Toni and Ryan - LIVE FROM RIGA

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Riga facts - NORMAL OR NAH Latvia edition - Latvian pick up lines - love ya!!!!!Sign up to Patreon Here - www.patreon.com/ToniandRyanFAQ and T&C's PODCASTAWAY - www.toniandryan.com.au/podcastawayVideo for this EP is available on YOUTUBECheck out our Patreon at patreon.com/ToniandRyan, and make sure you join our Facebook Group! Find #ToniAndRyan on Instagram @tonilodge and @ryan.jon OR on TikTok @toniandryanpodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Latvia, more like Latvia, that mouth onto my d'i. Welcome to the Tony and Ryan podcast. Welcome to Riga, Latvia. Now, we've been learning a lot about Riga, Latvia, and an amazing place, we've had an amazing time so far, and I've discovered that Riga is actually the birthplace of some of Tony Lodge's favourite things. So what I'm about to do is tell you three stories.

two of them are true and one of them is not true. Now, because you're from Riga Latvia, you might know these stories and go, no, that is true. And then you might hear one that sounds like complete bullshit. Tony won't know the answer, so we'll find out what she thinks. Even though we're about to hear about some of my favorite things,

one of my favorite things is not available here at all. Because I have not seen Diet Coke at all. It doesn't exist here, right? That's so disgusting. When did it get cancelled? I don't know that I remember it in my childhood there was. And then it just disappeared. So it was a thing and now it's gone.

Oh my God. What a tragedy. That is a tragedy. I should have brought you guys up. Imagine going through customs and they're like, ah, uh-uh. Not a neat. Thank you very much. Yeah, we don't have that here.

The first Christmas tree ever decorated was decorated in Riga. A city so cold and dark in December that in 1510, a gang of unmarried merchants called the Brotherhood of the Blackheads decided this was the best way to celebrate Christmas was decorating fake trees with fake roses and dancing around it. Oh, I hope that's true. Pub trivia was invented in Riga. That's fun. In 1612, in a Riegan tavern called the Amber Crow, a man knocked over a table arguing about the Holy Roman Emperor. the landlord Otto Crumman's, which is definitely how you pronounce his name, had had enough.

So he said, all right, I'll stand behind the bar and read out some questions. You can guess if you get them all right, you get free drinks, but if you want to argue about the answer, you have to go outside. So basically... And it's too cold out there. So you don't want to go out there. But basically, it wasn't born for fun. It was born to like stop fights.

Sure. Okay. Anyway, it goes off at the Amber Crow. And then words spread... That's my favourite pub in... Yeah, and then word spreads. Rival taverns come and take note. And it spreads through the Baltic trade routes and then the world.

The home of pub trivia. That's a... If that isn't true, that's excellent. And third, Crocodile Dundee, the classic Australian character, is actually from Latvia. Crocodile Harry, a man from Latvia, a country with zero crocodiles, went to Australia, started wrestling crocs,

and a film executive saw him and was like... You're our guy. Yeah, and then invented crocodile Dundee. And then he didn't pay taxes for all that time. I don't know if that's just a local Australian story, but that guy did not pay tax ever, and he's in a lot of trouble. So, Tony, the first Christmas tree ever decorated was decorated in Riga.

Pub trivia was invented in Riga. Or Crocodile Dundee is actually Latvian. Which one of them is false and which two are correct? I think I have to go with my gah and that's telling me that Crocodile Dundee being from Latvia is not true. Are you going to lock that in? Is that true? Fuck off. Sorry, I got help from my friends.

Is that actually true? I can confirm crocodile Dundee is Latvian. He played for the day. The National Soccer team, yeah. Crocodile Harry was his name. What? Are you all like, because we don't do pranks? Are you all lying to me?

All of you are fucking in on this. So when I came in earlier today for the three o'clock, we all came in and did a dress rehearsal. And I said, later tonight when Tony's here will pretend. No, that is true. Which one isn't true then? Oh, Hank, do you want me to guess that? Yep.

The first Christmas tree ever decorated was in Riga by the... No, the pub trivia. I reckon the pub trivia isn't from him. So you reckon that's fake? I reckon that's fake. I can confirm that the first Christmas tree ever decorated was in fact decorated here in Riga. You're right, yep.

What a beautiful story. I love that that's true. So is Christmas a really big thing here then because of that? That's amazing. Because Tony love... I could move here. Yeah, you could. I love it.

The cobblestones, though. The cobblestones. Oh, I've almost popped a fucking wheel. on my suitcase while we were. I was like, oh God. It's Thursday. Let's do normal or not. I also forgot to tell you that even though it's Sunday,

this episode's going out on a Thursday. And not the Thursday you'd think. Yeah. I don't think they're here. Is Tapa Kimberley in the room today? No. Normal or not asked Kimberley, traveling to Latvia to just buy a shitload of alcohol

because it's way cheaper here than in your home country. Actually, everyone else can't, is that normal or nah? Normal. Is that normal? I mean, Australia, like, buying liquor in Australia is so expensive because we've got like a billion taxes on it. I mean, I haven't drunk any alcohol here, but from the sounds of Charles the other night, it's pretty cheap.

I didn't even think of that. I'd done this normal or nah, and I didn't realize when we had 50 shots for 25 euros, but that seemed a little bit less than normal. I reckon, and fuck, this is going back sometimes, so like allow for inflation, I reckon the last time I bought a shop in a nightclub would have been in 2012, and it would have been a Jaeger bomb. Yep. And I reckon it cost me $19 Australian dollars.

What? I reckon? Yeah, they see you coming. Don't you reckon? How much would that cost here? How much? Four euro. Oh my God.

I should start drinking again. Yeah. Is it cheap to have a sticky here as well? Yeah. Oh, nice. That's cool. So the 50 shots we had, the 50 shots we had were Jaeger Meister and Black Current or something. Oh, really?

And something else that was a lot of nodding heads. Who's drinking Yeagermeister? Okay, that's interesting. We used to drink also Yeager Meister and Pulse, which was like, did you ever have Pulse? Like an energy drink? It was an energy drink that had vodka in it. So it was like a vodka red bull. with Jaeger in it.

You. Which like, oh my God, your heart would be going till the following week. I mean, like it should be, but too fast. So is it normal for people to drive from neighbouring countries and just like fill the car up with booze? Yeah, a lot of nodding hands, yeah. That's crazy. I was like, we don't have that at home, but then I remembered we're an island. So true.

So true. And nothing's cheap anywhere. This is from Tapa Ruta. Are they here tonight? No. Normal or not. Oh my God, everyone had better plans, obviously. Well, maybe they are and this is the reason.

Normal or nah, small talk in Riga. We are friendly people, but if someone we don't know is smiling at us for no reason or asks us about our day, that seems suspicious. Now, I know I've only been here for about three minutes, but I'm going to say, nah. Because everyone that I've smiled, that has gone, bleh. Yeah. Like spat on. me as I've walked past, they're not into it.

And that's so sad for me. Well, is it also, sometimes you just need like a nod of approval to say, I'm on the right side of the road. This is fine. It's okay. I'm allowed to be here. And you kind of go, oh, sorry. And they go, oh, sorry.

And they go. Yeah. And people also, like, don't get out of the way. Like, I've noticed that a lot. Like, oh, is that, that's fair? Yeah. Right. Right. So Charles and I, on our way here today, we had like all of the gear to bring.

And there was these three Latvian dudes. And they just stood on the sidewalk and just like didn't get out of the way. And we pulled the stuff down off the sidewalk and back up on the other side. To go around him. Yeah. And he was just like, fuck you. Yeah. It was you. No, I'm trying. So is there a way to get, if it's not a nod or a smile, is there a way to know that everything's okay? Yeah. How do I check? You need to trust your gut.

I don't have that. Yeah. We don't trust. I don't trust my God. Hey, trust your gut. I can't. I don't think that I have that in my brain anywhere. I'll just follow you around and tell you beautiful.

You're doing good job. Thank you. Thank you. You know, talk your lips on me. Talk, sorry. Oh. We call that the white person smile. So in Australia, if you're walking across a pedestrian crossing where the cars stop,

if you don't do a little wave or the white person's smile, which is the little nod on the white person's smile. How would you describe that to someone listening to the podcast, I just did? What are you listening? Normal or Nah from Ryan, a customer of Remy Supermarkets in a house. Old Town Riga. You mean rim job supermarket? A box of eggs only having 10 eggs in it, not 12, like the rest of the normal world. We've got a raised hand down there. Yeah, yeah, is that normal or no? It's normal here, but I would prefer 12. Thank you. Okay. Normal to only have 10 eggs, but would prefer 12. Is everyone agreeing with that? Well, do you know you're the only country in the world not doing 12 eggs?

So some do 12. So what would you call a dozen? Do you have that word? Hang on. You have the word dozen, and that still means 12, but you wouldn't say a dozen eggs. So what would you say? Just 10 eggs?

Oh my God. I mean, it makes sense, I guess. When Big Egg came up with this, did they... Yeah, we've been brainwashed to believe that eggs need to come in 12. Yeah, did they predict... That's our fault. Did they predict that there would be four of us in an Airbnb in Old Town who planned on having 12 eggs in a box for breakfast?

That is what we... Yeah. And there were fights. Enemies became friends, friends became enemies. It was not going well. And then Charles's late night guest was like, well, can I have some eggs? Yeah, yeah. There was not enough of them.

Tried to do it how we eggs, would you like your eggs in the morning, fertilised or scramble. It turns out there not enough there. Charles had already done it, so he just thought it's fine. I'm glad you put the egg gear on there. Yeah, Tony. I was the one who discovered it. And Ryan goes, how many eggs do we have?

And I said, how many do you think there are? And he goes, a riddle, okay. And I said, Charles has had two eggs. I've had three eggs. How many do you think are? left and he said seven and I said there's five it's been a big week for us um leah fanning uh tough of sorry leon fanning I have been here too I yeah I brought mine with me that's nice I left mine at home um taking pictures of your

dead relatives at their funeral. I used to live... Oh, they're all nodding and ashamed. Look at their faces tone. I used to live in Latvia, recently moved to Ireland, and I mentioned it to a work colleague, and they were mortified. Like, selfie?

Normal or nah, taking selfies with dead relatives at funerals. Not selfies. Not a selfie. Oh, well, excuse me. No, because a selfie would be terrible. So are we, is it like a nice staged like a wedding photo or is it just like on the iPhone? Yes, dad. Beyond your casket.

Stand behind the casket. So it's like a family photo and the dead person is also in it. Oh. Imagine your granny. She gets the iPad with the flap on it and she goes, I'll take it. I'll take it. We have a huge funeral culture. We have even celebration for cemeteries.

I actually, that fucks. I like that. Funeral culture. Is that like the celebration of life? Yeah, we don't do that very well in the West. What do we do instead? We just, no one talks about it. Everyone gets angry.

Flip a table at your mom's wake or something like that. Never told that story on the podcast. Did someone flip a table at your mom's wake? did. Would you like to talk about that here in Latvia? Um, it was me. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Cool. I hadn't taken the selfie. I was like, ah! Anyway. All right, that's the end of normal or nal. Welcome back. And that's a shout out to a few of our champion type. I don't think that any of them are here today. Oh no, there's one there on the front. Thank you. Oh, no, but you still exist. Yeah.

We see you. Thank you. Lucy Bernard, good on you, Lucy. Vanessa, shemeshah. That's genuinely what is written down. Miranda H. Good on you, Miranda. Evermore Tay. Madeline.

Like a little French motherline. I met her at the orphanage. Did she? Sylvie. Thank you, Sylvie. Sarah Graham, Alicia Clayton, Haley Fitzpatrick, Sammy S, and Nicole May.

And if you were listening to those, And you thought, my God, I wish you'd say my name out loud. The hard sell in person is just so much stronger. So if you want to hear your name in there, I mean, you could become a champion. You could become a champion Tupper. And win your way to Fiji, potentially. Yes. And as someone who's just traveled from Melbourne and it only took us 44 hours,

I could tell you you can get from Riga to Fiji in under 63. There's probably a way to do it. How would you do it? Um, fuck me. Latvia, Frankfurt, Singapore, Sydney, Fiji. I like the Frankfurt airport. We flew through there. That was nice.

Didn't we? Oh, it's not your favourite though, is it who we met in the... No, no one's favourite. What's your preferred entrance to Europe? What's your preferred entrance? Are you talking to me? Oh, yeah, the one that was shaking her head. From Canada, Paris is easier.

Oh, Charles de Gaulle. Chaldaigle isn't any better. They're not the best. Okay. Oh, my God. Sorry, Bigger. We're going leaving via Brussels. Fuck, this is boring.

Sorry. Sorry, everyone. We didn't expect to find a tapo on a flight from Frankfurt to Riga, but here we are. And neither did you. Yeah. She makes sisters. You guys are sisters. And do we not talk about your job?

Because it was like a secret military thing. You think that that's Shelby, that's not Shelby. Great. Where's Shelby? Shelby's on here. I don't be Shelton. You kind of look like Shelby. Did I not meet you the other day?

Genuinely, we met a Canadian called Shelby that looks exactly like you. She works for the Canadian military and she's been stationed here for the next six months. I don't know any Shelmies. Excuse me, me. Okay, she was called Shelby.

International espionage. I've got some breaking international news, though. I was reading the international section of the New York Times. Thank you, sophisticated. I don't know if everyone knows this, but there is a shortage of single men here in Latvia. Did we know this? We did.

People are shaking their heads. Is it because you don't agree or because you just can't believe it? Because it's fine. Because we're fine. It's fine. We're fine. Okay, yep. There is 15.5% more single ladies than single men, the highest discrepancy in all of Europe.

The majority of the single ladies are over 60. Really? The Second World War and other... Oh, that doesn't help this next segment at all. We're going to forget that we heard the real answer. For the purposes of the comedy that's coming. No, that is good intel though Because Charles is into chicks over 60

So that's not going to actually be an issue at all Yeah, it's actually fine I will say though that the article in the New York Times Said that Latvian women are hot Yeah That is true, okay Half the story is right Our official New York Times fact check out

Has approved that Well we usually have the podcast approved not till now have we had a live fact checker and considering the shit we talk about probably for the best. Yeah, we would never get anywhere if anyone said anything. So Charles also doesn't know this yet

but Tony and I have prepared some pick-up lines that Charles can use single Charles because now that we know there is an influx of a range of ages of single ladies here in Riga. Tony and I have both written some Latvia pickup lines

we haven't heard each other's yet but I did see Tony chuckling on the couch earlier Latvia more like Latvia that mouth onto my dick They get better than that Every time I see you

I'm more stiff than Riga mortis Quick selfie Ah Girl are you renowned Latvian ballet dancer Mikhail Berishnikov Because you've got my head spinning in circles. That is great local. Thank you so much.

You must be Latvian rye bread because you, sorry, because you're thick, dark and I want you in my mouth. Yeah. Thanks for cheering that. You don't have to. You have to really imagine Charles saying this one. I thought there was a drought. Seems pretty wet from where I'm standing.

Sorry. Hey, Char. Did you see Tony Lodge hobbling down Old Town Riga on those cobblestone roads? If you want to be walking like that tomorrow, spend the night with me. Very good. Very good. What do you reckon, Charles, so far? Yep, yep.

What about the ladies in the room? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. We might be in Eastern Europe, but I'd rather say. see your southern Europe. Don't think geographically that really works, but it's like the down south. Yeah.

Yeah. I riga want to put it in your butt tonight. Okay. I would have also accepted rig asshole. Yeah. Yeah. Next time we're here. You might have heard that there's a drought on single men, so you might want to hold on with both hands.

Ooh. Ooh. Oh, nice work down there, but don't forget to play with the balsam. Also, balsam has more than 24 different herbs and ingredients in it. Herbs and spices, KFC. Did you know that jeans were invented in Latvia? Yeah. Wow.

How about you take yours off and show me something else that was made in Latvia? An alternate ending for that one was, I'll make you do something. in Latvia, come. They say Latvia in winters are long, hard and potentially suffocating. Have you met Charles? So the reason we came to Riga in the first place, which seems so silly and insignificant now, but the conference that we all had to walk through to come and do this show, I spoke to a thriving room of about 15 people earlier this afternoon.

And I haven't told Tony this yet, but a lot of content executives, hire-ups at the BBC, a lot of kind of serious business people. And what I didn't realize is that we had this little video that was like, oh, if you don't know Tony and Ryan, here's a little snippet. Oh, no. And I just had to, like, so there's a big screen and all these serious people looking at it. And I had to stand up the front by myself. I just realized that's got us on it.

Yeah. Do you know these guys? Yeah. And it was like us talking about some really fucked up shit like that. And I just stood there like waiting for the video to finish. And no one laughed as well. And they was dead. And they always went, oh.

And I was like, has anyone heard of Tony and Ryan? And one person was like, yeah, I'm like, thanks, bud. All right, let's start talking. And then just dominated for an hour. So, yeah. Oh. Sorry. Yeah, they saw you take your top off though.

So if you see any strange look swimmer out there later, that would be fantastic. I've got to you love to see it here from Carrie June Finlay. I carry Jude Finlay. She says, I love to see that you can now watch border security for free on Facebook or YouTube. Well done. Do you guys get border security here in the TV show? Like the Australian one though? Yeah, a few nodding heads.

Sorry. In Finland. Is that where you're from? Oh, did you come here for this? Fuck off! Oh my God. What is your name? Keila is from Finland and will you be filling up your suitcase with alcohol to take back to Finland?

You might as well. Yeah. There's just a Finnish joke, isn't there? Like, want a finish on your face or something? Do you want to go with that one? Would Charles, like the doctor was finished? Yeah. You know what I mean?

In huge news, you can fly direct from Helsinki to Melbourne in a few months. Yeah. Literally we're like, how good would that be? Nope. To get here. Yeah, no. Border security is one of the great shows. Every time we go through the border security places.

I always hope that they're filming it. They never have been when we've been going through though. Yeah, but sometimes I've seen a sign that said, you might be filmed and I'm like, fuck yeah. Yeah. I would literally pretend to have drugs on me just to be on the show. I'd like just start getting really sweaty and like looking shifty just so that they ask, they're like, we need to look through your suitcase.

There's just like heaps of dirty underwear in there. There's nothing good. They also have versions on YouTube where they don't leave you on a cliffhanger and go to like the B story. They just play the one singular story all way through. They know what the people want. Carrie said, I thought you guys would love to hear that and love to see it.

So thank you, Carrie. I would love to see that. I'm going to watch that when we get home. Charles, tee that up. I've got to you love to see it here from Maddie J. Maddie J, M-A-D-I. Hi, Tony, I have some exciting news to share. This is very start the fucking blog energy.

After hearing your paddleboard adventures, just the one, I wanted to get a stand-up paddle board but didn't want to go alone. Me either, you can have mine. I reconnected with old friends from high school. I haven't seen them in 10 years, but they mentioned they started paddleboarding, and I was like, I'd love to go as well. So went and bought one for myself,

and I've been with them, and not only have I started a new hobby, but, like, reconnected with all these old friends. Amazing. Isn't that so cool? That is sweet. And if you're in Victoria and you need another person to come, I'd love to come. Would you? It wasn't an invite, but I could invite myself.

They would love it if you turned up. Surely. Yeah. Would you like to... I'm a good vibe? Would you like to get out on the river here on the stand-up paddle board? The only river I've seen was frozen. So it might be easy to stand up

but a bit colder if you fall in, I guess. Yeah, well, wouldn't know. You're a professional, you just keep standing. Yeah, I wouldn't fall in. So true. So we started this podcast four and a half years ago. Tony wanted a radio job and I just pretended to be her co-host so we could make a demo. We put bits of the demo on TikTok.

People ask where the podcast is, we say we don't have a... podcast that we're just making a demo. 30, 40 more people say, where's the podcast? And we go, bro. Should we? Are we missing a trick here? Should we do it? And Tony said only if our first sit-down live recording is in Riga Latvia in four and a half years. And I said, yes, we will do that. And you've been part of history today. Yay! All right, thank you, Riga. Yeah.