Travel Expectations VS Reality

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Okay, so we're still not saying our name? No, we can just say podcasters. Welcome back to... Welcome back to...

I'm blah blah. You're an idiot. So last night we went to Bright Nights.

Bright Nights. Bright Nights in Denver. What'd you think? Tera, tell them what you think. I thought it was fine for what it was.

The things were nice, but for me it wasn't worth the drive to Denver just to see that. I don't disagree. You? I think it just could have been a little less. It wasn't worth my 25 bucks. And the hour drive.

And that didn't bother me. Well, you didn't drive. Because you wouldn't drive it. Yes, sure. So who wants to start us off with places we've been? We could start off with the places we've been together.

Hawaii. Well, I have a place we've been together, but when it happened we weren't together. It's not really the place. It's a thing in the place.

Okay, what? Now I'm curious. So you gotta Well, I told the story a hundred times so you guys know it, but when we were about, I was about 22, we went to visit her aunt and Philly. I'm like, oh, well New York is just right up, right? We had actual maps we pulled out. Yeah, paper maps.

And it's like, well, let's just drive there. Not realizing that's hours from Philly to New York. But anyway, so we drove and we got over the bridge. And I thought the statue of Liberty was going to be like the Empire State Building.

So that when I got into the city, I could just drive toward her, which is how we got to the Empire State Building. I just drove towards it. So we were driving, driving.

I was like, I don't, where is she at? Where is she at? I don't see her. So I asked someone and they're like, well, you gotta go down here and then to the harbor. And then she's out in the harbor.

Okay. So we're driving along and out in the distance. I see this little tiny speck out there.

I said, is that the fucking statue of Liberty? I thought she was big. She's the beacon of our country. And she's this tiny woman out in the middle.

Now I've never been up close to the woman. I never ventured out. But from a distance, you just thought she would be big. She was way tiny.

And I thought, not at all what I thought. So my expectation versus reality was like way be let down for her. What do you think? Have you ever been to her? I haven't been.

I haven't taken, I think it's gonna take a ferry or a boat out. Yeah, I haven't been out there. I've been close enough where I can see where she's, but I don't know how she compares to other.

Well, I compare her to the Eiffel Tower and I just, to me in my brain, that's what I expected. So when I saw the Eiffel Tower, that presented as I thought it would. And it's gigantic.

You can see it from around the city. It's still huge around the city. Everywhere you go in the city. Everywhere you go, you can see it.

But the Statue of Liberty, she's much smaller than I expected. People are like, well, if you get next to it, she's really big. I'm like, well, that's great if you're really next to her. But I just thought she was really big in general.

Right. So the whole city could see it. Okay, that's fair. Because it's- I didn't have an expectation.

Like I knew she was out in the water. Yeah, I knew that too. But I still thought she was very big. You thought she'd be bigger? Yes. I mean, it's a safe assumption, right? The way you see it portrayed all the time.

Yeah. The singular thing and there's nothing around it. So you imagine that it's kind of massive and it's not.

So what did you think of New York itself? So for me, New York lived up to my fullest expectations. Yes, it was what I thought it was. Yes, whatever I saw on TV prior to me going there, when I got there, I was like, oh yeah, this is what I see on TV. This is really happening. What about you? Same.

It's just like the neighborhoods are a little weird. Like if- The boroughs. They make it seem like everything's really close together. And it's always not necessarily the case when you're there. So you are really reliant on, you get a taxi to get you from here to here or there. Or you take the subway, whichever, but depending on the time of night.

Because most of the time it was cheaper and quicker to take the subway than to take a taxi because of all the traffic, it would take you longer to get there if you were in a taxi. Yeah, no, New York didn't let me down. You know what I thought was weird in New York was Central Park.

I didn't realize now, I mean, I've known for a long time, but when we went, I didn't realize it was just literally a square in the middle of the city. It's a big rectangle. Yeah. What did you think it was? I don't know. I thought Central Park was like a park and it was jiggy jagged and just on the side of the city.

And I didn't realize it was like smack dab in the middle of the city and just one big rectangle. Yeah. When you see it, aerial in the air and look down, it looks really weird. Aerial. Aerial in the air.

Yeah. What about you? You got no... What do you mean? Any places that you went that... No, I don't like that. I don't like,

what about you? No, I don't like that. You do that all the time. What about you? Yeah, but that didn't flow. That

didn't flow. That didn't flow. So another place that we've all been was Hawaii.

And I think Hawaii lived up to my expectations. Although I thought it was going to be... Because everybody, even though it was been a minute, what, 20 some years ago, the three of us went? Everybody said it was going to be super expensive. It wasn't as expensive as I thought it was, but everything else was basically what I thought it was going to be. Yeah. I don't know what I think about that. I mean, I

would go back again. It's nice there. I would like to see some of the other... Oahu is very... Cityized.

It's very... Cityized. Yeah. And then the big island was... More remote.

Was nothing. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I liked Hawaii. It was nice. It was the first time I saw water that was clear. It was funny. It was a snorkeling.

The snorkeling was... I like the beaches. The black beaches. I think all of it lived up to what I'd seen in magazines and pictures. What we

experienced lived up to the expectation. I would go back whenever. So what about a place that did not live up to your expectations? We all know you feel strongly. Covered

Greece, yeah. And maybe we just didn't go to the right places or maybe it wasn't the right time because we did go in the winter. It was early December. I mean, I see pictures of other places in Greece.

I'm like, "Oh, well, that looks nice. Where was that at?" Right. I'm not going to say Greece. Right. I was just going to say Athens.

Not at all what I thought it would be. I don't know. I guess I thought it was just all super old ruins. I don't know, but people live there. A shit ton of them. New York style traffic. Exactly. I feel

like Athens was very New York. I didn't expect that. New York, cityized. Shut up.

But all the places that we went, all the places, all of the mythological and archeo... Archeo... Archeo... Archeological.

Archeological. Archelogo... Archel... Yes. All of those places. The old places. We're on a roll today.

Our guide was awesome. The guide was good. But for me, after the third archeological site, I was like, "Okay, I got it." I go back and look at the pictures now. I can't tell

what is what. It's all columns. I took notes. Stones. And then after you hear about the gods, I'm like, "Okay." Well, I like all that stuff.

I did for a little bit, and then I was like, "I didn't care anymore. I just wandered off and took pictures." What about Santorini? Which is, for those listeners and watchers, Santorini is where you see all the blue dome top buildings. The white buildings.

White buildings with the blue... No, we were going to say all. I think it was a total of maybe four to five. But the ones that you see in the picture, right. So what you see in the pictures, you see those pictures, they're taken in Santorini. And there is a lot of old buildings, old homes, old shops.

But we went. It was cold and windy and rainy. So again, I don't know. But then when you see Santorini in the summer, we were wandering. There was nobody.

It was us, dogs, and cats. That was about it. But in the summer, those little skinny...

You can't move. ... are just filled with people. So I don't think that I would. And it's really hot. So there's got to be an in-between where you get...

Both. The good parts without all those people. Yeah. Especially because a lot of the shops close when it's cooler because they make enough money in the summer because it's so stinkin' packed. Yeah. When we get

to Italy, I could talk about that too. Go ahead. Let's go. What do you need to get there? Yeah. I enjoyed Italy. Oh, pretty much.

But I didn't go to any of the remote towns that some people complain about. I didn't experience... What do you mean, "complain about"? Because some of those towns are really small. So people have unrealistic... I mean, they're very old. Yeah. These are towns that existed before vehicles. So you're

doing a lot of walking. You're not... You're getting dropped off here. You're doing everything on foot and you're coming back. There's no cars in some of these places. So I didn't go to any of...

I stayed in the city. So I've been to, in Italy, Rome, which was fantastic. I could go back anytime. It does get busy.

Obviously, the Colosseum... The Trevi Fountain. The show. Yeah. All of that. I do like 4 a.m. to do that.

The issue when I went, it was right before... I'm gonna call it Y2K, right before we switched over. And they were doing a whole bunch of refurbishment.

So if I went to see the... What's the painting? Oh, the Sistine Chapel? Yes. But it was close. So I

couldn't go into the Sistine Chapel because they were refurbishing it. I went to see the Vatican and all of that, which was cool. But I really wanted to get in there, but I couldn't. The

sculptures are fantastic. So Rome was really fun. We went to Venice. I've been to Venice. Now, I went off season, so you encounter a similar effect to that a lot of the shops are closed. But it was cooler.

So I know some people sometimes in the summer complain about the smell and the heat. I didn't experience any of that. And it wasn't too cold. I don't look at Italy as somewhere I want to go for the hustle and the bustle. I think I would like to go more so that when you go to the Colosseum and the...

Yeah. Be less busy. So much to take in. Really, we could just walk around and then there's all the towns. That was just Rome. There's Verona.

Then I went to Venice. I went to Florence. That's as far south as I went. There's

tons. I didn't go south. I didn't go to the Amalfi Coast. I didn't go down to Sicily. I just went down as far as Florence. And Florence was great.

How long did you go? I don't remember. The first time it was May, we drove. So I started in Germany in Düsseldorf. And then we drove from there. And then we went to Bavaria. And then we drove down to Italy.

So I think it was a whole week of us driving and then coming back. And then the other time, I think we went for also five, six days. And how was Germany? So Germany is great. There's a

lot to see, but it's also more modern. You have your small towns where you have your old town feel and whatever. But then you go to places like Munich and you have this huge ancient cathedral in the middle of a city.

And I went, obviously, fairly young. So all of my humanities courses where I had just learned about, say, Charlemagne. So all of that came together because then I just got to go see it, which was fantastic. And then you could take advantage of, in Florence, the Uffizis there. The David is there. And that's interesting because what do you think the David looks like? Well, what do you mean? What do you think? So I've seen other sculptures.

So to me, it just seemed, I mean, what I envisioned is just a marble sculpture of a man. Probably his arms like this and small. And his wiener really tiny. I don't remember the size of his wiener. Most of the wieners were smaller.

Because he's not inside of a building. He's outside? He's outside. So you have to like walk to where he is. And then, you know, everybody just sort of takes it in. And

he's bigger than you'd think. And then you have the most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, which is, again, her The Statue of Liberty, her buds. She's like. You're not seeing it, right? Because you guys went. She's got glass in front of her and there's a stamp on the wall. And you're

like, oh, okay. There she is. It's like a stamp on the wall. And she's first and they don't let you get as close.

You can't get close to her. And they wall it. I mean, they block it off.

And so just recently, a social media, he goes, I stood in line for this. Like this is this is it. And that's exactly how I felt when I saw it. But it's like you have to you can't go and not see it.

I was excited to see the Louvre. I don't think I had any expectation of the Louvre. I knew it was a museum. That's about the extent of it. And then we got there and it's like ginormous. It is. I mean, it's

just a long building, long building, long and then the big glass thing. It was huge. I've been to Paris. I have not been to the Louvre. You haven't? We were there for hours. And I think we saw maybe not even a quarter.

There wasn't enough time. We could have gone in. He said, but really, you need it. We didn't have four hours. They say that it takes a couple of days to see the entire thing.

Yes. And so we chose on purpose. We chose the guided tour that took us to all of the main things that you would want to see, including the Mona Lisa. I liked Paris. I liked Paris.

I did too. I didn't have any negative experiences. But all of the places, I feel like that one, I enjoyed that one the most. Yeah. The Eiffel Tower, all of the history because I really liked learning the history. And so I do like getting guides. And

I liked hearing all the stories about the kings and all the things and walking the streets and doing all that. Eiffel Tower was beautiful. And I want to go back. I do too. Oh, where did we see Harry Potter? I was in London, which was- We're speaking of London. I felt like I was in New York.

I did not. I thought London was- No. Hardly anybody had an English accent until we went to the countryside. We went to Bath.

And there we heard the English accent. In London, very- Hardly. Not a lot. It was a very busy city. I just felt like it was in New York because it was a mishmash of people.

Every language under the sun. Although everybody spoke English, of course. But you didn't get the English accent very much in London. So when you say English accent, are you talking more of the Cockney one? Because any- No, there was none. There was none. No, I know that.

No, it was from other countries. You would hear that accent. You would hear French. You didn't hear anything of the English- German.

So it's quite the melt- It was a mishmash, yeah. Melting pot, right? Yeah. And then the changing of the guards was- That's an hour of my life I'll never get back. It was more than an hour. We didn't even stay for the whole thing. My leg fell asleep standing up. How

does that happen? I don't know. I don't know either. We were there for more than- It was a couple hours. What a waste of money that thing is. Do you need to- There was no money? I mean, they gotta pay for those guards. Oh, them.

I don't know. They were saying us. I was like, "We didn't pay for that." Oh, God, no. I've been mad if I paid for that.

And then- So you're there in front of the Buckingham Palace. Yes, we got there. We're right up against the gate. Yep.

For all the goodness- When you're up against the gate, everybody that came behind you, they just kept pushing you and pushing you and pushing you. So literally, you were packed like sardines. But the way that they do it is the horses come behind you, and they go around, and they come back around. So now we're at the gate- You weren't even trying to defend that whole thing. But we're at the gate. I can't see

the horses because there's so many people behind me squishing me. I barely saw the horses. We're just seeing the dudes walk, and they're walking and walking.

And I'm like, "Okay, is this it? Are we gonna change?" Flipping their legs. No, they're not. We're walking. We're walking. 30 minutes in, still fucking walking around, and now a band comes out. I'm like, "Okay, this is it.

Here we go." No. And I said, "I'm done." I said, "I don't care anymore. If the guard changes, it doesn't change."

So we just pushed our way through the crowd and left. You don't know until you go or- Yes. Unless you do a lot of research and go, "Do I really need to-" If you think it through, "Do I really need to see a changing of the guard?" Is that like the sink? I thought it would be like maybe 20 minutes? I mean, you're just changing people out. It's for tourists.

People would come out like we did. Yes, I'm sure it's tradition as well. I think they would do it with the tourists or without.

Yes. That's true. What about Iceland? I think Iceland was what I thought it was. I don't know what I thought.

I would go back to Iceland in the heartbeat. I don't know what I thought before we went. I didn't really, I just, I took your word- You just went because I said I want to go to Iceland. Well, yeah, but I took your word of where to go, but I didn't have any expectations.

I wasn't saying, "Oh, I really want to see." I knew I wanted to see some waterfalls and they lived up to their- When we saw beautiful- The waterfalls were beautiful. And there's so many we saw but a- Fraction. Fraction of them. We saw a fraction of Iceland in general. Yeah.

I would go there for like a month and just go to all the places in Iceland. We went snowmobiling. We went snowmobiling on a glacier.

On the glacier, that's right. And so we were on a bus with some dudes and they were just gallivanting across the freaking world. Do you remember those guys? Guys who peed in the snow. In the snow. At some point, the guy goes, he goes, "Can you believe it? We are on a fucking glacier right now." And it's when people say things like that, we take for granted all that we get to see and do.

But in that moment, it really hit me like, "Holy fuck, we're on a fucking glacier." We could not see shit because it was completely white out. But it was fun. It was a lot of fun. What else? Where else have you been? Have you been to Amsterdam? No. Oh, that's right.

Amsterdam, I feel like was- I didn't feel that Amsterdam was like that. No? No. What'd you think? I thought the red light district was uncomfortable.

It was? It was uncomfortable because- Such a prude. Huh? You're such a prude. No, not because of that. I mean, I knew what it was. Yes.

So it was what it is. I didn't expect to feel uncomfortable, but the women are standing there and you feel like you're in a zoo. Yeah. Oh. Except they're people.

So I didn't- I wanted so badly to look in and- because some of them were very- she's just sitting on a stool on her phone and some of them had things going on. So I wanted to, but I felt like I'm just staring at this woman. So I would just kind of look notchalantly and see what was going on.

And you're allowed to take pictures or anything? She got yelled at for it. And I think it overwhelmingly smelled like weed, too. Well, there was a lot of weed there.

But it was like a very, very, very strong- I don't remember it being that bad. Amsterdam had pretty flowers. We didn't really see them though. We saw them in some place because that's what I remember. I don't remember seeing them. We have different experiences, obviously, when we travel.

Just took in different things. It doesn't matter. I mean, I remember like in Germany, I think we went up to Holland. I feel like Holland has lots of flowers.

Tulips. See? I have tulips and then you get to see a lot of windmills. Yes, yes. And that was kind of fun. And that was like a day trip, too.

Bavaria was nice, but we only went there for the castles, right? So I went to see Neuschweinstein. Oh, is that the Disney? That's what the Disney castle supposedly is modeled after. It's not exactly.

There's three castles in that area and they were, I guess, being built by the same family. And they were not finished because I think the guy died before he could finish the other castles. And when you visit, people still live in the castle. So you only get to see a part of it. What else? Death Valley was cool. We went there, too.

I didn't go. Oh, you weren't there. Sorry. Yeah, I wasn't there. It was hot? It was hot. Death Valley lived up to its name.

Yes, it did. I think that was cool, though. Vegas is cool. Vegas lived up to what I thought it was.

Yes. But I've been, I think, five or six times now. Unless you're like a gambler.

Which we're not. But the shows were cool. The shows, to me, that's the best part of Vegas is going to the shows. We went skiing. We went to the Grand Canyon. We went to

the Death Valley. We went to the whorehouse. I didn't go to that. No, you did not.

Oh, you didn't go to the whorehouse. Yeah. Although now, going back when we just went to California.

It's a little tamer. It is different. Yeah. It's like, first of all, there's, is the, do I say target on every corner or a CVS or something? We got there.

It was like one o'clock in the morning by the time we were traipsing around. And I was surprised as to see if any of the things were not open. Yeah.

I just thought Vegas was 24-7, everything was 24-7. But it's not. It is not. We went to try and go get something to eat and the only thing that was open was McDonald's. Yeah. Really? But it's different than when the last time you and I went.

Yeah. It has changed. Yeah. Where else? Where else did we go? We've been to New Orleans. Oh yeah. What did you think? I thought it was hottest.

Oh God. I thought it was going to die. We're from Florida and we got some fucking humidity in Florida and I'm not a sweater. Normally, I'm not one to easily sweat. Because you were acclimated.

In New Orleans, I would walk out of the hotel, walk down to the stairs and I had a film on me. The humidity there, we went in June. It was hot as balls. I have clients out there.

He's like, "Why are you coming here in June?" That's the time to come to New Orleans. It was what I thought. Bourbon Street was disgusting. Yeah. Smelled like piss and people were. But again, I liked the tour that we went on where they told us...

Was it a ghost tour? Yeah. I think so. Where they told us some stories. They had the haunted buildings and stuff like that. And the history there. Again, I like the history.

Oh yeah. That city has a lot of history. It's just through the Katrina, all that stuff.

We got to see that. And the cemeteries and... It wasn't the cemetery. The Mama Voodoo Cemetery, but it was a cemetery. Because it was closed. Well, now you can only go on special tours.

To see that one, you had to book a time to go there. Wherever that lady is. Because of vandalism, they've had to limit access to those things, which is like, "Come on, people." How about Niagara Falls? I didn't go there. Tara didn't go there.

Because you guys... I had... We went to New York, and then you guys went on the Niagara Falls.

I had to go back. Yeah, we went to Toronto. And went to Toronto.

I like Toronto a lot too. But we went on the New York side. Do you go to the Canada side? The Canadian side is... You went to Buffalo, right? Yeah, we went to Buffalo. We didn't go to the Canadian side. We crossed off.

We went to Toronto. Did you? Oh. But yeah, it was nice. It was nice. I remember going out.

Do you want a little boat? Yeah, we went on the little boat. We did the thing. And you're under the waterfall.

You stand on the deck or whatever. Pretty impressive. Yeah.

Well, maybe I'll get to go one day. Maybe one day. Shut up right? Frickin' whore. We went to two things.

Without you. Doesn't matter. That's two too many. But then the cruise, we did a Disney cruise. We did.

And what countries did we see? We saw Castaway Cay, Jamaica. Castaway Cay was in the Bahamas. Is it a Bahamas, yes. Castaway Cay is in a country. But that was nice.

That was... Yes. Because it was Disney. Yeah. We had food that we ate. And then you could get snacks.

And they had chairs. Yeah. Yeah.

And the water was really pretty. Jamaica, they tell you not to go anywhere. But what we did see, we went to the beach. Yeah. And then we went to a resort, which was very nice. And they gave us some sort of...

It was jerk chicken, which was pretty yummy. It was spicy. I liked it. I went now. So the cruise itself, 10 out of 10. Except for at some point, I felt like the food just all tasted the same to me.

Oh. Well, maybe. Because it means it's all... I had steak every night. So I tasted the same. Yeah.

And my vanilla is... But all the food... No matter what I ate, it had a tinge of the same feel to me. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Like the second day, everything had the same... I could see that.

But if you have kids, Disney cruise 100% all the way. Just because of all of the activities they have for kids, you could drop them off at the club. And then you could still have some me time.

I would say even if you didn't have... Because they had a section that was for the adults. But I liked the fact that everything was clean. They were on top of things.

You would go to the area where you could get ice cream and drinks. And there was... We were sitting somewhere and I was watching. There was a person just standing. A Disney person just waiting there. Waiting.

The minute somebody got up, the cleaning table went back stood. It was like that was... Their whole thing is to make sure the minute somebody left, or they left something, they cleaned it up. So very rarely did you see a mess.

No, that's what I mean. If you could afford it. And i

2024-10-11 21:50

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