The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Russillo on the Road: New Zealand Travelogue

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

Russillo gives a day-by-day account of his solo trip to New Zealand. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I have always wanted to go to New Zealand, and this is now our fifth installment of the travelogue for the Ryan Rosillo podcast. We did a little Switzerland, which was an official release, soft release, and then we had the Iceland drive around the island into the Arctic Circle. We had the Spain travelogue, which went all the way over to Mallorca. It was probably too long of a pod. But New Zealand has always been a top destination, a place I've wanted to go probably before the other places I actually went. I decided towards the end of December, before Christmas, over Christmas, and then right before New Year's Eve, I wanted to spend it in New Zealand.

I hit up both the North and the South Island, nine to ten days. I still didn't have enough time to do it all, but it's one of the best trips of my life. Here you go. Part one, New Zealand. I have been here 24 hours and we will recap that, but we'll also give you a little brief history. Why New Zealand? I'll get land that is inhabitable that was actually discovered. So I don't see much debate on that. I'm sure there's something out there if you want to dig and look for it. But the guys get together and say, hey, let's start canoeing. We'll read the sun. We'll read the stars. We'll read the wind. And we will navigate there. I always wonder about that.

Because you think about your friend group, your guys, and you're like, hey, Steve is starting a small business. And then three of you are like, eesh. And there's another guy. I'd be like, hey, Doug's starting a small business. You'd be like, really? What's he getting into? What do you think he's going to do? I bet you that'll work. He's good with that stuff. I have to get a bunch of us together and canoe south. Like, remember the last time he wanted us to go canoeing? I mean, it's just, it's fascinating to me because I think we can look, we can look back on it and assume that things were different. And that's not really the case. Like there was somebody that was always full of shit. There was somebody that was a really the case like there was somebody that was

always full of shit there was somebody that was a gossiper there was somebody that was a liar but there was also somebody that was dependable somebody that was a great leader somebody that had a history of making the right decisions or was a reasonable person but we think because of lack of i don't know it's not a lack of intelligence because it's not that at all. Maybe just a lack of communication as we're looking at it is like 800 years later, we just assume, oh, there had to be very limited conversation, limited communication. That's not the case really at all. It's just whatever version of their communication was what it was, but there had to be people in the town and i don't care where you were islands

established you know western europe where you're just like wait todd wants to invade that place dude todd sucks at invading so whenever i think about people just getting canoes and discovering things um i i always wonder how those conversations went before the guys left and i imagine they were just like look we gotta find something else maybe find something that's a little bit better but man men love to discover things all right so uh unfortunately for the first people that showed up other people showed up 400 years later uh abel tasman dutch explorer apologize to the dutch if that name is is wrong uh but that's how it's spelt. He named it New Zealand. 1769, Jimmy Cook, Captain James Cook, set up some whaling and some trading spots here,

visited three times. That guy had massive, massive status for the miles traveled for him. Around the 1830s, the British government's looking to step in and colonize it. They had to worry about the French colonizing it. But basically, it was becoming really lawless. There was a lot of stuff that was going on. I read about this one dude named John Gard, who was from Britain, stonecutter. So you know he was jacked. He stole a quilt. And instead of being sentenced to death, because apparently England's government was like, hey, maybe we just stop killing everybody for the smallest infractions. Okay, let's send them all to Australia before you kind of rotted to death in disease and malnutrition on these floating barges outside of the city to be transported. is up he they're like do you want to plot a land here and he was like no land sucks he's like i'm gonna go to new zealand and apparently he was an unbelievable seaman set up all these whaling ports

uh there was some other thing about a printing press where he like went to sydney to learn how to print do the printing press and then brought it back to new zealand and totally bombed um there's a lot of stuff on john garden his family but there was an attack by a local tribe they kidnapped his two-year-old son. There was claims of cannibalism. I mean, there's just all sorts of crazy shit here. So basically, the British government got involved like, all right, this is ours now. After 20 years of fighting, there apparently was some treaty. It's all in there where all the tribe's leaders signed the treaty and then predictably after the fact, they're like, wait, this treaty sucks or we

didn't sign it or we didn't understand it. and what's this buying land or taking land and all this stuff so look um sounds familiar right so then in the 1860s the north islands primarily more of the maori uh the south island is just rolling in the sheep farming and then gold is discovered arrow towns out by queenstown in the south island uh may try to check that one out i I love an old gold town. 1893, first country in the world to allow women to vote. The Maori make up 800,000 of the five and a half million that make up the majority of, well, that's the population here, five plus million, about 2 million plus, I think, in Auckland and outside of Auckland. And I'm in Auckland right now. Why New Zealand? Of the pictures, I don't even think really I should need to explain it. I would say it's probably been number one on the bucket list

for a really long time, but the 13-hour flight was always something I was like, eh. I don't think anybody goes like, oh, that'd be awesome. I want to do that. I also, in my late teens, in the impressionable years, it's probably continued a few more years when I was back in Martha's Vineyard. Martha's Vineyard was a big global destination for young travelers. And whether it was when I worked as a prep cook or as a bartender and I would meet guys from New Zealand, they were always awesome. I don't know what it is. I don't know what they're putting in the water down here, but it wasn't just me either. Like the other local guys, it'd be like, and that's Massachusetts guys liking other guys that quickly and be like, dude, those guys are like awesome. I hope they want to be friends with us. And we were friends and we rejoiced. So, uh, the flight out of LA complicated,

almost screwed it all up. I live 15 minutes from LAX gave myself plenty of time, but for 11 o'clock PM was the flight departure. Uh, that was Wednesday at LAX took over an hour to get there. I don't know the holidays in Los Angeles. You folks just celebrate them longer and longer. It'll be like two weeks before Christmas. You can be like, what is up with town? And be like, everybody's off work. Like, dude, Christmas is in two weeks. So the whole idea was that I was giving myself plenty of time.

It wasn't working on my phone. It wasn't letting me check in. It wasn't letting me check in the kiosk. And that's because, and if you want to go to New Zealand, make sure you do this better than I did. There's a form that you have to fill out from the government specific to this one. And I know some of you are going to say, Hey, dickhead, you have to do that with all these foreign countries. Not, not like this. This was different. It's not a visa, but it's like this mini approval thing. And the guy was like, Oh no, you need to do that. And I was like, well, how long is that going to take? He goes, it could be minutes or it could not.

I fill it out. I pay the 50 bucks, which is probably the real point of the whole form. I wait. Then it goes, this could take 72 hours to get approval. I was like, well, I guess I'm not going to New Zealand. Then in your head, you're kind of like, well, maybe I do it another time. Maybe I drive up to montecito maybe i do carmel maybe i do that california road trip because i've kind of set aside the schedule here

to be able to have a little bit of a break and do this new zealand trek real quick 13 hours on a plane doesn't sound exciting maybe i do that instead whatever i got approved um checked in whole deal get on the plane and yeah it's 13 hours i don't really sleep on flights Um, checked in whole deal, get on the plane and yeah, it's 13 hours. I don't really sleep on flights. First class tickets were 20 K. There's no way I was doing that. Um, I was, I was comfort, which is fine. I was aisle neck, real struggles with the neck.

Cause I did fall asleep for like two hours of 12. It's like 12 plus. So it took us like 12 plus. So land in Auckland Friday at 9 a.m wait what you left la wednesday at 11 p.m you landed in auckland friday at 9 a.m well here you go we're 21 hours ahead of los angeles here so look at it i know i can't tell if we should all like we all understand time zones. We've all had to do the math at some point in our lives, relatives, you know, whatever.

Um, you've been on a plane. I'm sure you've traveled outside of your time zone. So you do the math, but the New Zealand part of it is like, I tried to explain it. And then even I was double checking myself, like, wait, how am I going to do this? I'm like, oh, just do 24 hours, but then minus take away three. Or you could just do the 21. But basically, I didn't have a Thursday with December 22nd. So that day did not exist for me. Interstellar, right? So got to the hotel, did the excited energy walk. The city of Auckland, I would, and I'm a little scared to say it, energy walk the city of Auckland I would I'm a little a little scared to say not blown away no it reminds me a bit of a Canadian city at first it there was some things about Toronto it reminded me of but not really um not Montreal because Montreal is too French but it reminded me

of like some of the outskirts cities of Montreal, but that didn't really make any sense because it's still bigger than like some secondary city on the way into Montreal. I don't know what it was. And then I realized it was a little bit more like Vancouver because it is on the water and then you can see other landmasses around it. And then there's this big bridge up there, but you can see all these different islands. It's got its own little needle. but the layout of it is kind of tough because it's got all this incredible water at the north part of the city that you know look then you go deep into the blocks and there was no part that was like i don't know i didn't walk the whole city it's not like there's any part that i felt like it was bad it was all nice it was all clean people seemed to be

happy uh there's a lot of tourists obviously because this is their peak season this is their summer uh about 70 degrees if you needed to know that information we'll get to gdp part three but it was just kind of a city you know it was just all right yeah this is nice but the problem is the waterfront is all very industrial it's all of this ports so you know how like the layout of other cities which again this isn't like different than some other port cities, but other major cities, you may not even notice the port where the port is just kind of the entire line of walking this main, I would say the northernmost part of the street that's closest to the water. museums and there's there's some setups but it's just a ton of port activity and the ferry boats going all over the place and all that kind of stuff so that's that's cool but it's not it doesn't have the layout it should for the water line that it has in the north part part of the city so again i'm not a city planner but i think i took one architecture class that doesn't

really qualify me for anything but i just want to be honest i'm not going to sit here and be like oh my god i got to auckland it was the most amazing city that I've ever seen in my life. That's not the case. And people that I've told about this trip ahead of time, and I was like, yeah, I think I'm only have time for the North Island because I want to go to Auckland. I want to go to this other Island, Wahiki. And they were just like, yeah, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Like get to Auckland, give it a day and then get out of there, go to the South Island. So we are adjusting for that. So as far as the day went, got a couple hours of sleep in, but basically that first day, I think I went like 36 plus hours and I only slept like probably three hours, but it doesn't matter. All adrenaline. Speaking of

the New Zealand break is, uh, well, that was part of wanting to come down here. I've watched a lot of the, uh, Australian basketball league games the last couple of years because of all the draft picks that they've had. The league is getting better and better talent wise. And Matt Wall, she played for Florida who then, you know, had a quick stint there with the Miami heat. We had them on the podcast, not that, I don't know, maybe two years ago or something like that. We were talking to some of the Australian guys that we were watching come in and then also LaMelo Ball playing in Australia, RJ Hampton playing for the Breakers. So there was a bit of a push there with some of these top

American kids deciding to come down and play. And look, I always just wanted to see it. I wanted to see what the deal was. So I walked over to Spark Arena. It was about a 10-minute walk from the hotel. Super easy. They could have been nicer. My guy, Leo, full kind of like a three-piece suit, but like a three-piece Santa suit, if that makes any sense. He's like, oh, you're the podcaster. Just a heads up. I'm going to do the accent a couple of times. I'm not sure that I'm going to nail it. I'm definitely not going to nail it every time. I'm just telling you, I'm going to do it a couple of times. So it was Leo and then Lisa. And then Simon was the PA, the in-house entertainment. And my man, Simon, put in the possessions. High usage rate,

high usage rate, on the mic the entire game. But he was incredible. Tons of energy. I don't even know. That is like, I'll never be that guy. When I was going through one part of the New Zealand airport, there was a guy in a vest, a male, and he had reindeer antlers on and he was smiling and saying hello to everybody. And I go, you know what? That'll never be in the'll never be in the scattering for me at no point where I'd be like, yeah, I'm going to show up to work and put on reindeer antlers and just smile and be super happy. Now, granted, he's probably better than I am as a person. I'm admitting that, but I just saw that was like, I can't do it. Same thing for in arena entertainment. I'd be bad at it. I just, but I, I appreciate talent when I see it. So, um, they put me right there on the baseline, on the court.

Shout out to the breakers. Thank you for the seats. And we had two things that happened during the game. One was a blocked shot that went right at the face of the woman to my right, and I was able to swat that away. And then there was about a five, six-point guard from New Zealand who I could see it happening right in front of me he broke away from everybody else got behind the defense and i was

like yeah but if he puts this shot up the big guy is going to recover and spike this thing and spike it he did but i had read the play i was just you know chess checkers i saw what was happening spiked it right at us and i caught it. And I'll just say the crowd was kind of into it. Probably the most athletic thing I've done in the last couple of years. And then Simon came up to me and he's like, Hey, good catch. And I was like, cool. Then one of the other employees came over to me and it was kind of loud. I mean, it was just loud the whole time. The crowd's super into it. There was a Christmas festive mood of the whole deal.

Anthony Lamb, UVMs, Anthony Lamb, 24 points, a game high. Big win for the Breakers against the Sydney Kings, by the way. Enjoyed it. There's a couple draft prospects out there. A lot of fun. But Lamb just, man, is he good. Just destroying dudes, especially once he gets specific matchups. But then he's so smart because he'll get deep. And if he's bottled up, he makes these great passes too.

So he's determined to get to the hoop and then it looks like oh is he too determined it's like nope he's on top of it he knows how to make the right play all the time incredibly smart player god love that guy's game so back to uh this other new zealand dude he was like you know just bs with me and i, what, um, like how popular is basketball now in New Zealand? And I was like, I imagine it's rugby first. He was like, yeah, it's rugby. And then, um, this is where it gets weird or funny. I promise. And then I was like, where's basketball? He's like, well, you know, basketball, we don't have it at the club level. He goes, what's really, he goes, what's really popular is Nick ball. I was like, what? I thought he said Dick

ball. And I was like, there's no way I was like, what, what sport? And he's like, Nick ball. And I went, it sounds like he's saying Dick ball. I'm like, there's no way there's a sport named Dick ball. Like we would have made fun of Dick ball, the sport at some point in my life, I would have been aware of a sport called Dick ball and would have made fun of Dick ball, the sport at some point in my life, I would have been aware of a sport called Dick ball and would have made fun of it. And I was like, just say it one more time. And he's like, Nick ball. And I was like, all right. And then I was like, maybe he's saying Nick ball. I'm like, I don't, I'm like, all right. It turned out it's net ball, some version of basketball where only women play it, but you're not allowed to dribble. So not Dick ball that doesn't exist. Um, great game. Here's what's really fun is I had about 10 different people come up to me

to talk about the catch I made on the block. They loved it. I mean, it was a real crowd pleaser and yeah, man, I was feeling myself a little bit after it. One guy came up to me, he's like, Hey, man. I was feeling myself a little bit after it. One guy came up to me. He's like, Hey, yo, you made two deflections tonight, right out of midair. And I was like, yeah, man, I was on it. You know? Cause you're like, Oh, is this guy coming up to me? Cause he likes the podcast. No. One guy brought his family up. He and his wife and the two kids. I thought the kids are going to ask for an autograph. They just, I got to find the video of it. It was a nice play.

I don't know what to tell you, but I just, you know, the troops are the real heroes, but I, you know. Anyway, all right. Tomorrow, I'm going to head to Wahiki Island. I actually, believe it or not, have a friend that's staying there with his family and he invited me over to stay with them so I'm going to hang out with other people for a portion of this trip so day two um start of the day with a plan I also can't stop thinking about New Zealand Breakers game last night. Both teams played hard. They play so hard in the Australian League. Granted, a lot of guys playing, thinking about the next thing, but really impressed kind of thinking back to the game. The other thing I was really impressed with was Simon in-house on the mic.

And whenever the breakers would get the ball after a call or a turnover or something, he would just get on the mic and he'd just go, whose ball? Breaker's ball. Whose ball? Breaker's ball. And he would do it over and over again. If he did it a hundred times, that might be low. It reminded me of that scene in mad max where the bad guys are just kind of like dancing with each other and singing but that had less to do with basketball so the plan uh today is to head over to waiheke island

to visit a friend a person whoa uh we know Scott, who has been referenced before, not Van Pelt, but Scott from Breakside Brewery, who actually bid on a full day experience to watch Scott and I do the radio show. Because at least that money's for charity. Because I used to always be whenever anybody spent money on that, I'd be like, I don't know what's going to be that great, dude. Okay. So he invited me uh stay with his family for the night so basically here's how the day went um made it over to a really nice gym in auckland uh really nice high class 30 bucks new zealand to get in not a big deal hard to find bottled water in a lot of places they just don't want the bottles uh piling up makes sense

so i was able to grab one here but it was some plant-based thing they had everything you could possibly want a really really good setup um didn't see any guys like icelandic level monsters but maybe you know auckland isn't where you would find that uh and isaiah thomas did show up and everybody noticed her. And it was that universal language of men just being at a gym, seeing somebody like that, where every one of us just kind of looked at each other, going, you're a stranger, and I'm a stranger, but are you seeing this? It was impressive.

And people saw it. See it, we did. So I went over to Waiheke. It's an island about 30 to 40 minutes north of Auckland across the bay by ferry. Took the ferry over. Not too expensive, not a huge hassle. Really good. It was all passenger ferry, but really easy to get in on and off the deal. They would make the Icelandic Western Fjord guys envious with their efficiency. Waiheke is just over 9,000 people year round. It's a bit like some of the places that I'm from where you look at all the people that have houses there and there's a lot of local celebrities that have a place out here but then you think about the the line of of like okay but who's actually living out there who chooses to live out there year-round so there's some beautiful houses when you first get in there the town itself is kind of like there's there's a small little town that's a little touristy but kind of cool has a little soul to it um and then there's like another

stretch where it's kind of all the necessities there was even like a little soul to it um and then there's like another stretch where it's kind of all the necessities there was even like a gym off to the side i didn't go to that uh and then i headed over to their place um which was on on a tongi beach so we headed over to their place they rented a house he and his wife three kids it's kind of fun to be around kids again i think everybody always gets a little weird out because i don't have a family like how's this guy going to be around kids does he know they don't listen sometimes does he know that they become the priority does he know that they would request things like yep i'm aware i'm aware how kids work so it was kind of cool to do that yeah scott i and his wife decided to go to dinner

but on the way in we stopped in town to grab a drink and his wife made like a really good call because we're sitting there having a drink over this absurd view on the other side of the island you know it was just everywhere you were there was just the different pockets because there's all these landmass it wasn't just a straight shot from Auckland across a body of water and then you're at this island there's there's other land all all around you in different pockets. But this is considered a destination because it is called the Island of Wine, which we'll get to in a second. But we were hanging in town and we were off of this back deck, this restaurant we had around, which was really

interesting too, because everybody was kind of friendly. and there was a guy that was like where are you from and by the way just as an aside i'm gonna do the accent a few times throughout this journal this audio journal if you will um just allow it i'm not saying it's gonna be great all the time but i'm just trying to add color context and so uh the guy was like where are you from and i was like manhattan beach and he goes so am like, Manhattan beach. And he goes, so am I. And I was, you know, he had a thick, thick accent. He laughed so hard. Every time he laughed, people looked in this outside seating area as if he was going to die. I don't know how to explain this. That's his laugh was so intense and so violent and kind of just out of nowhere, just a rocket ship of a laugh that the third time he did it, I was like, no one be funny or no one be moderately funny. No one be less than funny, but don't go towards funny at all with him because what is going on?

He was a heck of a nice guy, though. Very friendly. But like other people that weren't with us were leaning over going what um there was actually a smoking section at this place again shout out to the smokers uh respect you staying with the craft this long anyway the point that his wife made which i thought was a very uh salient point was that she goes this feels a bit like maui and i was like you, you know, it does. It does. You know, we're Maui on the left side, not like Kapalua, maybe Kanapali. You know, I know a lot of that has been ravaged after the fires, but that section that's very touristy.

But if you go there at the wrong time of year, as cool as it is, it's just overwhelming. Like it's almost impossible to get seated for, for dinner unless you're by yourself. Um, you know, it's just, just a lot going on where you're walking around in this town in Waiheke and it's gorgeous. It's prime season in New Zealand, but it was, it was a really easy pace and there was no one there and it's gorgeous. You know, the water's kind of misting in off of this bay and it actually feels good so um that was a pretty cool point because we were sitting there thinking like if new zealand were a four or five hour flight away from los angeles this place would just be overwhelmed it would be a completely different experience so as you leave wahiki and the version of maui you drive minutes, take a left into the countryside,

and it feels like France. It is incredible that you can experience these two different feelings and these two different levels of scenery that it wouldn't make any sense to be like, what if Maui was combined with the French countryside with vineyards everywhere? Is there a place like this that exists? The closest thing I've ever seen is Waiheke. We made it up to the Mudbrick Vineyard and Restaurant. This is an all-time location because you walk up to it. Granted, it's all gorgeous. It overlooks this other view on the other side of the island that looks back at Auckland. You can see the city skyline. I'm still not quite sure what time the sun goes down here. There've been a few times where I'm like, it's still not down

yet. And I'm talking like 11 o'clock at night where I'm looking going, I think there's still sunlight out there. Not quite Iceland, but you get the point. So I'll research that for you. The dinner, like there's a fancy restaurant part of it. There's an outdoor bar. There's an outdoor patio. There's a little wine bar. Then downstairs, there's also a pub thing. So the whole facility is massive. I guess it's pretty famous for people that are in this world. And even though I'm not the biggest wine guy, I am a soft guy. Yeah, I like a Sauvignon Blanc. I'm not afraid. I was late to it very late, but it tastes so good. It's crisp. It's clean. I don't like the heavy fruity ones. I like one that's almost dull.

I don't know what that says about me or my palate, but I like it. I liked it. I like the move too. If you're out with the boys and you know, guys are making the rounds and I go, you know what? Throw me a soft. And if it's a female bartender that may be going through some stuff, recent breakup or whatever, she's going to look at you and you're going to be packaged in a different way. She'll be like, oh. Now she also may be like this fucking tool and your buddies are going to give you shit the whole time until they take a sip. And they go, you know what? I'd be lying if I said that's not incredibly refreshing. So we had a few solves. Also went a little aggressive with the menu, which it was a fancy place. So to be expected, did the scallops with ice cream. Yep, that is correct. I imagine that was more about a texture cold thing than it was about a flavor thing.

Scallops were, it was almost a ceviche in a way, but it wasn't cooked. And then in the middle, I was like, what is this massive thing in the middle? And the waiter's like, oh, that's actually ice cream. And it was like ice, ice cold. It was probably the last thing they put on the plate. Immediately had the servers bring it right out. Went with the beef, but also some ox tail, or excuse me, ox tongue pastrami.

Then there was some mushroom beignet, which was just fancy, but stupid. It tasted like nothing, and more soft. So look, great dinner. We were laughing about it on the way back home when we went back through town. I was like, let's see what this town has to offer. One of my 30s, I'd be like, just drop me off. I'll figure it out. Not the case now. Town was dead anyway. And it's like, how are you actually going to get back to their place? So crash at the place.

There was a bunk bed situation. i had both bunks to myself so i was able to pick upper or lower i went lower i don't know the last time i've slept on a twin bed definitely don't know the last time i've slept on a bunk bed i mean bunk bed has got to be i think it has to be freshman year in college i think i mean is there maybe some summer deal where you got the short straw in some house and you're like yeah you're in the bunks possibly but i don't i don't remember if i had to sleep and i'd probably make sure we don't have to but you know what it was fine it was fine got up had a little breakfast with the family uh his three-year-old and i watched the show the floor is lava whenever i watch shows like that, I think about

the host and I think about how bad I would be as the host of that show. Good for that guy, the lava guy. He was super passionate about it. He's selling it. Oh my God. Every single time, as if they're actually falling into molten lava. I don't think that's the case. Probably would have read about that show more. But whenever I watch those shows, I go, this would be the worst thing you could ever put me in. Anyway, ferry back to Auckland. I'm catching a flight to Queenstown. It is on. Two-hour flight, Waiheke Island.

Highly approve. Back to Solo Rai, Queenstown, soon. We are in Queenstown, and this is worth it. Well, of course it's worth it. I mean, all of it's been worth it so far. I know that when I talked about Auckland in the beginning, I was like, all right, you know, like, look, I don't want, I'm not expecting 10 out of 10, but you've been in enough places. You know, I'm a hard marker. What can I tell you? Nothing gets the juices flowing like an aborted landing. So coming in about a two-hour flight, and it's a weird entry point because these mountain ranges are all over the place.

And again, you know, we can get into the elevation and what truly constitutes mountain range. But there's this huge, huge lake, which we'll get to, which the town sits on and is a big part of the surrounding areas and all the tourism, all the different activities, and all the things you can do. But you're coming down on this deal, and you're just about to touch down, and it's like, nope, pop right back up.

And then as you're going back up, you're trying to clear the peaks. Okay. And you're going through clouds. So you're watching out your window being like, all right, we're below the summit of that one. And then it's like, now it's all clouds. And then you're like, this is how loss started. Uh, although loss, the plane just broke apart. So anyway, circling around for another 25 minutes and land, no problem. People clapped. I think that's fair. I think that that's a fair clap. I think we were just coming in too

hot. Uh, I'm not a pilot, but I think, I think we were coming in real high. He said something about a tailwind, so I'm going to go with that. Okay, we are doing stuff. This place is incredible. Explain the town. It's a village at the base of all of these mountains that are overlooking. I mean, it's just endless. You're like, okay, what's that one? What's that one?

What's going on there? And then there's this massive lake. Lake Wakatipu. Lake facts. Let's do them. 112 square miles. It's about 1,000 feet above sea level, but has a depth at its max depth of 1,380 feet. So at its deepest, it's actually below sea level level despite the elevation of the town itself purity

level do you want it i got it for you 98.9 pure so the water checks out as if it were the same as distilled water queenstown 29 000 people year-round june 23 census so those are recent numbers feel great about it um There's certainly a lot more now because of tourism, but not overwhelming. One of the epiphanies that I had last year after doing certain towns in Switzerland, the Barcelona deal last year, and then Nice. Nice was just way too many people two years ago. And unfortunately, I got stuck staying there in the back end a little bit longer than I wanted to because I got stranded in that lake town, which we've covered before, and there were no Ubers, and the guy would only bring me back to Nice. He didn't want to go

anywhere else, so that part kind of sucked. All right, I digress. Queenstown, I am now more into getting into the city where you have to go for these travels and then getting out of there as soon as I can. Maybe a day or two on the front end and then one on the back end. But this is much more my speed. Not that Auckland was overwhelming whatsoever, not even close to the level of Barcelona or Nice. But Queenstown, even though it's peak tourism here, it just feels like a really busy village. I think village would be the best way to say it. It reminds me of a ski town in Colorado, not Vail, which some people despise because it's

off of a highway. I think for two days, it's great. Red Lion. I mean, you can get weird, you can ski, and then you get right back on the highway. Aspen has, you know, it's a painting they asked to get to unless you're flying private. The pod's doing well, not that well. So I think the closest call would be Breckenridge, although I haven't spent any time in Breckenridge in the summer, but a little bit more of a town feel to it, the whole deal. And that's kind of what it is. Like you can walk Queenstown in 30 minutes if you want to and feel like you've hit every little street,

every little nook while it's right on top of this lake. And because it has these mountain ranges behind it and this beautiful lake, it just goes in all these different directions. I mean, the views, you kind of keep looking going, I guess it's going to be here the whole time I'm here. I don't want to miss anything. But you almost feel guilty not looking at it. It's that stunning. So I'd say it's a smaller

Lucerne in Switzerland. That was my favorite stop of all the places that I went. Zurich, I got in, I got out. And then when I got back in, I had a flight in Zurich on Sundays. They don't screw around. There was nothing going on. It was these massive rainstorms too, They don't screw around. There was nothing going on. It was these massive rainstorms too on top of everything else. Bern was weird. Basel was cool.

But Lucerne was easily, easily my favorite part of Switzerland. And that's what Queenstown reminds me of. And when I'd ask around a little bit, I go, you know, it's weird because every pocket that you study or you look at, you think, well think well god that looks kind of like this and then you know that's that's just i think the attraction of new zealand is it feels like it's different in a very quick amount of time in all these different directions as we were talking about ojiki uh the last time so um let's see here what else do we got all All right. So the cab driver, uh, that I had from the airport to the hotel, um, he couldn't have been more, he was the most excited person in the world in that moment that I left the North Island for the South Island. So he's like, where you been again? I'm going to do a little of the accent. Uh, I was like, Oh, I was up in Auckland. He's like, what'd you think?

And I was like, yeah, you know, I go, it's fine. I go, I guess maybe I'd had this image in my head that, you know, I'm going to be in Auckland, you know? And then he said something I did not understand. That's happening a lot. I don't know what it is. The accent can get really thick or they go too fast. I mean, it's still English, I think, but i just was like you know okay and then i wanted to get into it you know i'm kind of a journalist uh i was like what's the difference i go what's the difference between the north and the south and then he said something like oh no it probably thinks it's and i was like okay you know it's like we've taken me to your caravan so this one i actually caught i was like okay so what what is this he basically was saying the

north thinks the south is like incapable of fixing a lawnmower or something when that's probably not what he meant but um i think there was an intelligence insinuation and i think he said something whereas if it's five plus million in new ze overall, it's less than a million in the South Island total. I can double check that for you or you could, but that's, you know, look, you're not doing the pot. I got to do it for you. So I'll put that in the notes, which likely means I'm going to forget and not give you the update. We'll see. It'll be a little test. So I asked him about the North and he was like, ah, just, we call them Jaffas. I was like, what? He goes, Jaffas, just another fucking Aucklander.

And I was like, okay, that seems, that seems mean. But you know what? I'm not involved with the politics here. I'm not going to wear a hoodie. So that's what he, he just, he just called people from, from Auckland or the North Island Jaffas. I don't, I imagine that's a known thing. Again, I haven't been here long enough to know whether or not that's anything.

So he dropped me off at the QT hotel, a nice little ascent over the town a bit. And I'm actually making it sound like it's up on this high peak. It isn't, it's just on the, there's a kind of a lake road right next to the lake and then a first line of hotels and kind of apartments and efficiencies and all sorts of awesome places to stay. And then beyond that is like this next ridge above it of a line of hotels. This is one of the nicest hotels in town. It was, and I'm going to say only because I was a little surprised peak season that one of the nicest hotels in town. It was, and I'm going to say only because I was a little surprised peak season that one of the nicest hotels in town in Queenstown would be only $500 a night. We got this one for a few nights. Then as soon as I checked in the room, it was incredible. A real normal king bed, not a fake king European bed or a king international bed where it's two twins put together. And you know, you're probably not going to be awesome at the gym tomorrow. Open up the balcony and it's right out towards the lake. I can't believe, and again, just because say 500 bucks is a lot of money, not for this place. I'm

blown away that this kind of room, because it's not like it's a massive city. Again, it is a village and I'm in one of the nicest places um no gym though and i'm looking at back-to-back holidays uh over the course of the next two days christmas and boxing day which is the 26th so we're gonna have to see maybe have to do a little yoga i don't know crank out some youtube videos here so So headed back into town, quick walk from the hotel, crossing the street, something I'm noticing because you drive on the left side of the road here. Also the steering wheel is on the other side, but you drive in the left. You want to think driving. I think the brain basically kind of figures it out after a little while. It's a

little weird. I did it when I was in Jamaica and like the first hour I was like, oh, this is kind of weird. And then just subconsciously your brain, again, we're just not maximizing our brain power, what it's capable of. Because I think once you kind of settle in, the brain just kind of understands, um, yeah, this is the way you have to do it. The left on left turns are probably a little weird, maybe even the left to right. But what's really weird is crossing the street because you're just so used to looking at a pattern in a different way and here I've I've caught myself a couple times being like wait do you think you're clear or whatever

um so whatever we'll figure it out I do have a theory that has nothing to do with New Zealand about crossing the street I think we should replace the Wonderlic and certain things with that uh it's one thing to cross the street when you're not supposed to every one of us is jaywalk we're all going to do it I'm going to do again. Even when it's red straight through and then you want to cross, but you don't have the crossing signal and somebody who has green is actually making a right turn and then you screw it up and they yell at you because the people behind them are like, why are you stopping? And you're kind of mad at them even though you know it's your mistake. But then when you're in a car and somebody does it, you're going to yell at them like you've never done it before, right? We get

the whole point. The four-way stop sign theory where no matter what happens, even when you're going to yell at them like you've never done it before, right? We get the whole point. The four-way stop sign theory, where no matter what happens, even when you're wrong, you find a way to blame somebody else. That's initially what we always do. There's another level of crossing the street where the person that sees the traffic and just says, I'm going to cry because I saw these kids do it yesterday. And I was like, you just didn't give a shit. And it used to happen to me all the time when I lived in Boston where I'd be coming back up to Com Ave and there was this school that got out. It was almost in Watertown and they just, it'd be a green light. They didn't give a shit. They were just going to cross and it wasn't a crossing guard letting them across. They just said, I'm

going to go and you're going to stop for me and I'm going to go slow. I think anybody that does that at a young age, I think you can kind of map out how successful they're going to be. And I think maybe if you just went to quarterbacks and said, hey, do you ever cross the street aggressively, but also slowly expecting cars to stop for you? And if a quarterback said yes, I would not draft that quarterback. So we also know my theory on tourists, restaurant spots, the closer to to the water the worse the food is going to be it doesn't mean every single restaurant that's ever been on the water in a tourist destination sucks there are some really good ones but i think the odds are more likely than not

that when you're going to a tourist area and they have the restaurants on the walking area on some sort of you know marina deal near the slips those restaurants have a low level of uh of food quality so to test the theory i decided to go to a place called the pier i think again this is all like within five to ten minutes in my hotel so it's not like i took a cab you know sometimes you take a cab to these places that you hear about and then you go and like this sucked now I have to get a cab back to where I want to be. So I ordered a burger. I hadn't had one in a while. It was kind of excited. A little side salad as well. Not a big deal. A table right on the water facing all the ships coming in. Big boat guy. Loved it. The burger shows up and as soon as i take

the bun off to make sure they didn't douse it in mayo uh we gotta have really bad mayo situation on a chicken and rice deal uh at some japanese place at the airport powered through it though just seeing all that mayo all over your rice you're like fucking hey man all right so i checked for the mayo no mayo mayo. And as I pulled the bun off, the burger actually fell apart in half, just defying the laws of science that the burger was so overcooked that as soon as the bun was no longer there as foundational support, it just fell apart on itself. And I looked at it and said, I could probably eat it, but I go, you know what? I'm not eating it. I'm like, this is terrible. And as I was sitting there holding the bone open, looking at this

burger, a bird shit on my arm. So I go, this is not working out at all. This has been a bad experience. So even though I was not thrilled about the bad burger, even though I was not thrilled about having a bird shit on me. And as the bird shit on me, as the bird shit on me two cute girls walked by my waterfront table noticed it laughed in my face and kept walking uh i i was excited to get another data point that backs my theory i went to the guy say hey man i'm not eating this and i'm not paying for it i'll pay for the side salad i'll pay for the sparkling water and i can still tip you and then we'll be good and then the manager came over and was like i'm so sorry we'll make sure we keep checking on the burgers back there and see how it's going the rest of the night. I was like, look, not to be selfish. I'm not going to care about how the

rest of the burgers are going to go tonight because I'm not going to be here. And she was like, ah, fat point, fat point. So I went to a Mexican place next door, passable, not great. I don't know what they were doing with their salsa. It was room temperature in a bad way. Salsa shouldn't be ice cold when you keep it in the fridge the whole deal, but it was more like a olive oil with tomatoes tabbouleh thing. Do better would be my advice to you, but that's all right. I don't come to Queenstown from Mexican. So as I was kind of just interacting, observing, watching the whole thing in here a couple of days, I wanted to take my time with this, but I want to try my best to describe New Zealand guy to you. Not a full study, incomplete. Editors still need to look it over,

but New Zealand guy. I don't know what's going on with the hair with some of these dudes. It is incredible. I kind of wish I could do it. I don't know if I would, if I could. But are they way ahead of us with some of the stuff that we're doing? The completely shaved out sides deal with the shaggy thing in the back. And I know you're going to say, hey, like Theo Vaughn did it. Okay, maybe. But I don't know. He did it like this. And the other part is you can never tell me like, wait, is that guy who has this kind of weird curly mullet, but curly on the top,

but then absolutely nothing on the sides. It looks like the kind of haircut that you would see a bad guy have in some weird science fiction movie. But then the New Zealand guy that has it, like one guy's awesome. Like I've got a picture of this rugby guy that has it, you know, like that guy's a badass. Like he deserves to have that kind of haircut. But then you'll see another dude where you go, is that guy allowed to have that haircut? You know, I can't tell like with that haircut, is that guy awesome or does that guy suck? It keeps you on your toes. You just don't really know because the tattoo thing. Now, granted, I was just outside of the threesome cocaine tattoo window at college, but I was still in my college town to start hearing about it and then seeing the tattoos. Tattoos used to be reserved for

guys you didn't want to mess with. Now, that's totally off the table where you can see some twitch streamer in his avatar with tats sleeves full sleeves and he's given off jason statham vibes and then you actually see like a person of him it's more like jason bateman vibes nothing against bateman he's terrific but if you were going dark alley actors i'd be afraid of to less afraid of, I think consensus would be Bateman's not somebody you'd be like, holy shit, what am I going to do now? Terrific actor. Love him. I mean, that's a long career. He's great on the podcast too. So the New Zealand guy, I noticed a couple of guys talking to each other at the airport. I mean, you know, one guy had some bands on his legs and then his arms. He had a beautiful wife. He had a little kid. Another guy came up to him. He's like, hey, stick boy. I was like, stick boy?

Then he was like, hey, Samna, and pushed him back. I was like, I just think these guys are more rugged than us. I do think, speaking to the lawnmower a little bit earlier about the north and south, I think a New Zealand guy could fix a lawnmower that isn't his. I think he'd figure it out. I think he'd stare at it a little bit and deduce the issue. So the tattoo thing, they were way ahead of us, but it doesn't really mean anything. I just think that even the most average, unassuming, think of Kiwi Joe Prunty. New Zealand Joe Prunty has a band on his forearm, on his arm, maybe a little tighter above the ears, and he may crack you. He may crack you good. I sat and watched a little bit of the Ram Saints and had a beer the first day I was in Auckland because I just felt like, hey, you're here and do it. A guy comes up to me, he goes, you in the States?

I go, yep, good on you. And he just kept walking. And they were wasted. Friday Auckland guys were just tanking beers in these tables that were outside, furthering the European experience that I had before where young people go out and they sit at tables. Think of all the kids not conceived just because of bad seating, where there's somebody you like and you get stuck at the wrong end and then she marries some other guy. In America, I used to think about like, wait, stuck at the wrong end and then she marries some other guy. In America, I used to think about like,

wait, we didn't just sit at tables with other people and then that was the night. What did we do? Be like, oh, we would lurk and then we would approach. Here, just like Europe, they do the table thing. You better get the right seat. You better get the right seat or you're going to be back on the apps. So yeah, look, all I'm telling you is if you run into a guy who looks like Joe Prunty, but he's got an accent and he has a little something going on with his, with his arm tats, just, just be cautious because New Zealand guy also has a perpetual smirk. There's always this smirk where it's almost like he slept with your wife in high school. I don't know if he did or not, but we will continue to monitor. All right, I wanted this to be authentic. There's a bug here, too, in my room.

I just got back from what was a little less than six hours of hiking up the Ben Lamont track. I'm fucking spent. At one point on the way back, I thought I was going to have to have two knee replacements. They were so mad at me. Yeah, there's a bug in the room. You're going to hear from him.

I may interview him a little bit later. I was hoping to take a nap. Of course, this bug is enormous and loud. It's the ACDC of bugs and it's just going to haze the shit out of me. So even though I sound like I'm drunk, I'm not, I just am that spent. Um, it was, uh, it was a hike and we'll talk about hiking a little further into this. So two queenstown uh it's technically christmas here so not a lot more is open than you would think though we'll give it that it's it's fighting the fight um but i wanted to do this roy's peak but that's like an hour away and shockingly there weren't any car rentals that were even

available christmas day i was going to go back to the airport and drive up because i kind of wanted to drive at some point here especially in the southern island but um there's another place called like bob's cove which the pictures look kind of cool but everybody that's here is like yeah you just kind of go there and then sit there's not really that much going on and then the guy at the front desk was like, have you thought about the Ben Lomond track? I was like, I'm intrigued. Shoot me straight on this track. He's like, well, it's right behind us. I was like, okay, that's cool.

He's like, there's two different starting points. You can start in town and then just go up, but that adds an hour in the forest. He's like, or you can do what most people do, take the gondola up from this gondola spot and you can see the gondola as you look to where he's pointing and that will get you to the start of like the benlamont trail head and there's a saddle area that's really cool and you can see all the scenery and then there's the peak you know the summit so you know whatever you want to do. And I was like, well, give me a timeframe, you know, cause I've done a couple of these hikes where, uh, the guy will be like, oh, it takes like six hours. I'm like, all right. It never takes anybody like remotely athletic as long

as they project it when you look at online. And then one time I did it and I ended up like on the backside of some mountain, like coming down, the sun was down and it was a little hairy, a little weird, you know, cause the guy was like, you shouldn't go now. I was like, yeah, dude, whatever. Put on a ton of muscle in my twenties. So, um, let's check some figures here. So, uh, Ben Lamont track named after Ben. Um, not a real guy. I kept wondering, I was like was like i'm gonna do a

little research on this some of you are listening going hey we have one of those where i live scotland california i think there's one in canada another one in mexico uh the first one was in scotland some general basically the translation was beacon mountain ben lamon you know like oh i thought it was this badass hiker or mountain guy i mean nobody builds these things so i didn't you know thought maybe there was some new zealand warlord not the case it's just a term and apparently it's very popular there was one thing i was reading about it was like the first one did so well like what is it fucking restaurant like that doesn't that doesn't even make any sense like we're gonna franchise these what's that uh it's little hill that's a ben lamont track now official make shirts

so and yes i am delirious so i i get up to the gondola and I start hiking. And the beginning is a very foresty vibe. I think Douglas fir, maybe a different, I don't know if Doug had anything to do with them. But yeah, thick, penetrative. I've been on a bunch of hikes where, you know, some of the ones I did in Montana and everybody has a gun. You're like, I kind of want one of those right now. I'd kind of like, oh, there's girls doing Instagram pictures right outside of my hotel balcony. This is embarrassing. They have no idea. Well, I'm not going to get weird. I have hiking to talk about. All right. So, um, continued. So yeah, little foresty, little, little forest moon Endor feel there. Um, the gun thing is always like, what's the bear situation.

I don't know. Nobody said anything about bears the whole time, but I have been on a few hikes. There's one in mammoth and then a couple of Montana where I was like, yeah, a lot of people have stuff with them, better stuff i do and i've watched the videos like no just just stand there and chill okay uh i would love more more information on the proper bear stuff chris long's trying to help me with it he's like dude we see him all the time i'm like how close though there always seems to be a significant enough distance where you're like oh there's a bear over there so anyway you make it through the forest part. That's pretty cool. I brought an orange and I brought a couple different protein bars. There was one protein bar called Lime Milkshake. Oh, Key Lime Milkshake. You know,

Key Lime's my favorite dessert. And I thought this will be great. I had one yesterday. It was dog shit. One of the worst protein bars I've ever had. But I brought it with me just in case, you know, fall down the side of the trail break a leg stuck there for 36 hours overnight you're gonna regret not having it as bad as it tastes so I out of the woods which is only about 20 minutes it's at the very start you're like whoa this is this is kind of cool and then it just opens up and then it's just incredible landscapes lakes to like kind of both sides all these different peaks the clouds kind of rolling through them and you know the timetable was okay it's going to take four hours up and then like three back so you know on the way up

it's just stairmaster the whole time you're just going you're going it's just Stairmaster the whole time. You're just going. You're going. It wasn't super hard for the first two hours, but it was a workout depending on what kind of pace you wanted to go at. I provided myself the orange late on the ascent because I was like, don't eat this. Don't come out of the gates eating the orange already, and then you're really going to want that sugar later on, natural sugars. Brought 1.5 liters of water with me., was trying to conserve that for a little bit. Um, and you know, the first couple hours, it wasn't really that bad, but it was staying pretty true to how long the estimates were. So I was like, all right, this is going to be, this is going to be pretty long. Um, just quads or Achilles, really the Achilles and the calves burning, the knees were

fine. And then you get to the kind of the, the ride up to the summit and it's staring at you the whole time. Um, now look, it's not crazy. It's not, it's not easy. It's a workout. Uh, and there are some spots where you'd be kind of like, you if i lost it here i would fall down the side and it'd probably be over if it was a rock side of this summit um but there's also some grass areas of it as well but like there's definitely a lot of places where you're like if you just eat it here you're probably done or they're trying to like hey helicopter you're out of there christmas i'd still be there with my key lime shit protein bar so you know you know, I'm making it up and it is, it is starting to burn, burn big time. Um, but then, you know, it's the same thing as like Camelback.

I remember I did that cause everybody does it when you go to Phoenix and I was like, yeah, I'll do that. And then I did it and I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? I'm like holding onto shit. Like, should I have a rope? You know, should I brought more do i need chalk like what's up with this now you don't but there's a couple spots you're like this is ridiculous and then you see some seven-year-old with like spider-man velcro sneakers on just

flying past you and you're like all right enough of this and that's basically what happens on this hike is that i'm like man this is this is burning. It is burning. I can feel it everywhere. The summit's right there. It's staring at you. You have to just walk this ridge and keep going up and up and up. There's a couple of spots where you're actually grabbing rocks. Not a ton though, but the very end of the summit is like, all right, we're really going to just crank it up for you. But then you're looking at somebody's grandmother with her walking sticks and she's fucking going for it. So you're like, all right, yes, yes this is a workout but you've got to keep it moving walking sticks a discussion i own a pair of course i do never used them uh i would have loved having them today but you know older double

walking sticks out there maybe even a knee brace that i would have worn had i remembered to bring one with me or some sort of sleeve that maybe looks a little bit cooler uh had none none of that stuff, but double walking sticks, knee brace, you get to the summit, the guys would be like, hey, leave some for the rest of us, dude. But very happy about the summit time with a 15 minute photography break in there. Made it in 250 and then gave myself 30 minutes at the summit, just panoramic all the way 360 everything you want did buy a fancy camera do i know how to use it all absolutely not 5d why would i need 5d so got some great pictures we'll probably never do anything with them uh packed up ate some weird new zealand protein bar that was different different brand went a different route after

the mistake of the first one it was fine uh Conserved like two orange wedges lost over here. Those were great. Hung out at the summit. It was a tight hang though, because it wasn't expansive. You got up there and it was just like, everybody's kind of looking at each other. Some dude FaceTimed his friends. At first, I was like, that's fucked. And then I was like, yeah, maybe it's not that terrible. But you know, just people yapping the whole time. It's like, you think you're ready to get to the summit and take a nap although i wanted to so on the way down it's a different kind of pain uh then the knees start kicking in because the achilles are like cool we can take this off and then your knees are just like you've got to be kidding me uh cranked up mastodon leviathan which is perhaps the greatest concept

album in the history of rock since Dark Side of the Moon. And then we close it out with a different version of Mountain Jam by The Almonds. I'd like to add this about harmonicas. I went to U2 to see, or I went to the sphere to see U2. I used to be a huge U2 fan when I was a kid. And then it just kind of like, just certain things happen, man. Shit, science, bodies changing. And so I was a kid and then I just kind of like it just you know certain things happen man shit science bodies changing and so I was done with you too but um Bono went harmonica and you know there's a real let me just say this about harmonica players most of you are terrible terrible and I can say that because I used to be one. Yeah. Whoa. You're about to get super upset with me and come at me with something that's like, oh wait,

he knows the secret. The secret is as long as you're a fourth removed from whatever key the band is playing in, you're just in tune the entire time. You can't play a wrong note. Most, no one changes their breathing patterns. They just note in note note out note in note out note it just hyperventilating up and down the harmonica um this does not apply to john popper because what he does is like ridiculous um there's some tongue in there we'll just leave it at that um but like when i think about bono doing it was like he didn't really know how to play it, some rattle and hum shit. And then Mick Jagger, who's great. When the Stones are on, let's have a rowdy night.

I had some Stones phases in my life. And yet I look at Mick Jagger, who I would say is not like, I don't want to really knock his, I wouldn't think anybody's looking at him as the musical genius that others in that band were. But it's like, hey, give this guy a harmonica who's always in key. And then everybody just, it's such a crowd pleaser and it's not hard at all to sound like you know what you're doing but it's actually most people that do it completely suck and i know because i did it late teens early 20s figured it out had an ear knew how to do it you play behind everything then you step out

because i was listening to um statesboro blues by the almonds and all i could think of was like oh you would just do this riff or you would take the riff from duane or dickie and just be like i'm gonna do this riff and this would be my go-to riff and all you need is a couple go-to riffs and fucking crowd goes nuts what i'm telling the crowd is go less nuts it's not that hard okay so descent um yeah look man it was uh it was challenging they went a lot faster on the way down but you know i kept thinking about napoleon once they had settled everything um you know post-revolution and the army of Italy and everything, I need to check my notes here,

but they basically crossed cause they had, they're going to go back to war with Austria and this whole Piedmont Lombardi, all of this stuff in the Alps, just nuts. And there was this guy, this Austrian guy who went West towards Nice. And then Napoleon was like, well, we're going to meet him at the pass. And they were going to cross the Alps, which no one had really done to the extent that he had. So if I look at my numbers

here again, Napoleon crossed the Alps with 51,400 men, 10,000 horses, 750 mules. They went single file in some places. Why do I bring this up? A lot of it, by the way, had to do with their shoes. In 1800, they went to full boots for soldiers instead of the clogs. There could be a book written on that, like military history, like why they do so well. And they were like, dude, I'm not even that much of a military guy. Just these shoes are so comfortable. So yeah, I was in. So the reason I bring that up is anytime I'm tired on the, on the ascent, forget the descent. I'm like, well, if Napoleon could bring 50,000 plus across the Alps in great, uh, great St. Bernard, I believe was the pass. Then, uh, then I can make it up here for Ben Lamont track. Um, there's

another thing that I thought about on the way up. Is it fucking hurt on the way back down? And that's just being a little old and having some knees that have seen some shit. But I was like, do I even like do i do i like hiking is there a chance i don't like this and i just do it because i've hiked in vermont never when i was in college i think the collective six of us that live together like zero hike attempts we didn't even there was zero failed ascents nobody we just didn't even care um and it was years and years later that i visit and be like maybe I'll check out some of these hikes that everybody talks about all the time. So I've done those hikes. I've had a bunch in Montana that I really liked. Wyoming, I was busy.

There was a mammoth one that I found that was incredible that was basically this body of water that then I was able to just fish it all the way down after I'd fished it at the top. Like you could have just camped there. I don't even know if it was legal or or not but there's also like the bear if i'm not bear educated to the area i'm like well then i'm not pitching a tent here um where else where else switzerland did a hike uh i don't think i did i've walked a lot let's put it that way but here here was this hike oh wait there's something else i think there's a colorado one um but yeah here i was in in queenstown and i was like i'm gonna hike this this thing and it's you know it's gonna be a workout and you're gonna feel like shit after or maybe i feel great but i was i was having an internal debate of like do you actually like this

i love the views. I guess I like taking the pictures, but I don't even share any of this stuff. So it's not like I'm doing it for the clout part of it. I don't bring anybody with me. So I don't know. I don't know. Like with boating, I've had a moment where I was like, do you like boating or do you like owning a boat and saying you own a boat? I was like, no, I legitimately like boating. I like learning about it. I don't like when things go wrong, but I like learning about what went wrong and then knowing how to fix the second time through and yeah anchoring that thing and eating alone or not alone anchored off a malibu pier when the sun is coming down it's fucking awesome it's expensive but i'm

not allowed to tell you about all the bills because you know i knew it was expensive and then was like, oh my God, this is so much worse than I even thought it was. But I can't tell you unless you're a boat guy. So it's just a code we have. But yeah, there was a moment with the hiking thing when my knees hurt so bad on the way down. So bad on the way down, I was like, ugh. But anyway, good news is we wrapped this portion up, got back to the hotel, crushed a burger. It's kind of early. I got to go back and see what happened with all this NFL stuff because my YouTube TV is not working.

And they just dropped off a complimentary bottle of mums for the holiday. So I might try to cold tub it and, I don't know, pour myself, you know, celebrate, celebrate the summit. You know, what percentage of people in the world summited today? I think it's a low number. How many should drink mums? A hundred percent. So we are a post hike and we have, we have some plans to cover the next two days so i would say post-hike the legs hurt pretty bad um i remember one time i did this workout

where i was walking up and down the staircase at the west harford new york sports club with plates in my hands i think i did did. I want to say 45s, but I'm pretty sure that's a lie. I think it was 25s in both hands. And I would go up and I saw it online somewhere and I did it. And I think the second day somebody asked me if I needed a wheelchair at ESPN. I couldn't walk down the ramp from our offices to the cafeteria. I had to hold on to the railing and it was bad. So not that bad. It definitely hurts though. The thing I am proud of when I left to hike, there was these little gifts and whatnot, snacks out by the, whatever it is. It's like the mini bar thing, the chips. M&M This isn't a foreign concept. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. And they had this one tube of solve, just a balm. And I went, man, New Zealand balm, that's going to be good for you, right? Avoid chafing. I am

going to go hiking. We got a new pack. You know, you may not understand all the angles, the whole deal. And I even brought a second pair of socks. So I'd say about two plus hours up. I didn't include this in my altitude haze yesterday. I got massive blisters on the back of both heels and I just dumped the balm, the salt, the ointment, rubbed it in and then put on the second pair of socks. It's one of the smartest things I've ever done. So we're good and we're going to get through these next two days. So let's recap them. So Christmas, uh, was yesterday here. Um, it's Christmas today in the States, which is a little weird. And we made some mistakes. Um, the first mistake was going to Arrowtown. Now, as I came into town, you know, just checking in, uh, the

cab driver that called everybody from the North Island, Jeff, uh, he was like, Oh, you want to go to Arrowtown, mate? And I was like, all right, why? And he was like the gold rush. And I was like, you know what? I love gold rush. I love the shows until the Parker Schnabel thing took over. I just think he's bad to his subs and kind of turned me off, but I used to love the shows. I love talking about sluicing. I love talking about, uh, you know, the angle of the sluice box. Um, you know, things break and then you go to commercial wondering if the entire operation will be shut down. And then guess what? You come back from commercial and somebody fixed it. No way. So I do like that kind of stuff, even though it's, it's kind of heartbreaking understanding these gold rushes and people just, well, a lot, it's a lot of near the wells though, you know?

So a lot of people that didn't have a lot to offer society in the first place, just pack it up, head on out gold rush. And most everybody didn't win. Um, it's kind of like the early form of a casino. So, uh, the 1860s boom happened in arrow town so basically i went out to arrow town um and they've got the new orleans hotel um and you walk down it and you're like okay you know new orleans global global brand but you get there and you get dropped off you're like all right this is cute and then it's like five minutes later and you go now what do i do because i just walked down the street and i love old gold towns i really do like i've stopped in a few in colorado i think it's like one of the coolest things ever you're just like figuring out what's going on so i checked out the

museum remember our guy abe tasman who named this place the dutch explorer apparently he never set foot on new zealand which seems like total he's just in a boat pointing at stuff. You know what I mean? All right. New Zealand. Boom. All right. Let's,

uh, let's turn North now, you know, get out. Yeah. There should be some rule that you have to step foot on a country. If you're going to be able to name it. Here we are hundreds of years later. Um,

so yeah, 1860s is kind of when the rush happened in this town um so there just wasn't a lot going on like i went to the museum i saw the old sluice boxes i read about people that opened up some of the bars um i checked out the chinese developments i saw the post office i saw the bank i got something eat. And you just walk down the street. I'm not interested in buying any of the stuff from these places. And then there was even a sluicing setup where they would give you a shovel, a pan, some sort of like sluicing material where the guy was going to take you to ground. And you'd pay him like 150 bucks for two hours to go do

this with him. And I was like, I kind of feel like it'd be fun to do it. But I, I also know what a massive waste of time and money that's going to be. Like, he's not going to take me, I'm going to be sitting there fucking shuffling through manure and he's going to be like, Ooh, we got some good colors in here. You know, next thing you know, he's, he's weighing up my zinc on the way out. So there just wasn't much to it and the funny thing is i was like all right i got it i just got another cab and i left and he couldn't believe i didn't love arrowtown and again i liked it but you get only so many shots at it i was like i probably should have done something else and he was like you don't like

arrowtown and i was like well you know what do you want to tell you? It's my favorite town I've ever been to. It isn't, it's cool. It's all right. Historic. I like that stuff. Love the gold rush, read all about it. You know, some dredge found 720 Troy ounces of gold. And the next thing you know, everybody else came out here and they had like 300, 400 dredges running through the the lines and then they realized like guys are just giving out dredges and didn't even know how to do anything so they showed the science of all that it was pretty cool but i've been on it i've been on the gold for years so he was beside himself that there could be this guy that would come visit arrow town and not have it be his favorite place ever he's like you realize because i'm in the otaga region he's like, you realize, because I'm in the Otago region, he's like, did you realize

this is the best wine in the world? And I was like, yeah, I mean, look, I like Sav. We've been over this, but I wasn't just going to pound wine all day. Like, you know, there's other shit I want to do here, bud. And then he was like, billionaires live here. He almost wanted to turn the cab around and drop me back off and go, no, you need to go back and you need to like it more. And then I'll pick you up in two hours. He was like, billionaires live here. The Rothschilds, I was like, good for them, man. He's like, they can just walk to the post office and nobody says anything. That's the beauty of Arrowtown. He goes, that's what billionaires want. I was like, I don't know. I was like, I see a lot of billionaires that definitely want people to

know they're billionaires and don't want to live in arrowtown it just would be too slow for him so you know that's cool for those guys but that's just not what i want to do um so he just you know whatever so they dropped me back off at the hotel i reset i'm sitting here trying to watch as much of san francisco and Francisco and Baltimore on my phone as I can, because it's not on any of the TVs, knowing that later tonight I'm going to have to watch as much NBA as I can from the Christmas stuff, because that's not on my TV, but I have the computer program to watch it once the game's a lock. So I watch football. I get back to the hotel I go all right I can't I need to go somewhere else there was this other thing that I saw that was Bob's Cove and it was only 20 minutes away and

I was like okay that makes kind of sense it looks cool it's got another little water deal maybe I'll bring out the Napoleon book we'll chill out for a bit maybe bring the old camera take some shots and ultimately uh the guy that drove me out to Arrowtown picks me up this time. And he was like, what'd you think Arrowtown? I go, not, not my speed. It just wasn't really much going on. He's like, I'm surprised you even wanted to go. And I was like, okay, cool. And I was like, can you take me to Bob's Cove? Uh, I, he wasn't super excited about it and I should have known. So we went over to on the day. He drops me off at Bob, Bob's Cove. Uh, luckily luckily i'd already pre-ordered the cab back i walked down this little path through the woods and look it is gorgeous but you know everything that you're doing you're going is this stop and get out and

take pictures gorgeous because there needs to be a modern like i i would say uh the the floor is higher here when you're in new zealand of like oh my god this is mind-blowing in the beginning you're kind of impressed by everything right it's like first week here when you're in New Zealand of like, Oh my God, this is mind blowing. In the beginning, you're kind of impressed by everything, right? It's like first week in college, you're like, what's going on here? My parents aren't even here. So when I look at it this way, um, it was, it was a bit of a letdown. I get to Bob's Cove. I put out a towel, take some pictures, start reading my book. And I get, I think bit 30 times by different flies. So I don't know what I'm going to test positive for. Um, anyway, walk back around, saw some kiln limestone. It was cool. Like a hundred years old, little dock. And people were just out there

boating and paddle boarding and that kind of thing. And if that's what you're into, that's great. The thing is, is the lake in front of my hotel was like 10 times nicer to look at than this thing that I ended up spending, I think a hundred bucks from taxi cab round trip. So the other cab driver, different one, picks me up. It was pre-order, thank God,

because there was no cell service. I don't know how I would have ever gotten out of there. So I didn't really love it. 0 for 2 on that day. So I woke up today and I was pissed. I was like, you can't have another day like that, man. You can't. I taped a podcast with the guys and I'm like, I need to go all in.

Meanwhile, the hotel's telling me I have to leave. And I was like, maybe I'll just stay in Queenstown another night i asked them hey can i stay here tonight nope fully booked beat it i was like i want to do this milford sound thing and everybody lights up they're like oh milford sound i go is it really that great and they're like yeah it's that great i start looking at pictures i start looking at the whole thing i go okay what is the deal and they were like well there's a bus that takes you there 12 hours there and back i'm like so i'm on a bus a bunch of strangers and they're like they provide food i'm like yeah okay great um and then they just drop you off and then you're kind of free to do whatever you want in the town but there's really no town i was like what other options are there they go to the fly cruise fly option i go that sounds a

little bit more like me they go you're gonna get picked up by the charter service they're gonna fly a plane it's gonna take 30 minutes to get to Milford sound. It is West of here on the West coast. Queenstown is essentially landlocked, except it has this massive Lake, some debate, whether or not a jet boat, you could go from the Lake in Queenstown to the actual shore. That's my navigational skills. I don't have the charts yet. So I'm like, all right, whatever the most ridiculous, whatever the boss move is that's what i want to do i have to fix the arrow town bobscove disaster of 23 so fix it i did this was fucking awesome this is the best thing that i've done since i've been here it won't be topped

it is one of the best things visually i've ever seen in my entire life. I'm trying to think I have to go back. I don't want to do recency bias here. I don't know that anything's going to surpass what this experience was like. So anyway, they pick you up. Uh, I think it was only like 450 bucks, New Zealand too, by the way, like it should be more expensive. I don't have to check the credit card bill, but, um, charter picks you up, bring you to you to the airport sitting there they weigh you no problem getting out there it's like 11 12 people to the plane one pilot because i weighed more than everybody else no big deal um they were like you're the co-pilot and i was like awesome some kids yelled don't kill us don't worry about it took two lessons though not a big deal uh Uh, get in there, smashed my head, smashed my head on the fucking cabin ceiling.

Cause it just kind of like dipped down a little bit. Wasn't great. Not a great start. Um, and then the captain just looked at me. He's like, the only thing I need you to do is just to never touch this. I'm like the yoke or the foot pedals, bro. And he was like, ah, all right. You had a lesson.

So, um, no headset though for your boy. And we take off from Queenstown and then you're immediately over these mountains, the mountain area out towards this Western fjord, fjord, the word back in the mix. One of my favorite words, uh, you're going over these mountain tops and it's just like, wait, is that better than that? Or what's going on over here? These suspended lakes that I don't even know are accessible other than helicopter. And then these snow-capped areas where they're like, no, this is actually like a glacial body from stuff that's still left over from the ice age that carved out all of this ridiculous shit.

Now here's a desert. Now here's a part of a forest and we're flying at like seven to eight thousand feet and for the most part we're above everything but every now and then we'd get something that was nine thousand maybe plus i mean there's so many different peaks i think nine thousand plus was the highest in this section you're seeing stuff kind of above you so you feel like you're right on top of the airspeed about 140 no big deal just keep it on top of his gauges and everything like that we didn't have a ton of fuel i didn't want to say anything to the rest of the team so here's the landing so as you're going east

west and say you're at seven eight thousand feet you're trying to then get to this landing strip that you have no chance of of making you can't make that descent at that heading you have to go past it then go over the sound and now you're below the peaks above you you do a u-turn in there which is a little hairy but these planes at this size are way more nimble than you know just used to flying these bigger planes but these just you know turn on a dime but it doesn't it feels weird right because you don't know you're not you haven't been in these planes a ton then you go back over the the landing area the runway and you do another u-turn at an even lower altitude in this basin like the bottom of these other mountains to then make sure you can get low enough and slow enough in time while dealing with a 40 knot crosswind and the guy lands it and i look at him and he gives me like a big

smile like yeah that was a little tougher today it's something again i'm not up front or anything but then all these pilots are like talking about their approach like we're waiting to get on a bus and then be shuttled over to the boat and i was wondering like are the milford sound guys like there's other regions they're like man the milford sound pilots go hard AF. I even asked him too. I go, look, the rule on the flying is even, well, basically the even odd stuff. If you're going west, it's even. East, it's odd. So if you were flying from, say, Hartford to Martha's Vineyard, you'd stay at 3,000 feet and not above 3,500 feet. So I asked one of the pilots, I was like, do you guys have that here? And he was like, we actually have a North South thing. He was, but for these flights,

there's no like, Hey, I've got to stay odd or I've got to stay even here because you're going up and down at a ridiculous clip, uh, while also trying to land the plane. All right. So now that we're in Milford sound, we get under the boat. I would say maybe 50, 60 people on the boat. Not a big deal. You wanted to be outside, not inside. And then you were just surrounded by these peaks, a mountain lion. No, they call it the lion, but the mountain looks like a lion. If you look at it, it looks like a lion's actually crouching. Waterfalls that are permanent. One waterfall that he took the boat right underneath to get us all wet and said the water makes you 10 years younger because this water has actually never been touched, will never be interacted with by humans because it's coming from a glacier that he said eventually is actually going to melt. And then this waterfall was shut down.

The depths alone of this sound were nuts. 250 to 300 meters at its deepest. 250 to 300 meters at its deepest, but you could be less than 50 feet from the rock cliff from the, from the bottom of these, these, cause there really wasn't much beach area. There was one place where a guy in a helicopter just landed with, I think his date or his family or something.

Pretty good move. Um, but the, the boat could get right up next to these waterfalls, right next to the land masses. And it wouldn't matter because even there, I think it was like a hundred meters deep because they had a chart that was out there that you could take a look at. Um, the 10 years younger thing.

I don't know. I'll update you on that one. I'll let you know. Um, everyone basically on the boat is just an awe of the entire thing the whole time. Uh, one negative was I had a nice camera. We've talked about that. I've used this. Another guy who had a nice camera that was super into it came up to me and was like,

what are you shooting on? Of all the guys that I've wanted to be or thought, could I be that guy? Could I be one of those guys? That could be a cool guy to be. I've never once been like, I want to be super, super into a camera guy. So I told him what lens I had. He was like I want to be super super into a camera guy so I I told him like what lens I had he was like good choice good choice he was by himself too fucking guy was probably like holy shit another solo guy maybe we'll be best friends um we did not hang out

afterwards so uh that was probably that probably covers it. You have to see the pictures just so you follow this part of it. What movies were filmed in Milford Sound? All of the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies have scenes there. The Hobbit trilogy X-Men Origins Wolverine 2009 Jurassic Park

The Lost World. Willow shout out to Pete Kilmer and I guess Alien Covenant.venant missed that one. So big, big time access here. We covered the flight stuff. We covered that. Basically, man, that's kind of the deal.

It's unbelievable. The history of this place is the Maioris were hanging there. James Cook, Jimmy Cook on the scene again, passed right by it. Was like, no way do I want to bring my boats into there. Didn't understand how much it opened up or how deep it was. Then James, excuse me, John Gano, who was from Milford back in Wales, called it Milford Haven and then somebody else decided to change it to Milford Sound a little bit later on there's no one in the town 100 year round residence we never even saw it we pulled up landed the plane shuttled immediately to the boats and then

shuttled right back out of there never saw the town um or maybe we did and i didn't even realize it i have probably one more part of this trip to go. It will be downhill after this. It is one of the best visual experiences I've ever had on this planet. And I don't know that it can be topped. The final leg of my last two days in New Zealand. So I left Queenstown. That was four nights there. Glad I extended it a bit. When I switched hotels, I wasn't thrilled. I feel like if the front desk person checking you in has a scab on their forehead, it's

probably not going to be the nicest hotel. And it wasn't. And not only was it just not as nice. And look, I got spoiled after the first three nights, but it was an absolute maze. Like I'm not talking, Hey, left here, right there. It's elevator up, cross a courtyard outside into this other area, elevator down across another walkway and then into your room. But it's a suite entry and then you go into your room. So it wasn't like the suite was a common area like the dorms or something.

You just had a door before you get to the other three doors. I mean, honestly, I can't help but make fun of myself whenever I see a situation like that because if it had been Wyoming, I would have seen the room and gone back to the front desk and be like, can I just turn myself into the cops now? Anyway, another little thing that I've noticed at the smaller airports that happen in Queenstown and Wellington, the smaller airports, you want to talk absolute front door service. It's unbelievable. I've never seen any, the smallest airport in America, I've never experienced this. You just roll in, everybody's kind of cool. The taxis have their own kind of like entryway in. It's set up. It's totally like everybody's organized with it. And I mean, I got out twice in the smaller airports where I seriously, the guy parked, stopped. Nobody freaked out. Nobody was like, get out of here. Now granted, just less people is the solution there. But that's a nice little plus once you're outside of Auckland and some of

the smaller airports. So the plan was to head to Wellington, which is the capital of New Zealand, population 200,000 plus. It's a city. It's a government city. So far different vibe and feel, much larger size, obviously way more people than Queenstown, but yet still pretty remarkable when you're pulling in on the plane. You're going right over this massive harbor with all these kind of suburban areas around it. It felt maybe a bit like, you know, Dutch or something. You know, I don't know. I'm trying to compare it to other things, but it just has so much influence from other European

areas in the more settled parts of it. It was actually a pretty seasonal area historically for the Maori people and the different groups that were kind of migrating through both the north and south of New Zealand. And apparently there was just a bunch of meetings or whatever, I guess around the mid 1800s, Wellington was decided upon as to be the capital because it was still somewhat centrally located in overall New Zealand, north and south. And the harbor alone makes all the sense in the world. I'm good with harbors now. I can be like, yep, this makes sense. A lot of depth, a lot of areas to dock here, protected, swell size maintained. So yeah, I'm kind of a low key,

just I don't want to call myself a professional, but you get the point. I can spot a good harbor i would have been good at that uh back in the day they'd be like you bring rossillo you probably want to bring him it's pretty good with the harbor stuff uh certainly better than the people with the mayflower when they first came over here but again they hadn't really they didn't have as many charts you know that was 200 years prior to this even being named the capital all right so enough of harbor history um it, it's pretty big as I was rolling in, uh, bigger buildings towards the government agencies. And some of those buildings are just, you know, what you'd expect. They're all kind of gorgeous, but yet at the same time, all kind of look the same. And some of the bigger hotels further in from the Harbor in the business district where I was staying again,

the hotels are incredibly cheap because as I was driving through the cab, it was a fucking ghost town. And I went, man, I get it's the holidays, but it's dead, huh? And he goes, oh yeah, he goes, everybody holiday two weeks. And I was like, well, where does everybody go? I get that if it's government jobs for the most part, there's just not going to be as much foot traffic and the restaurants decide to be closed because just nobody's working for two weeks. But he goes, a lot of people go to these smaller areas or they go more into the country, they'll get out of the capital as if 200,000 in this capital was just too much for people to handle. But another example of many times when I'm traveling internationally, we just question our approach to everything. That this many people... I was like,

that many people have second homes or second places? He goes, yeah, usually it's, it's pretty much understood. Like if you don't have it, someone else in your family will. And that's just what you do. You get out of where you live and you go, you know, even though the suburbs were a five minute drive, really in any direction, it felt like, cause even though the city was bigger, it wasn't like, Oh, these massive highways and all this different stuff to get out. I wouldn't call it necessarily the countryside, but the countryside is pretty close, but these suburban areas that didn't feel overwhelmed at all still felt kind of empty also. So not the best time to roll into a capital city during the most extensive break of the year. So I would tell you that there's a couple different things to do.

There's a couple overlooks that look really good. I got in late, so none of that was going to happen. I wanted to see the city. There's a cable car that's been running since 1902 that's basically in every single tourist pamphlet. It's a five-minute ride. It brings you up to some other overlook that apparently is pretty cool. It goes for like, I don't know, I guess it runs like every 10 minutes. that apparently is pretty cool. Um, and it goes for like, I don't know, I guess it runs like every 10 minutes. Um, I'm not doing a great job. Here's the chamber of commerce for it. But again, the town was just kind of dead. And as I was walking down from the hotel, I'm like, I'm just walked back towards the water and kind of see what's going on. I was scouting out maybe a boat charter deal for me the next day. And as I was, why I was like, this might've been a massive mistake because nothing is open. It is dead. Nobody's even walking around. But eventually, I made it over to Cuba Street where there was actually a lot of activity. All the restaurants and bars were open. The shops were open. And Cuba Street, the best way I can explain it is it feels a bit like the West Village in New York where it's got some soul to it.

They're all one or two-story buildings. It's basically a pedestrian walk street that's broken up with crossing streets. It's kind of the main artery of the other part of town away from the government stuff. There is everything there. I mean, I'm talking, you know how like in the West Village, if you're walking around New York City, it still feels like it kind of has some kind of soul, some kind of identity, despite the fact that there's all these different chains all over the place. It also reminds me a bit of the stretch that I drive through if I have to go into like deep into Los Angeles, and then I'm coming back down to the beach. There's these stretches of LA that I drive through where I'll

see these shops and everything's kind of funky and cool or whatever. And I'm like, man, you know, maybe I just get out and check out this part of LA and I never do. And I likely never will, but I think about it. At least I give it a, I give it a passing thought as I'm looking at my Mabiko and it's going to take me 48 minutes to go seven miles. And that's why you just don't get out and stop in LA. Cause you're like, whatever, I gotta get out of here. Um, so it felt like I had made a mistake prior to seeing Cuba street. Like I kind of had immediate regret being like, maybe just stay in Queenstown the other night, but then I'm glad I did because like i said it just kind of has everything um there's there was a thrift store that was in the window was advertising salt life

t-shirts that i think were used because it was a thrift store so i don't know how well they'll sell i didn't go out to price any of that stuff and then the next window there's another thrift shop that had a texas rangers jersey in there with no name. So living the salt life and huge fans of the rain may make sense, you know, winners, New Zealand, bunch of winners. Uh, one store advertised that it was, this is great. It was like use clothing, music, and Y2K. I don't know what that means. I probably should have gone in. You walk in and be like, where's the Y2K section? Do you have historical pieces? Is there a book on it? I lived it. My dad bought, I think, 800 boxes of peanut butter crackers. I remember coming home to visit him before Y2K. And I was like, what? What's going on with the crackers dad and he was like I'm just who knows and I was like well

yeah I guess but that's a lot of crackers dude uh there was another place I heard a little MF Doom playing and I thought all right locked in and as I'm walking towards this cafe, it's the Fidel Castro Cafe on Cuba Street. However, Cuba Street, not named after Cuba. It was named after a boat not owned by the Cubans. I don't know that we see a lot. I'm going to guess there's probably another Fidel Castro Cafe somewhere in the States. Other tyrants. There's just a lot of guys. I'm like, I don't think you should name your spot that. Probably 20 barbershops, also many of them Cuban themed.

So I'm not quite sure what was going on there. And you want to talk Asian restaurants? There's countries apparently in Asia that I didn't even know there was a style of food. There is literally everything you could ever imagine from countries that you didn't even know there was a style of food. There is literally everything you could ever imagine from countries that you haven't even heard of. And I guess they're all in business. I imagine they all have to be good enough considering there's that much competition for this lane of food. So if you want Korean, boom. You want Malaysian, boom. You want Japanese, done. There was one place that was like the dumpling place and looked like it was a pretty high-end spot. It wasn't just a mess. But the thing is, I have

a rule about pizza places where I can tell by the sign for the most part, this pizza will suck, this pizza is good, based on the sign. Sometimes you get tricked. It's not 100%. But it's worked out pretty well. Asian food, you throw all those rules out the window. There's places where you go, what is going on with that menu and the pictures and the font that they're using? This place must suck. Sometimes those places are the best. So it's tough. It's tough to decipher. But I started keeping track of how many I could see because there's so many Asian tourists in New Zealand. It makes sense. Look at a globe. But every single spot is covered.

Imagine going to like this one dumpling place. You know, it was a chain. And then, I don't know, 100 yards away, it was the same one, but it was a barbecue themed one. So whatever it was, it was here's our menu, but then make it barbecue. Whereas if like Chick-fil-A had a place and then down the street, it was Chick-fil-A, but make it, I don't know, Szechuan. Again, it needs to be pointed out because we're talking massive numbers here. All right. So Y2K done. The first place I

was like, you know what, I'm going to grab some pizza. And it was really good. I think it was named after a place in Beverly Hills. And it was actually really good. Had a glass of Sav NBD. My plan was to eat at this place called Matador, this barbecue steakhouse um not really barbecue but more like a grill you know it was it was a place that had these like i probably should say it been more like a brazilian steakhouse uh but we'll explain that a little bit later and then the main plan was i saw this club this heavy metal club that looked really dangerous called of course valhalla i was like, that's what I'm doing tonight. You know what? We're going to let loose a little bit. So I decided, let me eat the pizza. I'll

walk around in a section I haven't seen before. I saw another dive bar. I forget the name. It was advertising 25 cent Lucy's and free with a purchase of any drink. A guy came out who clearly had been day drinking against the holiday. And then his girl came after him to yell at him because, you know, those two were fighting a lot. And she had to kind of look like I've already explained him day drinking tattoos, although that's sort of in now doesn't you can't really make assumptions anymore with tattoos. But his shirt looked like they'd been altered, but not professionally. The red face day beer thing, he came out to smoke. She came out after him and she had the look of like a woman.

I should just say girl, but if she went to the gathering, like other juggalos would be telling her like, Hey, you need to chill out a little bit. So I walked back to the hotel. Um, because I was like, I'll go into this place and see if i'm gonna get a beer because i want to see how rough and weird this is going to be and once i walked through the doors i was like you know what i i think this isn't nearly as rugged and off the rails it's a little more buttoned up than i want it to be so i was like no point in this so go back to the hotel did a little research uh little writing uh watch a little rescue. Shout out to my guy, Phil Wills. I do know Phil mixologist now doing great. I love it. I love when he's like, yeah, something that's something that makes sense. That's specific to Bloomington, Indiana cuisine.

So, um, I really want to hit this Matador spot up, but I completely fucked it up watching the episode of bar rescue. Cause I was, you know, these trips and all the traveling and everything, you're like, all right, I can sit here for a little bit. Eyes never closed. Um, but then I got the cab. I went right to the restaurant. It was right at nine o'clock. There was people eating. They were serving still, um, on the app. It said it was still open. I stood at the door like a fuck stick for like 10 minutes. And then finally looked at somebody was like, Hey, are you open? Like, I know it's just me, but I, I'd love to have a table.

And the server, she looked at me and the kind of like, like, eh, like I just work here. And then she turned around to other people and then everyone just kind of looked at each other and they just decided in that moment they were closed. So that sucked because the food looked incredible. Um, and as I i passed it earlier it was opening late and there was already a line outside of it so now i was like damn so i grabbed some pasta because all i'm thinking about is this heavy metal club the pasta was fine it was six out of ten nothing special but at least it was fresh i make it over to valhalla and it's closed. So just to share with you the band names for December of 23,

Pull Down the Sun played, Brainwave, Jormungandr, Iris of the Black Sun, Mom Jeans, this dog, i kind of liked that dog back in the day a little dissonant stuff going on dissonant melodies odd jive grains box of hammers drunk with power dirty as 30 um old man pine fat dick played on the 9th i don't know if they opened or closed Old Man Pine Fat Dick played on the 9th I don't know if they opened or closed you don't want to follow Fat Dick I can tell you that

8 Head Body TV Dinners Big Pharma in the house making sure the message gets out Bleed This Earth planet of the dead. Bleed this earth back to back nights. Brainwave pale lady. Uh,

there was an ever long or it was a foo fighters tribute band called ever long. Missed that one. Velvet star spiral fluff core. Um, deer antler and Battle for Endor The Forest Moon if you didn't know it was closed

it was devastated it was just fucking devastated I was like I'm in it so after that come down emotionally I grabbed a glass of Sov Sov Boys at it again and went back to the hotel. So next day got up Wellington. Well, the whole idea was I'm going to look at the boat situation, pouring rain. I wasn't going to throw in a slicker. I didn't have my official boat stuff

anyway, uh, and take something out. Um, so basically I was like, all right, you know what? I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna head back to Auckland, uh, in the day. Right. I did walk around the Harbor. It was really cool. Walked over towards where the rugby team plays. It wasn't open. They don't just let people in there. I know that's shocking, but I figured out I got one last night. Like, let me just go back to Auckland, which was originally always my plan is to kind of at least be back in the airport, the main airport back to the States city, get a hotel there the last night, unless, you know, something else works out. Another little observation. If you're down there because you drive on the left, people walk on the left.

So if you're like us or wherever you're listening to this, if you're in the States and you're just used to kind of like a hallway or sidewalk or whatever, you just got to learn to veer left. Because people are just looking at me the whole 10 days going like, what the fuck is this guy doing? He's messing up the whole plan. So I got back to Auckland. It was pretty beat at that point. One of my favorite things I heard while walking the streets was there was a father and his son, and he was walking through the town or whatever, and they were looking at the restaurants. And the dad goes, Bryson, remember that place?

That's the place that had the noodles. And I was like, oh, my God. That's the most intense pronunciation of the word noodles I've ever heard in my life. And he said it again. He's like, remember the noodles. And I had to stop and just take it in and I'm sharing it with you. It also reminds me of my roommate from back in college who Kat Lack shot out. He had a pretty thick Boston accent, still does, not dead. out. He had a pretty thick boss next and still does not dead. Um, and he got a nice gig on Nantucket. Apparently like I was a little shocked. Cause like there's certain people that you think are at least capable of serving food professionally. And other people were like, there's just, you're going to be bad at it. Don't do it. And I think most of us would have voted him as like

being bad at it. So I remember I checked in with him. I was like, how's it going? He's like, dude, it's great. He's like, but you you know fucking struggling kid struggling with the service and i was like what are you talking about he goes dude the first fucking two weeks i was there you know i go up to the table i kind of set set the table and you know be like all right we get a little rosemary garlic focaccia for you here and i was like what did you call it? He's like, dude, I had no idea. He couldn't say focaccia. He's like, dude, I thought it was focaccia, honestly, for two weeks. So whenever I hear just severely, although this guy was pronouncing noodles correctly. So there was an Italian restaurant in Auckland that I ate the night I went to the basketball game, Amano. I went back there, had the parpadele, ragu. It was incredible. Had the focaccia mozzarella deal, which is an own little mini pizza deal. And it was great. So basically got back to the hotel the last night, researched, wrote some stuff down.

research, wrote some stuff down. And then the plan the next day was to hopefully have the weather clear because the weather in Auckland was even worse than it was in Wellington to get into the boat situation because the flight isn't until late afternoon, but woke up the next day, the weather was still bad. So it's time for the museum. I will give, I'm glad that I got up a little bit outside of the city, even though the museum that I wanted to go to was the Auckland War Museum. museum that I wanted to go to, uh, was the Auckland war museum. No surprise there based on some of my reading preferences, but I, I think it's called Parnell where it's this town. Um, it's a suburb in Auckland technically, you know, let me double check that. Cause I don't want you guys booking the wrong hotel here. Um, or maybe I'm just thinking of Chris Parnell, or maybe I'm just thinking of Chris Parnell, but I was really, yeah, it's Parnell. It was awesome, man. It was really, really cool. There was this amazing rose garden, the facades of the homes

and everything was like very white. It felt like just vibrant and just more settled. And, you know, even though it was maybe like Brookline would be a good example of it. Like Brookline clearly isn't a suburb, but Brookline still isn't a city, but it has this really cool element to it where you're walking around and that's what you pass through, uh, on the way to the museum. So the war museum, everybody raves about it. It was pretty cool. I am a sucker for any kind of canoe from a thousand years ago. Just thinking about guys getting them and carving them out and being like, let's go. There's a ton of World War I and World War II displays. There was a Spitfire that was actually given to New Zealand, I believe after the war was over, which isn't great. And then they have the Rolls Royce engine for you to

kind of start up and hit a button. And there was a jerkin, this leather jerkin from World War I. I would have worn it there. I would have said, I'm going to try this on and I'm wearing it out of the store. So I am in the market for a leather jerkin that is particular to that period of time. I don't want a newer jerkin. And I think everybody could understand that. that period of time. I don't want a newer jerk. And I think everybody could understand that. So the cool thing I think that is worth mentioning here is because, you know, there's, you can call it classic American arrogance, but it isn't really that. I think we all have an arrogance with what we are more familiar with. And that's, it's a sip. It's not that you're necessarily dismissive of everything all the time. It's just that the history that you learn

and where you're from just becomes overwhelming unless you decide at some point to try to learn more about things you've never understood in the past. So as you're looking through the World War I and World War II stuff, it'd be easy to be an American and be like, okay, well, what was New Zealand's role in all this? Well, it was actually pretty significant if you look at the ratios of this. One out of every 150 New Zealanders for their population prior to World War II died in World War II. So one out of 150 people. If you look at it in just a scale of like, okay, sure, the sheer numbers are not going to match. But when you're talking about what percentage of their population went into World War II, I know specifically in reading some of the battles in Africa in World

War II when they were basically going after Rommel in the US and British leadership were just constantly fighting with each other. And it's just a masterclass in inefficiency and bullshit and not knowing what you're doing and being ill-prepared and not being able to get resources there. And eventually they drive the Germans out, but it took way longer than everybody thought it was going to take. That's its own book, but I'd read a couple different versions of it where there are so many times where different battalions made up of troops from all over the place among the allies that they would have a lot of australian new zealand troops actually get stuck going after some of the most brutal positions because the americans bridges just constantly

fighting be like okay well you'll go here but then we're going to come in later and it was all over honor and who was going to get the most accolades and every one of the leaders i would say specifically churchill obsessed with it all the time. But New Zealand and Australian soldiers, troops, they got put in brutal situations based on the stuff that I've read. I'm certainly not presenting myself as an expert on every single maneuver in the Second World War. The last thing I'll say is that when I looked at the Maori timeline and how that descended from the Polynesian timeline and where it all goes, I'm a sucker for a timeline. And they had this big map to kind of show you all these islands where sometimes you're looking at the map being like, what is that?

What the fuck is burnt pine? Look it up. so if you go all the way back to like 3000 1000 bc is the migration of the atronesian people from east asia to maritime south east asia that leads to i'm just gonna i could just name a bunch of stuff and a bunch of dates on and on and on here different cultures a lot of it is tied into it's pretty fascinating how they'd be able to find out how it was settled based on the pottery designs and the techniques and the specific art on the pottery. And they'd be like, okay, well, this is a descendant of this. So that means that these guys came out here. Basically, we're talking about a bunch of people deciding at some point to just keep paddling East all the time over thousands of years. And i can never help myself when i look at the map and i see the different okay settled here first explorers here the mayor the polynesian people

went here the Maori descendants came down here they made it over to Hawaii first then they came down and again like as i said earlier in the pod New Zealand being essentially the last place that is inhabitable to be stepped foot on by man, I can't help but go like, what the fuck were those guys thinking? Now, some of it's warring tribes, safety, wanting your own thing, breaking off from too many people because too many people can't seem to agree on how to move forward. There's a bunch of factors, but there's also, I think, the thing I always feel like when I look at a map somewhere and I go, I wonder what's going on there. I wonder what it's like. The difference is I probably close my laptop and don't think about the place again. These guys got in a canoe and just started paddling

and set the timeline of history just based on the premise of wondering what is out there beyond the horizon. If you were adventurous, you want to go to New Zealand. I know the flight isn't for everybody, but I have a rule. Once it's six or seven hours, it's going to suck anyway, So you might as well just go a little bit further. It was worth it. I wouldn't even think twice if I got the opportunity to go back again. Highest, highest of recommendations of any place I've ever traveled. Like I said, not the easiest place to get to, but once you get there, it's really, really easy to navigate and there's so much stuff to do. I don't even feel like I scratched the surface, but I didn't feel like I left anything out because every day we're trying to do stuff.

So on to the next one, TBD, probably this summer, perhaps Portugal. We'll be right back. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona, 1-888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org forward slash chat in Connecticut. 1-800-9-WITH-IT in Indiana, 1-800-522-4700, or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas. 1-877-770-STOP in Louisiana. Visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Visit 1-800-GAMBLER.NET in West Virginia or call 1-800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24 seven support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text hope NY in New York.