I like run a hundred yards out. There are no trees. And I just kind of take a knee and, you know, and they start laughing at me, this whole group. They're like, Oh, this guy's late. And then we always have this joke with all my UVM friends where you just say, just tell everybody you're from UVM and they'll understand it. Like, yeah.

All right. Yeah. That makes sense. Oh, this guy went to UVM. Oh, he's late and he's taking a piss outside. Cool. Got it. So we make it to the glacier. So you get hooked up with your equipment and then you follow the guides up and then you take your car because then from there, actually makes a lot of sense. Whatever. None of this is that interesting. So you get the ice helmet on. No one has ever looked cool in the hiking equipment, I don't think. They give you the old axe, the Petzl axe, which is pretty cool. And then the guide was a younger dude, really nice guy, had a Red Sox hat on. We talked sports a little bit. He said, I used to watch first take, but not so much anymore.

I was like, all right. I don't know why I made him a vampire, but whatever. So it is pretty cool, man. You know, crampons, all right. I don't know why I made him a vampire, but whatever. So it is pretty cool, man. Crampons, whole deal. And this is where they had part of one of the scenes in Interstellar. I think they went a little further up. But this was the same glacier, the Svinathel Circle Glacier. There you go. Nailed it.

And it's cool. It's not dangerous or anything like that. I text them and say, yeah, it's, it's cool. I mean, you know, it's not dangerous or anything like that. Like somebody, I text them as again, I just went for this glacier hike or whatever. And you're like, Oh man, that's so bad-ass. You're like, yeah, there was like a 60 year old woman from Spain with us. So, you know, I'm not, call me a bad-ass for other reasons. Not that one. Three hours probably could have been an hour to be honest with you. Drop the water bottles in get that fresh fresh glacier water uh but just cool experience cool experience and then to see the interstellar

scenes and kind of look back on it um because there's another location that i didn't make it to where that was filmed so uh what else what else what else total driving hours and miles we will get to in the final part oh Oh, and by the way, when the guy was like, he goes, I don't, I don't think I like Skip Bayless. And I tipped him, uh, the hotel roulette bit me in the ass, finally caught up to your boy. I was thinking after this four and a half hour drive down a glacier, I would definitely, uh, stay somewhere within an hour. There was a couple villages on the ocean that had hotels and they had them that morning. So I was like,

all right, no problem. And again, the reason I do it is because I figure, well, as I'm driving along, the moment will just hit me and be like, oh, okay, I kind of want to stay here. Or sometimes you'll go, oh, I wanted to book that one, but thank God I didn't because this place is actually somebody's guest house with a shared bathroom and I don't want to do that. Right. So I'm on the booking sites and I'm looking at the hotel options and there's a, there's, you know, a couple and then there aren't.

And so then I drive and then I'd stop at a hotel and I'd ask, I go, do you have any rooms? No, we don't. And then I did that like three times and I'm like, dude,, do you have any rooms? No, we don't. And then I did that like three times. And I'm like, dude, you got to just suck it up and figure out where you're staying and book something and then drive there. Because honestly, this is going to take twice as long or it'll take as long than just going all the way back West again. Cause I didn't want to go back all the way to Reykjavik cause it's another three to four hours, maybe four plus hours from where I was. So that would have been an eight and a half hours, nine hours of driving.

Never mind stopping for pictures at times because there was some really, there was a horse farmer that all of a sudden it was like two farmers or the cowboys. I don't know what you would call them out here. Leading a pack of about 20 plus horses just randomly down a street. They were freaking out of the car in front to get out of the way because the horses were just wild and they were trying to corral and they had two other people behind it. It was a pretty cool scene to see that at 10.30 at night as the sun is set, but it hasn't set because we're in Iceland. Then I'm on the booking site and I'm like, all right, well, I'll make it to Selfos, I think, which is a really nice town, which I ended up going through because when they had eight options, the next time I put it in,

30 minutes later, there were none. But originally, I didn't want to stay there. So we got to the point where I was like, I'm just going to have to suck this up and drive all the way back to Reykjavik. So I did the entire eastern and southern run in a day today. I'm at a hotel in Reykjavik. And by the way, the four that were there, when I didn't want to book it, then I was like, I'm done. It's like the phone new or the sites new. I don't know what's going on with your booking sites. I don't want to put anybody on blast here. But then of course, the only one that was left was the most expensive one. And it was way more than I wanted to spend. Uh, when you're by yourself, not trying to impress anybody, I don't care. Uh, you know, again, I don't want to stay

in a shack with an outhouse, but I definitely didn't want to stay here even though I'm in the room now and it is, uh, a sick, sick hotel. Uh, so that's it. Yeah, man. Uh, almost nine hours on the road today. I'll let you know how tonight goes. Okay. We did it. We did it, boys. So when I finally checked in and had my stuff down, um, 1230 at night and you know, I'm right in the city, Reykjavik, 122,000 strong. It feels smaller. Uh, and I was like, you know, are you not going to go out at all? You're not going to just at least observe and take it in just for the podcast alone? So I did go out. So a lot of people ask me and they'll go, all right, this traveling solo thing, foreign countries, how does that work?

Like, what do you do? Does it get kind of boring? Yeah, it can get a little boring. That's fine. I'm kind of used to it. When I was younger, you know, like, here's a story. Uh, I was in a small town in Greece and it's not like I get, I don't expect to get recognized. I almost never get recognized, but every now and then I'll get recognized. And it's kind of funny. And this is like 10 years ago. So I'm on ESPN. We're a few years into SVP and Rosillo. And I show up to this really, really cool,

some of those Greek villages are unbelievable. And you're just kind of walking around and everything's right on top of each other. And you're just like, oh, do I go in there? Do I go in there? And there's all these different options. And I walk in and the guy was like, I know you, we watch you here in the bar um my father's the biggest alcoholic in the town he has to meet you and i was like okay um and we ended up hanging out and his father was making me drink that grappa shit no offense and i ended up bartending for an hour or so then they were trying to introduce me to the daughter, which, you know, they're kind of weird. Anyway, there was a story in there and the story and the, the, the part of

it is, you know, you got to kind of just go for it if you're going to be by yourself, just like, all right, we'll see what happens. Now those, that was a long time ago. Um, and I'm like, all right. So I just wanted to kind of check out a bunch of different places that, that I wasn't going to end up bartending. Uh, I didn't think anywhere in Reykjavik last night. So I went to the first spot. It was super young, super young. Um, I'm like, okay, we're, we're out of here. And then I think there may have been a fight outside. I wasn't sure. And it was weird because I went down to the one street

that if you're in Reykjavik, there's kind of like one street that connects to this other street and they kind of corner each other. And it's just this one street with a bunch of the bars. And it'd almost be like just dropping somebody who doesn't know anything about New York City, like dropping them right in New York City.

Although again, the comparison doesn't work because of the massiveness of New York City, but just being down like a side street off of Times Square where you're like, oh my God, this place has everything. Like, look at all the activity. This must be, this must be the heat zone here. So it felt like I was kind of on the wrong street, but I wasn't. It was, it was the street and there was another street and there was this massive dance club where I don't know how many people they had inside. There was a few hundred people outside waiting to get in. Uh, I don't know how late everything stays open here. Cause I didn't, I didn't push the limits. Um, then there was another place called like American bar. They just was hilarious. It was like American

bar. And then they were cranking like the most American, I think born in the USA may have been playing outside. The line was massive and it just said pizza, ribs, burgers. I was like, no, I'm pretty close to nailing it on that one. Um, and the first, yeah. So when I was, when I was leaving the kind of first place that I went to, cause I was like, all right, I'm out of here. This isn't happening. Um, there was like this huge kid and I don't know what you'd call like the inlanders or the inland Icelandic people but you can see the disconnect of like okay that guy probably came in from like a town two hours away and this is his night and he's really young and he's with his other young buddies and they're just getting wasted and they're causing trouble because you know young dudes known to do that

and the bouncers man these guys look like they're all extras in let's reference commando. They look like badasses, like legit badasses. Maybe it's the vest. Like whenever you have one of those combat vests on, I think it makes you like 20% tougher looking. So they all have these vests on, they all say security and they kind of like work, maybe not one specific bar, but they kind of work them together or maybe they're all owned by the same place or managed by the same place. So they're all milling about and you know and they just know their night's going to be

annoying because people are going to be hammered and super annoying. So I was kind of just watching it again for the podcast and the kid looked a little bit like Gomer Pyle, not the old school one, but D'Onofrio's character from Full Metal Jacket, where I don't know what was going on with them. Because when people are screaming at each other, but in a foreign language, you're like, are they cousins and it's playful banter or are they insulting each other's moms?

Um, it appeared the security guard was pretty much over it. And then he wrapped some shit around his hand, like ready to start beating on this kid. And the kid and his friends were all sitting there. Then he started, the security guard started filming the kid. So I don know what that meant maybe they are related uh and he's gonna send that to his mom you know like look at your your weirdo kid causing shit uh on a saturday

night in reykjavik so then i went to another place that was kind of although i did stop in for beer at pablo discob, which may be my favorite name ever. Good vibe in there. If I like to dance, was about that life, I could have made a night of it there. I don't like to dance and I was totally sober. So that wasn't going to happen. I did make it over to this other place that was an Irish bar and it was really nice. It was really nice in there. I went to kind of sit in this solo booth. I'm like, wait, they have solo booths? This place is made for me. And as I kind of went to sit there, there was an older local guy who I thought was missing a thumb. I don't know. I didn't get a good angle. And he kind of just looked at me to like wave because he saw my intent, but there was

no one sitting there. But it was kind of understood, I think, that he's like, no, no, when I'm here, that just stays open for me because I put some hours in here. And he kind of waved me off like, you're not going to sit there, right? And I yeah you know what i'm i'm the foreigner here uh i'm not going to sit there so don't worry about it so i didn't sit there and then i met an american girl who may have been drinking 151 with everclear floaters and she told me she hated america and then she moved to iceland for the uh healthcare, which I thought was like, you really like healthcare. So she lives here now. Then I don't know what was going on.

She started dancing with some Icelandic dude and it was kind of tackle dancing. I'm not sure I've seen anything like this since Mastodon, but they just were mauling each other in front of this guy banging out wagon wheel on a whole six string. And she ended up on the ground. And then I guess she had stitches. Again, the universal health care. Why wouldn't you get stitches? The stitches got ripped open. I'm just standing at the bar again, watching it all.

And her hands bleeding all over the place. Then she starts talking to your boy. And I was like, yeah, no, no. Cool. And then the bouncer came over to throw her out and then she kind of played the i got pushed i'm fine and then somebody brought her a towel for her bleeding hand that was now going down the arm and then the other guy got thrown out and then she kind of looked at me like i got away with it and then reached for what had

to have been a two-day-old grulch that was just sitting on the bar, just spalled in Caddyshack style and just ultra-pounded behind the bouncers and was laughing. And they were like, oh, okay. All right. Actually, we are going to throw you out. So they threw her out. Wake up today. The goal is to just not drive anywhere. I can't wait to not drive.

It's going to be a real relaxed day. We already did shoulders this morning at the hotel gym. All dumbbell workout. I'm not going to give you all the details. It'll be in my reel. The gym though, never seen anything like it. Dark. The lighting was super, super dark.

Walls are black. Floor, ceiling all painted dark, dark black. It were just these very mild track lights that ran uh it was it was awesome it's incredibly unsafe there's no way any gym would actually well maybe there's some gym that does it but a gym with a lot of weight and a bigger room and more people doesn't make a ton of sense i was in it was a hotel gym one room by myself but i really liked it i thought it was great you just focus on yourself do your work in. Um, so we got that going and then I kind of went around,

grabbed some lunch and looked at all the boats. Um, cause you know, obviously boat captain license, curious how they do things out here. Oh, look at that. Not hadn't thought of that. So no driving anywhere today. Just happy to not have to, even though I've loved driving this entire thing, I guess the technical part of this, uh, to summarize part five is I've made the entire outer ring with the stops in the Western fjords, Accuary, the Arctic circle, the Eastern forest, the Southeastern tip, the glacier, and then a hard run from the glacier to Reykjavik through the night driving in this sunset thing that was so tough to drive into. Cause you're like, it's not dark enough for me to see everything, but it's not light enough for me to

see everything. And I'm just watching, just waiting for some sheep to cross and then end up, you know, across my windshield, but it didn't happen. So, um, mellow, mellow reset, uh, lagoon tomorrow, hopefully a Viking museum on the docket and, um, you know, just, uh, winding it down here. We'll have a, we'll have a fax, maybe some facts on the very end to let you know. Uh, I don't even know what the fuck I'm talking. I don't even know what that means, but leave it in, leave it in the pot. We'll have a fax. Maybe some fax on the very end to let you know. I don't even know what the fuck I'm talking about. I don't even know what that means. But leave it in. Leave it in the pod. We want this to be six takes. Six parts, six takes. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

We are back in the States. I am back from Iceland. Eight days later. Let's recap. So last we talked, had a no driving day, which was a real nice treat. One day of just not driving,

just chilled at the hotel, a little overcast. Did check out the embassy, sort of hung out in Reykjavik. I just didn't want to have to drive hours and hours and hours. We'll get to the totals a little bit later. Did walk out the embassy, sort of hung out in Reykjavik. I just didn't want to have to drive hours and hours and hours. We'll get to the totals a little bit later. Did walk through the embassy area, which I got to tell you, in person, they look a lot easier to kind of break into. Not that I would, but you watch the Bourne movies and you're like, all right, how would I handle

something like this if I needed to? And when I see it in person i'm like i could just like walk up there but i didn't because i didn't need to so just um something to pay attention to did a really bad job of the museums normally i'm pretty good on this uh i will admit uh next time i need to do a better job because the other thing that's weird about iceland is that because the light is out for so long you're kind of like oh i still have time you're like no you don't no it's four and a lot of museums bankers hours man so i hit up this kind of cod display um where all these neighborhoods again we're going back 100 years when the fishing industry was booming in reykjavik uh all the little houses because it's it's very strange how you like you're in the city

you're on this main stretch in the harbor and then you're one block up and it's very strange how you're in the city, you're on this main stretch in the harbor, and then you're one block up, and it's just now row houses, and they're very small, but it's funny that you could be just a block, not even that big of a city block, but just a simple walking through a neighborhood block, and you're kind of in the suburbs, just not even five minutes removed

from walking along the harbor in the city. So they had this whole display in these pictures that showed how back in the day when you had a house near the harbor you had to have all this extra space that you could dry out your cod salt it so there you go they don't do that as much anymore um imagine you know it's not as efficient another thing that i noticed too and i noticed it being out and i've noticed this you know in other countries but there is a major fascination with america um you can forget how lucky we are that so many people speak English, how lucky you are when you're returning your rental car. There's just actually like rental car return on the sign on

the other part that you can't read. So we are lucky that way. But there's also when you go out and I was doing a little bar hop just to take it all in, all the music, whether it's John Denver covers or Darius Rucker or Bare Naked Ladies, all American music, right? So there's that. And then I went past this area that was kind of like a fashion spot. You could kind of tell this is a little bit more than Coldwater Creek gear. This is like young Icelandic kids would go here and be like, dude, this is the sickest rugby.

And they had Jets t-shirts, but not like the Jets t-shirts that you would see at a stadium but it would just say New York Jets and there you can imagine somebody gets that throws it on and be like man you fucking something about you man you look good you're like yeah it's probably my Jets t-shirt American football I didn't have the heart to tell him to go in there. I did get back to the hotel, kind of hung, watched Juventus. Felt like that score was the right score. They were the better side. Then I decided on Monday, on the last full day that I would be in town, because I flew out Tuesday morning

very early, that I was going to go down to the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon, we'll get to it here. I've got it all up in Wikipedia. I don't know that I'm your go-to guy for geothermal coverage, but I'll do my best. So you leave Reykjavik. It's not that far of a drive. You go through Kakosigov. Yeah, that's right. I think that's what it's called. Kakosigov. I think I know some agents that actually have summer houses there. And so you get to the Blue Lagoon and it is this absurd stretch of these pools that is this whitish, light blue, it's almost fluorescent water. And you can see some of it as you go up, but to get in is a lot harder.

Now, of course, I looked ahead of time and was like, oh, wait, how do the reservations for this work? They're like, oh, they're all gone for three days, including today. So I was like, I don't know that I'm going to be able to book my reservation at this place. This isn't going to work out. And then I looked, I go, well, if it's only 45 minutes away, then I can check out this other thing on the peninsula. It won't be a total waste, but I'll just head in that direction and see if I can talk my way into it. And there was the regular package. It was 75 bucks, some upgraded thing.

And then there was the premier one that was like 570 euros. So tell me about it. And I got in that line because there was no one on the line. And I walked up to the lady behind the desk and was like, hey, she's like, you're by yourself? I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to hang out at the Lagoon. She's like, yeah, don't worry about it. Paid $75, boom, in. You got to shower.

They are big on showering before. And you know what? I like it. I like that. There should be that everywhere. Every Vegas pools, hey, hose yourself down first before you're going to get in here. So then as you're walking into it, it's this lava rock around. I cannot express enough the bright blueness.

Look this up. Then you get in. It's like 98 to 102 degrees. Then as you're walking through it, it's so thick. That's due to its high silica content, which also is why it has this milky blue shade, as it's described in Wikipedia. I couldn't help but think, wait, is this some big scam? There's a few hundred people walking around. There's bars, and there was a masking area where you're just seeing, I don't help but think, wait, is this some big scam? There's a few hundred people walking around. There's bars and there was

a masking area where you're just seeing guys from Iowa and Japanese women rubbing mud on their face and then leaving this thing afterwards and you're like, is that really going to work? Is everything going to be different now because of that? But whatever. And the density, because of the silica content, you're pulling

your arms, just like there's shit all over your arms. But I guess it's good for you. And then of course, as I'm walking around, there's bars and the whole thing. And you're just like, okay, some people are partying, some people turn to this, whatever you do, don't sit near any kids, right? No kids rule once again in effect. So I kind of just hung out. But like I said, I couldn't help but think, this seems a little weird. Is this real? Because it wasn't just flat mud underneath you. It was totally paved out like a pool.

And then where the volcanic rock surrounded you, it was right there. You could sit on it. It was completely black to where the waterline was. Then it was all white. Part of it looked like it was painted. Maybe it was just the way the water settled over the years. But the plant, there was a geothermal plant that you can see right there because you're pulling up. You're like, what's that thing sprouting off?

Is there any CO2 coming out of there? Because that doesn't feel super exotic. But the geothermal plant, they started having this water that flew off of it that kind of covered up the surrounding areas of the volcanic rock. that flew off of it that kind of covered up the surrounding surrounding areas of the volcanic rock um so shortly after opening the plants 1976 the runoff water made these pools so it's runoff water but again i looked up geothermal apparently it's clean i don't know don't want to get a debate about it uh and apparently in 1981 a psoriasis patient bathed in the water noticed the water alleviated his symptoms the lagoon subsequently became popular. Bathing facilities opened in 87 and in 1992,

the Blue Lagoon Company was established. Studies made in the 90s confirmed the lagoon had a beneficial effect on the skin disease psoriasis. A psoriasis clinic was opened in 94. In 96, the Blue Lagoon Company began marketing skin products

containing silica, algae, and salt. 1.3 million visitors in 2017. So, profit of 31 million euros that year. God, 600 employees. God, that's a lot. Alright, so, leave the lagoon, didn't talk to anybody,

get back to the hotel, showered after the lagoon, showered again at the hotel, worked out, and I still had this stuff on. So, I don't know if it's just my showering technique or what, but there you go. If I go full recap on this, it was seven nights, but I would say on the 7th, 6th,

making it to Reykjavik on the 5th night, this was the final tally here. Over 2,300 kilometers, which is 1,450 miles. That's driving from my house to Dallas, Texas right now. That also is just over 30 hours of driving in a car. And really, I did the 30 hours of driving from Tuesday through Saturday. So Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So 30 hours,

five days, which isn't that crazy really when you think about it, but that would be like me driving to Chicago from where I live. We put some kilometers on it. A lot of podcasts, a lot of music. When I had to bang out that nine-hour day to Reykjavik, which I did not plan on doing, I thought I'd give myself another night before I got there. It ended up not really meaning anything.

It wasn't a big deal. Listen to a little Tyler Childers, Get Me Home. I'm telling you, if that guy, he can make you emotional and it would be devastating to learn that he actually was not a coal miner because of his lyrics and his passion. But I'm just going to pretend that he was at one point. Maybe he was.

We did a little widespread. There's also one shuffle feature that I don't seem, it's almost like, Hey, what's the third worst song ever? Yeah, we're going to give it to you right now. Uh, and I also, you know, I listened to a bunch of podcasts, those involving my friends and then smart list, which I just enjoy. I enjoy those guys. They're good at it. I do think a three man booth though of asking questions is always super challenging. I don't know how i would be able to do it and they pull it off like i could just see a scenario where bateman's uh interviewing christopher nolan right oppenheimer movie coming out and bateman would be like you know going director heavy going what is it about you know the the pauses and the not the pauses and the hue and the tint and the lighting and the dew what is it about that then ar Then Arnett would be like, Jesus, baby, and he'd try to get to second base. Then everybody would laugh. Then Nolan would actually

start to give you this really elaborate, perfect answer. He'd be like, well, the thing that I've never told anyone about what I try to do. Then Sean would be like, do you like crackers? It's fascinating. A three-man booth trying to do an interview because I would freak out if I had two other

people I was trying to do the interview with. Okay. In summary, great scenery, all-timer. And it's the efficiency of the scenery. It's that in the span of a few hours, you're going to want to stop like 20 times and you can't. You're driving past stuff. You're like in any other scenario, I would be, this would be the day just to see this. And there are that many things that you would drive hours to,

to go see in just a span of, of a hundred miles. You would just constantly be like, like if something took four hours to drive through from where you live right now, and that thing from Iceland was four and a half hours, well, you would have already visited it because you'd be like, that's it. Iceland, the outer ring that I drove is just site after site after site. And it's actually diverse. It's not just, hey, here's mountains. Oh, hey, here's just an ocean. Oh, hey, here's a river. Oh, hey, here's a glacier. Oh, here's a volcanic stretch where the volcano was recently active.

Here's a place where a glacier cut out this massive ravine, and now there's guys fly fishing down there, which I certainly regret that I didn't at least do that. A couple of things that I did leave out that I didn't get to that I would have loved to have been able to do, and it's every fucking town. So if you like scenery and you're into that, you will love this. The highest of recommendations. If your vacations are, I want to just chill and have a drink and

go to the beach, this is not the vacation for you. This was intense. It was a lot, but I was just trying to see if I could pull it off. It really wasn't that hard to drive around the outer ring. Driving is super easy. Super easy. You don't get lost. It's a big fucking circle. You're just not going to get lost. And your phones work the entire time. It is not cheap. Food is expensive. You're talking $20 plus for a cheeseburger. They're hammering you right now during the tourist times. The hotels, if you can find them, they're not cheap. they're not cheap.

If you want to try to go cheap, you're going to be in a cot with a couple other dudes canoodling from Romania or Estonia and you're just like, fuck, I don't want to do this. If you want your own room and a private bathroom and you're staying at the nice resorts, it's not cheap. Gas isn't cheap. Nothing is cheap.

The only thing that's cheap, it felt like yogurt. They had a lot of yogurt. Their yogurt supplies, I don't know, maybe the demand is down, so the price went down a little bit. And I think it is very pro-family. Very pro-family. I mean, other than Reykjavik, even Accuary, it's not like wild or anything. Reykjavik has its wild parts, but

you could load the family up in the car and just sightsee as much as you want, and your kids would be on their iPads the entire time complaining. So, enjoy. All right, let's finish up five questions with myself. Could I live there? I think I'd get bored eventually. I mean, if I had a farm and fly fishing,

again, who am I kidding? I need the juice a little bit. I don't need it all the time. I could go 29, 30 days out of it, but that one night, I need a little juice, and I just don't know if I could have. All right, what would 26-year-old Rosillo have done? He'd have gone out more. He would not have looked at a massive mob outside of the disco and laughed.

He would have worked his way in and just saw what happened. Would the trip be better if Wayne Jenkins was with me? Yeah, I think so. I think so. I saw one police car, maybe two, the entire time I was driving outside of Reykjavik. I think I only saw two police cars. If we ever get pulled over from speeding and Wayne Jenkins is like, I other person you're going to ride in a car with for that long, have similar music tastes, similar podcast tastes. And then, you know, one guy is going to be stopping less or more than the other guy does. So I don't think Wayne Jenkins would care about the scenery. Maybe I would just I would tell Wayne, hey, I'm going to hit you back when I get back to Reykjavik. Because I don't think that Wayne Jenkins is somebody that would really appreciate a waterfall, now that I think about it.

Any script ideas that won't sell? Yeah, I thought of a couple. Nothing crazy. All right, last one. Will or would I go back? I think I got it. I think I got it for the most part. Maybe the Northern lights thing you know if

somebody said hey you know somebody i really like was like do you want to shoot over there for four or five days you know show me around a little bit because there's still some hikes that i never got done the fly fishing thing that i mentioned i mean there's probably still 20 amazing things probably a bigger number that i didn't even bother or like somebody will say oh you didn't go here it's like well i tried to do as much as I possibly could. So I felt fulfilled after the fact. But I think to really do it right, you would need probably 14, 16 days. And that would get a little bit pricier. All right, there you go.

That's Iceland. We got one more trip in me this summer, efforting something as adventurous, if not a little bit more. We will see. The first ever travel podcast. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet what's up i have a ridiculous house

in the south fork i have every toy you can possibly imagine and best of all kids i am liquid so now you know what's possible let me tell you what's required life advice uh we don't have an icelandic life advice we're just going to do a regular one for you. Email lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Okay, country club dilemma. 6'4", 200 pounds. Athletic build, but starting to lose it. My wife and I are in our mid-30s.

We have two kids under three. She was born and raised in San Diego. I'm from the Midwest. We met in college in the Midwest. And it was settled down near my hometown, not far away from where we met. My wife is a total catch. I'm a lucky guy.

Since cost of living is lower, we have several friends who belong to a country club we've been talking about joining for a while now. This is something she particularly really wants. I play two, three rounds of golf per summer, work events, bachelor parties, et cetera. I'm not good. I've broken 100 one time in my life.

I consider myself an above average athlete, but just have never taken the time to consistently work on my game. My wife has never played around and does not own clubs. While discussing joining, she mentioned that she would take lessons and get into golf. This seems like a good idea. Grown from Saru. Keep reading out.

This might hit close to home. Since we met in college and grew up in different areas, I don't know every detail about her growing up. I'm aware she played high school basketball and was good. However, since I've known her, I've only seen her pick up a basketball a handful of times and she shows very little to no interest in watching playing sports. She's always picked up games and sports quickly.

She was doing blues and blacks in Breckenridge on her second day that she learned to ski. Okay, so second day ever at Breckenridge. She learned to ski Black Diamonds. Yeah, not the double blacks though. We've already talked about that in previous Life Advice.

In college, she would regularly beat me in darts. The few times I've seen her shoot a basketball, it's pretty smooth for having not played with any regularity. A few weeks ago,

we were at a bar killing time between wedding ceremony and reception. There was a skeeball game and we started playing killing time between wedding ceremony and reception there was a skeeball game we started playing it was all fun and games until we decided to bet a full day of changing diapers on the next round I threw the first boy what a great relationship this is you know there

is hope for people out there you do everything and then you do the diapers yeah right I threw first and did okay based on previous scores I thought I had a free day of no diapers she started poorly and i was chirping her suddenly it was like a switch flipped and she went in and threw in a 50 and 100 back to back to win i'm sure there was luck involved but the competitive fire shocked me yeah clutch team absolutely i'm starting to realize

that my wife is maybe more competitive than i realized and seems to pick up game sports rather quickly. She has good hand-eye coordination. She is athletic. She has a carefree demeanor that would translate well to certain games. Parentheses, like golf. It's dawned on me later that night that if we join this country club, there's a real chance in a few years she goes from having never played golf to being better than me. I have no problem with a woman or anyone being better than me at golf. It's the fact that she can having never played golf to being better than me. I have no problem with a woman or anyone being better than me at golf. It's the fact that she can go from never playing to

being better than me. She doesn't even know how to score or what par means. This is something that my friends would never let me live down. Not to mention it'll be tough to network if that's my reputation at this club. We both really want to join this club, but I may need to find a way of talking her out of golf

or figuring out another plan to at least buy me some time and work on my game. Am I overthinking this? Yes. And letting my ego get in the way of what could be a great opportunity for my career in social life. Yes. Honestly, I think we all love your wife. No offense. Do you have a sister? What's going on here? Yeah. Here's what i would say though like i get what you're saying but that could be your deal that could be your networking thing you know i don't think guys are going to be going around the club being like hey were you guys close to getting into that fun with steve you're like that fucking loser whose wife has fucking

eight strokes on him okay no we passed yeah yeah you know what i mean like i don't i don't really think that's how it's gonna work um and golf is at the the only time i was good is when i played consistently and when you play consistently and you have any you know hand eye and i don't really know that it's athleticism you have any kind of hand eye and spare me fucking golfers that won't want to be athletes. Do you do anything else? Do you do anything else that remotely looks like an athletic activity? If you only golf and you're good at it,

I don't know that that proves anything to me. Rant over, but guys, golf golfers get so fucking mad when they bring that up, because really, while you're saying it selfishly, you want to be thought of as an athlete. I've seen some guys that are terrible athletes become really good at golf because they figure out what happens is when you play enough and you have a bad shot, you know immediately what you did wrong. And once you can kind of get to that level by just playing a lot and having some baseline awareness of the club in your hand, it's like the best feeling because you're like, oh, I know

exactly what I did wrong. When you don't play, you have no idea where the ball's going. And when you hit it well, you're like, I didn't know that was going to happen. And when you hit it wrong, you have no idea what you did right or wrong. All right. So if you do put the time in, I actually think a lot of people can be, you know, again, passable, decent, play around, keep pace. That's why with some guys that are like super hardos about golf, I'm just like, all right, whatever, dude, I get it. You put the time into it. There you go. You know, Awesome. Then, of course, there's another level where if you're incredible, I'm not even talking about those guys. I would embrace

all of this. I would. Maybe it makes you better. Maybe this is a little iron sharpens iron. Woman sharpens man. Go ahead, Saru. No, I was going to say, you should use this. You should absolutely let her play. If she wants to, that's absurd. Yeah, let her play. This guy's wants to that's absurd yeah let her play

this guy's the opposite of title yeah but i would just say you know maybe put a little more effort into not getting beat in in golf and this exactly this makes you better this makes you more competitive um and you know my thing was i was a little nervous because my wife really wants to get into golf she's never played golf in her life and she's like oh let's just let's just like go golfing. I'm like, well, you can't just go golfing if you've never been golfing before. Like there's a process to this. Like you have to go to the range and we'll get some putting putting in like we got to get the short range game down. We can't just like show up to a golf course and like your first time and we're going to play golf. And she's like, Well, why not? And I'm just like, because it doesn't work that way. Like it doesn't

work that way. I'm not that worried about it with your wife. Obviously, she'll probably be decent in her first round if she's good at almost everything else also side note congrats to you because you're probably gonna have like at least a decent chance of your kid being good a good athlete too or good at shit growing up and that's probably a better chance for a scholarship so you should totally embrace this first and foremost but yeah i would say use this as motivation take it seriously and get better at golf and you know if she's pushing you and pushing your handicap, keep going. Keep playing a ton.

And honestly, it seems like you like the game, too. Now, he mentioned that his buddies are going to never let him live this down. If his wife is good, they probably already know she's already good at a bunch of other shit. So I think it's kind of like a cool thing to have a wife that's awesome at all these sports. I mean, my wife, Maddie, she grew up dancing. She's like a decent athlete, didn't play a ton of stuff. But I think it would be really cool if my wife was just like a sick athlete that'd be awesome so I think you have to embrace it and use it iron sharpens iron totally agree with you Ryan and just

let her go after it and see what happens yeah but as I'm talking this out like I don't know if I'd want my wife to be able to beat me in one-on-one pickup hoops that's probably why I've never dated anyone from the WNBA but that's why that's when I think of it that way i go yeah i don't i don't know about that so i'm just trying to you know again like with all of these i try to think of every single angle with this there's also another version of this you go like hey you know what you'd be great at with your aggression tennis and then you just you just push her in the tennis direction and then you know like clearly this is a hang-up and it's going to bother him but i actually think it'd be funny like there's nothing better than when people are giving you shit about something that like people give you shit about and by the way golfers

are a little bit like that morning radio humor crowd like oh hey you know what's going on oh you know don't be trying to steal strokes it's like all the same fucking jokes it's all the same stuff play where it lies, it's like this language. Like, oh, you got to keep an eye on this guy. He's got an old foot wedge. And you're like, you guys have been using the same fucking jokes for decades. I think it'd be awesome to have guys give you shit about your wife being better and be like, yeah, I love it. It's awesome.

Like, it's just totally leaning all the way into it. Yeah. Also, you bring up a good point. 2022, bro. Totally leaning all the way into it. Yeah. Also, you bring up a good point. Golf is not the sport that would be the most embarrassing for your wife to be better than you at. It's honestly like a totally okay sport for your wife to be better than you at.

Because as you mentioned, it's not really a ton of athleticism. It's a lot of skill. So yeah, if your wife's like smoking you and pick up hoops or she's like out benching you, like, yeah, all right, maybe figure your shit out. But golf is not the sport to be embarrassed if your wife's smoking you and picking up hoops or she's out-benching you, maybe figure your shit out.

But golf is not the sport to be embarrassed about your wife or a girl being better than you. It just isn't. Yeah, I think we covered it there. I like that one. I think this is awesome. All right. Okay, another email here.

All she does is sleep. Sounds like a stroke song. All right. Ryan, big fan of SCP and Rosillo. The main reason I became a fan of Sports Talk Radio. Well, thank you. Won't waste your time with gym stats, but in my prime, there wasn't a shooting contest. I didn't

feel confident unless it was that guy's wife. Anyway, my problem may sound unusual, but I assure you it is annoying. I'm 42. My girlfriend of almost three years is 32. We moved in about a year ago. In the interest of full disclosure, she is the breadwinner of the both of us while I work part-time for her parents. Okay.

Okay. So just to double, just to recap, he's 42. She's 32. She's the one that makes all the money. He works part-time for her parents. She likes my part-time schedule though, because it keeps me close to home to help her with her son. Okay, he's 12. All right, so this is making a little bit more sense. The problem is my girlfriend loves to sleep. It's something we have joked about. Her mom and stepdad even warned me

she loves to sleep. Well, they were not lying. Her work schedule isn't grueling. It's a nice salary gig and she's usually home by three. If my girlfriend isn't at work or eating dinner, there's a good chance she's napping. Any idle time she has, she will sleep. Problem is her naps last hours. Not exaggerating. Even now as I type this, she is five hours into a nap right before bedtime. well dude this is something's wrong like uh let me keep reading i just can't fathom that much sleep i've never been one to sleep a lot or even nap uh and even when she's awake her preferred position is on the couch is laying down i've called her out on it and oh and it always leads to an argument she isn't much for arguing she just shuts down and you guessed it we'll go to the bedroom and sleep she suffers from real deal depression okay well yeah that makes a little bit of sense all right yeah she's dealt with since her teenage years i try to be sensitive to it but i don't think i should uh blame all her excessive sleep on her depression

what do i do i don't know man i can't exactly call her lazy because she can easily say she works her job is the reason we were even making it i I'm responsible for most of the housework, if you will, but I'm not complaining. She will help out and do the minimum, but that's it. I love this girl. I know I do. And we openly talk about marriage in a few years, but this is a real issue. I'm not sure how to address it without just blowing up. Yeah.

I mean, I had a roommate in college who's, you know, suffered from narcolepsy and he was asleep all the time. Like, and it wasn't cause he was, um, bummed out. He was, he just slept. And I don't know that they figured it out until after,

like he'd gotten to college and he's a great guy, whatever normal life, the whole deal. But he would, if you had a second on the couch, he would, he would fall asleep immediately. Just out cold. guy, whatever. Normal life, the whole deal. But if you had a second on the couch, he would fall asleep immediately, just out cold. This is different. This is somebody who, for some people that suffer from depression, it's way easier to be asleep, which sucks. Sucks thinking that way, that people haven't gone through anything probably have a hard time understanding that where it's like oh hey i could just sort of go to bed um and it can

really be a bummer for a family because then everybody else in the family is kind of like oh you know you know he or she is going to bed now it's like three o'clock you know because it makes you feel like everybody else in the family it's like fuck you know like you'd rather just go to bed but i don't i don't i'm not gonna have an answer for this one i mean other than the very because it makes you feel like everybody else in the family. It's like, fuck. You'd rather just go to bed. But I'm not going to have an answer for this one. I mean, other than the very casual talk it out and all these different things. Or you love her, you love the kid, you love the dynamic, and that there's a lot more positive than there are negatives.

That's a major negative because it impacts your day-to-day. And it's going to be a hard thing to deal with, and it's going to make you feel inadequate like this person doesn't care enough about me to want to be awake tonight and watch tv and curl up on the couch like she'd rather just go to bed the whole time like it's it's not easy but i think the only thing i can tell you because i'm not a professional here and i'm not going to pretend uh would just be, you know, the easiest thing is like, hey, have her go talk to somebody and then work your way through it,

then magically have her after and all that kind of shit. I just, I don't know. I don't know if that's ever going to happen, so I'm not going to say that that's going to be it. It just may be that you have to come down to some math in your head where it's like so much of the math is really good on this that I'm going to have to find a way to live with this. But it shouldn't be, you know, this should be a temporary thing.

It should be a temporary thing. But if her parents, if she's in her early 30s and her parents are like, man, she likes to sleep a lot and it's been going on for like over 10, 15 years, I don't have an answer for you, man. I don't. I feel bad. There's a good chance that, you know, they've already kind of gone down the medical and probably, you know, prescription, whatever you want to call it, like medication situations for this um i don't know maybe again i don't have a great answer for this either but maybe can you just like plan more stuff like is she open to doing things and you're she's doing this more

out of like boredom like because you know there are plenty of times like when i come home and if i don't have anything to do i'll just lay on the couch and like watch tv and like hours and hours will go away like her version of that is she just like passes out for extended periods of time like if you just start planning more stuff and even doing stuff with the kid and you know going and like hours and hours would go away. Like her version of that is she just like passes out for extended periods of time. Like if you just start planning more stuff and even doing stuff with the kid and, you know, going on trips and, you know, going to like trivia night or just doing stuff like that

where she's a little bit more active and, you know, obviously don't do anything that she wouldn't want to do, but maybe that could at least help. Part of this issue is like just more activities, more stimulation. Again, not a doctor, not saying that's a problem. I'm sure you've probably tried to cross

a lot of things, these things off. So we're probably being repetitive here for you. But unfortunately, I don not saying that's a problem. I'm sure you've probably tried to cross a lot of things, these things off. So we're probably being repetitive here for you. But unfortunately, I don't have a great answer, but I'm with you too. Like, it sounds like a pretty good setup. She seems like, you know, it seems like you really like her a lot. Obviously, you know, you watch her kid,

you work for her parents. I'm sure everyone's pretty well liked there. It doesn't seem like a deal breaker, but I guess that would be my one thing is just see if you could do more activities and maybe that'll slowly sort of, I don't know, change her ways. Because some people, I just think some people don't really want to do anything. Like their idea of coming home from work is they just sit down and they do nothing.

And other people like want to attack the day and make sure they get the most out of every hour. So changing kind of your lifestyle and your schedule could potentially help that. So I don't know. You probably tried to do that before and you're going to be like, Struity, you're an idiot. I've done this. Don't worry about it. But that's what I would do. All right. Yeah. I don't really have much more to add to that because it's just

a shitty situation. And I'm not going to pretend I have all these answers for that one. There you go. That's life advice. All right. Ryan Rosillo Podcast. We're in your Spotify. Please subscribe. Thank you.