The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Russillo on the Road: Spain Travelogue

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

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

It is the second edition of our Rusillo on the Road podcast series. Last year was Iceland, the missing files of France, and this year, Spain. I went to Barcelona, Stegis, Ibiza, Formentera, Mallorca, and perhaps one other destination. But you're just going to have to listen to the journey. Two weeks, tap soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. see app for details okay here we go another installment of rassilo on the road we are in barcelona um spent a day here so we'll go through day one brief history on barcelona it

could be incomplete it will be and potentially inaccurate but i put some work into this one barcelona largest city on the mediter. The city itself is under 2 million. The metropolitan area is over 5 million. Right on the water, obviously, with a lot of landscape that you can still see from the city. Looking at the history here, go back to the Iberian people. They're probably here before that. Most likely, I guess they found some job at Neanderthal many, many years before that. So like all this history, dudes were there and then other dudes showed up and then dudes showed up after them. Pretty repetitive. So if you go back to the Roman Empire, Augustus Caesar, perhaps a higher approval

rating than some of the other Caesars. Yes, you could argue he was born on third base, would not dispute it with you. So basically his run when the Roman empire starts to move West. And if you look at a map of the Roman empire and how far it expands, like look at the Mediterranean sea and they basically circle the entire thing, Italy, South of France, all of Spain, um, to Gibraltar. And then if you go Northern Africa from Gibraltar, then East, and then even into the Middle East and all those awesome islands in between. So it says the first time they were invaded was about 15 to 10 BC. And then it's known as Barcino.

I've seen some other pronunciations of that. And Barcelona itself ends up being built into this fortress in a way. Not really a fortress, but walls around it, which will come into play later on. And I'm going to go to the museum tomorrow and figure out some more of this stuff. So then after the Roman Empire falls, oddly enough, Barcelona was built up so well using Roman infrastructure that it's still kind of successful post the Roman Empire. Roman infrastructure, that it's still kind of successful post the Roman Empire. Then the Visigoths show up and then, you know, Franks, Moors, on and on and on. The country itself was actually at a very recent time after the Civil War here in the 1900s. It was under a dictatorship from 1939 to 1975, but it felt a little bit more free than that.

Checked in to the W Hotel. It's got this sail-based design. It's like 30 floors. If somebody sent a picture of it from a certain angle, maybe they could argue they were in Dubai, but there'd be nothing behind it because it's right on the water. This is a Cerruti recommendation. Out of the gate, looking around, obviously solo, not necessarily trying to impress anybody, but at the same time, I don't want to stay

in a shithole. Reasonably priced and from the airport, it's like 30 minutes, so super convenient. It's going to be about $300 or $400 a night. It's alright. The way it's set up on the beach, the main beach in the city, it's a pretty good setup.

The hotel itself feels a bit like the Palms in Vegas, like four years after the Palms was over. I remember checking in during the heyday and then I remember being like, oh, the Palms is cheap. It was years later. I was like, oh, we'll just go stay there. Massive regret as soon as I checked in. I don't know what it's like now. It's been a really, really long time. So I know that's not the most glowing review, but it's fine, right? Let's talk a bit about speed of countries. If a New York City pizza parlor is Prime Bo Jackson and Jamaica is a dead person when it's cold outside, then I'd say Spain is more towards the cold person,

more towards Jamaica. Jamaica is the slowest place I've ever gone to order anything, but that's just, you know, you just sort of deal with it. Once you're there, you're like, hey man, everybody's just super laid back. You're like, I ordered a salad

an hour and a half ago. But maybe we're doing it wrong in the States too, right? So depending on all the different places that I've gone, everything in Europe, especially in the Mediterranean area, it's just way more laid back than you're used to. So me specifically being from the Northeast and everything, I know I can be a little bit more intense, but I know on the checkout, when you've got the retired janitors of Idaho going over every line item on their bill, while people are starting to check in in the same, like I'm looking around going, I could fix this place in 10 seconds. Let's have a checkout area when it's busy and a check-in area. However, we get

checked in. We're good. Not bad on the flight over. Actually got some sleep, which is pretty rare for me. So I don't feel totally off after the first day. So you know what that means. Let's check out the gym and get a workout in. I did appreciate the bellman who brought my luggage up and I said, what's the gym like here? And he looked at me and said, you may not like it may not be enough for you. And I was like, wow, this guy's really sized me up. Um, but again, sometimes when you're traveling and you're trying to find anything that's remotely close to an American gym, you're just not going to find it. And then the way things are labeled, like one place I looked at, it was a gym and it was a pool.

Like it was an aquatic, I think it was an academy or something for people swimming. So whenever you're dealing with the translation stuff, things can be totally thrown off. So the tip there is if you're super into working out and you see a gym three miles away and you take a cab or an Uber over to it and you find out that it's actually a place where they make bows and arrows like, you know, they practice archery. Don't say I didn't warn you. So get into the gym. We'll make it quick. Another guy, massive chest, massive chest and arms.

Looks like you play D line or O line in the 80s. Think of Howie Long, but bigger and older. And he and I kind of look at each other and we just do a bit of a nod. And he was American. And then he looked at the bench and all the plates were all fucked up. And they were all like, you know, smaller ones on the inside. Nobody could re-rack it. And he looked at me and was like, is this you on the flat bench?

And I was like, no. I was like, I think they do things differently here. And he looked back at me and he was like, I knew it wasn't you. And in that moment, we knew everything about each other. So it was kind of a cool little warm moment. As far as walking around Barcelona, it's terrific. I mean, you can go forever and ever. And I did that Les Rambles Avenue, which is kind of like a courtyard shopping section in between two streets. Another thing I've noticed, the cars do not squeeze the lemon on the yellow lights. They get ready to stop when it's turning yellow. I only saw one car one time in the entire day of noticing it where the guy went through a red. I think it's because of the crosswalks. And it's probably something where you get absolutely crushed if you do it by the cops.

But really, you know, there's a million people here. There's a lot of people. It's a very, very busy city, but it's not, like, overwhelming. I know Mexico City, day to day at F1, everything wrapped up. That was just too much. Like, I'll never fucking go back there, or at least not for that weekend. Or if I'm there, it's because I'm going somewhere else or something like that.

Not to diss Mexico City, but I think I got it. I don't need to go back. Where some of the other places I visit, I'll be like, okay, if I ever figure this out or whatever, this would be a place I'd want to come back to. So, so far, that part of Barcelona, I really enjoy all of it. The food thing's always really tough. And it's a pretty standard rule. The closer the food options are to the main tourist areas, the more likely that food is going to fucking suck. It's true in the States. There's stretches in Florida where you're in South Beach, and you're like, that place sucks, that place sucks, that place sucks. You're going to walk in a few blocks to find some of the cool spots. I looked up this one taco place, Taco Alto. Shout out to the guy in the

Pantera t-shirt. We talked about, he lived in Sacramento for a little while, but he's actually Spanish. We talked about the States for a bit. Tacos, I can never really believe why anybody fucks up tacos because you just shouldn't. It's pretty easy. And this place was incredible. It looked the opposite of a place that I would go into, but I'd research it, rolled in, I don't know, 30 bucks worth of tacos. There was five different sauces. The guy brought one out and he was like, this one on the far end, he's like, just be careful. The translation is burn you. So I was like, you know, I think I'm going to pass on that one. So tacos were great. That was terrific. I also was investigating the bullfighting situation. Uh, it was banned in Spain or at least

Catalonia, which is the part of Barcelona that That's another chapter of history that I'm not going to get wrong here. But it's almost like an entirely different culture. And it's been banned in Barcelona for a long time, where I believe the last bullfight was over a decade ago. But it does still happen in Madrid. So sorry if this offends you, but I was definitely interested in potentially checking it out. I was talking with a guy about it and I was like, I heard it's almost like not cool to bring up to certain people. He's like, yeah, you know, a bit.

He's like, but whatever, you know, he goes, let's look at it. So we looked at the schedule and there was one in Madrid, but it's in the weekend. I'm not going the opposite direction. I'm going across the Mediterranean. So bullfighting is out. If it were super convenient, yes, I'll admit I'd probably go check it out. But as you read about it, a lot of people would be like, you go because you think you're going to see this historic experience and it's a real bummer of a time. And people like leave early and go, I can't. Maybe if you go root for the bull,

I don't know. But we're not going to be able to fit that one in. I had read that there was more options for it. Maybe if you're going to the South or whatever, but incomplete knowledge on it, Madrid's the only option, not going to Madrid, not going in the wrong direction. So let's talk about dicks. Yeah. So as I walked along the street side promenade towards this one area of the beach and the beach was kind of packed, you know how like great Chicago is to be right on the lake and you walk from your hotel and you go out to the lake, you know, those rare, that little sliver of window when the weather in Chicago is awesome. And you're like, this is sick. This awesome city that's right on top of this lake and then has this whole beach thing and everybody's having a good time. But have you ever done it when it's

like the first nice day in a long time and then everybody's there and you're like, you know what? It's awesome, but it also really sucks right now. I wouldn't say that this is the same thing that I experienced walking through the beach area, which is right next to my hotel. So I've gone past it a bunch of times, but it's a lot. And apparently it's okay to be nude at it. Although very few people were, I mean, I barely noticed anybody and I walked past it a few times, but the first time you see a dick just out and about it's jarring. Um, whether you like them, don't like them, it takes you a couple of dicks to warm up to it. That's just my personal opinion. I think some of you will agree though, because the first one you see, you're like, whoa,

okay, that guy's into it. He really likes it out here. And this isn't my first experience with it. I've seen it plenty of places I've gone. Where I'm from on Martha's Vineyard has a stretch of the beach through a couple of different towns where it's totally legal for you to be nude. I've told the story once, like just hanging out up there. We used to surf up on this one spot and we saw one of our best friend's parents just nude hand in hand. And it's, you know, I was over their house all the time. Got along with the parents really well. their house all the time got along with the parents really well but it was always it just was going to be different when it's like hey mr and mrs how's it going yeah because i'm not stopping and they're not going to stop and it's cool that they're cool with it but i think even as a kid back then because it's your buddy's parents it's jarring and i think even though you know what you're signing up for when you come to the beaches in europe um when almost everybody else is closed and then one guy's just like i'm taking my clothes. You just got to warm up to it a little bit.

Another thing that I do too, is when I'm coming up across somebody else, I'll try to guess where they're from based on appearance, based on the way they walk, the way they're dressed. And I'd have to say after years of doing this, I'm getting pretty average at it. I'd say I'm still pretty average. And what I know whether or not I'm right or not is I'll, when I walk past them, I'll be able to, you know, figure out what language they're speaking. Most of the time, I think it's not that hard. Uh, usually the Swedes are pretty easy to pick out though, right? Some of the Scandinavia stuff and Sweden just backpack attire the way it's set up I'd be like okay I bet you

I bet you get a couple Swedes here let's talk about the Spanish women because I know some of you guys are interested in that the you know how we talk about draft prospects and we'll say like this guy has a high floor I don't know what the floor is because a lot of us aren't paying attention to the floor

I would say that right now from what I can tell it what the floor is because a lot of us aren't paying attention to the floor. I would say that right now, from what I can tell, it's the highest middle of almost any place I've ever been. Like any of these hotspots, you're going to see stuff where you're just like, okay, I wouldn't even know what to say to this person. But the middle is really, really impressive. But I will add this caveat. There's a, I don't know if danger is the right word. Let me put it to you this way. When I lived in Boston and I first started covering the Celtics, I used to have this image in my head of like, I want to date a girl from East Boston that I know is going to be fun, but I never want to bring her around to my friends and certainly not my family. I didn't bring people I like around to my family, but I, I kind of had this idea of, of this person and it never really actually happened. Um, I know some people would say like Southie, but Southie, by the time I was there and the where, where it's at now, it's just kind of overplayed. Like, yeah, we've all seen the movies, but I'm talking like East

Boston and she loves, you know, Jonas Jurebbko maybe then maybe that's why she'd be interested in me but you get the point right and then maybe like florida hot where it's like is that girl really hot and then you see like one fang that sort of throws off the whole deal and you're like what's what's the so there's a sense of danger to it an element of like would this spanish woman slap my brother at a family reunion after like one white claw because i know the girl in east boston would florida probably would too so i'm not even sure it's a negative it's just something i'm imagining in my head as I peruse the inhabitants. What else do we got? This beach area in Barcelona that I'm in is because it's right in the city.

And I have another plan for a beach day tomorrow in Stigis, which is a village, which is like 40 minutes south of here, which is the plan tomorrow. I'm not going to go super beach guy here. I'm going to try to get around as much as the city as I can in a couple of days. Um, you know, I love the villages more than I do the cities. So whenever I come to one of these cities, the first thing I want to do is, all right, I got it after a day or two and then get out of there and try to explore as much as I possibly can. Whether it was the South of France last year, the missing episodes, as soon as I got to Nice, I was like, all right, get me out of here. I got it.

It's cool and all, but it's just way too many people, at least for me. That's just not what I'm interested in. And Nice and then working my way to Cairns and then Saint-Tropez, which was the best. It's probably my favorite single place I've ever been to. We'll see if it gets topped on this trip. Um, and then I made it to Aix-en-Provence, which was fucking stupid because I was working my way further inland because I was trying to go to La Gorge du Verdun, which is this lake where I wanted to rent a boat south of the

Alps. And I did actually do all of those things, but you know, the way I do it, instead of just showing up to one place, I will not stay at the hotel the whole time. I don't understand it. Even if I'm staying somewhere nice, it's not really what I want to do. That's why I love the Iceland trip so much last year is because I got in the car and I explored, I actually accomplished everything I wanted to. And with that will come some headaches. That's all part of it because I'm all kind of last minute. I don't book all the flights ahead of time because if I decide I want to stay in a place like Saint-Tropez an extra night last year, I don't want to be in a rush to make the next reservation in fear of not being able to cancel and all that stuff. So there's some upside because I'm protecting myself. sudden, like the flights are booked that day or rooms are booked that day. Uh, like it happened in Iceland when I had to drive all the way across the Southern coast, uh, in one day, which definitely, I think it was like 12 hours of driving that one day, but go back to the Iceland

pod if you want to recap any of that stuff. So yeah, like I'm not going to go super beachy here. Um, because I know I have a plan for it tomorrow. And like I said, like one of my favorite places I've ever been is Heidelberg in Germany. Now, granted, I was far younger. It was my first time ever on a plane other than high school basketball where we flew to Nantucket. So my first time ever on a plane, 17 years old, fly to Amsterdam, get to Stuttgart. And then we went to all these different villages. we went to all these different villages. Why was I in this? Because I actually joined an elite singing group. Yep. Base two NBD. And we put on shows for like a week and a half to these villages in Germany. Don't ask me why. I don't know. They had, it was the vineyard, very artsy tried out senior year with some other guys. And we all made it cause they were always hurting for dudes. We all had decent voices. And I went from Stuttgart to Oberbogen, Wenglingden, and then Heidelberg. And I don't know if I would go to Heidelberg now, granted being 17 and being able to bar hop with anybody giving you a hard time and drinking the best beer ever and never being

hung over. Tough to top that when you're 17 years old. So we were just going from bar to bar to bar. We had the best time. So maybe that was more of it. There was a lot of walking around Heidelberg, but I picture that as I remember it is this quaint, awesome little village. It's why I like Switzerland so much a couple of years ago, because I jumped from, I was in Zurich. I was in Luzerne which was the best I went to Bern I went to Basel

and so you know the high side is that you're going to get to see a bunch of different places but the low end of it is you'll probably go to one or two places along these treks where you're like ah this isn't as great but at least I'm more educated than the entire area so that's kind of my plan as I do all these different stops is I'll probably stay in the main city of where

I'm going and then try to get out to like one of the villages every single time. As far as the first night out, I had an atrocious steak. They didn't cut any of the membrane off of a skirt steak. I don't want to debate it with some of you guys that watch the bear on how to properly prep steak. Let me just tell you, it was wrong. If you can't cut through it something's wrong and it's funny because this place actually checked the box of being more away from the coast having a much nicer front and the whole deal and it was fucking terrible the ham thing was terrible um there's this provolone thing that they talk about in focaccia but basically just melt a bowl of provolone and then put two pieces of stale fucking french bread in it that was gross um there was an onion ring thing that they were saying was like their specialty that was terrible but the steak itself was just brutal um and i was

debating when she came over when she was like how is it and i wanted to say hey this is bad and like your guy doesn't know how to prep it but you hey go, Hey, take it easy. Ramsey, uh, relax. And so I didn't say anything. I was pretty proud of myself. Did stop as I walked back from that area to the hotel. Cause I just want to check out another part of town. I was like, okay, let me, maybe I don't want to just hop into one of these shitty bars. And so I did. And then I looked at the menu, which I normally would never, ever do. And it was just jamming 80 songs. I think the bar was called Stereo 18. It was dead.

And it was just, it was like, what somebody who grew up in Europe, who absolutely loved America was like, one day, man, one day I'm going to open a bar and all we're going to do is play pop music. And we're going to close every night with girls just want to have fun. And so I looked at the menu and one of the drink was Britney's pear. Get it? I was like, you know what? I'm fucking out of here.

I'm tired. We get a long day tomorrow. So there you go. Day one in the books. Didn't go out. Didn't go to the rooftop thing, which Rudy said is the epitome of like what the W is all about. Forget the rooms.

Forget the rooms, forget the whole hotel. You have to go to the floor 26 deal, this massive balcony that overlooks the water and then back towards the city. He's like, it's incredible. But as I walked in, the line was massive and about half my age. So I was like, why don't we just get a good night's sleep and pod in the morning, hit the gym and head to Stegis. So that'll be the plan tomorrow. Okay, day two in the books. The plan was to go to Stegis. The plan was to go to Museum Barcelona.

We'll put it together for you. So the museum part was the beginning of the day after a workout. And we got up early enough, like eight or 9, so I actually feel pretty good as far as any of the jet lag concerns. I think we're good. I think we're good with all this. So there were a couple different options for the museum. Picasso's one. It kind of feels like if you're in town, you got to see that. Then there's the Maritime Museum, which is usually something I want to do, but I had heard about the historical

Barcelona deal where you actually get to walk the Roman ruins. So I'm like, you know, not every day you're going to be able to walk around that kind of stuff. As we touched on earlier, second, third century, but Barcelona, despite being invaded, held up a little bit longer because of these walls, these fortifications, which I'll explain more now. The funny part about going to this museum is I could have walked, took a cab up. I walked so much the first day. I was like, hey, how about a couple cabs? Super easy to get cabs in Barcelona, by the way, like really, really easy. Not always the case when you're traveling to certain places. So that's just a little tip for you. And so far, everything's been great with the cabs. So I go to the museum

and I've read the reviews. I've looked at the picture. I see the Roman ruins thing. And I was like, okay, this, this is the one, this is the one to do. Pay seven bucks, all denominations in euros. I walk up I was like where does it start she's like it's up the stairs to the right okay so I walk up and like immediately it sucks now yeah there's always a couple things uh a bronze coin you're like man that's old um if you're into you know it's kind of cool how some of the old ceramics are decorated with different scenes that kind of tell you what were on people's minds back then. A little longer to tweet, you know, to make a bowl about how you feel things, right? Maybe it's better. Less usage.

But I go through this whole, and there was like one section where I go, this looks like somebody's attic was cleaned out. Like, hey, remember grandpa's fucking bowl? Let's throw that in the exhibit, exhibit right and then there's always like a political thing which none of us are really going to understand and sometimes it's interesting a lot of times it's just it's just not if you're not of the area and you're trying to do your best because you're like reading all the stuff and going all right well this is this is like important this was this philosopher and that countered this belief before and honestly like i cannot emphasize this enough when you go through a timeline of barcelona i like a lot of these

european places but you go through the timeline of it it's like okay well this happened and then this religion passed but this was thought it was a cult but then the social elites did this and then this guy got married to this person and then they had all this but then there was independence and then there was revolt and then napoleon came through and smashed a bunch of shit that guy man fucking tough hang so anyway i'm going through and i'm completely underwhelmed i mean it wasn't as weird as when i went to basel and there was a north korean film festival exhibition which i don't know what the hell was wrong with that day but like i i watched it all and understood none of it. Obviously it was all very anti-government, um, which I guess maybe was the

way it was being honored that these artists from North Korea would be willing to, to make the hours that they were making. But I mean, I was watching some fucking videos where I was like, what is this? And then it's like, Hey dude, you've been here two hours i think we got it all right so because i want to make it down to this beach village later in the day um i'm walking through i'm underwhelmed i'm like this actually kind of sucks and then i walked out to this balcony i saw this bell tower that was apparently from the third century um because there's this area in this gothic part of barcelona where they've done a really good job of maintaining whatever they can historically despite obviously most of it being torn down or replaced over the years right because it didn't it was it was almost like we as civilization we didn't we appreciate history so much more but back then it wasn't like hey i wonder

if this thing's going to be important in 100 years be like hey man we need we need a new blacksmith shop, tear it down, right? So I'm taking too long here, but I was like, I guess that's it. I guess it's done. I asked a guy, I go, so that's it? And he's like, yeah, but I don't think he really understood me. And so I walked in this front courtyard area, which is gorgeous and old. And this other building that was gorgeous and old. And then I walked up the stairs and the guy's like, this is the exit of the display. And I was like, wait, I started on the other side. He goes, yeah, this is the exit. I'm like, I don't understand. Like there's, there's, it seems like there's more going on. And he's like, no, you just, did you recap everything I did? He's like, yeah, you got it. I was like, well, that sucks. I can't believe the reviews.

Yelp's lying to a dude here. So I actually leave the museum and then I walk around to grab something to drink. And I was like, there's no fucking way that's it. There's no way that's it. So I went back into the lobby and I told the woman who I bought the ticket from 45 minutes prior. And I was like, wait, what? I'm like, where are the ruins? She's like, oh, that way. And it was like a whole different way to enter. And it was away from all the stuff I'd spent all this time on. And thank God, because I almost completely fucked it up. I walked away from the museum thinking like, oh, the pictures must be just wrong or something.

And you go down this stairwell and you go below street level because obviously makes a lot of sense. Stuff is built upon, built upon. They just cover up a lot of the stuff. And you actually were able to see the interior of the walls that were built in the third century, as I had explained, kind of Rome's empire and building up Barcelona. And then it was reinforced in the fifth century with centuries and everything like that. To explain how impressive this is on a podcast, I just don't know that I can do it. There was one part of the exhibit that basically said Barcelona is taking credit for, and it was Barcino, taking credit for the first urban planning. I don't know who keeps track of

that shit. I'm not going to argue for or against it. But you could see through this amazing port, apparently in the 1400s, they did some jetty project where just everything fell apart. Can you imagine, like the big dig took a long time and other stuff, infrastructure in today's day

never works out. Everything ever goes, runs over on costs. But can you imagine like a bunch of people in the 1300s, 1400s, whatever, being like, we need to build a jetty.

We need to build something to protect the ships, protect our export importing. And you're like, all right, here's a solution. And you're just trying to figure it out. I mean, these guys are actually pretty amazing when it comes to all the navigation and all that stuff. There were some maps of the Mediterranean that they used in the past to try to figure out all these different sailing charts, which were incredible. As a captain, obviously, it spoke to me. But they tried to build a jetty and just fell. What's that meeting like the next day?

Do people do what they do now and just blame everybody else? We had the wrong rocks. Phil's rocks suck. Anyway, so that fell apart. So back to what was so far the best part of the trip, at least from a historical perspective, was walking through these tunnels um and i shouldn't say tunnels because it was all it was really well executed where there were basically these these platforms you could walk over and then look down so you'd see the bishop's quarters bishops big man on campus um actually you could see like where his bench was and where people would come in and meet him

and then his quarters and then in his quarters and some pillar, there was like this small hole and that's where he would hide relics waiting to hide it from the next people that decided to come invade. Uh, these tanks that still were tiled that you could see today, which is incredible, um, where they would just die garments. And like, this would be the section of town where you'd bring your stuff in to get dyed and like the egyptian blue was the rarest and most expensive most desired dye at the time another area where they would have these massive tanks just right into the stone that almost looked like big boiling pots but it was to store fish for the so they'd ferment so you could make this fish sauce garum i believe and then another area where there was these baptism pools. And you could see from the third century to the fourth century to the fifth century, right? Like crown molding for our homes. It's like, well, I'm just going to do finish trim. Let's get a little crown molding in here.

So the baths in the beginning were just, you jumped in a bath and there you go. And then 200 years later, they decided to have steps down into the bath and had them designed in a way to represent the cross just you know little innovations whether it's art science people expressing themselves seeing these things still in existence and be able to see like the way the mind would work and how it would just get a little bit more detail a little bit more efficient which isn't surprising about any of this stuff and then the way the mine would work and how it would just get a little bit more detail, a little bit more efficient, which isn't surprising about any of this stuff. And then the way the streets worked on the inside of the wall, inside of the street would be a trench for all the wastewater,

every other goddamn thing. I'm sure it was disgusting. But Barcelona was situated perfectly with all this agricultural area around it, the hills to the backside of it, all this water access on the Mediterranean. And it was like this perfect, perfect destination. And it was protected by these walls. And when there were outbreaks, the inhabitants were just at a higher status level because they were protected from so much that was going on around them all the time. So to be able to see that and walk that, it was pretty cool. And I almost completely fucked it up just because I didn't know that you're also supposed

to take a left. So, um, I don't think I'm going to make the maritime museum, which probably be my first choice again, sailor, uh, well, power boats, gosh, shouldn't say that about sailboats, but, um, yeah, I don't, I don't think, I mean, I was thinking about it and then the Picasso thing, but by the time I'd spent so much time at the History Museum, I knew that I wanted to get down to Stegis.

Another observation, just walking around, I've talked about this in the past, the pervasiveness of the American culture. Now, that could be one thing. One is that American culture is like the most desired culture in so many countries around the world. That very well might be one thing. One is that American culture is like the most desired culture in so many countries around the world.

That very well might be the fact. As I've mentioned before, like being in Reykjavik and seeing a Jets t-shirt for sale, that's fucking shocking to me, right? And granted, it's New York, so it means, you know, it's like New York, it's America, it's cool, but it's constant. Different places in Europe where I've been, the jerseys that I love to see guys walking around in, see a lot of Steph, see a lot of Kobe, see a lot of Jordan, which if you think about it, Jordan, granted, I know we can do the 92 team in Barcelona and all that kind of stuff, but Jordan still having this presence to be influencing a teenager from somewhere in Europe who wants to wear some kind of Chicago Bulls, not even a Jordan jersey all the time, but just Chicago Bulls shorts. To have that kind of cultural impact, that is a list of less than maybe 10 people. It's incredible. It's like Michael Jackson jackets, man, which I don't think you see a ton anymore but i always keep track of the jerseys always look for a couple stupid ones and then there were two dudes walking together one in a kairi jersey one in a trey young jersey and i think they may have been like hey

rossillo's actually in barcelona walking around you want to throw in our jerseys and fuck with them a little bit um definitely see some lebron jerseys but not as much as the jordan stuff does that settle the debate? I don't know. I don't know. I don't think they'll use that. Another thing when it comes to American culture, some of the t-shirt shops, absolute tourist traps. I don't know what the hell's going on here. A little Amsterdam-ish, but you walk by one shop and they'll say, I like milfs. I like dilfs, lesser used term. I like big boobs. One place had a shirt that just said sex fuck. Another one had a shirt that said sex drugs, and it was just a guy snorting cocaine. They had male and female thongs that just said 69 over heart. There was another place that was

the Museum of 69. And I'm not exaggerating. You'd go another hundred yards and there's another shop selling the same terrible shirts. Fuck sex. I don't know who the creative mastermind was behind that one. Um, but I think there'll still be available if you make it out here to Barcelona. So because despite, you know, doing okay, uh, I don't stay at like five star everything. I don't fly private. I don't, um, I probably would rent a boat though when I go to Mallorca or maybe Ibiza, but yeah, I'm willing to spend some money on some shit, but I'm also not like in a free for all mode where I'm just like, I don't care. I don't care every single time because this kind of trip is just going to add up. And if I can find a way to just be ahead in the game

a little bit, I'll try to do that. So I was like, let me check out the train situation. I checked in with the hotel ahead of time. I'm like, where do I need to go from? I'm going to Stegis. Is it worth it? I was kind of like asking that even though I've already made up my mind, like some dude behind the desk is going to convince me not to go to this place that I've already researched and looked at online. So, so I make it to the train station and here's the deal. Like when people ask me, like, do you actually like doing this? And I'm like, I really do descendant from an explorer. I don't know, but I like learning and getting out there, but it definitely sucks at times, right? You were juggling when you're

in foreign country and you don't know how anything fucking works and you're trying to figure it out all on the fly and you can ask a million questions, you can research it all you want, but when you're in it, when you're in the ring, you're just juggling wins and losses all the time. So I went to three different places to buy this train ticket. The first two obviously were wrong. I sent him to the third one. I was like, is this the right one? And he just fucking yelled and pointed. And I still don't know what he said. I go downstairs. I'm waiting just like we'd wait for the subway in New York City. It's hot as fuck. Everybody's kind of annoyed. And I'm watching that screen like Russell Crowe watches that board in his shed. Beautiful mind. Like I'm looking at it going. I don't understand anything, but if I keep looking at it long enough, maybe it'll all become clear. And I'm actually proud of myself that I kind of started to figure out a little bit. I'd be like, okay, that means this track and that means this train, but it would never say like Stieges number train, whatever. It would just be like destination. So I was like, as long as I head

South of Barcelona, I'm heading in the right direction. And now I'm like, maybe I should have just gotten a fucking taxi. And for whatever reason, my Uber isn't working, which will come into play a little bit later in the story. And so as I'm watching all this take place, I'm pretty confused, but I'm slowly figuring it out. And then realizing this word means delay. So I was like, okay, that word means delay. And that means this train's delayed. It means this train's delayed. I waited down there about 45 minutes. And then normally what I'll do in a situation like that, dripping sweat, miserable, the hours are ticking by because history guy was going, it also rained in the middle of the day. So I chilled at the hotel for like an hour, just making sure I was like, I maybe I'll stay here an extra night if I can't get down to Stegis. Cause I do want to check this place out. But the weather said it'd be fine. It was raining. You could kind of see it in the clouds.

And maybe I just picked up on some of that stuff by looking at some of those Mediterranean maps from the 1400s. But I was like, all right, I'm going to, I'm like, fuck this. So I gave myself like a drop dead time. It's not here in five minutes. And it just, apparently there was some incident on the track where one of the trains actually got stuck. It wasn't like some devastating disaster and like that, but like these trains weren't coming. So thank God, pulled the plug, got in a cab, about 40 minutes down, really nice drive, a little hairy in some spots, nothing too crazy.

You know, actually you don't feel like it's dangerous, but it's, you know, this cliffside ocean side drive where it's going to get a little windy at times. And my guy was flying and tailgating the entire time. I mean, real F1 style, but whatever. He got me there. Rolling to Stegis and it is exactly, exactly what I want. 30,000 people. Stegis, by the way, translation silo. Apparently the town was used to store grain years and years ago. That timeline is much like Barcelona. Whoever was just passing through decided to take it over.

But today, apparently, I think 35% of the population is from other countries. And you know how I was explaining Nice in part one, where it's just way too much? Imagine a miniaturized size of that that where there's all of these different beaches that you can go to. And here's like an aside, the dirty little secret on a lot of the beaches in Europe is that a lot of them fucking suck. All right. I can look at all the pictures of Positano on Instagram and it seems mandatory. If you have breasts, you got to get there and take a picture. And I've been there and it's fucking awesome. It's right. It checks all the village boxes that I like. But the beach itself, and I'm granted super spoiled living in Manhattan Beach and being able to just walk down and it's always empty. Even when it's busy, it's empty. It's empty. But in Europe, they just pile you right on top of everybody else. And in Positano specifically, you're not going to relax. You're going to be right next to somebody else. Even if you have four chairs with your four friends, you're going to be right next to the other two groups or up to fucking 400 degrees. So you're dying as you're walking into the water and it's a steep little drop off. Then you get in, the water's actually still kind of

hot, whatever. Capri on the non-port side is fine. I did that whole trip, the Amalfi Coast before. I went to Sorrento. Sorrento, cool city. Beaches were a joke. There weren't even beaches. You'd have to walk down these massive cement stairways to all these different places. And then you'd get to this beach club and there might be like a few feet of beach still hanging on, but you were more likely you're going to have to walk in this cement jetty, walk all the way out to it. And then you'd get a chair and sit on a piece of cement and then dive off of the jetty and then climb back up like you were coming back up the pool. cement and then dive off of the jetty and then climb back up like you were coming back up the pool. So if you like beautiful beaches and that kind of stuff, that's why, again, I like Saint

Tropez so much, but the best beaches in Saint Tropez actually aren't in the city and it wasn't inconvenient. It was actually kind of fun. You get to go into the farm side of things and then swing it around. I think it was like 20 minutes to the beach clubs that I was going to when I was there last year. So it was great, but it's not right out of the hotel downtown and then go to the beach. And a lot of the places that I've been, I mean, I went to Rhodes in Greece a long time ago and that was fucking awful. But that was me going, oh wait, this place is like almost East of, well, it's, it's almost as far east as Istanbul. That's how far roads goes. I mean, you want to talk about conquering and guys having to give up land all the time. Um,

check out the Greek Island history. So, um, you know, Nice was just too much, but I get to Stegis and it's busy, it's busy, but there's definitely like places to just chill. And, you know, I grabbed a beach chair. I bought one knowing I was just going to leave it, pay it forward and you know, whatever. So I grabbed a book. I'm reading this George Washington book that I actually kind of hate read as I'm trying to finish it right now. I would not recommend it. I'm not going to call out the author. So, uh, as I mentioned, Dixon part one, day one Dix, This beach also, you can be nude at it. Most people were not nude. And when I mean most people, I'm talking 90%. So it's still kind of like, oh, what's up? So I'm in

my chair, I'm reading my book and a woman in front of me, five feet with a husband, I assume. She went full drawers down to the point where it was like, oh, she must have one of those real high-cut deals, you know, flossing. Nope, not at all. And when I say I could bill her for an exam

and she may pay it, I wouldn't be exaggerating. So that was a lot as soon as I sat down. It was fine. The water was good. Everything was cool. You're always worried about your shit getting stolen. I went over to two girls basically because I was like, they'd probably be less likely to fuck me over here. I was like, do you mind watching this stuff? Yeah, no problem. Jump in the water.

Never took my eyes off the entire time because somebody steals your backpack with your phone or your passport. As much as I like it here, I don't really want to have that stuff. And then make it back, sit down. Finishing up here, part two. There was a guy giving off major AFC North fan vibes, barrel chested,

but he had sunglasses and a hat that I felt were maybe a little out of the price range of your average NFC North guy. And he had a kid. Let's say the kid was five. The dad was barrel chested. The kid was pretty stocky. And the dad just decided to fucking hip toss his kid. He hip tossed him so hard that the kid, his mouth open, he hit his, he fucking mopped him. The kid comes up, eyes welling, mouth wide open,

two hours before he made a sound. One of those kind of cries where he had to build himself up to it and then just full rage cry. And then of course went to the mom. The mom didn't really even do anything. The dad did nothing. He just looked at the kid the whole time. Just looked at him. I have no idea what the lead up to that was. In the States, if you did it at Target, there'd probably be somebody else would say would say hey watch what you're doing to your kid that's always a delicate thing but it was vicious i couldn't fucking believe it and then he went to the younger son that he had who was like two or three and he started to put his life vest on him and i was like hey what's he saying to him like it lets me if i can drown you out there so um i'll give the kid this though that fucker recovered quick real quick because he was playing with

sand and making a castle within 10 minutes that was like non popsicle handout induced leave the beach do a walk around Stegis look if you research it and you're in Barcelona and you want to check it out do not be thrown off by everybody that says it's like the top gay destination

alright as a guy that's traveled to a bunch of places that are considered gay destinations, I can tell you this and we'll keep it to Stegis, right? Cause there was a night in Mykonos where I did go the wrong way. And I was like, well, let's just say a couple of guys started chasing me afterwards saying, no, you're in the right area. And I was like, I'm not. Um, but yeah, if you want to go to Stegis and make gay, but yeah if you want to go to Stegis and make it gay you can make it gay I walked it

but if you also want to go with your girlfriend you want to go with your wife you want to go with buddies you want to go with your family it is so efficient it's easy to get to it's fucking gorgeous and it's not that big I did get dinner I felt pretty bad

because I was looking at the train schedule. I was like, I'm going to take the train back. I can walk to the train station here in four minutes. The trains are faster at night. I'll be back in Barcelona in 40 minutes. Let me do that. Instead of paying for a cab again, it's only going to be four Euro. Uh, that'll be the plan. Let's go do that. And the first part of the dinner came out pretty quick. The second part was taken forever. And I went to him and was like, look, I'm a little worried because this happened to me when I left Aix-en-Provence. I took an Uber all the way out to Duverdon to rent the boat for the day in the lake. And I took an Uber all the way out.

And then I got done with the boat for a few hours and walked to the one restaurant slash hotel and was like, how come I'm not finding any Ubers on my phone? And they were like, Uber, Uber. And I'm like, dude, translation, you're in the middle of fucking nowhere. No one has their Uber thing. Like you're not getting an Uber. coming in to pick me up. And then he said he would drive me to Nice for $300. And I was like, well, can we just go in a different direction to a town that I haven't been to? Because this means I'm going back to Nice sooner than I want to. And I've already done it. I don't really want to go there other than the night before I'm flying out. I know Monte Carlo is too far, which again, Monte Carlo was not worth it, which everyone said it's not worth it. But check it out if you want to for an afternoon. It's illegal to have your shirt off in Monte Carlo. So I bounced pretty quick. But yeah, this guy's uncle drove me, but then he threw the meter on. So he said he was a taxi driver, which apparently he had a taxi. And then he said it'd be 300

Euro. And then instead it was, um, it was, it was like 400 and something. And I was like, motherfucker. I was like, Oh, he could have stopped in any of these other towns. And my French after like a week and a half is enough to at least argue. So he got where I was coming from. Uh, I didn't understand the fucking thing he was saying. And not only did I have to pay him 400 plus euro from the ride from Duval-Rodon-Denise, I had to go to an ATM where he was like, well, I'm going to hold your bag. And I had already stayed at the hotel where I was getting dropped off. And I was like, well, you just watch this guy and he'll watch you.

And I'm like, this is the whole explanation. I got to walk a block to go to ATM. I'm going to pay you all the money that you want. But this, you fucked me on this deal. You know, you fucked me. And he was like, this is the whole explanation. I got to walk a block to go to ATM. I'm going to pay you all the money that you want, but this, you fucked me on this deal. You know, you fucked me. And he was like, whatever, whatever. So I go to the ATM and take out another couple hundred Euro. There's a kid about 30, sick Jordans on, jacket, but he's a shithead.

And he was asking people for money, even though he had nice gear on. And he looks at me and asked for 20 Euro. That kid had a better job, better chance of getting a hand job for me than getting that 20 bucks. So he got denied. I gave the guy the 400 and whatever. So the point of the story is, sorry, is that sometimes when you get a little adventurous, you'll get so adventurous that you think it's going to be easy. It's easy to get to the place that you want to go. It might not be that easy to get out of there. So I'm not finding any Ubers. I'm like, wait, I probably could have gotten a taxi. I probably could have figured it out. Steege's is far more populated than this fucking lake I was at in France a year ago. But I'm like, I'm not doing

this. And I went to the guy, I said, hey, look, it's taking too long. Let me pay for the whole thing. Shout out to this restaurant, Pasta Place, Tag i don't know not sure but that guy hooked me up he's like i don't worry about it took too long and i said i gotta make the train there's only one left and i'm worried about a taxi and he's like no no problem i offered to pay for everything and he was like nope he took the dinner off so So made the train, sweat like a motherfucker. It was brutal. Should have just gotten a taxi. Made it back to the W. Had an extra dinner there. Very cool.

First place where the women were really nice to me sitting by myself because that's always fucking awkward as hell. Solo guy. You don't see her very often. Shout out to Josh Hart. And then looked at the line to the rooftop that Cerruti said you have to check out and didn't go again. Tomorrow, Ibiza. Day three. All right, let's do it. So recapping here, woke up in Barcelona, was kind of on the fence about what to do. Last night, I was looking at flights and a lot of the options actually sucked which is pretty

shocking because there's a lot of flights in Barcelona to Ibiza but I just wasn't going to do anything super early and there were a million 7 a.m and 8 a.m and I know 8 a.m isn't that hard considering where the airport is in comparison to the hotel I was staying at but I was just like I don't I don't want to do that I don't want to get up that early I want to be able to work out I want to be able to kind of get my bearings here, not rush. And then I'll get to Ibiza in the afternoon because the earlier you get to Ibiza too, if I get here really early, then I probably most likely can't check into the hotel right away.

So I took my time, hit the gym. Not going to do full extensive workout recaps because that's not why you're listening to this pod. But just to paint the full picture. Decided to do a little back routine and a total rookie mistakes, pounds, kilograms, kids. We all know kilograms, those of us that had to buy plates during the pandemic because they were hard to find. And anytime they would pop up, I'd be like, all right, I'll order this sweet as shit. And eventually you kind of know the math on it. It's not that hard to figure out

and keep track of, right? It's not like we're using two and a halfs over here and so i loaded up uh one of the last exercises which is always the case the last set like the last rep i was doing bend over back rows and um yeah i know there's a million different terms whatever If that bothered you, seriously, fuck off. And I was like, wait, this is a little heavy. And then I added up the plates after I did it and hurt my back and was like, what the fuck were you just thinking? Like that was a ton of weight. And I was like, oh yeah, that's right. Cause that's this and this is this and this is this. And I was like, I don't know if we're doing personal records here, but of course it was always on the last rep and a reoccurring injury between the shoulder blades. It just exists because I think I always see all these fixed

it techniques for it. I think we just look at our phones and laptops too much and we're starting to be hurt in that area more often. Although I initially hurt myself doing Smith machine wrong, military press didn't tilt back the bench, uh, which I learned later on in life. Um, too much pressure. It's just a bad angle. You're going to hurt yourself if you do a lot of heavyweight military with a perfect 90 degree bench. There you go. That's my training tip on the day. So I was super nervous for a second because I've had it so many times where I was like, this is going to be really bad. I don't know what's going to happen here if this is that bad. But luckily, stretched it out a bit, some Advil, good to go. All right. So I decided to go to Ibiza, which is where I am now broadcasting from.

Flight situation, pretty standard. Although, you know, look, it's a bit like the train thing. You roll in just knowing you're going to be confused. I think it's fueling air. I don't have the mileage to exactly get the upgrade there. And of course, the other thing that I'm running into is when you're doing one-way tickets all the time, it kind of raises like a red flag. And so they wouldn't be able to check me out, or I can do the self-checkout. Even when I left the States and it was one way to Spain they're like is this guy even coming back and I had to tell them that I was um because I don't get shit to do eventually but um yeah so it wasn't really working out and they were like you have to go to the help desk so I go to the help desk which I'm

already like this is gonna suck lines a million people long and then there's a much shorter line called last minute I was like well if uh if that line is shorter, I'm going to do this. And as I'm waiting in line, I'm thinking to myself, right? Like real fucking real Paul throw over here. I'm like, oh, I got this figured out. I'm like, why would you stay in the longer line? And then I see a guy in front of me go up to the window and they immediately like kick him out. And they're going, your flight isn't in last minute designation. You now wasted your time in this line, go to the back of the helpline. So I'm like, oh, that's why it's not abused because you actually have to show them when you're ticket, when you're leaving. And even though you're a little lost and it's getting close to like check-in and everything, it wasn't even close to boarding, but you get the point. I'm like, am I going to even be in the window? Because I don't even know what the window is. I was second next to go. And then a guy took a phone call that was behind the glass,

which sucked for all of us as we were waiting in line. And then a Japanese guy comes up to me, picks me out of the group, was like, can I cut you? I was like, no. I just looked at him. I was like, no one's cutting me, which I couldn't believe of all the people he could pick in line. He picked me, but maybe it was because strength in numbers. He's like, this guy's by himself, fuck him. And then the people behind me, the women behind me, I think they were Spanish. I don't know. And they were like cheering and yelling and him. And they were just excited that I wouldn't let him cut me. But now I've got this dilemma of thinking like, man, they can't have this in the States because they'd abuse it. Or Hey idiot, actually, when you get to

the window, you have to prove that it's last minute. So I get up to the window. I act as dumb as I possibly can, which at times isn't that hard. And, uh, you know, kind of explain, oh, they kicked me out of there. And then I went over there and whatever. And he just looked at me. He's like, fuck it. All right. So we're on the plane, the plane itself on the way to Ibiza is something else. The only other time I've experienced anything like this. And that was way beyond was New York to Negril, um, a long time ago, land in Kingston. And it was on from wheels up. It was fucking hilarious, but it was just a bunch of younger people in the middle of the winter,

leaving New York, going to the grill, knowing that, you know, when they may have gone to Mobe, but you get the point. Uh, this was incredible.

We had twin pink cowboy hats and a couple of girls. They're ready to rock immediately. A bunch of other women just done up to a tee, perfect makeup, whole deal. I don't even know if they thought they may not even have had hotels. They were just like, we're going to get in a cab, we're going to rage, and then we'll take a later flight back at 7 a.m. the next day. Because you could actually do that if you wanted to. So that part of it was kind of funny. Then I always am just obsessed with looking at the dudes that are with the women that are this ready to go. And I can't, I'll just admit it, but like if that guy looks like a sap,

all I can think about is how much money he's going to waste over the next 48 hours. I'll just look at him and go like that poor fucker's credit card, man. That guy's just like, he is simply a valet in this transaction. Maybe they're in love. Maybe they are. I'm not buying. So I get to, uh, bees in the afternoon. I can be real bougie. I can also be a guy's like, I know this place is a dump. I'll just fucking stay here. I don't care. It's just me. I'm not here to impress anybody, but I decided to go bougie for this day. At least the beginning. but I decided to go bougie for this day, at least the beginning. Nobu has a hotel right in this bay, right on the water, very close to the airport. I'm just going to tell you for the full sake of sharing all the information, I think it's going to end up being over $1,300 a night. And I think I have one of the worst rooms here. So I can't even imagine what the other rooms are.

I booked it with Amex. If you don't have Amex Platinum, I don't have an ad deal here, but if you travel a lot and you don't have Amex Platinum, you should get it because the late checkout, early checkout stuff, then you get all sorts of credits. I remember one hotel was like, you have $300 with this resort credit while you're staying here. And it can kind of add up. You're getting free meals along the way, maybe a t-shirt for the kids. You get it. So this hotel is sick. It is on this perfect little bay, uh, boats anchored everywhere. Uh, the pool itself is incredible. There's a beach as well, but man, everybody loves the pool. Although I see this in the States too. Like you go to Hawaii and people are like, I'm just going to post up to the pool the entire time, which never made any sense to me, but any, you know,

um, do whatever you want. So, um, kind of just perusing the area, although my room is double Oh seven, which is pretty sweet. Um, you know, I'll admit, I notice a lot when I'm by myself, people trying to size me up a little bit, like what the fuck is that guy doing? Or they set up the towel for two people and they're like, was your wife coming down? Like don't have one of those. Um, and then my man, Charlie, work in the pool. He and I started talking a little bit, although he started asking me for like advice. Like everybody sees me cause everybody's been asking me about these books. I've been reading and a grin. I don't feel like torching this, this other one again. Um, but you

know, he was sitting there, he was asking me about the book I was reading and I didn't want to be like, Hey, this book sucks. Like I said on the podcast, uh, the other day, but I told him that it sucked. And then I could kind of seen his eyes like, Hey bro, I didn't want a fucking book report. But he basically was like, what should I read? You know, you seem successful. What, I don't know what put, what made him think that, but, um, maybe everybody that stays at this hotel, you get it. So he was like, what should I read to be successful? I was like, man, I don't know. I just read a lot of history, to be honest with you.

You know, I was like, I try not to rewind. Always fast forward, though. So I don't really know if that kicked in at all. So nighttime, what are we going to do? We're not going to go to the clubs. Look, I know that some of you are listening, saying, hey, you're so good looking and you're in such great shape and you're so funny. Like, why wouldn't you go out and stay? And by the way, thank you. Why wouldn't you go out at least one of these nights? It's just tough. Yeah, Harden, can you believe that guy? I mean,

look, I'm pro player when it comes to the CBA, but this is a lot. Have you noticed how popular pizza is here? It's crazy, right? There's tons of pizza. We're not going to go to the clubs. All right. Let's do a little brief history on Ibiza. First people here, 600, 650 BC.

There was always people before that, though. Changes hands a million times. I really want to focus on the 1900s part of this, all right? And the reason I'm going to start here is because of where I'm going to finish. The 1900s, a lot of economic turmoil. I'm sure, you know, fishing industry was a big part of it. There's a pirate stretch way before that as well. But then around the 1960s, much like certain amazing areas in the States, and I would say even Martha's Vineyard has a real hint of this too,

where hippies are like, well, you guys just want to go to some of the sickest fucking places ever and just live there. And the whole North side of the Island, historically, when this population really started to pop up was like in the 60s because of the island historically when this population really started to pop up was like in the 60s because of the hippies so there's actually to this day the hippie market where you go i think it's every other day um it's this incredible market i'm not gonna go um but everybody's telling me like of all the things that you should do here's a list of things you should do and i was like explain that to me so they're like all along the northern side for the reputation that ibiza has is this massive raging burning man, which is what all anyone ever thinks about this place.

It's just not true. Um, it's way bigger than you think. I'm not going to even come close to scratching the surface on this place in just two or three days, not even close. If I were to do it again, I'd rent a car and drive around the Island. Uh, tomorrow I have a plan for exploring and I'll get to the old town part of it a little bit later here, but there's just, it is one of the most falsely advertised place I've ever been to. And I'll explain it. Like, again, if you tell somebody you want to go to Mykonos, somebody who's never been will go, oh dude, that place is fucking crazy. And again, I remember being there and leaving the bars at night. And then there'd be these buses waiting to take you to these beach parties that you'd heard about. And there'd be these girls standing outside of the buses with these signs and arrows pointed to go on their

bus because they're all hustling to try to get as big of a head count for the money they were going to make on it. I remember this one girl, I would see her every night and she would just have this sign and she keeps saying over and over again, space, space, space. Cause that was apparently the beach club space is my guess. So one night I was like, what's the deal with this place? Like what happens? And she's like, the party opens at four. So I'm like, first of all, I'm out drinking from normal dinner time to last call, you know, one, 2 AM. And then I got to figure out a way to just fucking kick it on this bus for two hours until the beach club opens up. She's like, it kind of gets going at six, but doesn't really get busy until after eight. And

you're like, what, what the fuck is, and it's, it's almost just to see like how preposterous can we make a night out? So you're saying, and this is again, if you were with buddies and doing this up big and either being a machine as an older person or just being young and impervious to the effects of what this would do to a normal person's week, you would start telling your buddies like we should shut it down at 10 a.m. Some would linger until like noon. And then you should tell the travel agent like, can I get a refund on the one day I'd missed? Because it'd be like a virtual day where you'd wake up Thursday from going out Tuesday night. And even when I went being younger, I was like, there's just no way. There's no way that I'm throwing that in the middle of this entire excursion that I'm on. So I didn't do it then. And I'm far less likely to do it now. Now, if I were with somebody that was like, let's just fucking do it once. And I was staying here a longer time than maybe if I was with a crew. I don't even know. I don't know, man.

I'm actually getting anxiety even thinking about what that would be like the next day. Because could you love EDM and dancing that much to be like, let's do this until seven. But hell, if you live in Barcelona and you've got it in you and you just want to shoot over for a day and then take an early flight back the next day, you could. So there's the hippie part to the north. There's multiple towns. There's obviously, once the hippies rolled in, the art part of it, I guess there's a big nude beach thing up there. There's apparently communes in the past. Now, I think there's some villages that were based on where the communes are. I'm sure if you go up there, they're not going to ask you to rake or anything, but that'd be my guess. There's a drum thing that's actually something like that in Martha's Vineyard where there's

these sunset drums things. So there's an entirely different lifestyle that didn't start happening. So we're talking about the birth of this place becoming a real kind of paradise destination, or at least being on the radar for other people to be like, oh, let me check that out, like 1960s on. Yes, you could go back and look through other people to be like, oh, let me check that out. Like 1960s on. Yes, you could go back and look through the history of it like I have, and there could be some dispute over it. But really, I started talking to cab drivers, different people. I'm like, tell me about the different areas.

Tell me where to go to, what not to go to. And of course, they think you show up and you don't sound like them. They're like, okay, well, here's this dance club and here's all this different stuff. As far as the clubs themselves, you drive past them. I know that there's another town on the other side, the western side of the island, which I am going to check out tomorrow, not at night, but I know there's another part, San Antonio, I think, I don't know. And they were like, that's kind of the mega area over there for the clubs. But on the way there, there'll be just this massive warehouse. There was one place that looked like an air hangar.

And the guy was like, yeah, that opens up at nine o'clock and it'll be open to like seven-ish tomorrow morning. So I was like, oh, okay. All right, whatever. The reason I want to end here and bring that up

because I did make it through Old Town, which is kind of divided by a newer part of town as well. The other thing is the city walls of Dalt Vila that were built in the 16th century. I walked through all that. Incredible, this big fortress

that is in the backdrop of the town itself that looks over the port. It's all incredible. And it's all like something else to take in. And there are these similarities when you think about the colonization of the West Indies, all of these islands that, especially if you're on the East Coast, they were easier and all these

destinations. St. Bart's is always at the higher end, St. John, St. Thomas, or whatever. But when you're in the Mediterranean and you're in some of these beach towns, as I've mentioned too many times, St. Tropez and how much it looks like St. Bart's, that it makes all the sense in the world. So when you walk around, you'll see similarities, yet there's something that's always distinct enough to know that you're somewhere different. So San Tropez is pristine luxury in this Caribbean, Italian, Spanish, French potpourri of vibes, for lack of a better word. Ibiza, the old town, has a lot of that, but there's an edge to it. There's an artist edge, just a cultural edge that makes you realize you're in something that's a

little bit different than some of the more pristine places. It's a pristine location. Grimy is the wrong word because it feels negative, but grimy, I think, can be a great adjective that makes it feel like it has a little bit more soul to it. All right. Let me finish here because we got stuff to do. This is my favorite part about being here just for a day, and I still have a lot more to do. I asked a bunch of different people that had been here about it and they all said don't go there now they all came here when they were really young much like when i first first went to new orleans

i think it was 22 i don't know that we moved more than three blocks up and down bourbon street i fucking hated new orleans so bad because that was my only experience yet i was i felt entitled to offer up an opinion and now my opinion of New Orleans, getting to know people from there and going so many times, it's completely changed. And to talk to guys that around my age that came here in their 20s and they did the 20s things, which is what you should be doing, by the way, you shouldn't be fucking sitting in a hotel room taping a podcast episode. episode but for them to be like don't go it is it's just so different it's so different and so much there's so much more to it and i haven't even really gotten close as i'll explore a little bit more tomorrow um that don't get intimidated don't get turned off by the stereotypes of this place

because because it is vastly from what I had in my head, and thinking about, ah, fuck it, I'll just go to Mallorca anyway. Who are you kidding? It's just not true. It's just not true. And if anybody's ever spent any time here, I'm sure they would agree.

Day four slash five. We're going to recap the last 24 plus hours i'm still in ibiza i was supposed to leave for mallorca today and i decided i didn't want to i went to bed last night was like hey we'll get up in the morning we'll see how you feel and uh see if you're ready to get out of here this hotel being this nice is probably uh impacting my, influencing it such that I do not want to leave right away. And the fact that I thought of visa, like after 48 hours from everything everybody told me, I was like, that'll probably be enough. And then I can hit my orca for a Saturday and then stay there for an extra night. But instead I'm just going to stay here. I like to set up.

There's still some more stuff that I want to do. So let's recap the last day. Yesterday, obviously start with a workout, met a guy from Texas. We started talking SEC football. Nice guy. He brought his family here, which you actually see a little bit more here than I would ever imagine. is going to go to places like Ibiza or Portofino or any of these places, the entire family being like, all right, guys, here are your plane tickets and here's your snack bag. We're going to Europe. That is an impossibility for my family. Some of you can completely relate. Others of you, your families were big, big adventurers. If you'd set the over under at a half when I was like six, I'd go, you know what, give me the under. And I would have been right. So the cool thing here, if you do bring kids, at least to this hotel, there's a kids club. It's called Kids Disco. DJ, dancing, the whole deal. I'm not quite sure how it works. I wasn't super interested. But I do see it. And apparently,

I don't know how that works. I guess you just go out super late. And I don't know if it's like an in-house nanny or what. Some of you probably are horrified by it. Others, you were already booking your tickets. So a couple of things about San Antony deportment. Again, that doesn't feel super, super smooth on that pronunciation. um so we're on the the western side and in the town there's this egg um which is something that was constructed or erected it's this big egg in the in the center of the town and it was um erected in the 1990s early 1990s to commemorate the local claim of having been the birthplace of Christopher Columbus. They also said our guy Hannibal was also born in the region. So just Western Ibiza, this town just going, yeah, that guy, he's from here.

I imagine there's some people in Genoa. If you look at the birth of Columbus, Wikipedia says between August 25th and October 31st. When he went out on Fridays, he must have milked that. Imagine? Like, it's my birthday. Like, wait, wasn't it?

Well, no one knows. I get about a two-month window. I know a girl, figure skater, she used to do that. She'd be like, that's my birthday. I'd be like, no shit. So, yeah. I'm not going to hang out here a ton, but that's some of their local

history. The story about the egg is that the choice of the egg comes from a story about Columbus who when seeking funding for his western route to the Indies was told that it was impossible. Then he apparently said if standing an egg upright was impossible

when he was told that it was, because if you were to balance an egg upright, it doesn't seem like it worked. He cracked the base of the egg, then allowing it to stand. Real innovator. I imagine he's like, hey, do we have any extra eggs? I got to do that egg presentation again. Imagine being one of his buddies. He's like, are you going to do the egg thing again? They're like, yep. So there you go. do the egg thing again like yep so there you go i don't i mean congrats on the egg and all that stuff uh it's a bit like alabama national championships on some of these are you know much worse i think is rutgers and princeton like hey we went one oh and one national champs back to back uh hannibal whose resume is like don sutton on the back of a baseball card when you look at his battles.

The Carthaginians. So, major stats for that guy. Not just a compiler, though. I don't think. Some of these guys out there in the 80s just throw in a million innings with a 4-2. But nope. Hannibal, serious, serious resume. So, work west to...

Because I don't want to go to this port town um and apparently that's like the big biggest club area that's in a town that's not these kind of places off the side of the road uh the isle de bosque which is an uninhabited island on the western side of this little beach area was asking around a lot of people said you should go check this out so that's what i did on the ride out the topography, uh, mild undulations of hillside, a lot of grape farms. It looked like some really incredible setups because you know, the, the, the cool thing about even the nicest places, you know, granted there's some places like there's not a shitty part of Nantucket, right?

Like I could argue there's a stretch of streets in Martha's Vineyard, which aren't the greatest houses, but then you're like, oh, that house sucks. You're like, yeah, that's sold for 1.5. So there are very few places you'll ever go where everything is to the highest caliber. And you can be in these towns in Mexico and you can be headed to the ultimate resort. But like on the way there, there's a shitty supermarket and there's an awful car dealers there, there's a shitty supermarket, and there's an awful car dealership, and there's some abandoned fucking building or whatever. It happens. And so in this drive, there are definitely elements of the middle of nowhere, which again, it's not that far. It was about a 45-minute cab ride. But yeah, there's parts where

it's just like, this is so far away from everything else. You just wonder what the property value is. But then you'll hit another stretch where just off the side of the road, there's these amazing villas on these great farms. It reminded me a bit of the Spaniards landscaping in gladiator. Remember that one? Maybe that's how he got his nickname. To be honest with you, they'd be like, did you see Maximus fucking landscaping? Like what's that guy's deal? Like, oh, Spanish influence. So it looked a lot like that. Not as massive of an estate because that guy had some serious property. I can't imagine the property taxes for Gladiator, but worked my way out there. And there's two restaurants on this beach side thing. It wasn't some big, massive beach, which meant it was really crowded,

but it was kind of cool because you were checking out these two islands. I think there was a lighthouse out there, a lot of boats and a lot of people, a lot of people. As far as the breakdown of people, kind of younger. And one area was kind of going off a little bit, but it wasn't like wild. I tried to get into lunch at the first restaurant, which was really nice. I mean, it was right in the water, right next to all these boats, this massive outdoor dining area with an overhang because the sun is getting hot out here. And I went in and was like, hey, one, and she was like, it's impossible. The place was fucking empty. There was like six tables, which were actually, so I was like, okay, you know,

it could be one of those deals where everybody plans this out ahead of time reservations. There's only two restaurants on this side of the beach. So it makes sense that it's going to be busy. So whatever. And I was like, well, okay, what does that mean? She's like four o'clock, maybe. And I was like, all right, fine. No problem. Two hours head over to the beach. Don't love the towels on towels deal, but found a little spot over there. Saw four, I think they were Italian girls. I cannot imagine the amount of work that would go into doing a full makeup deal than just to go to the beach and they get in the water.

So shout out to them, but show up just completely made up, ripping darts. I think the only guys that I see smoking more darts, you'd think it'd be the Italian guys. And for the most part, like you have to remember geographically, when you look at Ibiza, it's one of the quickest destinations for all these different places in Western Europe, right? If you look at it on a map, it actually makes a lot of sense, direct flights from a lot of the major cities. So there's a pretty good mix of people where other places I've gone in the past,

like, oh, hey, this is more English, this is more French. There's one place I went where it was like mostly Russian and German, which was further East in the Mediterranean. But this is so far been a pretty good mix. But yeah, the Italian girls just smoking darts. Yes, they were attractive. They looked at me, I think for a combined zero seconds. I mean, look, there was even one girl with a cane and maybe she was just getting over an Achilles surgery or something like that. But like, she was kind of ridiculous and she had a cane, you know, somebody was like, Hey, you still dating a girl with a cane? You're like, yeah. Like, Oh, good for you. Good for you. So I hung out at the beach for a little while. I debated doing the jet ski thing.

Jet ski rentals are real coin toss. Shout out to the coin boys. I've done it where it's been awesome. I did a Key West one with a friend where we went around the entire lower key. And when we came out on the north side towards the Atlantic, we started hitting these swells that were pretty big. And it actually was fun. It was the best time I've ever had in a jet ski. And then I've had other times, I think when I went to Cabo, yeah, the guy was like, you can't go this way. You can't go that way. You can only go this way. So I was like, cool. Like drag racing by myself in one straight line and then coming back, I turned the thing in early. So jet skis, depending on the rules, usually the more foreign it gets, the more they're like, who gives a fuck? There's places, I remember back in New England, where after 20 minutes, you're like, this is boring. I'm not even allowed to go anywhere. So I didn't do that because I wanted to go back for

my four o'clock reservation for lunch. I get there late lunch, whatever, tapas, and it's packed now. I find the same girl that took the reservation. I threw a shirt on. Those are the rules. And I was like, what's the story here? And she was like, it's impossible. So I was like, sweet. Thanks a lot. So then I looked around. I was like, there's a lot of people milling around.

I've noticed, you know, five, six o'clock, things get a little slower because they're probably prepping up for the night. So I thought, you know what? That move of this might be getting in a cab now, getting back to the hotel, relax there. And I really wanted to eat a Nobu anyway. So that's what I did. Cab back, relaxed, finished that book. That'll be the last time I reference it.

Started a new one. Pretty excited about that one. I'll get you a title here in a second. I forgot it already. cod wagyu dumplings crunchy rice tuna couple glasses of sav not afraid and it was fucking incredible uh it's exactly what i want i sat at the bar by myself definitely got some looks the solo dining thing is really bumming people out i'm getting to the point where i might just tell people my girlfriend's sick um i don't care a ton but it's i still think that one woman wouldn't seat me yesterday and again she probably was like i don't feel like ton, but I still think that woman wouldn't seat me yesterday.

And again, she probably was like, I don't feel like giving this fucking loser a four top. So I don't really blame her on that one, although I'm sure they could have figured something out. Anyway, I sat at the bar, incredible dinner. I've already had that dinner before at Nobu in the past. I knew I wanted to do it again. That's really all I wanted to do. So decided to wake up this morning, stay another night. We're good.

Temperature, because I know some of you are older, and as you get older, you get obsessed with temperature. I think the water degrees, we're looking at low 70s maybe. So still enough to be refreshing. Some of those places are like, oh, the water is so warm. You're like, okay, but I don't want to jump in a bath with a thousand people. Um, air temperature, mid seventies to high eighties. And it's hot, it's hot. And it's actually a little muggier than I would have thought so close to the ocean. Uh, even here at the hotel, right on a Bay. Um, but again, I don't know the wind charts here. So there you go. All right. So the plan is today to head to an island south of here. And I'll look it up. It is called, that's the wrong map. I've got all my charts out here. Formentera. So Formentera is an island where I'm going to take a ferry. I'll probably, I'm not going to rent a boat yet. I'm going to

save that for another part of the trip. I don't think they'd be psyched for me to captain a ship by myself and then just park it there and be like, I'll see you guys later today. It does get pretty expensive by the hour. So whatever I do when I do the boat thing, it's probably going to be a couple hour excursion, not a, Hey, I'll see you guys tomorrow deal. But apparently this island South of Ibiza is every time I've asked, Hey, where should I go? Where should I go? And anytime I've brought that up, cause they were like, not everybody wants to take a boat to from Ibiza and then go somewhere else, their eyes light up and they're like, man, that place is incredible. So I'm going to do a later run over to there and then head to Mallorca tomorrow. And that'll be the plan. We'll update you from there.

day six checking in still in Ibiza decided to extend one night here at the Nobu uh check with them and said hey what's the possibility of a dude sticking around here another day and they were like let's look into it and then they just went ahead and booked me so I was like oh okay um really it's about moving the numbers around because Mallorca was going to be expensive on Saturday compared to the rest of the days that I'm going to be there. And then, you know, whatever. So the plan was, I want to check out Formentera. It's an island South of Ibiza. It's four miles South. You can see it from town visibility clear on this excursion. So if we run through the day I went into Ibiza town before to catch the ferry.

The ferries are 30 minutes. They call them all fast ferries. You can tell that some are, some are not. Chill out a bit. I did a little bit more checking out the Ibiza castle in the middle of the day.

Definitely better. It's cool at night because of the lighting and the small streets. And I believe the best restaurants are up this long plank. I shouldn't call it a plank but it's this cobblestone stair and then it's it's got what looked like would have been a moat or something but it doesn't really make a ton of sense because there's no way the moat would have encircled it i think basically it was just they wanted to pitch

the approach up really steep and then have some kind of separation so basically what i'm telling you walking this castle during the day and the sight lines and the different vantage points, I think it'd be tough to attack. I'm not a military expert, but I think it'd be tough. It would look like it would be tough based on the pitch, its location.

You know, it's pretty much on the water and that area is probably the nicest part of abiza town abiza town in general now being here three times for different reasons um pretty easy to get through it you can you can walk it in a couple hours it does feel like it keeps going and going uh there's a million shops um you know there's basically anything you could ever possibly want to eat. You can check out the super yacht area, which is always kind of cool if you're into that thing. Although when I was looking at it, it looked like the mega, mega, super crazy yachts,

the Naomi, um, they, those slips were empty. So I don't know what that means. Uh, one cab driver said that they were down 20, 25%. Again, not Quinnipiac over here. That was one guy in a cab saying it was a lot slower this year. He also pointed out something that I thought was kind of interesting based on just the demographic of which countries are represented. He's like, the English really, really dominate Ibiza. And whenever you're kind of walking around and trying to figure it out, if you're interested in any of that kind of stuff, you'd be like, okay, the Italians are a little easier to spot i think the easiest depending on where you've been in the past like the germans but they never talk to anybody uh the french can be a little tougher to figure out because france itself is so different north to south

um scandinavia is kind of easy but there's like no gregariousness to them at all. They're very reserved. They don't really ever interact with you at all. Not to say it reminds me of Iceland, but when I was up there, it wasn't that people were unfriendly. It was just, they were very efficient and straightforward kind of everything they did. So if they were walking around, they weren't going to like talk with anybody else. I don't see many Americans at all. Although I did see a Kobe jersey that just said Ibiza. Didn't even say Bryant. It was Ibiza on the front where it would say Lakers, purple and gold, 24 on the back, 24 and Ibiza again. So good luck finding that one on StockX. So yeah, I was checking out

the castle, 16th century, the present version of it. It goes back centuries before that. They obviously went through and found older bones, just like every other place that you go to. There were some renovations in the 20th century where they put in a gym. I didn't actually go inside the whole thing. There was this big amphitheater up top, which was pretty crazy when you look at it, like how well designed it was. I don't know how new that was, but it did get me thinking, if your only entertainment was poetry like spoken word and some guy With like a fucking fiddle with three strings. No wonder these guys fought all the time, you know

Because you'd be sitting there listening to some guy You'd be like do you want to just go invade somebody instead of sitting here through the spoken word bullshit before the sun goes down? so, um You may have noticed a lack of foodie updates Not to say I don't enjoy awesome food, but there's two issues. One, I'm going to catch a ton of shit for it because I'm from Martha's Vineyard and I go to all these exotic places. I'm indifferent towards seafood. I'll eat it. I'm not crazy about it. I don't like lose my shit. Like, oh, we have to go here.

So the other problem is that I've noticed if it's really, really nice, I'm just not going to get in by myself. It's just not going to happen. And I don't really care. It's just about keeping the calories up because usually I lose a ton of weight on these kinds of trips. So, um, anyway, so I was kind of scouting out spots for a little bit later on. So let's get on the ferry here. Uh, steel hull catamaran, probably over a hundred feet for this one. It looked like I'm a big ferry fat guy, right? It looked like he could hold about 50 cars. Four came on. So the car rushed to Formentera during the day. Don't worry about standby. If you're getting in standby, it's not going to be like Woods Hole or Hyannis. You're going to be fine. Here's the thing about Formentera. Whenever I would ask, hey, what about this place to North? Should I go to the hippie market? Should I check out this beach? Should I go to the San Antonio port, which pretends that Columbus was born there? Um, where, where should I go? Should I go over to this cliff thing or something like that? And everybody has their taste and tells you what you think is better than not. It's about you having

the instincts to trust the person telling you. Um Stanford Steve and I used to have a rule about the South where we would be like, if this person likes this, then let's not go. So here's the thing. Whenever I brought up Formentera, everyone's eyes absolutely would light up. Light up. They're like, oh. But, which makes a lot of sense, if it's this island that you have to take a ferry or know somebody with a boat, mostly guys, uh, you know, it just can be inconvenient. It can be the kind of thing

where you live in Ibiza for years and be like, Oh, I haven't been in Formentera in years. So I was like, if everybody's acting like this, I'm just going to go ahead and do it. So I take the ferry over, says again, 30 minutes. I think it took about 45 timed it. Um, there's a bunch of beaches to choose from and they're all really easy you get to the harbor you pull into the town you can do the town in one lap and it is totally different uh it as far as like exotic mediterranean places go it felt more like a slower i don't want to say not high end because it was still nice like who are we kidding? But it was a sleepy Caribbean town where you could do one lap and walk around the whole thing in 20 minutes. Shops, restaurants, a lot of aquatic

stuff, renting gear if you wanted historical or boats or charters or mopeds and all that kind of shit, a little supermarket. But it was... I don't know how to explain it. Maybe it's... When you go to a different destination, it's more exotic. It just feels brighter. And it can be the colors in the buildings. It can be the lack of traffic. It just felt like a much easier pace than, granted, a crowded main Europe tourist city like Ibiza town or even Barcelona, which at times was overwhelming when I was there. So this is like really slow. But you could even stay over. There's multiple hotels or different spots. You can get dinner. Like you should, if you do it, stay over, get a couple of the different

beaches in. But since it was later in the day for me and I wanted to make it back to Ibiza for nighttime, I had a bunch of different beaches to pick from. And I went with Playa de Celets, iffy on that pronunciation. So that is the Northern Strip. If you look at the map, it is this Northern Strip that points straight up back towards Ibiza town. So get a cab, pretty easy. It's 10,000 people year round, 32 square miles on this island. I asked the cab driver kind of like what the deal was. And he goes, you know, it used to be a pretty big mix and now it's probably 80, 85% Italian. Again, I don't know where these numbers are coming from, but he's a cab driver. He said he was born and raised in Formentera. So he

felt like a pretty good source. I asked him about, you know, what's the island been like? And he's like, well, I was born here 50 something years ago. So that was kind of when the tourism thing started happening. He goes, but specifically to like the last 10 years, it's really exploded, especially with the Italians. Cause apparently someian famous people don't know who um because it's hilarious when you see movie posters another place you're like that's spanish adam sandler you know but it's true those guys exist it's just different because we don't rush to go see their movies in release here so uh he said some italian some famous italian people came by and then it was like this mad rush because people like to do what famous people do, and so they came over. This beach that I'm checking out was voted the best beach in Europe six years ago, I believe. I'm not sure what happened or what they've been doing wrong since then.

and I actually looked to the left on the sunset side of it to the west and it was a little crowded. There's a couple restaurants. There's one at an earlier taxi cab station, which is labeled, which will come into play a little bit later. And then another one on the left. And then at the top of this strip of land, again, it's a peninsula, but it's so thin that it feels less than even that. And it was all kind of busy on that side. And here's one of the things I love about Europe, because this wouldn't happen in a lot of fancy places, especially where I'm from in New England. But the east side was empty, just empty. So I walked up another couple hundred yards and there were cars at this restaurant, but

everybody stayed on the sunset side. And I just walked through this little area that was open and went out there and had the beach to myself, which faces the cliffs. Because Formaterra looks almost like it's completely beach. It isn't because to the southeast side, there's these massive, massive cliffs. Looks a little bit like, I don't want to say it's Palos Verdes, but you get the point. Sometimes in your Palos Verdes, you think it's like Portugal because you can't believe how terrific the topography is of it all. But you're looking down to the south and you see these huge cliffs over this plain. It's relatively flat. They had some salt basins,

which looked pretty archaic, but they were still being used to process salt which i guess is one of the industries there i didn't notice a ton of tech going on and it was right out of the james bond movie i don't know if dr no finishes i know it starts in jamaica um but you know these stretches of beach where you just look around you're like i can't believe in an august saturday i have this all to myself, which is usually always the goal for me, at least. So hung out there, the water is crystal clear because of these plants, a bunch of the super yachts anchor a few hundred yards off of the shore. It's considered like a really popular place to go to anchor your boat. And guys are just whipping around on different toys out there. Uh, definitely a little jealous,

but you know what, who am I going to complain to? Because I had a great setup. So walk back, caught the sunset back on the other side. It was spectacular. And then was like, wait, am I fucked here? Am I going to be able to get back on the last boat? And am I going to get a cab back? Because other situations like this, you start adding it all up going, you know, maybe just hire a fucking car to sit around for a couple hours to guarantee that you're going to get back. But I knew the boat schedule went really, really late. So I wasn't too worried about it. And worst case scenario, I was just going to jog back. It was only like two miles, get a little cardio in. NBD. However, all worked out. Went back to the cab stand, said, Hey, I'm at two. Nobody spoke

English. I certainly didn't speak whatever the fuck they were saying. And the cab came, picked me right up and said, Brian. I was like, close enough. Got in and it was great. Got to the ferry. It was a different boat. I had a different return ticket, which was a mistake. Don't do that.

Just give yourself whatever. But here's the thing. It kind of wasn't a mistake because I was like, well, wait, I'm on the other one. And he's like, ah, fuck it. And he just took my ticket and I got on. So chances are some guy owns all of them or maybe it was the same company or whatever so i was seriously at the ferry for two minutes and the guy let me right back on got back to a visa town went back up to the dinner area that i'd scattered out previously and they were like fuck off you're not taking up a table

which again i totally understand no hard feelings was not upset about it whatsoever. Did grab some pizza with some whole grain crust. It's kind of a default just to make sure I'm eating enough. I know that's not exactly why you would want to come all the way over here, but fuck it. I did it. It was actually incredible. And honestly, the pizza would be the best pizza in Los Angeles tomorrow if they opened one up there. What else? What else? I just want to make sure we get the rest of the notes. I do have something that I want to clear up. Ibiza, Ibiza. Now, I kind of planned maybe making a joke of the whole thing where I was going to say Ibiza the first two days and then pretend on the third day like I really got it and start calling it Ibiza. If anyone ever corrects you and you say Ibiza and they correct you and say, actually, it's Ibiza, tell them, well, we got room service here. Maybe an hour. Oh, housekeeping, not room service. Yeah, yeah, I know. We're good right now.

We'll keep it going. Keep that in, Kyle. Um, if anybody ever corrects you or you hear someone say Ibiza, I guess they can say, here's the point. It's they're both right. People say Ibiza all the time. Not because they're wrong. Ibiza is the Spanish version. Ibiza is the Catalonian version. Catalonia, the culture, it's a stretch of Spain that Barcelona is part of it. Stigas is part of it. I was reading a bit about it. Basically, it's kind of crazy now too. There were people pushing for the resurgence of the Catalonian culture and that they want to be identified as separate and everything i don't know i feel like that ship has kind of sailed where people can now in this day and age

be like you know what we just want to fucking be a different country or be a country from like five centuries ago or can we go back and pretend this like i don't think the southwick jog thing's going to happen anytime soon again so um that's kind of one of my favorite things that I've learned about this is that when I hear somebody say Ibiza and pretend they're the cultured one, now you have the information. And if they ever correct you, you can say, get off of Instagram and get on a plane. We are headed to Mallorca. to Mallorca. Day seven, we are in Mallorca. I'll admit today, it felt like I was losing steam a little bit. The original plan was Barcelona, Ibiza. Formentera was not part of it. Glad I did it. It's hard to have moments where you feel like, is anything going to get better than this? And then like the next day it actually does, uh, depending again on what your tastes are, what your, your goals are on different trips. Um, and then you get to Mallorca

and you're like, wait, this is totally different. I underestimated it. I don't know why. I mean, I looked it up a couple of quick facts here. I'll do some more history tomorrow. Once I get a few things under my belt, uh, almost 1500 square miles. About a million people live here. And from here, I was going to jump to Sardinia because I thought, again, I was only going to stay in Ibiza a couple nights, but there was more to it. I just felt like I was shorting it.

So instead of doing things where, you know, last year when it was south of France and I did like six cities, which was easier because it was just car to the next town to the next town, except for the one time, fucking that guy's uncle fucked me over but it it just would basically be doing it wrong i'd i'd be going to multiple places without giving it enough of a chance to explore so instead of going to sardinia

next and flying back from milan um not because you know look i was a little more out of it today i'll explain uh that it isn't from going out It's more from just deciding not to work out before I started my day. I think I'm just going to hang in Mallorca and try to do as much of this as possible. So some quick facts here. Again, yeah, bigger, even though I looked it up. It's just now that I'm here and mapping it out and finding different spots and debating which way to go. and mapping it out and finding different spots and debating on which way to go. I just want to do this one right instead of half-assing this, then half-assing Sardinia, and then being in Milan for that last night thing where I don't want to do anything except make my flight the next day. So I think we're just going to make this all Spanish. Sardinia, again, looks like it's out. So Mallorca, again, 1,500 square miles, a million people.

Quick facts here, repeating myself, 260 beaches, some count 223. Pick one. You're good. And I'm going to do some history later once I kind of run around here for a little bit. All right. So hotel research, S Princep, right in town. One thing when I'm looking at a hotel and trying to research like what the plan should be, one thing that always be concerning when you see too many pictures of the faucets and fixtures, you're like, okay, cool. Copper finish, looks rustic, something under restoration hardware. Where's the fucking hotel?

What does the room actually look like? Like sick showerhead. Where's that picture? So that does scare me a little bit, but the reviews are really good and it was convenient. I figured at least start convenient instead of starting inconvenient and getting it wrong. Right. And in this case, I nailed it, except I got a little nervous as I pulled up because it was dead. It was dead, uh dead from the airport to here, which made it an easy drive. But I'm talking like getting out of the cab, looking around. I was like, wait, are we at the right place? And he's like, yeah, Princess. And again, the separation of English here so far has been even more dramatic than when I was in Ibiza and certainly Barcelona. when I was in Ibiza and certainly Barcelona. This area for where I am feels more like Spain than Spain did, if that makes any sense. Now, really that's on me and what my perceptions of it would be. It wasn't like I was walking around Barcelona pretending I was in Hartford.

But here, this is like old world. And maybe it was because no one was around and nothing was open and no one was on the streets. But I walked up, I told you I wasn't going to do a lot of gym stuff. I think I am on this one because it's too good to leave out. But checking the hotel, room's great, everything's good. But walked a couple miles over because I wanted to see the town. Almost nothing was open. And you know how, if you've been lucky enough to go to some of these smaller places, almost nothing was open and you know how if you've been lucky enough to go to some of these smaller places you'll walk through these streets and you see these buzzers to doors to apartments and then there was one place that i couldn't believe it like cars actually went on some of these streets a guy had a garage that was like a clear door and you saw his little fiat parked inside of the garage

that you could see and then it was like that was almost like a living room and then there was a staircase up off of that. It was fucking crazy. But you never see anybody ever going in and out of these apartments. I don't know that I've ever seen it. Maybe once. The reason I went for a walk is because I was like, I want to go to a real gym for a day. And I looked around, everything was closed. I went to the front desk. They were like, this one's open. I was like, could you call for me? Is there any chance? Because there's a really good chance I'm not going to be able to hear anybody or understand anyone when I do it. She calls. She's like, look, it's open till nine o'clock. It's called McFit. And it McSucked. I can't believe what I witnessed. So it's kind of funny because when I was in Aix-en-Provence last year,

somebody took French, really wanted to nail that pronunciation. I went to the gym and it was a fucking free-for-all. Nobody was working, but people were in it. Because I was further inland, nobody spoke English when I was running around that town for a couple of days. further inland. Nobody spoke English when I was running around that town for a couple of days. And this guy just like snuck me in. He just looked at me when I was like, I don't know. I just kept shrugging. He couldn't speak English. I didn't understand what he was saying. And he just let me in and I fucking worked out and was like, whatever. And we just kind of looked at each other and shrugged and you know, whatever. I think they're probably still in business. It's almost an identical situation

of this place yesterday, except it was huge. It was massive. It had four floors. And I was reading my credit card on my phone. So I thought, okay, 15 bucks, I'll just get right in. It wasn't going to work that way. Finally, some other guy tries to sneak me in. That doesn't work. We get caught. And the guy laughed. He didn't really care. And then he just said, sign up in this waiver thing. And just like you would any place. And then because of the date thing of when your birthday is, I couldn't figure out how to do it. So I just plugged it all in. And the guy was like, happy birthday. I was like, oh yeah, thanks man. Appreciate it. Because I just was like, fuck it. I'll just hit this and then change the year. And then the guy was really excited. So he was wishing me a happy birthday, 15 bucks to get in. When I tell

you this place is one of the biggest gyms I've been to and all these small little weird places that I go to, it's true. It was also, I don't know who the fuck is running the place. Have some sense of pride. Basically during the workout, the dumbbells were all over the place. It was like if everybody were eight, maybe five, let's say four or five years old, and it's somebody's basement with multiple kids, dumbbells all over the place. I'm like, I see you have a lot of 16s. I can't seem to find the other 22. The benches were all destroyed. The pull-down thing had a seat that had shock absorbers in it. If you went heavy, it would go down and then it would jerk you back up.

So I was like, I'm going to get fucking hurt in this place or I'm going to need a tetanus shot. Then another asshole set up his bench where it was a dumbbell bench. He sets it up in front of the fucking dumbbells. And then he just started putting dumbbells on top of the other dumbbells. And that's how he would leave them. He would just stack them on top of the other ones. And then in between sets, he put his fucking feet up so nobody could walk around the guy. The plates were a mess. Every bench was fucking destroyed, but they had everything. And the funny thing is, it was almost like a hoarder ran the gym because they had everything, but it was all on top of each other. It almost always felt broken. So instead of getting rid of anything, whatever. 15-year-old for the day, finally got a good workout in, but I was a little horrified throughout the entire process. So, um, you know, another thing I was thinking about was walking around and again, Mallorca, the way it's set up on the water, it is ridiculous. It is what you would want a European Boulevard to look like. So walking through the town was awesome. Again, it was slow. I expect the next couple of days will be busier.

But there's this two-lane boulevard with landscaping through the middle of it that just loops around this harbor. Boats everywhere. It looks like a lot of different boat, I don't know if I would call them boat clubs or different marinas i guess it'd be just the easiest way to explain it um but it's a huge part of the lifestyle here and it's all stunning and i can't wait to get out and start checking out some more of these towns so got back to the room went up um and started just kind of thinking about like later in life as much as i love paul thoreau and some of the other great travel people, I think Bourdain had the best angle because the cooking part of it, right? You show up, you're a fucking awesome legendary chef. You show up, meet other chefs, get into the culture, dig in, dive in head first. I don't know there's a better hook than that.

But then I started thinking about hooks for different things. I think there was a guy that did like fighting or something. You would have to be a pretty big badass to get away with that. Like, imagine like, Hey, do you see Rosillo get his ass kicked by three French teenagers last week? Yeah. Where's he going next week? So you would have to be a legendary badass to pull off that, but to have that hook. And then I started thinking like, maybe you could just title the TV show. Should I have kids? Um, but that got a little depressing, but then I thought, wait, why don't you take guys that are miserable in their marriages and then you send them to Ibiza for however, like a month, maybe a month is too long. A lot of good footage though. Get them an apartment and the whole deal is. And then it's like, if you don't want to go back, we'll give you a one year lease and set you up with a job and then a certain

amount of money. But the thing is, is you can never go back. Probably a little too dark. Don't know if they pick it up in the States, maybe in Japan. All right. So I got back to the hotel and this place is great. Rooftop deck, little pool. One thing I've noticed, if there's kids in the pool and you're a man by yourself, man age and you get in the pool, usually parents are going to come over. Happens every fucking time. But an amazing view. We've got a guy over here who's super, super helpful. Um, he's kind of shitting on my

plan. I was like, Hey, I think I'm going to do this tomorrow. And then I'm going to do the boat thing the next day. And then I want to go stay on this North side over here. And basically the entire time he's like, nah, that's stupid. I was like, okay, dude, like fine. He's pretty young. He's super friendly. So I don't know what's going on there we'll report back on that one uh but i did order some food just an aside the salad dressing war here in europe what the fuck is wrong with you guys you know i just wonder like all the things that we do when you go to another country and you're like and then they do this whether it, weird, or you're critical of it.

Do Europeans come to the States and go, they have lettuce and vegetables and stuff and they put stuff on, but it actually tastes like something. It's fucking crazy. I think you could kill it as an entrepreneur, a restaurateur in Europe, if you just basically were like, food's average, but we have salad dressing. We don't just give you olive oil and vinegar. So last night I get a Caesar, chicken, supposed to have bacon, whatever, just trying to keep it going. And it comes out and I was like, is that dressing? He goes, yes, Caesar dressing. I was like, great, no problem. Chicken was great. The greens were destroyed because they put the hot chicken on top of it and the avocado on that. So it baked it all down and then ruined the greens. Even though I could

tell at one point they'd been really fresh and would have been good if I'd gotten it immediately or it was stacked differently. And then the Caesar dressing, air quotes, was dollops of mayonnaise surrounding the entire thing. Now, some of you remember the late night salad desperation of the restaurant that was closed in the fishing town in the Western Fjords last year, where the guy brought it out and it would have been great. So he just drizzled a ton of mayo all over it and then put peanuts on top of it too. And I was like, I begged this guy to let me in. And then he said, I can make me this. So I'm like, I got to eat it. I'm gagging it down because it's so fucking gross. This was worse. And I ate it all and then try to avoid all the mayo mountains. But you're just like,

how could this place be this culture, this good with art, this good with so many other different versions of cuisine? The lifestyle itself is probably far more desirable than most places in the States because there is something to the ease with which the day operates right i admire these people so many different times when i'm just kind of going around like yeah you know whatever you know because this is what this feels like so far it is a it is spain removed from spain but get your shit together there's so many flavors out there folks and you've discovered so many of them yet you refuse to update this one lane which makes everything fucking taste less than what it could be all right final salad dressing rant rooftop good i decided to shoot over to a called a town called portals nos uh it looks like news the french version of we but it's

pronounced nos um a lot of yachts over there just went right up to the bar had a negroni which is really weird because i don't really like gin uh but and the grony one of them tastes really fucking good if it's made right and then i just sat there and the woman was like do you want to eat i was like yeah you know i really do it was great sat there and the woman was like, do you want to eat? I was like, yeah, I really do. It was great. Sat there and it was funny because she kept fucking up the menu. I was like, does no one ever eat at the bar? She's like, never. She's like, no one has ever done this since I've worked here.

And I was like, are you sure it's okay? She was like, yeah, who cares? No problem. And there you go. Had an awesome meal on this place, on the water, some tuna. So we got the seafood in there for you guys that are wondering why I don't do it. Negroni, some steak, and then they did these French fried potatoes, but they had destroyed, destroyed. They'd filtered all the potato through and then remade them into these wedges.

They're arguably like top three French fry I've ever had in my entire life. Took a little lap around around went over to the beach at night just to see what was going on they love jump castles over here man jump castles on the ferry so if your kid isn't sick enough from on the ferry hitting swells let's throw him on a jump castle on the ferry don't see that in the states a lot love it though i don't think i think i also have a different thought that popped in my head the other night. Do they just sue people less in Europe? Because there's just all sorts of shit. It's like, yeah, go ahead.

Oh, yeah, that looks dangerous. What's this? I'm convinced without any research or asking one person about it, but the freedom with which you have over here to do different things, maybe it's just a less litigious culture which is kind of nice to be honest you know how many times the rest of us that are fucking normal that aren't screwing things up or looking for an angle every single time or denied simple things you're like well why do we have to do that oh this guy sued three years ago like oh okay so uh on the way back from portals nos i'd also like to add i'm on fire with

the sunglasses purchases lately i couldn't find a pair for almost a decade i found a pair last night or maybe it's just how i feel right now maybe i'm looking in the mirror and seeing somebody different in mallorca i don't know um i did come back through and I did notice because I haven't actually gone out. I usually give myself like one night and be like, we fucking go out one night and feel like shit the next day. So that's still TBD. We'll let you know. You'll hear it in my voice if it happens. But I came back through a different side of Palma and let's tell you right now that place wasn't slow sports books everywhere full-blown casino i don't really want to go to a place like this and be like oh i'm gonna play cards for six hours you know that doesn't seem great saw a massage therapist place

signage outside tells me they accept no insurance open uh pretty it said, 3 a.m., 0300. So, yeah, that side looks a little bit more adventurous, not that far from the hotel. You never know. Maybe do a lap, check it out, see what's going on. And, yeah, Mallorca, day two. I'm going to hit a couple beaches, maybe rent a boat. There's a museum down the street that, who knows, it's so nice out, might not want to do that for multiple hours, but I'll have some more history for you and beach updates from what looks like one of the most beautiful places in the world.

day eight we are still in palma with plans to move north today but let's recap the last 24 hours or so uh walking around just asking different people that work at the hotel like hey which beach do you like there are so many beaches that everybody disagrees the one thing that is constant though that is agreed upon is that all the locals hate everyone that uses the beaches for instagram and tiktok like men, women, old, young cab drivers, whatever. I'd be like, Hey, what about this place? There's a place called cap, no cap, where I was like, let me check that place out. And everybody's like, don't go all the TikTokers imagine with a thick Spanish accent or my York and some of the dialect. It's not like I'm going to figure it out, but just to be full scope of the language

and how different it can be. So I decided, all right, just give me, I said, this is what I want. I want something that's a nice beach. I want a little bit of scenery. I want it somewhat convenient, but I also want it to be in a small town because it depends on who you ask. Like all of us, we have different tastes. So some people would be like, oh, you want to go here because there's a million restaurants and all that. Or, you know, you want to be able to get a taxi, which is a huge part of all the exploring. Are you going to get stuck out there? And so what I really wanted is I just wanted something that was just a village because Portals knows the first night when I was in town, you know, that it's always tough to kind of come

up with comparable places in the States that look like anything because they don't. Nothing looks like what we're seeing here every single day. But it is if portals knows if there's any kind of comp because of the boats, because the high end restaurants, because the high end shopping, but it all being situated this little stretch of town right on the water. Somebody even said, go to that beach. And I could check it out at night being like, that's not the kind of beach that I would want to go to during the day. It would be almost like if Laguna had only been to Laguna, I think twice. So clearly the town is right on the water and there are all the shops and all these great restaurants and all that kind of stuff. But the access to the beach, other than the main stretch

where you come into town. So I guess that may be the only thing that I can come up with that would even be comparable, even though I know that's a bit of a reach. So if we use that as the comp, St. Elm, where I headed, which is named after St. Elmo, the patron saint of sailors, that would be like this little town with this one street with a beach. And there was a couple of different access points for the beach, but like the main beach, when you come to town, normally in that scenario, you'd just be like, all right, this is going to be too busy. It sucks. It's not, there's no point. It actually was great. It was very easy. You get dropped off right there. And as you're driving through the countryside and there's these almond trees everywhere and all these different farms,

I saw like a goat set up there. Like you're in real rural area, like a lot of these islands where you think of the population and the size of it, there's just still so much of it that's not developed because it's just not convenient. And it never had been or roads. And basically it's kind of roads port to port, but the highway is obviously a big part of this. So it was about 30 plus minutes outside of the center of Palma where I'm staying. of this. So it was about 30 plus minutes outside of the center of Palma where I'm staying. And it's just this one little street, tons of restaurants. The crazy part is there was these kind of stair access points where if you would just walk through an alley to the side of a restaurant side of a hotel and you could get to whatever water access. And that's the great thing.

Like if you can walk there, you can hang out there and no one's ever going to say anything to you. So across from the town of St. Elm, again, the comp that I'm trying to come up with here is like almost the two times that I've driven from Los Angeles to San Diego, you'll just be driving down the coast. It's an incredible drive. And then you'll just see this town out of nowhere. And you're like, what town is this? Again, I don't know the area that well, because I haven't lived there that long and I don't explore that much in California, but you'll come across some town, you know, on the way to San Diego where you're like, what is this? Like, this is just a town.

People live here, you know, whether it's older, whether it's surfers, whether it's military, some are really nice. Some are just nice by location, not built up as much or done up as much as the other towns, but it's just this oasis out of, out of nowhere where you're like, I guess this is a town, I guess people live here and it makes sense because it's gorgeous. And it's, it's, it's kind of the same thing because it's, it's far from a city at the, at most it's a village. So, um, the little Bay of St. Elm is covered by two peaks off to the side. Apparently there were some towers up there. Um, you know. A lot of the same history patterns of invasion of invasion time after time. There's also an island called Dragonera, which you can see. There's one island that's really close to the beach that you could swim to if you're a decent swimmer. that it's named that because it looks like a dragon from the way that it's sort of the layout of it no one lives there there's apparently supposed to be ancient roman ruins that were set

up over the different runs of conquering hymie had a nice run uh apparently as well but for the most part um you know it's it's a nature reserve so you kayak, you can paddleboard out there. I hate paddleboarding, but if you wanted to do those things, you could go out there and hit it up, and it's pretty easy, pretty convenient. $11 for a chair and hung out for a little bit, had lunch, saw someone else eating by themselves. Pretty incredible. The topography of the island is significant. The highest peak is 4,700 feet. You see it throughout the drives as I've headed

in a bunch of different directions. There's a ton of hiking here. I saw, I don't think it was paraglide, but just kind of those kites where the guys are just hanging out in the air. It looks horrible, but I guess it's safer than some videos would have you believe. I won't be signing up for that. And so basically, yeah, that was the deal. Reading my latest book here, The Battle of Ink and Ice. It's incredible. 200 pages in, 100 pages to go. I may have to be more not efficient. Efficient isn't the right word, but I'm going through books too fast now. And I may not have enough towards the end to read. And there's no way. Cause I even peeked into a bookstore. I was like, who are you kidding? That's like when I was in Iceland,

I was like, Oh, I'm gonna buy some Viking book. I've read that fucking, I've read zero pages of that since I bought it. Um, so the cool thing is, is that on the way back, town, reset at the hotel in Palma, and I started researching places to have dinner. And I figured, okay, you know what, just find something awesome and figure out a way in and pull the move where you sit at the bar. And then if they throw a menu your way, you're good. And there was this restaurant called Vandal, which as I walked towards that part of town, which was a way, I guess I'd be walking. I don't know. You really care what direction I say if I say northeast. So let's just say before the casino, it was like on the way to the casino area. later and all the Royal palace stuff. And I don't know, it was like a mile or so in, and I found this street in the beginning of the street, you could tell immediately, like something was different. And it's funny too, because when you're not from here and the other thing with a lot of these old European cities is the streetlight situation just makes it

look more imposing because they don't have their streets lit up as much as we're probably used to. Although there's obviously stretches of Manhattan walking around certain times at night where you're like, this looks like it's bad, but it isn't. It's just a city without much lighting. So that's kind of what happened because at the beginning of the street, I saw a shop called Sailor Tattoo. There was this pizza place where there was a woman who may, if you had said she's Sons housing or the richest woman in Mallorca, either would have been believable. She was totally done up. Looked like she'd just come back from Ibiza. She had to be a hundred.

She had a dog with a fancy collar. She was sitting there eating. She had an Aperol Spritz going. And let's just say this. She was letting dudes know if they were interested, she may be interested too. It was actually pretty astonishing as if she were just cut from the real housewives of Mallorca. So as I walked through this area, I also found a New Orleans themed bar called Dirty Fingers.

Hey man, I don't know what to tell you. And so I was noticing all these different spots. I was like, wait, am I in like a weird, bad street? And it felt that way. I make it to Vandal, this restaurant, I walk in, I go to the bar, say, is it cool if I eat at the bar? And they were like, yeah, no problem. And I sit down, read the menu and every piece of the menu is some small dish inspired from some other part of the world. So it was almost all covered, whether it was Japanese,

whether it was Los Angeles, whether it was from South America, whether it was Australian, um, and plenty that I'm leaving out. It was pretty incredible. Cause I was like, are they really going to pull this off? And they had a cotton candy machine behind the line as well. So I was like, are they, are they amazing? Are they totally fucking this up? It is one of the five best meals I've ever had in my life.

Uh, it was, it was unbelievable. So I ordered some crunchy rice, spicy tuna thing that we all, if you go to sushi places, we all get it all the time. It's incredible. It's always overpriced. Um, and they brought out one and I was like, Oh wait, we're just doing one at a time. And I looked back at the menu and was like, Oh, these items are all just individually priced. Uh, the other thing they had was this beef bao bun thing, which basically was the best sloppy joe you've ever had in your life. The seasoned beef and then a green salsa and then doused in, wait for it, mayonnaise. I didn't want to say, hey, I don't want mayo on it as I was

watching him prep all the things. I was like, well, fuck it. You can handle it. It's not like you don't like chicken salad. Is this the most boring part of this podcast? Anyway, so house a couple of those and then they had some potato dish where it looked like each individual potato was prepared separately and then plated on the dish and i went through round one and i realized okay well i'm just ordering everything again but give me like three of them this time around which horrified the waitress she was like jesus you can eat a lot i was like hey we're doing this right this guy's been eating fucking pizza every other day. So let's recap Vandal.

Incredible. It's the kind of restaurant, if it was open in a major city, it would do that well immediately. It was that good. And the other thing that's kind of crazy about this whole thing is despite being in some of these towns and these cities and these high-end resort areas, the prices are better than the high-end places you would go to in the United States. They just are. I keep looking at the bill and keep thinking it's going to be horrible, and it just isn't. I mean, the most expensive thing I've had was the Nobu dinner, but it would have been the same price, if not more, if you go to Malibu. So Vandal, look it up if you're interested in foodie stuff. 99% of you are never going to go there, so who are we kidding?

Made it back to the hotel, go to bed. All right. So up in the morning, had to see the cathedral. Give you a bit more of a history update here on Majorca. Apparently, the first people were like 6,000 BC. You never know with some of this stuff. There's a run of all sorts of different invasions, pirates, Muslims, then Catholicism.

Again, Jaime gets in the picture a little bit later. Then there's another pirate phase. But what I didn't realize where I'm staying at the Princep in Palma is that there were these massive, massive brick walls that surrounded it, which also made it really weird when you first check in because you're like, does this place suck? And it doesn't. It's an awesome hotel. And what it is, it's an extended wall, this fortress, the Palma Wall that surrounds the

cathedral, which is probably the number one tourist destination in Majorca, certainly in the city of Palma. But then there's a royal palace that's connected to that and then some other old courtyards. So all of it is this one big long wall that's in front of this very still river that has kind of a, there's, it's not a theater, but there's steps and there's performers and there's restaurants on the other side. And then that's broken up by the two roads I was talking about that run in front of the entire harbor with a million different marinas and then massive cruise ships coming in too. So researching the cathedral, they were like, buy your tickets a day ahead of time. I don't operate that way. They were like, day off is kind of a mess. You walk up,

there's a million people. It's also 96 degrees in the shade out here. So a bit of a heat wave. And there's all these people. So I was like, is this going to suck? And then I got in the line that was short and thought, okay, cool. Didn't look at one sign. And then I was in the wrong line. And then I went up to the front area where there was another line. And that was for people that actually prepare and know what they're doing. And that was the wrong line too. If you ever go, you have to go to behind the cathedral, not the wall facing the water, go all the way in the back, get the tickets. Not a big deal. It was like 20 bucks for the first time ever. I was like, give me the audio guide. I don't know why I don't get it. Um, although I wouldn't say this was great, but a lot of times I'm like, I'll figure it out. Figure out what Spanish today. You're just going to fucking

figure it out. Hey kids, I'll for mayor's and you know what I mean? Like you don't, you, Oh, what is that? It was that, is that aqueduct? Oh yeah. Okay. that's an aqueduct kids so um the big reason you want to check out the cathedrals two different things the stained glass situation it actually was kind of confusing and the audio guy didn't even help me out that much and the guy who gave me the audio thing was like take your hat off once you're in there and i saw hats everywhere but i thought you know what respect respect the higher ups higher powers um so i took my hat off and walked around but you know i did i did notice give a little side eye to other guys that didn't take their hat off i don't

know why the audio guy was being a dick but he also put the setting on french so i had to reset it which is kind of weird because he was like in english after we had spoken he was like what do you want the setting to be i'm like i don't know fucking tongan let's mix it up um no so the audio guide was it didn't really help because it was really confusing because when you're in this massive cathedral again that was first constructed um because of it was considered a Moorish mosque in 1229 um it's in a gothic style if this helps uh tons of restorations done to this starting in the 1850s and then 1901 and Tony Gowdy, who I guess was the number one GC in the world at that time.

Although just like a lot of general contractors and homeowners, I guess he jumped off the project after just too much of a hassle. The restoration from 1200, the Moorish one, that one went until 1601, according to my research here. That's a project. That one had to have run over. But the real ones, well, again, it's not like it's only 100 years old. I mean, there's one display that's 16 years old, and you look at it, and you're like, this is amazing. And then the guy's like, yeah, this was done in 2007.

You're like, fuck this, man. That's not even old. Um, so I'm actually kind of downplaying it because it is just a staggering, just like you would expect. It was the stained glass window facing the sun to light up this room that would have had obviously no lighting other than just natural light where there's not a ton of windows. It's just the stained glass situated perfectly behind where the service would take place because they moved the choir. That's a big part of the history. I don't know why it was so important, but to the side of the main chapel is two other chapels. One was the first one, and then chapels one was the first one and then

they covered that with another one and then they took that one and then moved it and then rediscovered the old one so it's basically like three different areas for service all the same time kind of like a side stage of Lollapalooza but you can't help but just sit down in one of the pews and look up and look at that piece of work and just go this is fucking astonishing that these guys pull this off the cool part is the terrace you run up this spiral staircase it's 137 steps as soon as you get to the final step and step out into some of this woodwork that's centuries old that maintain the bells and then out to the terrace so you can look out over the entire harbor and go east west um or north as soon as you get off the staircase there's first aid equipment all over the place people were fucking dying and it was so hot i mean my calves were burning and i couldn't imagine this old lady

that was in front of me just trying to keep pace because they give you like 30 minutes up there and then they cycle you out because it'd be a nightmare trying to get people up and down and see you couldn't fit. that there's some kind of ventilation, which wasn't working today, but even back then. And then to see the craftsmanship, which you expect, but you're just still shocked that people just multiple centuries ago would have these circular staircases where every piece of stone is flush with the other pieces of stone. The crazy thing is there's some areas throughout the palace wall where you would walk these staircases that again, hundreds and hundreds of years old. And they're so worn down. It's like slippery because it's just been people walking on it for this many years. So seeing that from the inside and then getting out to the terrace is incredible. The views are staggering. It's completely worth it. Just go to the back if you're going to go ahead and get tickets. So, uh, the plan today, although I would imagine back,

back in the day, Oh yeah, there's two other things i wanted to bring up being in on walls like when we look at guys now i'm like oh that guy was in tech back then they must have just been like oh that guy calls him a wall money yeah his dad like does all the walls he's a dick yeah he thinks he thinks it's him but it's his dad he's been building walls although i don't know how you'd ever get fucking paid because nobody ever finishes any of this shit until you would be you'd be dead so maybe that's how they get a lot of the stuff done they're like we don't have to pay him he's gonna die anyway so uh there's that and then um the other thing that i wanted to add in here is there was a lot of stuff on the audio guide about, you know, there was two guys that one time they were being invaded. Everybody gave up except for

these two dudes. And they were like, we're loyal to the King and we reject your fucking rain and whatever. And they were like, cool, now we're going to burn you. And they burned these two dudes in like the town center. Um, so they had a few, they had a few statues around and I thought to myself, like, you know, there was no TV shows. You can be a movie star back then. Was it worth it? Was it worth it? Cause we're still talking about them. I mean, not me extensively, but just throwing it out there might be a b segment maybe not an a's and doesn't make the a's uh and the last thing was because of the audio tour they were talking about music and how the cathedral was designed specifically in the positioning of the chapel and then anything that was around it you know look i don't know i don't know if this is the origin of macintosh here but you get the point is that they're so good with so much of this stuff

and for it to last this long and to withstand all the shit that it goes through historically you're like is it possible that they were this in tune to the acoustics to have it work out that that's at least what they're selling you. That the positioning of everything was designed by this perfect understanding of how audio travels and it was perfect and whatever. I mean, I'm sure when you get a choir in there, it sounds fucking amazing. But then they started talking about like this guy who was one of the Gregorian chant people. It reminded me of when I used to work at the CD shop when I was in high school. And that Gregorian monk chant thing, we couldn't keep that CD on the shelves.

It was incredible. I don't know what it did for sales. Maybe we'll look that up for another pod that no one will listen to Gregorian chant CD sales from three decades ago, but it was so fucking popular. Maybe it was a vineyard thing. I don't know. But we couldn't keep it in stock. And I always wondered, was there ever a moment two years after all the people that bought that and were like, throw the chant CD on again. Yeah, let's get some prosciutto and cheese set up on one of the cheese boards and we'll crack open some soft and throw on the chants. Yeah, that'll get us in the mood.

All right, so leaving Palma today, heading to the north. Eclutia is a port city. There was some debate on which of the port cities I would go to. There's kind of two to choose from here. But I am planning on heading up there for a couple days. Day nine. Hit a bit of a snag. Nothing major.

I'm in Alcudia. I think I said Alcudia at one point. The French pronunciation of Claude. That is incorrect. Alcudia is the northern harbor. It is magnificent. St. Elm is cool and it's small and everything. Alcudia is a lot bigger. And when you look out from the beach facing, there's kind of these two bays that stack up on each other, but this one is ridiculous. the two furthest points where you would exit or enter uh they're they're pretty close

so you can imagine how valuable this real estate was for shipping do a little history lesson here uh hymie the first who was another in a long string of conquerors of majorca but i think this is when it starts taking more of the present feel even though it's a thousand years ago uh majorca was big in trade which makes sense because it's massive um good location uh we mentioned the muslims running the island uh then basically King James was like, hey, you know what? We got to get these pirates out of here. I think you're hearing a drill bit in the background of this hotel. Basically, these pirates and everybody, they were just wrecking trade.

So in a way, they brought it on themselves. they were just wrecking trade. So in a way they brought it on themselves. Um, but at the same time, you know, it's just the cycle of religions and how you look back at different centuries. Um, so basically in 1228,

uh, dudes from Italy, Barcelona, various villages, churches, they rolled up in 150 ships. They transported 15,000 soldiers, 1,500 knights, war machines, horses. And in three days, they left Tarragona in 1229. And then they arrived in what is now San Telmo,

which is this other word, and Drake's. I don't, I've got no chance on that one. Although you do see signs for that still, even though the town is a different name. So they rolled in and basically, even though because there's these, you know, the whole point of your defense was being ready because there was troops all over the island,

but you don't know where they're going to land. Sounds like Normandy a little bit. The guys that rolled in mopped the first resistance. Tons of deaths started marching towards Palma today. That was in a matter of days. They just kept battling and battling and battling. They attacked the city for three months and all sorts of medieval tools.

And basically, once everything was good, some guy climbed up to a tower, put a Spanish flag on it, and King Jaime I made his triumphant entrance through the walled city. Again, we referenced a lot of walls in Palma, which were built up again after this attack. So they changed a bunch of the names. The battles went on for like three more years,

apparently through other parts of the island with different castles. And then one of the weird things is, and it's pretty gruesome, there was thousands and thousands of bodies that weren't buried throughout the city in different areas that were attacked. And people started getting sick from them not putting the bodies away. Anyway, those bodies are gone now. So I'm not worried about that. What I am worried about in the 45 minute trek across the island to the Northern side, I took a cab further. So it was more expensive. It was like 70 bucks or something. The guy went fucking so fast. These guys fly,

fly every cab driver. I haven't had one guy that's like kind of chill about it, but look, they got money to make, make sense. But as I pulled in and I, you know, looked it up a little bit, I knew it was beautiful. And I told the guys at the other hotel, I was like, I kind of want quiet. And they were like, Oh, go to this place. It's not that this place is rambunctious. Cause it isn't, it's a really lovely beach, lovely beach that curves through this entire inner part of the harbor. And then it's backed, you know, it's all resorts and restaurants. And then there's this four lane street. It's like two, it's almost like Com Ave, how like there's the two main arteries going in and out of Boston. And then there's the side streets where you park and you can drive onto

them, but you know, you would never, it's, it's kind of that setup. And on the other side, across the street from the hotels and from the beach, it shops, it's restaurants, and it's a million fucking bike stores. Okay. This must be one of the hotbeds of like European cycling. And I'm not just talking about like a little basket and a bell. I'm talking bikes that cost 10, $20,000. Okay. Like the highest end stuff and every shop, every bike manufacturer, like there's no Yetis out here, but you get the point. Like every single brand and stuff you've never even heard of stuff I can't pronounce they have a shop here so if you're into that thing there you go uh when i checked into the hotel i'm at the a bureau star

and a bureau star has like three or four different places so they're like wait are you at the village are you at mole are you at playa or whatever i I don't know, dude, I just booked it online. So when I booked it, like I said, I I've had a really good run. I'd like to stay in the worst room at the nicest place as opposed to the best room in the worst place. That's not all that like, Holy shit. Has anyone ever thought of that photos? Um, but it's all kids. I fucked up. had photos. Um, but it's all kids. I fucked up. This is the best place for families I've noticed. Um, but there was a couple clues that tipped me off. Cause when I checked in, the guy was like, here's your bracelet. And I was like, what is this? And he was like, it's, it's your bracelet.

He just, I was like, so I have to wear this for three days. And he was like, yeah. I was like, it's, it's your bracelet. You just, I was like, so I have to wear this for three days. And he was like, yeah. I was like, is there any way I can not wear a bracelet? And he was like, we can give you a card. I was like, yeah, the key cards have been working well. Insert joke there. Um, the key cards have been working pretty well on the trip. So yeah, let's, uh, let's just go traditional. Let's go traditional card. And he was like, all right problem um there's a couple things the pony rides told me okay yeah legit pony rides in the afternoon they just take kids on ponies and go to the beach and then back up to the street uh there's tennis courts right on the beach they're actually incredible and then if you want to take the tennis net down, you can set up soccer goals and play on this kind of, cause the tennis court itself is kind of this weird turf thing. It's not grass,

it's not clay, but it's not too hard where you could play soccer on it, which looks pretty cool. Um, and the other thing that tipped me off of the kids thing is that last night when I went to go out to dinner, I wanted to go up to this medieval town a few miles away. There was this just chaos going on, like a stage light show behind the restaurant. So I have to walk through all this stuff. I didn't see it when I checked in. But when I walked out to get a cab last night,

I was like, what is going on in there? It almost sounded like one of those supper clubs in Saint-Tropez, which to this day is like blew me away. I just watched like one of those supper clubs in Saint-Tropez, which to this day blew me away. I just watched like a loser from the outside going, holy shit, this is insane. What's going on in the supper club? But for this deal, it was just a magician and the kids were going fucking bananas. And then there were fireworks after the pony rides. So then I looked over at the restaurant side because I was like, should I go in there to eat? And every single table had a kid, multiple kids.

I did have this happen once before. It's the only time I've ever used a travel agent is when I did the Greek Islands trip, which back then I was a lot more fun. But the resort that I stayed at, I sat at the bar the first night I was there. And I could tell something was up. And it was like German and Russian, maybe some French, but like no Brits, no Italians. It was like really weird. Nobody, you know, I'm not here chatting up with everybody, but that was even weirder. And I like got in the pool and it was a million kids.

And then that night I sat at the pool and it was a million kids. And then that night I sat at the bar and had a beer after dinner and it was like a cafeteria style dinner and everybody's fucking weirded out that I was there. I was sitting by myself. And then I went to the bar and the girls were behind the bar and they were like looking and giggling and looking at you. I was like, I still got it. And they come over and they were like, why are you here? I'm like, what, what's wrong? Like I'm on holiday. And they were like, no, why are you staying here? No. Like, where's your family? And I was like, I don't, I don't have one of those. So they were like, yeah, whatever. And the hotel themselves, even where they were like, do you want to get transferred somewhere else?

I was like, ah, whatever. I'm only going to be here a couple of days. The beach was the worst. I may do a beach ranking of every place I've been. Roads would be fucking like the bottom beach sucked. Uh, the resort was not a fit. Uh, although we did make a night event. I don't know if it was in Califos or what, um, where I ended up bartending because the guy was a huge NBA league pass fan and listened to the NBA Today podcast. You never know. You never know. So this isn't that. That was actually bummed me out. Because I still think if you're bothered by kids having a good time, you're the biggest asshole ever. These kids are having a blast. it's just not a fit for me you know because when i checked in i was like was this all all inclusive with this bracelet

or whatever and he was like yeah i was like can i be excluded is there any way to kind of run the numbers on that so then last night i wanted to check out uh this medieval town, which is, like I said, just a couple miles away. It's considered the old town of Euclidia. Uh, wait a minute. I did it again. Al-Qudiyah, um, the North coast of Majorca, uh, pre-Christian times, 70 BC Romans step into the mix. Sounds familiar. Um, the king, mix sounds familiar um the king the king jamie hymie jum is messing me up a little bit but trust me on the first one the king hymie one um king hymie two of my orca i believe i don't know if they're not related um because there was a there was a hymie two that was dealing with some of the islands that i was reading about earlier but again you, if you're sitting there chatting up at a cocktail party and you get a Jaime James home wrong, that's on me. So they built this tower in these medieval walls around the town itself.

So it's not just a castle, it's the town and it's fucking awesome. So I went there last night for dinner. Cab driver did rip me off because it was twice as much there as it was on the way back. And then I realized, but what are you going to do? Like, hey, I think you're going the wrong way to this medieval town that was built in the 1200s that I've never fucking been to before. I think you're supposed to take a right there. So, you know, you're at the mercy. It's only half. That's the only time it's happened in the entire trip.

It doesn't happen nearly as much as you would think, but I could tell immediately the kid was a shithead. So he ripped me off. So there you know, you're at the mercy of it. It's only half. That's the only time it's happened in the entire trip. It doesn't happen nearly as much as you would think. But I could tell immediately the kid was a shithead. So he ripped me off. So there you go. But it is worth seeing because the walls still exist. And then the town itself is in it. So you're walking through the it's like it's straight out of a movie set of what you would think a medieval fortress would look like.

of what you would think a medieval fortress would look like. So, you know, there's these massive walls that you can walk to the inside of the wall, and then there's all these different mazes of streets, and you can't really get lost because it's not that big of a deal. Like, you just go in one direction or the other one. Just outside of the wall to the newer construction, which is still really old, basketball court out there. So it did get me thinking,

like if they put a basketball court in, was it Neesmith, right? Was it Neesmith that invented basketball? Because Neesmith does not date back to the 1200s. So just something to think about next time you're enjoying basketball. Ran around there for a little bit and did get some pizza. This is a very American thing versus European thing. I think all of us hate the service here. It's just some of the more

modern restaurants, it's not as big of a deal, but the touristy places, and again, they're all hit or miss. You can't really tell. This place really, really good. Um, so I felt good about that, but cause I was by myself, I was like, fuck, it was busy. It's all these great outdoor seats. It's super, super hot. And, um, I was like, shit. And the guy looked at me, he's like, I'll put you inside. I'm like, fuck. Okay. Yeah. I mean, look, I, I'm always feeling like they're doing me the favor anyway. So I go in, I sit down, I'll make this quick. Order water, one ice cube. Order up some Italian stuff and some appetizers. And the guy was like, man, you're hungry.

I was like, fuck, I'm just going for it. And I turned into Moses Malone on his fourth free throw attempt. I mean, I was fucking a faucet. And I'm not even like a sweaty, gross dude. I'd tell you, nobody'd be proud of it, but I just tell you for the sake of accuracy. And I'm sitting there just like fucking dying. So I'm eating as fast as I can. It's so fucking hot. I even bought a pair of linen pants for this trip. Like I was going to wear them in Ibiza and be like, do you see that guy with linen pants?

That guy fucking rocks. Uh, and I obviously I didn't wear them in Ibiza cause there was no, so I've just had them running low on laundry, 20 years of traveling. I still pack like an asshole. And I threw on the linen pants. It was like fucking two seconds. I'm like, huge mistake. I like them, but I'm probably going to move again in three years and look at them and go, remember when you bought those for that trip? I thought you were going to wear them in Ibiza.

There they are. You don't wear them a lot, dude. There they are. You don't wear them a lot, dude. So the other thing, I'm not going to do a salad dressing rant here because I'm actually dying for balsamic and olive oil now at this point with some of these dressing concoctions

they've invented or tried to invent out here. Great with castles, bad with dressings. But they don't ever want to bring you the check. And it's just kind of the way it is. Like everybody just chills. The turnover's tough. People want to sit at their table. They're shocked that you don't want to sit there and bullshit and have an Aperol spritz and smoke a cigarette for 34 minutes. Again, they might be doing it right. Uh, if you were an American restaurateur, you'd be like, Hey, let's turn these fucking tables. So I, when I'm done. And again, cause I'm sitting there by

myself reading about big 10 running backs. Uh, they're, they're like, what's the rush? But the crazy thing is, is I'm fucking pouring. My whole shirt is soaked. And the waitress comes over and just takes my water glass. Not, hey, let's refill it for this poor bastard. I'm just going to take it from him. And that's what she did. She took it. And then I stood up and walked to the front of the place. It was like, I need my check. And then going outside didn't really help. I had to loop around. I got a little nervous because I got on the backside of it. It was really, really slow. I did stop for a father who was taking a picture of his son and his wife. Obviously, I'm pretty sure it was his wife. And then I was like, hey, do you want me to take a picture of you guys? The guy was like, yes.

Yes, I do. Very efficient German. Sat down, took a picture of them. The son was like, do you speak German? I was like, I don't, buddy. But I'm going to take a picture for you guys. You're going to have it forever. So just pay it forward is all I'm saying. Felt great about myself after that. Uh, I got in a cab, didn't get ripped off this time. He did drop me off at the

wrong one. Like I said, there's four different ones here. Not a big deal. Uh, wasn't drinking. So the other thing that I did notice here on on researching the town um if you're a heavy heavy if you're one of those guys who likes to get absolutely plastered while you're on holiday with the family apparently and i don't even know if it's true i mean i looked it up and i saw it so it's out there that you can only have six drinks a day while you're in this town. Now, for most people, that's plenty, but for some of you guys, right? If you really wanted to tear the knob off, they say you can have three tipples with lunch and then three with dinner. But obviously the only way that they would keep track of that is if you're wearing the bracelet or you're, you know, whatever, but this is not the kind of

place where I would want to get after it. And as I was rolling back through the correct way, the efficient taxi route, there's all sorts of stuff on the Northern side of the beach. There's bumper cars. It's got some squamicate vibes to it back in the day. That's a reference that looks kind of cool. So I may walk over there tonight. I saw Mike's Chill Out Bar. That's the name of it. How do you not get a beer in Mike's Chill Out Bar? That's the sign. And it's like nice though. It's not just a banner. I remember when that's still the top Mike in Euro travels is when I took a car from, um, I forget which part of France to Saint-Tropez, it was going to be a long ride. And the guy immediately, I could tell he was a scammer. He was like, can

you cancel that? And then I'll circle around and then we'll do it this way. And I was like, yeah, okay. And then he's like, I'll be your personal driver this entire trip. If you want, I was like, Hey, I don't think I need to make that kind of investment here. And he's like, well, here's my card anyway. And his name was, um, Mike big big i still kept the card because i liked it i'm serious it was like mike and then all caps big i was like i don't think that's your i don't think that's your christian name so yeah um woke up decided to tape this because i just know i have another night in fucking my York and Disney world. And, you know, it's a coin toss. And the coin has been coming up the right side

a lot of the days. Today, you know, we're going to make the most of it. We got another day here. I'm kind of here tomorrow too, but we'll make the most of it. But yeah, not a great fit. Not a great culture fit. Hope you enjoyed that pod.

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