SPEAKER_05 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of Vitals and Values. And typically on this podcast, we talk about all things health, nutrition, how to be healthy. Today we're just gonna have a little bit of fun and talk about how we vacation.

SPEAKER_04 0:18

Ooh.

SPEAKER_05 0:19

And how maybe some of those things that we typically worry about, we don't always have to worry about.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

I'm looking forward to this conversation because it gets me to to live out the glory days of not tracking a thing.

SPEAKER_05 0:34

So there is it there's so much good to being able to do this at times, right? And so David and I just recently got back from our honeymoon. If you listen to our last episode, we talked all things wedding, and there was so much to say that we could not fit the uh honeymoon into the episode at uh at the same time, and so we are back to have that conversation now.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Oh yeah. And I would like to set the set this early a lot of people believe that because of the general cleaner nature of European food and Italian food, uh-huh, you don't get fat the same way. I will wait to the end to share with you if that is personally true based upon my own personal anecdote. Okay and the answer may surprise you.

SPEAKER_05 1:33

So stay tuned, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

But we'll stay focused on this. Um so walk us through it.

SPEAKER_05 1:40

So let's just start at the beginning. Uh we decided uh, well, when we were looking into honeymoons, we're like, where do we want to go? And then it was well, there's so many fun places in Europe, and then you just end up back in Italy because it's such a great country.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

It is, it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:57

So we uh both of us have been to Italy and we both loved it, and so we wanted to return together.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah, and we both had into Rome. Yep, and then you went north, correct, and then I went south. So I went Rome and then the Omalfi coast the first time I went.

SPEAKER_05 2:13

Rome, Tuscany, Cinquitera, Florence.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yep. And I friggin' love Rome.

SPEAKER_05 2:19

We both loved Rome. So I went with my sister and we both like that it's just such a great city. We always talked about it. And so that was super fun to get back to. And I feel like when well, at least when I travel, I do, and especially international, you you don't have a car a lot of the times, and we didn't in Rome. And so you are in a hotel in the city and you gotta walk everywhere. At least that's what we do. I don't do a lot of public transportation, to be honest. I do a lot of walking, and I feel like you really get to know a city that way.

SPEAKER_04 2:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 2:50

And I really like that. Um, and so I felt like when I went back to Rome, I'd only been there once before, but I really felt like I remember where everything was. Yep. And I think you did too. No. And so I mean, we I mean, obviously, you know where the Coliseum is and the Vatican is and the big things, but like you remembered where like this specific restaurant you had gelato was at, and I remember the specific place we had espresso at. And so it's it was fun to go back and visit those places together.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Absolutely. And we did for context, we did what six days in Rome? Uh yeah, five nights, six days, and then we did six days in six nights in Sicily. In Sicily.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Um and so but from a Rome perspective, uh what draw like and actually before we even kind of dive into that, because like as we were kind of dancing around Italy, I know we thought to ourselves at one point, I was thinking budget friendly, I was thinking unique opportunity. We looked at doing one of the cruises.

SPEAKER_05 3:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

And because if you do like a Mediterranean cruise up the coast and hit uh Croatia, hit all these different places in seven to ten days, and isn't that great? And look at the price, like this is super cool. Um like we humored it. I think we humored it, but I didn't really think it was for us. I well I knew especially and I think we're both this way. Like, I don't want to sit for the same place forever. And it's like it's kind of you're kind of experiencing it, but like I don't want to get caught up in the I want to experience some tourist traps, but I also want to get away. Yeah. And when you're on a cruise like that, you're just straight into every tourist trap at every stop you go, which is fine.

SPEAKER_05 4:39

I want to feel like you become a part of the place you're at and you like you want to go back to that restaurant or that coffee shop or wherever that gelato shop. Um that's what I like about visiting a city and staying there for a time.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah. And so then, so from a Rome perspective, um, what were the main experiences?

SPEAKER_05 4:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Uh what did we see? What was our best food? Um, let's kind of go through.

SPEAKER_05 5:04

Well, so I think we did we did the big stuff. Like we'd both done the Vatican in the past, the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica, and we did that again. And I think it was as we expected it because we had been there before. Yep. Uh I had still it's impressive.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Ah, when you walk into uh St. Peter's Basilica and like the size and scope of this building is just massive. And it's gorgeous. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 5:32

There's no church that will ever I feel like be close enough.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

That was actually kind of cool. I never noticed that the first time I went when w when Dad and I did the Basilica did the Vatican. Um we had a little different tour than what we did, which is cool. Like we did different things. Um But one of the things that our uh tour guide stopped and had us do was they put footnotes in the ground of the length of the largest churches in the world. And like, hey, if you're in if you're in England and you're at uh which church? Which one's in the I don't know. Oh, whatever. It's like a big one in England. But like the one in the the one or two in New York in America, the one in England, the one in like Spain, it shows you, hey, the one there stops here. The one that's there stops here. You can see how so you get a scope of like, wow. Uh huh. That was cool. Sucker's big. And so I thought I've I found that pretty cool. I I didn't we didn't get that the first trip.

SPEAKER_05 6:32

No, I don't I don't remember doing the either. So that was that was good. Um I'm not someone that could go look at art for like six hours. So I think uh two to three hour tour was good for me.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

A half a day was good, yeah. Like I that picture of me, like we were starting to get over the museum side where like it's all the pictures of the different uh Roman like faces and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

But I was like busts and like David became a bust. I did.

SPEAKER_05 6:59

But uh so that was good. And then we did the Coliseum. I had not You had not done that. I had not done I had not gotten in it. You can see it obviously from the outside everywhere you go in that area, but uh the inside was very cool. That was awesome. It was so stinking hot.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah. But most importantly was our dinner night the next night, because it wasn't that night. Was that night? What? Was the coliseum that was was our dinner our special dinner off that that night or the night before?

SPEAKER_05 7:27

That was the night before.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Was the no, it was after the coliseum. Which dinner? The one involving the coliseum. Come on. The pizza? Yes.

SPEAKER_05 7:36

Oh, I didn't think you thought that was special.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

That was special. Okay, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. Talk about special. This was awesome. So we like we we go to the coliseum, you experience it, the awestruck of it all, you're hearing all this kind of stuff, and like trying to visualize it out, and like half of a third of the coliseum's gone for it, like miscellaneous reasons. And so you're seeing these pictures and all this kind of stuff, and I'm like, this is a great opportunity to really try to experience what it was like to be in the Coliseum, and Lara had never seen the Gladiator, and Russell Crowe, Gladiator, Coliseum. I was like, this is a duet. And so I was able to stream uh the gladiator from our TV in our hotel room, and so two R TV. Yeah, two R TV. And so one night we decided uh to get three pizzas.

SPEAKER_05 8:38

Did we get four?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Was it three or I think it was three? I don't know, maybe it was three. Uh we have pictures. We can say I think it was three. Um we got three pizzas, uh, a couple different desserts, uh-huh, and we watched the gladiator in bed. And eat pizza. I thought it was an exceptionally moving moment because it's like we were just at the Coliseum. Now we're watching the Gladiator with Massimo. Like I just thought it was so iconic.

SPEAKER_05 9:08

I'm just it is okay to watch a movie in your hotel on a vacation. Absolutely. I feel like people would be like, you can't stay in a hotel room and watch TV. Uh yes, you can.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

We were averaging like 16,000 steps a day.

SPEAKER_05 9:20

And when it's 90 degrees outside, it was great to actually just take a break and eat inside. And it was we went out after that, so absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Well, because our system was pretty solid. When it's hot, oh this is a good system. We were up by 5 30.

SPEAKER_05 9:35

Oh no. No. I mean maybe six. Six.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

We were up at six, and then breakfast started at seven. Uh-huh. So then we went down to breakfast, eat breakfast, be done in twenty to thirty minutes, and then go out, and then we would just adventure whatever the plans were, whether because we have d different stuff we can talk about. But then we it'd be hot as balls by like noon. And so by two o'clock, I'm hurting. Lara still can rip and roar and go. I'm hurting. And so we get back, we get back, I'd take a shower and take a solid hour and a half cool nap. And we I had our air conditioning in our hotel room to like 67. It was fantastic. And then once like the peak of the heat felt like it was transitioned, say like around three or four, we then go adventure out for the rest of the night and be out till 10 o'clock.

SPEAKER_05 10:32

And it was still hot even then. But it was, I mean, when that sun is just like straight overhead, middle of the day, it was great to take a break.

SPEAKER_04 10:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 10:40

Um and okay, so we did the Vatican, St. Peter's, we did Coliseum, and I think both of our favorite, but we both had a favorite excursion. And it was something that I just found on Viader. Yep. And uh it was a tour of the Apian Way. And if you're unfamiliar with the Apian Way, it's like the traditional old road. Oldest main road of Rome. Of Rome. And um we did this tour on e-bikes, which was so cool.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

So cool. These were like, come to find out, I researched into because now obsessed with e-bikes, and these were like $7,000 e-bikes. They were awesome. I had no idea when we were at the time. I mean, they were super cool, but I've never been on an e-bike before. These were like super mountain bike-y, real e-bikes, like high-end, and uh, it was like honestly, e-bike tours for the rest of my life will always be a staple of anywhere I go. It was so friggin' cool. You get to experience a a a town or a city or a location in a way different environment than you ever would see before.

SPEAKER_05 11:46

And so we started in like near the Coliseum, and then we rode out through a lot of busy streets.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Oh, it was sketchy. They they they maxed these tours at at like eight or ten people because yeah, I could totally see why.

SPEAKER_05 11:59

I'm shocked that people don't get hit by cars more often because the driving in Rome is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

So two things with that. Number one, when we stopped and you were asking that question, I think he actually had a couple horror stories.

SPEAKER_05 12:14

When I asked like how many people get hit in accidents.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah, get in accidents. Because like the way he said it was not a joke. Like he almost we'll talk about that after we finish. But like he was like, you never I know, we never asked at the end, but I he he gave me this vibe that it was like, no, it's happened.

SPEAKER_05 12:30

I mean, there's no way it can't. Oh, they're crazy.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

People on bikes and through major cities, crossing streets and like the streets that aren't they're they're decently set up for bikes, but like the outskirts.

SPEAKER_05 12:43

You're so yeah. But like I would say it seems that the drivers of Rome, I mean, they're very used to looking for other cars and looking for our mopeds and bicycles and bikes. And so um I think it just must it's more culturally that they're looking for those things. Where I think here there's so few bikers that you're gonna do. You just don't think about it.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

You look right past them and you yeah, you smoke somebody. So that but that was it was great. You got to experience like we biked all the way to the outskirts of the city. So you and like we went through a um uh we went through a catacombs, which is super freaking cool. Um and it was just being able to see way more of Rome or any major city, but most importantly, do it in a way that doesn't feel excruciatingly athletic. Because I'll be honest here, Lara had it in like level one. And in eco mode, yeah, eco mode most of the time. I put that baby in turbo, and like I'm barely moving my feet and we're going 20 miles an hour. It was so awesome.

SPEAKER_05 13:53

You could have no assistance, and then there was eco, and then there was like two others, and then turbo and turbo was like you put your pet foot down once and you're like, You just just move your feet and you're doing 20 miles an hour.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

It was so friggin' cool, and like the e-bikes was super like because there are certain points where you're going uphills that if you didn't have you could do it, don't get me wrong, but it's less enjoyable because your heart rate's going to 150, 160, and you're like you're sucking on wind trying to also but like being able to just kind of just kind of cruising and oh my gosh, it was friggin' awesome. Uh now I'm hooked now. I'm on Facebook Marketplace looking for e-bikes and trying to find a deal because they're friggin' cool.

SPEAKER_05 14:32

So we saw the catacombs, we saw some of the old the aqueducts. There's one working aqueduct, which is really cool. Uh the old, they have an area where it's paved in the old pavers from back, I don't know, 2000 years ago, whatever it is. Uh we went through farmland, we saw some horses, some cows. It was just like, I feel like you get to experience a part of Rome that's not the tourist part, right? You're seeing like, hey, this is like 28th Street of Rome where the people actually live. And it's not like the beautiful uh historic downtown city center.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Because one of the questions I asked was when we were driving on the Appian Way, the bike, when we were biking down the Appian Way, there was a point where, number one, the the cobble, pebble, whatever boulder road of Appian, it's the original boulders, they're in a different order because they redid it to try to smooth it out. But like it all that's a good thing. But these are these are the road. And um when you're driving down, when you're biking down it and you're seeing these houses, j before you hit the farm, farmland, you're dry you're biking down, you see these houses, and they have these big security. They're not massive houses by any means. They're on land, but they're not massive houses. And almost every single one of them had a lot of big cameras and all this kind of stuff. And you just never know, like where is desirable and where is undesirable, and is this really desirable? And when we were biking and and we had a stop, I was like, okay, we biked through that area of all these houses that kind of sat right on Appian Way. They're not crazy big, but give me a perspective here. Were these like are these very desirable houses? And he goes, Oh yeah, you're in a position where these are private residences that sit on basically federal and state lands that are protected. And so most of them are generational, and um, they're millions of dollars to he was a millions of euros to buy one of these properties because you you can't just buy them. And so it was super interesting. I was just like, because you just you just don't know.

SPEAKER_05 16:38

You don't know?

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:39

Like, do people want to be here?

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah, because you you're you are out in the boonies, yeah. Like you're not in any major center at all. Like the nearest grocery store is not around the corner. Yeah. Um, so it's so I'm just sitting there going, is it was this? And so it's super fun to kind of get that whole thing.

SPEAKER_05 16:54

It was it was a different view of Rome than I had from my prior trip, which was fun.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah, tour true touristy Trevy Fountain, this, this, and this. So that was by far, I think, both of our coolest. Yeah. The first day, ripping and roaring on cooking pizzas and gelato, uh, Lara took over the class.

SPEAKER_05 17:14

I did.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Super funny.

SPEAKER_05 17:15

It was so fun.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Literally, the guy could tell based upon he how she knew the dough, and a couple statements she made that, oh, she's a cook. And so he swapped, had her run the class, and then I'm like standing next to the cook the whole time, and it was super funny.

SPEAKER_05 17:33

I am kind of a pizza expert. So my sister and I have made a lot of pizza back in the day when we lived together. We went through a pizza making phase. I'm very knowledgeable about pizza making. And so you could tell. That's made me feel good about my pizza making system.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yep, he was he was he was thoroughly impressed.

SPEAKER_05 17:50

And yeah, so we made pizza, we did a cooking class, we got to drink a bunch of wine. Uh we And that was the day of our flight. Yeah, so that's the day we got in.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Yeah, we did a red eye into Rome, and then we got there, we got our hotel and we ripped and roared.

SPEAKER_05 18:03

Like we took a nap.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

We did take a nap. Um and set the precedent for the afternoon.

SPEAKER_05 18:09

Uh that pizza was great. And then I mean, the food the rest of the time in Rome, we did ask the concierge at our hotel for some recommendations.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 18:17

Um, so I wanted like a like a good traditional Italian restaurant. Um, so the uh the night after the pizza, we went to an old Italian place, like mom and pop, uh a bunch of old men waiters. Seemed like they'd been there forever. Not super um, not super modern or cool hip, but the food was so good. I I really do think that was the best food we had.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Crazy enough, I'd 100% agree. It was from the concierge, it was, and the guy kind of said it. He was like, this is probably one of the most authentic Roman Italian restaurants in the city. It's actually where he's like, it's where the celebrities and people of the know go. And it's truly authentic. And we went there. When you hear celebrity and you hear this kind of stuff, you're like, oh, it's probably like hoity toity. And it's not. It's not. It was probably like some grandma's dining room. One of the most, yeah, just well, well refined um or well just like Italian mom and pop kind of vibe. And the food, I had the carbonara, and it was incredible.

SPEAKER_05 19:26

I the f it was I don't remember what else we had. We had a lot of pasta there. We had pasta in different places, but that was the best pasta, I think, of the whole trip.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yeah, I would, I would agree.

SPEAKER_05 19:36

Um, and um, so we got wine at a lot of different places.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

We did get a wine, which is awesome. I drank more alcohol in two weeks than I drink in two years.

SPEAKER_05 19:46

But so okay, they came uh the first night or to this restaurant um and they give you a book of wine. Here's the wine list. And I was like, uh, I can't even read half this. Um please just give me the house wine, that's fine. Um, but I thought this book was big, but I don't remember where we went later in the trip. Was that where it was? Okay, they gave me it was a book two inches thick.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

I'll have to I'll I'll find the picture and I'll put it on here because it's literally like this thick and this big. It's like a balls. It was huge.

SPEAKER_05 20:19

I'm like, I don't even understand when I'm supposed to start with this. So uh but yeah, that we had that. And then uh David had a great question for the concierge.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Shout out to the Hessler family, uh family friends of ours. They I learned this like a year or two ago, a couple years ago, that they set a pattern where whenever they travel anywhere, they always ask the locals, is there a really cool rooftop bar or rooftop dinner place that's really cool? Because there's I I will admit, when you're up and above and you're looking down, it's it's a really cool vibe. And so I was like, that's something I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. And so I asked the concierge, and he was like, Oh, okay. He's like, Yeah, there is a place. It's really expensive. And I was like, we're on a honeymoon, whatever. And and so um we set that one up and that was incredible.

SPEAKER_05 21:11

And it was so like ritzy.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Oh, very well, yeah, like uh one of the th one of the things I said to Lara uh when we were sitting down at dinner, I look over the guy that sits next to us a little bit later, and I could see he was wearing like a probably sixty to a hundred thousand dollar AP watch, and I'm like, yeah, this is I know nothing about fancy watches.

SPEAKER_05 21:36

I mean, I've heard of Rolex and stuff, but like that's about my extent of the knowledge. So David was giving me a lesson in uh like quarter million dollar watches.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Yep. Which I think is insane. Yeah, like it was there was there was some serious watch game there. And and then funny enough, in the bathroom, what I met that dude from uh where was he from? Uh not Charlevoy. But something like that. Somewhere up north. Yeah. He was one of the burbs in in like northern Michigan. That's so funny. And he moved to Texas and he owns some business in Texas now. But somehow it came up and I'm like, ah my It was super funny.

SPEAKER_05 22:15

So that restaurant was a we didn't know this at the time. But I was texting my sister about where we are and she was looking it up. And it was a former Michelin Star restaurant, which I've never been to a Michelin star restaurant. It sounds great, but that's not the kind of money I spend at restaurants typically. Um and this one was former. So uh it was to that one.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

And it was like two years before or something, was it maybe the year before. Year before Michelin. Yeah, it was it was close. It wasn't like back in 1990.

SPEAKER_05 22:43

No, yeah, it was a recent Michelin Star. Um and so that was pretty cool. That's the closest I've been to a Michelin Star restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

And the hardest part about it was because one of the things about Europe and especially and obviously Rome too, but anywhere, they don't eat dinner till nine or ten.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

We're asleep usually at nine. And wishing we were asleep. And so the first couple of nights, it works out really great because they don't most dinner places don't open till seven or seven thirty. And so we get there at 7.30 or 8. No one there. No one's there. We get the great service, everything's fantastic. And then we go into the whole uh and then the the rush comes in while we're leaving. I I asked the guy, he's like, Oh, they opened up at 7 30. I was like, okay, great, let's just 7-30. Concierge looks at me and he's like, No.

SPEAKER_06 23:30

I'm like, come on.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

He's like, no. You can't, you gotta be there for the sunset. It's you gotta be there at nine.

SPEAKER_05 23:36

And I'm like fine. So we had to wait around.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

We wait exactly. But uh it was totally worth it.

SPEAKER_05 23:44

Well, we went early and they did let us in.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Well, that was that was actually fun. Yeah. They they do they do uh reservations very different than America. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:53

They don't give your table away quickly.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

It was prepped like or an hour later and we got there 30 minutes early or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 24:00

So yeah, I think they let us in 30 minutes early, which is awesome. Um so th I think those were our two like most like unique restaurants, I think, in Rome.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

And it's funny because Rome's fun where even I mean, just w sitting down at random places, stopping at random shops for sandwiches and pizza, it's all pretty friggin' good.

SPEAKER_05 24:23

It is.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

And yeah, even the touristy kind of just stop shops, still great.

SPEAKER_05 24:28

Well, like one of my one of my favorite food experiences from this trip was like not really that in like not that memorable if you think about it. Um, and you probably are like, oh really? Um, the first day we were walking around and we know what you're gonna say. I was hungry, and we were walking by the pantheon, and I'm like, I need a sandwich. Yep. And so you go into these places that they just have like pizzas laid out and sandwiches laid out, and you just want yeah, and they'll heat the pizza up and not the sandwich. Anyways, so we grabbed a sandwich there, we sat down by the pantheon, we ate it, and I'm like, that was one of my favorite parts of eating in the whole trip.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

It was just super chill and not too fancy.

SPEAKER_05 25:05

I love that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

All right, any la anything interesting or surprising about Rome um or messy moments before we transitioned to Sicily?

SPEAKER_05 25:14

Well, we ate some pizza. Uh, I I do have to bring this up because and people Italians will probably hate me for this.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Oh, what do you got?

SPEAKER_05 25:21

I just don't think, and I thought this from the last time I was there. I told you this. Yep. The coffee's not. I was waiting for you to say. I mean, they talk about how their espresso culture is so amazing, blah, blah, blah. No, all their espresso taste exactly the same. It's all very dark, it's all very deep. There's no nuance. There's no, if people have heard of third wave coffee, this is the kind of coffee I love. There's no third wave coffee. Well, we did find one place, but third wave coffee is not there. It's just, it's not the kind of coffee that I'm looking for. Like it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

I remember doing a lot of walking looking for the iconic cafe that was going to have the coffee that Lara wanted.

SPEAKER_05 25:58

You were you were really tired. I don't think you wanted to go. But I don't it worked out great. We met that guy.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

We went it all worked out, but I was tired.

SPEAKER_05 26:05

I found one coffee shop and I was like, this looks good. So we went there and we had to wait in line outside to get in.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

And I but at that point, I'm like, all right, if there's a line, it's pretty good, it's real. And so it's worth the wait.

SPEAKER_05 26:19

And it was coffee and there was like f food, lunch food. So yeah, I got something. And that was that was my favorite coffee of the whole trip. I respect that. So yeah, um, Italians, if you feel differently, let me know.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Italians, you gotta step up your coffee game.

SPEAKER_05 26:33

Yeah, I mean, it all tastes the same.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

But I will admit, my uh my sugar-free silver bullet monster uh you could find that everywhere. It was amazing. I mean, it got the job done. Would I is there other options I would like to have too? Yes. Did it hurt my soul dropping like 350 euro for a friggin' sugar-free monster everywhere we went? Yeah, it hurt my friggin' soul.

SPEAKER_05 26:57

Yeah, the amount of coffees I bought versus monsters you bought.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

I was ripping two. You bought way more. I was ripping two, because yeah, because coffee in the morning was comped by every hotel we were at. Yeah, it's a hotel. So it's basically every afternoon you would get.

SPEAKER_05 27:10

But I didn't even get one because I couldn't always find one and I didn't think there was true.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

I was I was ripping two, occasionally three sugar-free monsters. Occasionally occasionally.

SPEAKER_05 27:21

I think that it means every day, but one occasionally.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Occasionally. Like I said, occasionally, it would hit three. Mostly.

SPEAKER_05 27:31

What do you mean? Were you keeping them out? No, I just have a good recollection of this chip. She was outing. We had to find a lot of monsters on this channel.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Yeah, we did.

SPEAKER_05 27:40

We're always searching.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

We it was it was uh it was a thing. And the and the worst part was the farther you left the tourist traps, the less probability of finding a sugar-free monster.

SPEAKER_05 27:50

That's truth.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

It was a it was uh it was a sticky wicket.

SPEAKER_05 27:53

And the problem, okay, the problem with meat too for coffee. If you drink coffee, a lot of times you have to go to the bathroom. And as we talked about, there are no bathrooms, no public bathrooms.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

And so then, okay, it's no toilet seats for whatever reason. Still don't under fully understand that. No toilet seats.

SPEAKER_05 28:07

So it's hot. You want to drink something because you're hot, but then you're like, if I drink something, I'm gonna have to pee. And there's no bathroom.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 28:14

So what am I gonna like? What am I gonna choose here?

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Uh it's a it's a it's a serious game of dehydration. And then also, like, I'm just sitting there going, I I'm holding, I'm holding twos in until I get back to the bat to our hotel room because there's zero toilets. I don't know how you do it because when you're in Rome, there are no toilet seats. You just deal with it. What do you it's just weird? Like you squat it or you sit in the seat? I don't okay. We don't even go we're going with C my C Mine. We're gonna we're gonna pull back. We're gonna pull back, but I'm just gonna say Rome, step up your game with toilet seats and fit like paying for bathrooms because it's just it's yeah, it's the same way in France, too. We found a public bathroom by the Vatican, and you had it, you went down, and all of a sudden the guy's sitting there going, he goes, one euro. And you're looking at him like, no.

SPEAKER_05 29:07

Well, I was like, well, I only get a two euro coin. I'm like, can I give you two? No. He's like, no, and like I can't give you more money to go to the bathroom. No, you have to use your credit card for one stupid year's.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

It is credit card. I bet you that's probably where the that's probably where the fraud happened.

unknown 29:23

Dang.

SPEAKER_05 29:25

So, okay, and we cannot leave Rome without talking about how many spritz and how much alcohol they drink in Europe. So people that are always like, oh, everyone in Europe's so healthy, they're all so thin. Well, that I mean, you don't actually know that they're healthy. They may all be thin, but there is so much alcohol consumption.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

I mean, for a preface, we're in a very tuitiony area where everyone's thinking alcohol. But again, I still think it's pretty they drink wine and alcohol everywhere. I mean, wherever we went, it didn't matter Sicily, it didn't matter and like where we went to smaller towns, it was all the same. Like everyone's drinking two or three glasses of wine, they're getting after it. It's fascinating.

SPEAKER_05 30:02

We drew our Eperol spritzes.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 30:05

All right, um it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

We're 30 minutes in already. We haven't left a rope. I mean, it makes sense. Like that's just kind of how it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_05 30:13

All right, we can do this. So uh then we flew from Rome to uh Catalina, I believe is what it's called.

SPEAKER_04 30:22

Cartegia Cartia Cartisia Cantania.

SPEAKER_05 30:26

I can't even remember. Uh something like that. Yeah, we sound so bad.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

We were actually there though. No, I know.

SPEAKER_05 30:32

Um, and then so from there we got a rental car.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Yep and we drove I drove all of Sicily.

SPEAKER_05 30:38

You dropped even.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

And all right, so preface hindsight, I'm a certainty kind of guy. I'm a ounce prevention kind of pound of cure kind of guy. I'm in Sicily, I don't know how the driving's gonna be. I got the top-tier top insurance, where literally the guy jokingly said, You could dance on this hood and you will not have to pay one more dollar than then this insurance, and the car gets stolen, you could whatever, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_05 31:06

Anything's covered.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

And uh hindsight, we spent more money on insurance than I probably should have because I left that car immaculate. No debts, no dings, no, but it was worth the peace of mind. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 31:18

So we uh we drove this car up to Terramina, and so when we planned this trip, uh we asked help of a travel agent I've used in the past. And so she picked these cities we went to, essentially, and we just approved it. And so I didn't really know what to expect. I was like, oh, that looks cool. Um so we uh went to the city, uh Terramina, and our hotel was on the water in the Mediterranean, which is cool. But the vast majority of the city is up this cliff in the hills. Um, and so I was like, okay, cool. So we first day walked up there. There's this very long um staircase that David David was not in a good boot about.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Okay, so preface here. Everyone, if people don't know, I have this really jacked up knee, my vulgus knee. It's like multiple surgeons have said we should I should get surgery on it to line it up. I know what sets it off, what doesn't. And one thing in particular that sets off this knee and can let it get all irritated and inflamed and is stairs. Long amounts of stairs, how that steps on my joint, it's just not ideal. It's that and open chain workouts, like leg lifts, leg extensions, can't do them.

SPEAKER_05 32:34

And so he fails to tell me this till we're working our way up the stairs.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

True. Um I think I had brought it up in the past.

SPEAKER_05 32:42

But you always think your knee doesn't ever hurt, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

That's true. And um, but we we go up this and and we're starting to go up these stairs, and I'm just seeing a friggin' wall of stairs, and and you can and it goes around a corner. Oh, yeah, and I'm it was really cool. It was cool, but it was huge. And my point, like I'm looking at this going, we do not know where this stops. This could be the next two and a half miles.

SPEAKER_05 33:07

You're just exploring.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

And so I'm just sitting there going, the first day to s into this area, uh, and preface uh we won't discuss on why. I threw my back out in Rome really bad. Um, we won't go into the details of why. Nope. Uh if you have a question, you can ask me personally. And if you don't know me personally, you will not know. And but I threw my back out in Rome, so I was already kind of like feeling goofy. I was dealing, I'm still dealing with right heel Achilles tendinitis. Yes, so I'm a disheveled old man when it comes to orthopedic issues right now. And he's sniffing up a storm because he's getting over his cold. I'm still getting over my cold, and now we're going up these stairs, and I'm just sitting there going, we do not know when this ends, and I don't want to add a knee to all the orthopedic drama I'm dealing with currently. And so I was just like, uh, and then we're we're going, we're going. When's it gonna stop? And then Yeah. We did make it.

SPEAKER_05 34:08

David would not have been a good explorer back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Not probably not. No, probably not.

SPEAKER_05 34:15

You are a certainty freak, you said, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:17

I like I like to know where I'm going. I like to know how things work.

SPEAKER_05 34:21

I like to explore.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

And so, but we got up there. We did. And it was beautiful.

SPEAKER_05 34:27

It was a very cool stairway up like the side of this cliff, like you could see parts of the city. It was very simple.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

But it was and for perspective, it was I counted it. It was eight hundred and thirty stairs. You counted it? Yes. I thought there were seven hundred. I actually AI'd it, but it was eight hundred and thirty stairs. Okay. Uh, and just over a kilometer long.

SPEAKER_05 34:48

I oh yes, I found that when I garmined it.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Yes. And uh on a fun side note, what on the other side of the mountain is a gondola that takes you to the same spot right next to our hotel.

SPEAKER_05 35:03

But you have to pay for that. And we have steps. So it is, we got to the so we're we go, we get this cliff, we make it. David survived.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

I survived. I did not thrive, but I survived.

SPEAKER_05 35:15

And then, okay, it's like you start seeing the city and it's kind of quiet, and you're you're slowly making your way in, and then like there's a few restaurants and a few shops, and okay, it's cute. And then all of a sudden I felt like we turned a corner.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

And it was like in like this Mecca. And it was like people modern and this beautiful uh single long walkway of like a strip mall, both sides of the building.

SPEAKER_05 35:40

Strip mall sounds bad.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Okay, so it's all hundreds of year-old building, but with a long cobblestone ship to shops on both sides, and it went what, a mile long?

SPEAKER_05 35:49

It was a lot, it was just kept going.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

And it was like we start seeing Gucci, Dolce Gabbana, we see we see Tom Ford, we see Rolex, we see AP, we see um Louis Vuitton, we see a bunch of types of clothing I didn't even know the name of Bougie. I had no idea.

SPEAKER_05 36:11

And it just keeps going. Yeah, it was just it was the finest shopping I've ever seen all in one store.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

I felt like uh we were in uh what's the northern Italy? Um Milan. I thought we were in Milan. It was fascinating.

SPEAKER_05 36:23

It was really fun to walk through. We did not go shopping because we're not Gucci people.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Well, I mean like we got matching white linen outfits, but that was not from a fancy store. It was not from a fancy store.

SPEAKER_05 36:36

Um, so it was super cool to walk through. There's all little restaurants in there as well.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

We ripped a lot of spritzes, though.

SPEAKER_05 36:44

We did have a lot of spritzes. There was a couple weddings going on in the city.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Um, the big thing about Terabino is is where it's it's really on the opinion because it's where White Lotus just had their own.

SPEAKER_05 36:54

If you're not familiar with the TV show, we never had seen it. We didn't know we started it. We haven't finished it yet. We started it. Um so that was super fun. We had a lot of good food there. We had some of the best pizza there we found. Yes. I would agree. Great pizza.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Best pizza place there. And then we hiked Mount Etna.

SPEAKER_05 37:09

We did. We took a tour, uh, got picked up by a man in a van. Yep. And went up the mountain, which is very cool. Yep. The volcano. The volcano the water. Yes, I did see it erupted like three days ago.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Yep, it did erupt. Uh like what, 18 days after we were there, 15 days after we were there.

SPEAKER_05 37:26

So that was very cool. Uh we went swimming in the Mediterranean.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Multiple times. It's it's as warm, or if not a little cooler, than Lake Michigan. Yeah, it was not super warm. It wasn't super warm.

SPEAKER_05 37:36

I mean, it wasn't bad. It was because it was so hot. Um and this is my second experience with beaches in on the Mediterranean. Well, actually, third, but the first one doesn't. So uh second experience on a real beach in the Mediterranean. Their beaches are not nice people. Like they're rocks, they're hard to walk on.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

When you've been used to Lake Michigan beaches, nothing comes even close. Like, okay, you go to the Caribbean, you go to Hawaii, you go to play true beaches. I would not call a Mediterranean beach a beach. I don't know what I call it, but it's not a beach.

SPEAKER_05 38:12

Yeah, yeah. It is though.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

It's like laying on rocks.

SPEAKER_05 38:16

It's not very comfortable comfortable, but we did it. We got some uh water shoes. So if you you're going to a rock beach, you gotta get water shoes. Um we went swimming several times, so it was very nice. It was beautiful and hot again. All right, anything else? Oh, we did a boat tour. Yep, it was a prosecco boat tour, and man, they let that prosecco fly.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Yeah, well, because funny enough, the main captain, I talked to him a bit, um, because business, because it just had to happen. I I was like, you got a good little outfit here. He looked to me, and he he's a good system because he always he does this all day long. And how do you remember people's names? You don't, but you can remember people from. So he when he gets their name, when he gets their where they're from, he's Michigan, Michigan.

SPEAKER_05 38:58

And like that's how you're identified.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

That's how you're identified. And we started talking a little bit at the back end, and I don't know how it came up, but we started talking, he's like, he's like, Are you prosecca or are you uh White Lotus Tour? And I was like, I was Prosecca, and he goes, Oh, you dirty, whatever. And I started talking about like he's like, Yeah, we he's like, I double book these and I to fill them up that both the Proseca and the White Lotus Tours are the same boat. So we advertise it and so he packs out the boats that way. And I'm like, that's genius. Because you go to the places that's in the White Lotus, but you drink Prosecca while you're doing it.

SPEAKER_05 39:33

And so there were lots of different people on this boat, music going, wine flowing, and there was dancing going on.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

I mean, lot of ra and the way the guy said it, and I respect this, uh, because he asked right at the beginning, uh, are there any locals here? Uh huh. Oh, yeah. And he's the the local boat. Like all the locals go on his boat because he's a vibe. He'll he'll he treats people right and he's in it for the long haul. And so, but funny enough, we had this like 70-year-old woman who's a epidemiological epidemiologist researcher. Uh does she have a PhD too? I thought she had a nurse.

SPEAKER_05 40:12

I think she had a PhD.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Yes, I think she was a she was originally a nurse and then she went back to school and got her PhD, and she specialized, and she's done a bunch of American Heart Association stuff because she specialized in ICU epidemiologic research because she was an ICU nurse and now she has a PhD. I like she was kind of the oddball because everyone else is getting afterwards. Everyone is so much younger. Everyone's also getting after it.

SPEAKER_05 40:36

Well then I heard I was telling because I heard her say, or the captain asked her, and she told him that she's widowed. And so I'm like, oh, this poor, like, older woman on this boat, all by her.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

She was Australian.

SPEAKER_05 40:47

I think she was from New Zealand. New Zealand? Australia. I think it was Australia. No, it was Australia. It was Australia. Um and so we David's like, well, talk to her.

SPEAKER_01 40:55

She was from the other side of the island. So you have to Oh, you're right.

SPEAKER_05 40:57

She was from Perth.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

She's from Perth.

SPEAKER_05 40:59

Yeah. Yep. That's right. Um, so she was very interesting to talk to and very smart and she was on a she was doing she was like doing a vacation after she had been at a medical conference.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

A medical conference in like in like Germany. Yeah. It was like she was at a medical conference in Germany, and then she came down to here to then go back, but she stayed a couple extra days.

SPEAKER_05 41:19

I'm like, good for you for like doing this all by yourself, because that's tough.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 41:23

And so I'm like, I thought she was great.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

We we both were like, all right, because we sat on the hot side, and then we sat in the shadow side on the way back.

SPEAKER_03 41:30

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

And uh after we swam in the the Mediterranean, and we don't just talk, I was like, she had been talking not talking about it. I was like, hey, let's talk to this woman. Yeah. I remember I had a fascinating conversation with her. It was super fun.

SPEAKER_05 41:41

That was fun. Um, I think that was most of Terramina.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 41:44

And then we drove. Well, so we were gonna drive drive to Syracusa, which was our next stop. Um, but you know, we're like, like can't usually get into the hotel until like mid-afternoon.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Um we're out of our hotel there at 10.

SPEAKER_05 41:58

So David was like, let's find something to do. Uh like maybe there's something on the way that we could stop at. And we found a few towns, but nothing really like clicked. And then I don't know, were you chat GPT in this?

SPEAKER_01 42:09

I AI'd it, yeah. I I just chat GPT. Well, we're going from here to here. Uh we we are adventurous, we don't mind going off the like off the beaten path. What is something we can do in between these two places relatively with a car that is unique? And it brought up this uh it's the equivalent of the Grand Canyon of Sicily, and I still can't remember the name of it. I know it's a very easy name to remember, I feel like it's some preserve just outside of Syracusa, and it's the glor it's it's a kilometer just over a kilometer hike down and a kilometer hike back up, and it's their equivalent of the Grand Canyon. At the bottom is this gorgeous river uh that has these rock stops and waterfalls and different swimming holes, and and as you kind of go down the steps of the the three or four different stages, and it was a friggin' hike in the mi heat of the day.

SPEAKER_05 43:10

Ten o'clock ish, I think we started.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Yeah, but then on the way back it was like almost noon and it was so it was hot on the way back.

SPEAKER_05 43:16

Oh, it was it was roasting. It was like you just had to forget about the heat and the sweat.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

And you had to find a spot to hide in the shade every so often. Yeah. But it was incredible. And that was by far one of the things. You could and then you what was actually fascinating to me was there were some what is it, you got it?

SPEAKER_05 43:37

Cava Granda.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Cava Granda. Grande? There were some people hiking down and hiking back questionable. Questionable if they were gonna be able to do it or not. They're gonna do it. They have a helipad there, which was super funny. Uh but y I you're seeing that. I'm like, okay. I just saw them get down, I hiked back up it. That's a lot. It's gonna take him a while. Let me put it this way. It's not it's not that hard of a hike. It's not dangerous. It's just it's not stairs, it's cobble, it's rocks, it's decent step downs, all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_05 44:12

You're not someone that does a lot of movement. It would be a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

I saw like a 75, 80-year-old woman doing it. And I'm and who was not underweight.

SPEAKER_05 44:21

And it would be easy to fall if you weren't stable on your feet.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

And so it was super fascinating.

SPEAKER_05 44:27

It was awesome. Great. So do something spontaneous, do something unique. Uh driving there, I didn't know if we were in the right spot because we were in the middle of nothing.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Yeah, sketchy. Couple switchbacks back and forth where like you don't know if anyone's around the corner. If they're going quick, you're getting hammered. And it was a dumpster fire. Um, but it was incredible.

SPEAKER_05 44:45

And then so we ended our trip in Syracusa, and we were staying we get to this place and it's like a resort, and I did not know that.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

Holy balls, it was bougie and awesome.

SPEAKER_05 44:56

So there's like all these like individual buildings with hotel rooms in them, and uh our room looked right out over the Mediterranean, across the wanna call it the Mediterranean. Well, I know, but across the channel or whatever, over to Ortigia, which is the like traditional old historic town.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Um crazy enough, Ortigia, from my recollection, is one of the oldest continually lived in towns, whatever you want to call it, in the world, and it's been lived in continuously for like 2500 years. It's very old. The Greeks were there, and then the Romans came in, and then it's been continually used since since the Greeks.

SPEAKER_05 45:41

A lot of different eras of buildings there. Um, so the resort was essentially, I mean, you could swim, you could go to the beach. You could literally stay there and never leave if you wanted to. I mean, they delivered food to you wherever you wanted.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

It was super cool. We'd be like out on there was two different beaches. You could we did everything through WhatsApp, you just text the concierge and it's like, hey, this is my number, this is where I want, this is how I want to and they just bring it to you.

SPEAKER_05 46:06

Yeah. Very accommodating.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

It was awesome.

SPEAKER_05 46:08

Uh so but we didn't stay there most of the time. We went over to Ortizia and explored that. It's not a very big area. Um, but we spent a lot of time there. It was super fun. Just wandering.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

We took a water taxi there, and then we bought we also uh took the car over. We did both.

SPEAKER_05 46:23

Seafood was great.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

Um we did some seafood there, some some raw seafood. We did. Delicious. Um, more pizzas.

SPEAKER_05 46:32

More pizzas.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Um more spritzes.

SPEAKER_05 46:36

Uh the last night, David's like, what do you want to eat? And I'm like, uh, I can't think about food anymore. How do you you get kind of like decision fatigue? Yeah. They're like, it was like, well, pizza. So more pizza there was.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

I wanted I wanted one more pizza. And then which that pizza was really good. We got some we got some super Roman specialty pizzas.

SPEAKER_05 46:57

I like it. Where was it? I can't even remember off the top of my head. I just remember we ate pizza.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

We did it right in downtown Ortigia. We drove. Um I remember walking.

SPEAKER_05 47:07

I just can't remember.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

And then we brought and that's when we brought so we did the pizzas, and that's when we stopped and got the different desserts, got back in the car, and then we got back to the hotel, and we were hoping that they were gonna have our prosecco on ice. Because we asked them to asked them to, they forgot. And when I went to one of the workers saying, Hey, is this possible? He went above and beyond. Because they had forgotten. And he goes, Oh, and so we sat down on this one porch that overlooked Ortigia and he brought us some super high-end Prosecco that was specialty to that resort. And he brought us other food and like he uh went above and beyond. It was super fun.

SPEAKER_05 47:50

Like everywhere you go in Italy, and this I had this last time, if you order wine or spritz or something, they always bring you potato chips, which is so fascinating. I just don't think anyone in the state uh I mean maybe I'm out of maybe I'm the one missing out, but potato chips, I love potato chips. I think it's a great thing to have with wine. We should do it more here.

SPEAKER_01 48:10

We should do it more. But that was good. And then last night we flew back into Rome and we didn't get in to like seven. And here's the question Do you stay at your hotel by the airport do and eat hotel food? Do you go into Rome on like the uh train and then like Uber back that costs, I don't know, 150 euro round trip to do it? It's like 30 minutes there, yeah, and trying to do it all and all the rim, or there's actually a town that's right next to the airport.

SPEAKER_03 48:46

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

And that's like the the it's the fishing town.

SPEAKER_03 48:51

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

And we kind of decision fatigue, it was like, I don't know, but we that was the decision fatigue. Yes, that was brutal.

SPEAKER_05 48:58

Uh Flamencio? Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

Flamencio. And we decided to go down there, and we got one more meal down there, and it was incredible. It was right on the wharf. Big fishing boats. Yeah, like true fishing town.

SPEAKER_05 49:15

Not like pretty fishing boats, like big industrial.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

True large net fishing, fishing boats, uh, great food. And we ended up meeting some people that were from like South Carolina.

SPEAKER_05 49:29

I can't remember because we met a couple of different groups that were there for weddings.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

I still want to know what that dude does. Or woman. Could be the woman too. Uh, because they go on it was like two or three Europe trips a year. Uh-huh. They love it. They never go to the same place.

SPEAKER_05 49:44

Which is fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 49:44

And they were talking about all the places that have been in the last couple of years. And I'm sitting there going, How the frick do you do that? Uh, they were super cool people, very lovely.

SPEAKER_05 49:53

Their daughter got married.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

And next to them was this quaint 90-year-old woman with no teeth, Roman woman, like Italian woman, with her 50-year-old, 55-year-old son, and they were out at dinner together, and he was feeding her, and really sweet. And the two, the the woman in that we were talking to that's from America was looking at him going, Oh, that's so amazing. So she was a very genuine, thoughtful woman, very chatty.

SPEAKER_05 50:22

Very chatty.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

Very chatty.

SPEAKER_05 50:23

Good thing we were okay with it.

SPEAKER_01 50:24

Oh, yeah. Uh, but yeah, and then flew back and got back to reality. Back to reality. But I told you at the beginning. Oh, yes. I can't tell you how many people say that they go to Europe or go to Italy and they lose weight on their trip. No matter what they eat. No matter what they eat. And they eat all the gelato and X, Y, and Z. Uh, I did an in-body scan before and after. I gained six pounds of fat and I dropped four pounds of muscle. Now, obviously, those numbers are up to interpretation of absolutes. But yes, I gained multiple pounds of fat in a mere a matter of two weeks. And even though I was moving 16, averaging probably 16,000 steps per day, if not more, because I ate a literally breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I had a dessert. That's one of the things in Italy that was fascinating. There were basically pies of some sort for breakfast. Danish everywhere. And don't kid yourself. Honeymoon calories did not exist to me. They existed on my body, but in my mind, did not exist. And so, these people, if you go to Europe and you lose a bunch of weight because you think it's cleaner, no, you're eat you're moving more and your serving sizes are less, and so you're eating less calories.

SPEAKER_05 51:53

And I mean, I would say I I didn't weigh myself, I don't really care. I don't know what it was before, I don't know what it was after, but there's you could definitely gain weight.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:03

No question. Like I could have eaten a lot more food, let me just say.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

Yeah. So much food. I just that one's just so annoying to me. And is the is the quality and taste better? Sure. They start from more scratch.

SPEAKER_05 52:17

Okay, I still do don't necessarily agree with this because people say that all the time, like, oh, it's so fresh. It's so I'm like, there is so much fresh produce in the States. And there are you can get it at the grocery store, which I know is not the freshest. There are farmers' markets you can go to. Like, I can get this stuff. It's not like you don't get it. You do have to take the effort to go get it. So if you're not doing that at home, maybe you could consider it if that's something you want to do more of. But it's not that it's not available.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

Yeah. Well, and that's also it's you sit there and go, the reason why it's because of what you're eating, like where you're going. You're going to Red Robin. You're not going to frickin' this nice, elegant, outdoor restaurant in the edges of if you were to go to the higher end places in West Michigan and town, right? You're going to get that outcome. But that's not where you're going.

SPEAKER_05 53:11

Well, no, because when you're in your own town, you go to like the cheaper places a lot of the time. Yeah. But and so I the the that argument just does not stand out. It just drives me nuts. The food is great.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

Uh calories don't mass ma magically stop when you go to Europe.

SPEAKER_05 53:27

No.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

And I saw some fat locals. Not just uh tourists. Uh-huh. There were some fat locals. Remember the Ortigia bikers?

SPEAKER_03 53:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 53:39

That dude was big. And he was a local and he was a worker and he worked on a bike. It was an e-bike.

SPEAKER_05 53:46

And they're all smoking.

SPEAKER_01 53:47

And they're all ripping cigs. That's actually super interesting about Europe, too. They rip darts everywhere.

SPEAKER_05 53:52

There's a lot of smoking going on.

SPEAKER_01 53:53

A lot of smoking.

SPEAKER_05 53:54

And there's a lot of dogs. There's puppies everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 53:57

That was our biggest mistake of the entire We should have taken pictures. We're gonna do a like dogs of Europe video series, Instagram, and I think that would do incredibly well. Because they are they love dogs.

SPEAKER_05 54:10

You'll just have to.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

They don't have many big dogs. A lot more smaller dogs.

SPEAKER_05 54:13

These are big cities, so who wants a big dog?

SPEAKER_01 54:15

Very true. But I did see a couple yellow labs and a couple retrievers.

SPEAKER_05 54:19

You saw one like Bur uh Bernese Mountain Dog or something.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

That was way out of place.

SPEAKER_05 54:24

It was so hot.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

It was so hot. Like, oh.

SPEAKER_05 54:26

So any uh last minute thoughts about our trip to Italy?

SPEAKER_01 54:29

Uh loved every second of it. Every calorie was worth it, every alcoholic beverage was worth it. Have not had another alcoholic beverage since then. Um I will say that I would love to keep the e-bike process going in everywhere we go in the future. I would like to say we keep the the rooftop everywhere we go. Those are the two biggest things for me. Um and ChatGPT and AI does a pretty friggin' good job at finding those out of outskirt things.

SPEAKER_05 55:05

That's the first trip I've taken with AI, and it was quite convenient. So that was kind of fun. Yep. Um the one thing I would say we didn't really get into this, but that was probably one of the longest periods of time where I didn't do a dedicated exercise.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

Yep. You you there was no gym.

SPEAKER_05 55:24

I did a few runs towards the end, and there was kind of a gym at the last place, but not really. Um and guess what? It was okay. I'm back at it now, and I'm fine. So that that was somewhat of a challenge for me.

SPEAKER_01 55:39

She did do some morning runs. I did not partake. I high-fived her on the way out. I didn't. I was asleep. Um and yeah, but I just slept.

SPEAKER_05 55:48

But if you I mean, I think it I have always tried to exercise when I'm on vacation. Um, I still plan to on the vacations that it works for. Um, but it is if you're someone that loves exercising and feel like you can't go without, you can. It it's it's not like you can't do it. And then you can get back to it. It's not you if you build that into your routine before the vacation, you'll get right back to it after the vacation.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

Absolutely. And it's like for me, you enjoy a part of your process is running, you enjoy that. I don't. And so there's no safety net there for me. Yeah, I like bodybuilding kind of gems. So you have to have that.

SPEAKER_05 56:22

And that's just not well, that is the great that's the great thing about running, is you can do it anywhere.

SPEAKER_06 56:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 56:28

But I did miss lifting. I was like, oh, my muscles are gonna disappear. They're gonna be gone. But guess what? They weren't, they're fine.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

Too funny. That actually be I think right now your arms look pretty good in this video.

SPEAKER_05 56:38

I thank you.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

Bam.

SPEAKER_05 56:40

I've been back to lifting.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

All right. Well, that's pretty much the whole trip. Hope you guys got some great value out of it and fun ideas for the future. And uh, if you guys have any dream locations you want to go, comment down below. Or if you have any recommendations of places we should go next. Lair and I both love to travel. I would love to hear what you guys got.

SPEAKER_05 56:58

Absolutely. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

SPEAKER_01 57:01

Toodles. Bye.