Sunken Ships and Worldwide Trips
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Welcome everyone to the Jan Arden Show, episode 122 of season one. Season one. I'm with Caitlin Green, Adam Karsh. Oh, there's some exciting history, archaeological news that just came out yesterday. And I was so shocked about this, you guys. It's the Shackleton ship. And everyone knows about...

The story was one of legend of Ernest Shackleton leading his men

uh, nobody died. He got them all the safety. It took, I think three years to get them all off this. They somewhere left on an Island. He had to travel for two weeks, almost with bare feet climbing over mountains. I'm probably really exaggerating, but it was very, it was unbelievable. He died at a young man actually was in his forties, but Ernest Shackleton. So more than a cent, the endurance, more, more, more than a century after the endurance sank off the coast of Antarctica, uh,

a polar explorer that, you know, the HMS endurance was located and it is in 3,008 meters of water. So 1.9 miles down. Oh my gosh. That's a long, when you think about my roads, a mile long, my Jan's road. So when I think about basically two of those and going down, it is unbelievably well-preserved. Yeah.

Because it's so cold, I read that microorganisms weren't able to really survive in the cold depths of the Weddell Sea, which is, I believe, where it's located. And so it's really intact. I mean, it's doing great. This is like a cryogenically frozen, it's like the Encino Man of boats. Yeah. Well...

It's one of the finest wooden shipwrecks I have ever seen. This is the fellow that came across it. I mean, they have so much amazing technology now to send little units down there with the cameras. It's upright. I would do anything for

To go see that shipwreck. I have been so fascinated by this story. Anything that comes across online, any books, anything I can get my hands on, I will watch and read. It just, I just think to go, they're going to really study it. And I think they're going to leave it where it's lying. I mean, that's what my understanding is of,

so far that it's just going to be there. But just imagine departing 1914, all those guys had no idea what they were in for.

And here we are all these years later. Okay, so there was a ship museum. It's an entire museum in Stockholm dedicated to one ship that was wrecked. It was a massive battleship, a 17th century battleship that capsized and sank in Stockholm in 1628. Wow.

And many, many years later, it was salvaged and brought above. And they built an entire museum literally around the ship because it's so, so big. This is full on Pirates of the Caribbean level. It's called the Vasa Museum, V-A-S-A. It is one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen in real life. Is it? It is so, so cool. Oh, I'm so jealous. Yes.

I read about history and passing and stuff as it pertains to current events, especially if something's happening and there's a tie-in to the past. And of course, I studied it in school. But when I travel, I don't tend to hit up like this. This wouldn't have been my first choice of a place to go. But my husband was so excited about this. And he loves anything to do with war history. Kyle, I love you. And I will go anywhere you want to go.

Well, now I will. I'm like, oh, maybe you're onto something here because this was so cool. This was one of the highlights of our trip to Stockholm. And I just, it's a shipwreck is just cool. So what did you see? Tell me a little bit was like, was there personal effects? Had they gathered? Obviously they would have been okay. Like what?

So the museum has anything from, you know, like leather bound items to weapons to cannons that were on the ship, the masks. I mean, if you look up this, like the whole ship. I'm going to as soon as we're done. The whole ship is still intact.

I mean, it is in this massive building that they've kind of built around it. And they've restored, obviously, a lot of it. They've done some restoration work to it as well. Caitlin is showing me a picture on our Riverside call right now. That looks beautiful. It really is. It's huge. And again, it's huge. I'm on their website. I'm looking at pictures. Oh, my God. It's massive. Yeah. Don't imagine a dinghy, people. This is a 16th century battleship. No, this is huge.

So it's really impressive. And again, cold water does a heck of a job keeping things intact. So yeah, I loved learning about it. Oh, I can't imagine. I think people...

you know, given the chance, and there's a lot of people that aren't interested, but if you ever get a chance to see historical, even little towns or villages or where they've tried to preserve a way of life 200 years ago, there's so many places in every country you go to that has something very similar. I know even when I was in Ethiopia, we actually did get a chance to go to a Maasai village, but there was also one that was a little more touristy that was a, um,

Kind of a remake. There was definitely Maasai people there, but it even went back further in their history. So we were getting to see them present day in the late 90s, whereas the village that they had set up for tourism in Ethiopia, they were letting people take a glimpse four or five, 600 years back into a way of life. And I'm telling you right now, it was oddly very much the same

500 years later. It was really interesting. The thing about this ship that they just found, they have something called the Antarctic Treaty, and it was signed by 12 countries in 1959. And it's the closest thing basically to a constitution for this southernmost continent. So the endurance will not be moved or taken apart. Oh, okay. So, yeah. Yeah.

I don't know how it's going to be studied, so it will remain exactly where she is. Ships are always called a she. And it will be mapped and photographed there. So I'm not... I don't know. It would be so cool to be able to bring that up and show people, but I guess it's just not part of something they want to do. And I find that interesting because there's no loss of life on that ship, Caitlin. Like, there's no... It's not like the Titanic where...

so many bodies are where they rested, their final resting place. And I'm sure they're strewn across a great distance, but there was no loss of life on this ship. They were able to live on it for a long time until the ice squished it and obviously made it sink. And then they went to Elephant Island, which is another place I've always wanted to go. I've wanted to see Elephant Island where

the Shackleton crew kind of made their camp for like another two years. That is crazy that there was no loss of life. That is pretty, and that's a very successful and impressive rescue mission. They must've been pretty hardy fellas who were doing this excursion, even on this Vasa ship that sunk in Stockholm. It sunk on its maiden voyage, by the way, it was at a time, I think like the biggest battleship and like in the sea essentially for Sweden. Was there cannons? Yeah.

There were tons of cannons. There were a ton of bronze cannons and stuff. And 30 people died on that one. And it sunk on its maiden voyage. It barely made it out of the harbor, I don't think. Like what? You just think of the work that went into that. They get out there in their own harbor just when you think your day can't get any worse. I know.

Yeah, it sunk on its maiden voyage. That was it. And I guess it's just, it's very kind of embarrassing. It was the most powerfully armed warship in the world and it had 64 bronze cannons. No! 20 minutes into the journey, the ship was hit by two strong winds. It heeled to port, water gushed in, and the ship sank less than a mile into the journey. Oh my God. And 30 people died. So, yeah, you think you had a bad day. That's the worst Tinder date ever. Ha ha ha ha.

Poor ship. Anyways, now it's a great museum. You know what? I will actually, some point in my life, I want to go see it. I definitely, you've piqued my curiosity. I just, I love history stuff so much. And I'm interested in every part of the world. There's another thing that I've so wanted to go see in China. It escapes me the actual town, but it's where they found hundreds, if not thousands of those clay warriors. Right.

Oh, cool. I think you've seen them. They dug them out and whatever this emperor was, he made himself an army of these clay warriors that he was buried. There's hundreds and hundreds of them. I just saw a special on it. And the artists that made them, they're not exactly who they were, but they all have different faces. So they might have been cast from a type of a mold, but they all have specific faces.

like a mustache is a little bit different or their eyebrows are different or they're, they're, there's just, anyway, this, you can, it's all enclosed now. There's a massive building over top of it and you can go and see that. I still, if there's anyone out there that would like to have me on an archeological dig, I have my own trowel. I have my own little khaki outfit. I can put that together in a heartbeat.

Look at this. What? It's the Terracotta Army. I just found photos of this. Okay, the Terracotta Army. The Terracotta Army, yeah. And it was an emperor, the first emperor of China. And so this is technically a form of funeral kind of art. Yeah, so... And buried with the emperor. And the purpose was to protect the emperor in their afterlife. Well, that... Talk about vanity.

What would Trump build? Maybe he would bury himself with a convoy of trucks. Well, here's the thing. Can you imagine being this guy, and maybe you do get to the afterlife, but because these were inanimate objects, they just stayed here on Earth. So he gets there and he's like, yeah, finally, me and my army heading into the, hey, wait a minute, it was just nothing. They didn't make it. Well, it's an amazing piece of history. Thank goodness for this man's overblown ego because they look spectacular.

Yeah, the...

The studies that they've done around that are just beyond the other. There's so many amazing things in the world. And there was a guy talking the other day. I listened to this channel called History Hits, and it's something you subscribe to. Are we at the end of this now? Do we have to come back? 30 seconds. 30 seconds. So History Hits. History Hits, if you get a chance, go on. There is a subscription, but it is so well worth the money. And History Hits is actually involved in the –

the search of the endeavor. So they're, they're funding part of that as well. So your money is well spent anyway. Uh, I don't even know what I was going to say. So I'm just going to say, we'll be right back. You're listening to the Jan Arden show. Caitlin and Adam are here. Don't go away.

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And I'm absolutely fascinated by it as I'm getting older. I don't know if it's getting an older thing, but I'm just enamored with historical stuff. And I was saying in the last segment, if you ever get a chance to go and even walk through, you know, there's museums in every town. I remember my mom and dad taking me to this little aviation museum somewhere in southern Alberta, a little town where there's like five houses, but there was this

it looked like a community center, but these, the, the people had put together a little museum of the town and walking through there was fascinating. You know, uh, uh,

a razor that my grandfather brought up when they came up from, from Oregon and, and just little things that the community had put together. We wandered through there for an hour and then we went for coffee and we had a great time. Uh, the pub that's near where I always talk about my friend, Nigel, it's called the, um, square and compass. It's in Dorset. It's quite a famous, yeah, it's been there for 250 years. They're very well known for their cider. Um,

And there's always 40 empty steel barrels outside. So you know that they're selling a bit of brewskis. Anyway, they have a part of their, a little wing of this pub is a museum and it's all the fossils. It's ammonites and all those from the Jurassic Coast. And every time I go there, I've been going to Dorset for almost 25 years. I wander over there with my 7-Up and

And I go through and I look at all the stuff they found on the beach, like a brass button from an Admiral's uniform from the 1600s. There is so much. 1650 is not old in the UK. I'll just tell you that now. Yeah. Or really in the history of the world. Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like I'm always so focused on because of my job on current events that it takes a current event that has some sort of context or a connection to a past event that that's what it takes almost for me to go back and study it. I mean...

back in the day when you were in school, you had the luxury of doing that all the time. And now like with everything that's been going on with Ukraine and Russia, I feel like it's the first time I've really gone back recently. And, you know, even to just like the eighties and nineties, like the cold war and what was happening here in Toronto. And I saw there was this historical picture of the Russian made louder, um,

vehicles being denied service at gas pumps, you know? So it does usually take a current event to make me go, oh yeah. And, but I always like learning about it. I just, it's, it's always cool. I'd love to see all the wonders of the world because I saw Machu Picchu and that was damn near the most mind exploding thing I've ever seen in my life. What an extraordinary adventure that would be. I've had a few friends. Yeah. I loved hearing you talk about that and, and how intrepid people are to build relationships.

a home for themselves literally on the top of a mountain and doing all that terracing to grow their food and figure out how to get water up there and, and, and to keep themselves safe. It was always to keep yourself from being attacked. Yeah.

Yeah, and also like irrigation systems for farming and like using gold or, you know, metals that would be hard to create an infection around, right? In surgeries that they had or, you know, you see like these metal plates that were found in warrior skulls because they obviously performed surgery on them to keep them alive and they knew this wasn't going to create infection. It was clean. It would be, you know, accepted by the body. And they showed us their sundial.

And they showed us these massive reflecting pools that they use to look at the movement of the sun and the stars. And so it's this kind of, you know, Zaya Tong, who's a friend of the show and has been on with us before. But it's like you live in your little bubble of now and then you go back and you think, these are such amazing civilizations, like really advanced people. And it's just, it's so cool. I want to see all the wonders. I want to see the Great Wall. Yeah, I need, I have so much love to do. Me too.

Me too. And you will. I mean, it is the thought of somebody wanting to cause the kind of pain, terror. I mean, I don't understand the human brain that's capable of such goodness and such wonder and building, you know, whether it's terracotta soldiers or Machu Picchu and you have a guy. And I know there's a lot of people that are involved. I know it's not just him, but Putin is the...

the head guy, I guess I've lied in bed so many nights this last couple of weeks just thinking about what happens to a human brain that allows someone to think that any kind of death or injury caused to hundreds of thousands of animals, human beings, I mean, the maternity ward thing...

Yeah, I mean, it's just destruction. And you see it around any sort of sense of conflict. And we're talking about, obviously, historical monuments and stuff. And you see all these things destroyed in history. And, you know, in the UK, you think of the bombings that happened there, of course, in the World War. A lot of us have family members who survived that. It's just so senseless. And it impacts all these regular people, 99% of the world, who just wants to get through their life and enjoy their time with their family and friends and have some meaning. And then this person's unchecked ego and...

You know, just because Putin never went to therapy, everyone else is sitting here being impacted by this. It's just, it's the worst. It's so illogical. That's the part that drives me, makes my type of brain very, very thrown off of everything. What's the point of anything? Because one illogical person can just come in and stomp all over stuff. So yeah, they got to get rid of him. Drag his behind to the hag yesterday. Yeah.

But thinking about traveling and just the wonders of the world, I'm with you. There's so many things that I want to see and there's so many things that I want to do. And so do the 2 million people in Ukraine that just had to walk around

drive, bus, crawl, hitch rides, get on, whatever, to get out of there. And kudos to those little surrounding countries that really don't have much themselves. Even when you look at a country like Poland, it's very impoverished. There's a lot of poverty there. And taking in, absorbing these people, I love the photograph I saw last week of Polish women that had left baby carriages at the train station so that when...

the Ukrainian families arrived with little kids, they could get off and have a cart to put their baby in so they didn't have to carry him or her. Things like that, not that it makes the terrible part go away, but it brings balance back into my mind, and I think we've all been struggling with trying to find the good balance

And we are seeing good in an extraordinary way. The heroism and the steadfastness of the Ukrainian president. And what he has, he has really risen from obscurity. I mean, certainly everyone knew about him. He was in their version of Dancing with the Stars. He was an actor. He was in the arts. So he has a very creative brain.

But to see him speaking in very human terms, like really logical terms and not, you know, trying to dazzle the world with some kind of economic talk. He's really talking about life and death and that we're not going to give up. And I think it's a story that runs through the human. The human story is one of trying to find good and to beat evil down. And I do believe that good will prevail.

And I think good things will come out of this. And it is very inspiring work.

terrifying, horrifying, but there's inspiring things that I'm trying to find that balance of those kinds of stories. You need it. You need balance in life because it can feel really unbalanced right now. And it's important to, it's not that you're dismissing or discounting bad things that happen. It's that you're trying to keep them in like an appropriate context. I also don't think that there's any benefit to anyone from burning out because it means that you disengage from a topic that needs everyone's attention and for everyone to keep caring about it because it's not going to be over for a while.

So it maintains your engagement, which I actually think is really helpful. So, you know, that's why you can care about lots of things at once. You know, you can enjoy below deck and then re-engage when you feel energized again. I'm speaking obviously about myself. And then you can kind of check back in and go, and yeah, I am going to,

read about the Ukraine situation that's going on. And I am going to, you know, go to the march that I went to here in Toronto and I am going to try to donate to an organization or fund organized friends to fundraise and stuff. So it can be everything at once. Cause that's the crazy thing about life is like, it is just everything at once all the time. I forgot. And I felt like, Oh, you should know this.

that this Ukrainian president, Zelensky, is the person who Trump withheld aid from because he was trying to blackmail him into investigating. With the Biden son. I forgot all about that. Oh yeah, it's the same guy. This is the same guy. And I think people forget about that too, that you lose track of how many different implications there are around this conflict right now and how many warning signs there were and how Putin really thought

oh, Trump will get another term. I'm going to waltz right in and do whatever I want. And so it's not going as easily as he thought he would. Yeah, it's interesting to look at all the time. You're listening to The Jan Arden Show. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Jan Arden Show. Caitlin Green. Adam Karsh.

Yeah, on your coattails, Caitlin, I want to say that you do have to find time for the joy. And for heaven's sakes, everybody, do not feel guilty about laughing with your friends, about enjoying dog walks, about planning trips, about getting in the car and going for a Sunday, about going and buying something that you've been saving up for. Do not set that aside. Do not let...

Things that are going on in the world, and I'll tell you right now, they're never going to stop going on. It's not going to suddenly halt. Ever since I was a kid, the Middle East stuff has been there constantly. Just the whole thing. There's so many things going on in Africa at any given time. So please don't negate your joy. So thank you for bringing that up, Caitlin, because I think it's important to watch Below Deck and to plan going to a movie. Yeah.

You know, we've been through COVID for a couple of years. We're just now able to get back out there. My friend went to a hockey game the other day. She said it was, she goes, usually I sit through the hockey games. I'm like, oh God, when's this going to be over? And she goes, I'm at a hockey game. Yeah. I'm having a beer. I'm, I'm.

Life is still out there happening. And it's always been this way. I think I shared a quote and it was from a writer. It's just saying in the same building where someone has just gotten engaged, another person is grieving, you're washing your face, getting ready for bed and halfway around the world, an apartment building is collapsing. This has always been the human experience. And so I'm not trying to make everyone's brains pretzel any more than they already are. But it's just to say that don't

deprive yourself of those moments of joy. I really do think they serve a useful purpose in bringing meaning into your life and allowing you to engage with other people. And also, like I said, to staying engaged in the things that matter so you don't burn out because if it was bad news all the time, guess what? You'd stop caring altogether as a method of self-protection.

So that's what happens to some people. So don't inundate yourself with it because Below Deck is great. And everyone really liked the Batman guys. The reviews have been great for that too. So you can enjoy that as well. You can enjoy that. F1 Racing is coming back. F1 Racing. I'm going to make a point of watching F1 Racing. And I have...

stumbled across Below Deck, and because one of the Below Deck people is following me now, Caitlin, who on Twitter, it's the woman captain. Sandy? Captain Sandy follows you? Captain Sandy suddenly decided that I was worthwhile, that my tweets were exceptionally interesting, or maybe she just liked me saying

the ever loving hell beat out of me by the extreme right wing. Maybe she really enjoyed that. No, she's, I think she's quite progressive, but yeah.

No, Captain Sandy. She bothered me in one recent season though. I'm going to tell her. I'm going to DM her. Sandy, my friend Caitlin is not happy with you right now. You weren't nice to Hannah and that's all I'll say. Let me write that down. You weren't nice to Hannah. Okay, I got it. Yeah. I like, okay, yeah. Anyways, we're going to end up, don't tempt me to talk about Below Deck because I will. I just find it so fun. But it is a nice escape.

Is anybody watching Love is Blind Season 2? Yes, love it. Finished it, binged it. I'm obsessed with that show, and I am a few brain cells short for having watched it. Now, why do people always follow up that with saying that it's brainless, mindless? If there was ever a time to let your mind –

go in. What is it? It's about love. I agree with you. It's about falling in love. It's about infatuation. I mean, that's, that's a hell of a far cry from, you know, lobbing missiles at innocent people. So, but, but I think your brain cells are growing. Okay. No, it's a great show. It's very bingeable. It's very addictive. It's, it's hot garbage, but I love it. It's great. And apparently they've already filmed season three and I can't wait to watch it.

Well, I haven't watched it yet, but everyone that is watching it is really quite loving it. And people are surprising me. I have these hardcore, like, badass guys that are...

Into Harley Davidson said, oh, I love that show. I would do that. I'm like, what? You know what? Everyone has their reality shows. This one is not mine. But it's very popular. And you can get people unexpectedly into shows. I never thought my husband would enjoy reality TV ever. And he really likes Below Deck. I even lured him into the New York franchise of Real Housewives.

Oh, well, see, and here's me. I'm just, I love reality TV, but you're going to laugh at me now. Victorian farm, Edwardian farm, Edwardian Christmas. There's one called The Manor House that I'm watching right now, and it's about these six British people that go into this manor house. They have to live as indentured helpers, you know, mates, scholarly maids, someone that runs around lighting the fires, you know,

the butlers. So they're living this life for this family. And one girl's already quit because she was in charge of pots and pans. She was scullery. And it's a...

60 days? It's not even a year. It's like a 60 days that you live it. She says, I can't do it. I didn't sign up for this. I'm here. I'm not sleeping. I can't eat nothing. I can't eat this food. There's nothing to put on my hair for conditioner. I just can't do it. There's nothing here. So I was really sad to see her go because she was really interesting and

She was trying to figure out how to make makeup out of stuff. She goes, I'm not used to not having my mascara, my makeup. I just don't want to be seen like this. And they don't have nothing like that. Like in 1814, they got nothing like that for me. I am just riveted. So that's my idea of below deck, Caitlin. So I was just going to say, though, you would like below deck because it encompasses a modern day version of the upstairs, downstairs dynamic that you've just outlined. Yeah.

So I do think there is something in it. The guests can be so entertaining, so likable and then so dislikable sometimes. I mean, I just never thought I would like this show and I adore it. Below deck, if you suddenly find your franchise taking off in different parts of Canada, please just contact us. We're willing to work with you on promoting your brand. And we would also be very willing to go on one of your ships and

And promoting it on the show. We would bring our own socks, our own toiletries. So anyways, we're going to get a call. No, we're going to, we're going to get a call. I know we will. I'm going to Captain Sandy. If you're hearing me, I'm going to tweet you later. I'm going to hit, hit up your DMS. Um, I don't want to go on the sailboat either. They have a sailing edition. I don't think the boats is good. Just me.

Although the captain is Canadian. Captain Glenn on the sailing yacht is Canadian. So I do like that part of it. My friend sent her son. He was really, really troubled at 16 years old. This is years ago. He's doing so great now. He's got two beautiful kids, married, works in a telecom thing. He went on Below Deck.

But similar, Caitlin, she sent him. She borrowed money from her parents. She got an early inheritance, not kidding you, because it was like 60 grand, and this would have been in 2002. And she sent her son for a year on a ship with other troubled teens. They went to the Galapagos. They went and they had to just live on the ship and do the rigging and make food and

Anyway, it was a life changer for him. He didn't make it. He didn't make it the whole way. Okay. He, he just couldn't make it, but I think he did six months and his parents flew him home, but that's a long time on a boat. Yeah. Well, the, is it the oceanic that went up for sale? It's one six month cruises that go all it's a, it's a, it circumnavigates the globe. So thank God Shackleton figured out how they could get around there and

I don't know. I'm just kidding. But six months, it sold out in 29 minutes. The rooms start at $50,000 and go up to $110,000. Wow.

I'm a landlubber. I could, I would do it. I would do it, but I can't with the dog. Oh yeah. Poppy. But yeah, I mean, I would go like, I've one of my bucket list trips is like the national geographic tours that they take you on. Um, they do Amazon riverboat cruises, which I'd really like to do. They also do trips to the Arctic and then also Antarctic, but the ships for the Arctic are a little better. Um, so I would really love that cause you can go out on Zodiacs and they include these national geographic tour guides who are also, you know, like,

licensed wildlife photographers. Great. It's really expensive. Is it two weeks? So they vary. You can go for a seven day excursion all the way up to three weeks. I think I could probably do two. I could do two. And then after that, I want to be back on land. Um, but yeah, it looks amazing. I just think it's so

it's just such an interesting, different way. It feels adventurous. I would love it. I'm kind of into it. I think they should do a show. They should do a National Geographic ship show. I would absolutely love that. I would go, I'm about to embark on a cruise on April the 22nd, God willing, and the creek don't rise. Chris and I and our, half of our band, we're keeping it smaller, are going on a scenic, two scenic cruises. Oh.

Oh. So on April 22nd, we fly into Basel, Switzerland. We start there. And after this, I'm going to tell you a little bit more. Welcome back to the Jan Arden Show. Jan Arden here, Caitlin Green, Adam Karsh. Yes, I'm Scenic Cruises. Scenic is a world-class river cruising company. I'm going to say they'll be between 90 and 110 guests. And we go into Basel. We have a day off.

And then we're off to Strasbourg, Baden, Heidelberg, Koblenz, Cologne. And then I'm on a different cruise the following week because I'm doing two weeks of them. And I sing on the cruise. I meet everybody. Everybody gets a book. We hang out. We do the excursions. And then Amsterdam, Nuremberg, Ragsberg, Passau, Melk, Vienna. Budapest is still up in the air. We may be rerouting a bit because...

Budapest is in Hungary and we're just not sure. I mean, they're being super safe, but like we were talking about earlier, you know, embracing that joy. I've had so many meetings with everybody going, listen, I, I'm going, I want to go. If, if,

And we should go. And I'm really looking forward to it. So if you guys are in any of those places, please come and knock on my cabin door. But yeah, I'm, I'm super stoked to go see everything. That's a nice way to see a lot of different places too. It is amazing. We're talking about traveling and traveling on water. It really is remarkable to sit in your room with your feet up and have a

the picturesque views and it is, I mean, Europe has done a great job of how they've set up their, their lives over there. It is something else to see castle. Oh, another castle 300 yards later. Oh, another castle. Oh, there's some kind of old wall. There's a hill, hill filled with, you know, dotted with sheep. Like it's,

I would highly recommend it. I've done three of them now. And yeah, it's a little bit of money, but worth every penny. And there's no children on these trips. Have you been to Japan? Nope. Want to go so badly. Okay. Okay. So that'll be also on our list of bucket list trips. I was supposed to go for my birthday before COVID. So we got locked down in March. And that March, later on in March, I was supposed to, Chris and I were going to go because we had two kids.

Air Canada flights that we had to use. I don't even know if they exist anymore. Probably not. But we had two business class tickets from some job that I had done. I bought the Japanese handbook, phrases, things to do. We had planned, obviously, March, April around the cherry blossom explosion that you can take the train up to the northern part of Japan and see everything.

You know, we wanted to see the island filled with bunnies. I wanted to go to Bunnyland, Bunny Island, wherever that is. We had plans. Japan is number one on my list. I have a very long list, though.

But I just, I love their food. I find the culture so, so interesting. And I've watched countless travel shows and it's very beautiful. And there are these historic walking tours that take you through all these really amazing Japanese villages and towns. And so I think that combination of the very, very old and then the very new cutting edge in some of the cities is,

Just, I love it. And I also, I mean, I love Japanese beer. I love Japanese food. Now, if that isn't a reason to travel somewhere, I don't know what is. I've traveled for less. Hey, listen, I was in Germany for Oktoberfest once. And once is all you need, folks.

Uh, we, and it's back in the days when I was drinking and I have to say one of the funnest nights I had was in Hamburg. It was at Oktoberfest. It was called Hamburg house. I think it was this place. We all ordered pretzels that was literally the size of my chest. Can I say that with love in my heart?

And they were just big, salty, chunking, hot things. Get this. So the servers, these women, were big, box, box of elderly German ladies. And I'm going to say elderly. They were probably 50 and 60, like me. Heavy set.

had the aprons on, had the outfits, had trays with the biggest beers I've ever seen in my life. And I'm going to say there was four bottles of beer in these frosted glasses on their arms. So picture your left arm is in the air with six bottles, six of these huge glasses of beer hanging on

on their forearm was the pretzels. No. So they would, yes, they would stick their arm through the pretzels. They'd have like eight pretzels dangling. And if you wanted one, as she went by with the pretzels, that's how big the effing pretzels were. Well, we all had pretzels. I laughed so hard that night. We're sitting on these long wooden tables. You're talking to people from all over the world. There were these Dutch guys that were the cutest, blondest,

There was like four of these four black Dutch guys that were working on, they were doing something there. Anyway, we had the most, the funnest fricking night. People from all over the world. We were a Benetton commercial on that long table. We just, we just look like, I don't know, the United Nations. And we drank so much. Yeah. I have friends who've gone a few times and they're my gay male friends. And,

And there is a, like there's a tent that's set up kind of for like the, you know, gay pride version of Oktoberfest. And boy, they've gone multiple times and just rave about it. I haven't been to, I've been to Berlin. It is fun. I would love to go to Oktoberfest. I haven't been to, I went to Berlin. Didn't like Berlin very much. Um, but I would love to. I wonder why I loved Berlin. Cause they have, I went on a walking tour of Berlin and it was absolutely riveting. I, I love Berlin.

Really didn't like it. Okay. And I like traveling. You guys know me. Can I ask if you were East or West Berlin? Because they really still are very different from each other. Yeah. So we were staying in East Berlin, but we didn't, but we moved around a lot. Like I, we saw it all. I liked Mita that the, you know, middle, like the middle of the city neighborhood was nice. We went to a beautiful old ballroom. I forget the name of it. It's something ballroom and you watch people dance and they have an amazing beer garden. That was pretty. Um,

I will say largely, definitely far and away the least welcoming people I've ever encountered in my entire life. And you couldn't pay for anything with a credit card. So you're constantly running around to try to find an ATM. And we were walking beside the Berlin Wall for so long before I even realized what it was.

And then like all the sightseeing stuff we did was like the monument to war and tyranny and then like, you know, checkpoint Charlie. And then we went to the, you know, the like the Holocaust Memorial. And I was like, this is really bumming me out and no one's being nice to me and I can't get a decent meal and no one will take my credit card and I just want to go back to Scandinavia.

I didn't like it, but people love Bavaria. So I've been told by, I have German friends and I've been told that Bavaria is very different than Berlin and Berlin can be quite cold. And so they said, they're like, oh, you got to go back and like go to Oktoberfest and check out Bavaria. I think so too. I hope someday you'll give it a second chance. And I certainly can relate to you. There's places that I've been first time around. I'm like, I had the worst experience, Atlanta, for example. I was there, had a terrible taxi ride, had to jump out of a cab.

uh, with Russ. I'm like, I can't drive with this man. Um, I literally like I chucked money into the back of the car. He's screaming at me. I wasn't going to pay him. And I, I remember like throwing some money in there going, I've paid you. I've paid you. It was that bad. He was watching TV. Oh my gosh. He had a TV with an antenna sitting on the dash anyway. Uh, but I gave it a chance again, cause I had to go back and play. And I ended up in the most, I just,

I had thoughts so weird about Atlanta and then I had the best time. So I have a way different idea about it. So sometimes you just don't, don't do that in relationships. Never give people a second chance, but for cities, yeah,

I'm open to being wrong about Berlin, but you know, it's funny because people are always like, oh, you know, the least friendly people are always in Paris or insert whatever city they felt people were mean to them in. I've had the friendliest time of my life in Paris. So many locals recommending great, amazing spots. Like a bartender took my husband and I to his favorite place. We're talking to you about your travel ideas. I want you to do, we're going to do a whole thing on Caitlin travel tips for you.

Folks, look forward to that. You're listening to the Jenard Podcast. Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing. Hit us up. Give us a review. Hit that four stars. We even go for three stars. But if you hit subscribe on any of your favorite things, it'll just show up and you won't have to search for us. On behalf of myself, Caitlin, Adam, this podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.