Latest / Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences / Culture Shock & New Horizons: A New Yorker in Spain #0062

Transcript

Culture Shock & New Horizons: A New Yorker in Spain #0062 · Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences

• 0:01
  In New York City, there is an unwritten code.
• 0:06
  You might say a stranger lift a heavy stroller up three flights
• 0:09
  of subways there, set it down and walk away without ever
• 0:12
  making eye contact. It's a city that is kind, but
• 0:16
  not nice. Love it and I recommend it to
• 0:18
  anybody. It's it's a beautiful city.
• 0:20
  It's just you have to, you know, it's a bit of a meat grinder.
• 0:22
  You have to make money, you have to have that hustler mindset.
• 0:26
  It's really difficult to, you know, coast.
• 0:33
  From the majority minority in clips of the Bronx to becoming a
• 0:38
  respectful guest in Catalunya, we're exploring the cost of
• 0:41
  freedom, the weight of self-reliance, and why his 84
• 0:46
  year old grandmother is still the ultimate hustler.
• 0:49
  Today on Whereabouts Tales, we're talking to Bobby from the
• 0:54
  Bronx man who spent 36 years inside the New York meat grinder
• 1:00
  before trading the temper Centennial rent hikes for a five
• 1:04
  year lease in Barcelona. But what happens to that hassle
• 1:08
  mindset when the bill for healthcare drops to 0 and the
• 1:10
  only reason to ever go back is a family union in Pennsylvania?
• 1:15
  This is Rob, South America. I'm Paul and this is WHEREABOUTS
• 1:23
  stills. Enjoy, Rob.
• 1:26
  Good evening. And welcome to our About Stills.
• 1:30
  Hey, thank you very much for having me.
• 1:32
  I really appreciate it. I look forward to talking to
• 1:34
  you. Much appreciated time I I have
• 1:38
  to say I missed an A real good expert episode and this was I
• 1:42
  was just. Telling you and.
• 1:43
  I'm happy that I have you here so we can.
• 1:46
  I would like you to start by telling where are you originally
• 1:49
  from and where you are living at at the moment.
• 1:52
  Oh, of course. So I was born and raised in the
• 1:55
  Bronx, NY city and I now live in Barcelona, Catalonia with my
• 2:01
  wife and dog. Man I'm a I'm AUS fanboy.
• 2:07
  Oh yeah, is that right? I'm a New York fanboy.
• 2:10
  Man I hate you so much for growing up in Bronx.
• 2:14
  I tell you, I I don't miss the snow at all.
• 2:17
  They're pretty buried. My family is all over the Bronx,
• 2:19
  Manhattan and Queens. And it's a, it's something that
• 2:22
  I don't miss. But yeah, I love it.
• 2:24
  I find myself watching New York City movies and music made by,
• 2:28
  you know, New York City artists and things like that.
• 2:31
  So I, I hear you, man. It's a beautiful city.
• 2:33
  I I definitely am enjoying myself here more though.
• 2:36
  I think there's just more freedom.
• 2:38
  I feel like financially things like that.
• 2:42
  Rob, Rob, how was it to grow up in your city?
• 2:46
  I think it's, I'm, I think I'm not exaggerating.
• 2:49
  This is why I'm asking. What I think is, is 50% of the
• 2:52
  people of this planet on this planet's dream.
• 2:56
  And I'm generally curious, how is it to grow up in New York
• 2:58
  City? Well, so I grew up in the Bronx,
• 3:01
  which is one of the outer boroughs.
• 3:02
  You have Manhattan, It's surrounded by Brooklyn, Queens,
• 3:05
  the Bronx, and then of course, off Staten Island.
• 3:08
  I was born and raised in the Bronx, and I spent some time
• 3:11
  living in upper Manhattan. It's pretty.
• 3:15
  You get used to being crowded in places pretty, pretty quickly,
• 3:20
  pretty early. You get very self reliant very
• 3:23
  early. I was taking buses clear across
• 3:25
  the borough when I was 1211 years old by myself.
• 3:30
  Yeah, my neighborhood was a little, you know, it was a
• 3:33
  little tough. I I basically make this joke
• 3:36
  that I grew up in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan and I was, you
• 3:41
  know, a little bit of an outcast.
• 3:44
  My neighborhoods weren't exactly filled with guys that look like
• 3:46
  me. So it was, yeah.
• 3:49
  So I was like a bit of a majority minority in my
• 3:53
  neighborhoods and whatnot. And it informed a lot of my, my
• 3:56
  belief system and stuff later in life, having a sort of
• 3:59
  understand like where people are economically and where people
• 4:04
  are how like cultural enclaves form.
• 4:06
  But New York City is really great because everyone's a New
• 4:08
  Yorker and no one really there's, there are these real
• 4:11
  differences, you know, like no matter where you're from, if you
• 4:14
  live in New York, you're a New Yorker.
• 4:17
  And that's a pretty beautiful thing.
• 4:20
  You know, you people are kind, but not nice.
• 4:23
  I'd like to say you can see somebody never say a word.
• 4:27
  So you can be on the subway. A woman's pushing a carriage and
• 4:31
  somebody who never says a word to her, picks up one side of the
• 4:33
  carriage, helps lift it up the stairs, drops the carriage down
• 4:36
  for her, never says a word and moves about their day.
• 4:39
  Kind but not nice is what I would say.
• 4:42
  But I love growing up in the Bronx.
• 4:44
  Die hard Yankee fan. You know, I got married in the
• 4:49
  Bronx, born in the Bronx, raised in the Bronx.
• 4:52
  One of my nicknames from my shows is Bobby from the Bronx.
• 4:55
  Little alliteration there. Yeah, but I, I mean, I love it
• 4:59
  and I recommend it to anybody. It's it's a beautiful city.
• 5:01
  It's just you have to, you know, it's a bit of a meat grinder.
• 5:04
  You have to make money, you have to have that hustler mindset.
• 5:08
  It's really difficult to, you know, coast, you really have to
• 5:11
  have two jobs or a really good job or two people with three
• 5:16
  jobs. It's it's important because the
• 5:20
  cost. Was it always like this?
• 5:22
  Well, there was time in the 70s to the 90s where New York City
• 5:26
  was very like rundown, like there were, you know, very seedy
• 5:32
  locations and things. But that really changed ever
• 5:36
  since the 90s, it's been an astronomically high trajectory.
• 5:40
  Some of the most valuable real estate in the world, you know,
• 5:43
  different parts of New York City and not just Manhattan, there's
• 5:46
  every borough has their rich sort of enclaves.
• 5:49
  But yeah, it's been, it's been an expensive city for as long as
• 5:54
  I've almost as long as I've been alive.
• 5:56
  Without a doubt. It's probably the most expensive
• 5:58
  city outside of like London maybe.
• 6:01
  I think it goes so of course, depending on the on the, on the
• 6:05
  areas of the cities, but I think it goes really.
• 6:07
  So I mean, and even if we don't talk about the the skyscrapers,
• 6:12
  if we don't talk about the huge penthouses that are in the
• 6:14
  skyscrapers, I think they're just to have a normal rent,
• 6:17
  normal apartment somewhere in the, I don't know, in the Bronx
• 6:20
  or maybe in in Queens, anywhere where you want, if you want to
• 6:25
  have a good apt. I think you don't get out
• 6:27
  without three $4000. I think it's crazy for like a
• 6:31
  one bedroom apartment. 3 is more common than 4, but you have nice
• 6:35
  neighborhoods that get up there for sure, even outside
• 6:38
  Manhattan. Part of why we moved to
• 6:41
  Barcelona is because the costs were getting astronomical and
• 6:44
  you don't sign long term leases like they do in Europe.
• 6:47
  So in Spain you have a five year as a renter, you have a five
• 6:51
  year term, which with very minimal increases.
• 6:55
  Whereas in New York City you get one or two year terms and those
• 6:59
  rents go up 10% a year. It became pretty unsustainable.
• 7:03
  They do that because of the possibilities that they have
• 7:05
  every year, right? So they only do it for one year
• 7:07
  because they know for sure next year there's gonna they're gonna
• 7:10
  be able to do that more expensive.
• 7:12
  Like you said, everyone's dream is to live in New York City,
• 7:14
  right? I mean, yeah, it's, it's it's
• 7:16
  not a place where people don't want to be.
• 7:18
  So it's, you know, they've been there right now they have a
• 7:22
  competent mayor, which is nice. And so he's focusing on building
• 7:25
  more housing, lowering costs for people.
• 7:28
  I mean, I know people, a lot of my family had to move out of the
• 7:30
  city because it was just far too expensive, far too expensive to
• 7:33
  exist. My grandmother, luckily, is in a
• 7:36
  pretty good situation for herself.
• 7:38
  There's some programs that help her out, but we help her out.
• 7:41
  But, you know, it's, it's, it's a little, it's, it's really
• 7:44
  difficult, though. Most of my families had to leave
• 7:47
  and we were there for decades. Nice.
• 7:50
  Crazy. I mean, crazy if you talk about
• 7:52
  so nice that you've been there for for decades and crazy that
• 7:56
  you cannot be, you can't afford actually to stay in the city
• 8:01
  where you grow up, right? Yeah, we visit, we visit, of
• 8:05
  course, every year we visit family.
• 8:06
  But yeah, it's just, it's not, it's not there.
• 8:09
  I mean, the, the costs are just astronomical.
• 8:11
  And then healthcare, you know, we, my wife and I are 40.
• 8:14
  Like Healthcare is healthcare spending is important for us.
• 8:17
  And here in Europe, that's a bill of 0.
• 8:20
  In New York City, that's a bill of about 10,000 a piece.
• 8:25
  Correct, Ralph. Correct.
• 8:27
  Yeah, Rob, was anything in your childhood signalizing the fact
• 8:31
  that you will leave, you will be leaving the US?
• 8:37
  Actually, I don't know because I didn't leave the US until I was
• 8:41
  a full grown adult. I know.
• 8:44
  Yeah, so, but something, I don't know, like I always found play
• 8:49
  other places interesting to go, of course, but it's also New
• 8:53
  York City. Like I could try any type of
• 8:54
  food, any type of music, any type of movie, any type of
• 8:58
  group, any, any type of Broadway play like.
• 9:01
  So I guess I was pretty content, you know, from my 36 or so years
• 9:06
  that I lived there. But yeah, I, I don't, I can't
• 9:09
  speak to anything that would say like I knew I was going to leave
• 9:12
  because I never thought I was. OK, that's interesting.
• 9:16
  What was the, what was the trigger?
• 9:18
  Was only the cost situation or there was something else that
• 9:20
  triggered the move? It was a little bit of that, a
• 9:23
  little bit of work issues, but also my wife got contracted to
• 9:28
  come out here for her business. And so she was out here quite
• 9:32
  frequently. I would say roughly once, 1/4
• 9:37
  and it's up from like twice a year, you know, between the
• 9:40
  COVID obviously shutdowns and everything.
• 9:42
  And we both had a conversation like, I'm, my wife is going to
• 9:46
  be leaving, you know, for weeks at a time every quarter.
• 9:50
  Or could we give this an actual shot?
• 9:52
  And I had never been to Europe. I'd never spoken outside of high
• 9:56
  school introductory Spanish. I had never spoken much Espanol
• 10:00
  either. But I said, I'll give it a shot.
• 10:02
  You know, let me visit, Let me see what's happening.
• 10:05
  And I came here and I fell in love with the city.
• 10:06
  I mean, I, Barcelona to the day I sing its praises.
• 10:10
  I, I really genuinely love living here.
• 10:12
  The people have been very friendly.
• 10:14
  I feel like I'm a respectful guest.
• 10:16
  And so people are nice and there's just so much beauty
• 10:20
  here. It's it's absolutely incredible.
• 10:26
  You discussed this with your wife and I think there was a
• 10:29
  moment and we just said, OK, we do it, let's try it.
• 10:32
  Was that the period that you had in mind or you just said we go
• 10:36
  without the an exact period to come back?
• 10:40
  Well, her situation was always on a time limit.
• 10:45
  She she actually exceeded her her goal because that's just
• 10:48
  what she does. And so she was done quicker than
• 10:51
  her actual allotted time, but we just decided that, you know, it
• 10:56
  was worth trying to stay here after she was done.
• 10:58
  So it was returned back to the States and go back to all the
• 11:01
  way everything was or try to really establish ourselves here
• 11:05
  and and make a life for ourselves here.
• 11:07
  And I think we both once we were here and couple a couple years
• 11:11
  went by, we're like aside. I mean, if we could teleport to
• 11:14
  see family and friends, I'd be the only reason we go back.
• 11:17
  Correct, correct. Makes sense?
• 11:19
  In my opinion. What was the what was the
• 11:23
  feedback that you get from your family when you told them?
• 11:26
  I don't know what we got to move it far away.
• 11:30
  Some excitement. My grandmother wasn't obviously
• 11:33
  thrilled I was taking. We were in a neighborhood where
• 11:37
  we were sort of looking after our grandparents, but she knew
• 11:41
  the opportunity was there. She hadn't never really
• 11:44
  travelled outside the country herself either, so she was
• 11:47
  excited for me. A lot of our family was excited
• 11:49
  for us. And, you know, some have
• 11:52
  visited, which has been really nice.
• 11:54
  We've we've averaged about two guests.
• 11:57
  Yeah, about two guests per year, give or take.
• 12:00
  It's been pretty cool. It's always very exciting for us
• 12:02
  when we have, you know, friends and family coming to visit.
• 12:05
  We kind of, I'm part tour guide, part hotel manager, part
• 12:09
  historian. It's a lot of fun, you know, so
• 12:14
  that's always been great. They're much happier that we
• 12:16
  come and visit them every year though.
• 12:17
  Like we get, there's a family reunion that happens in July.
• 12:21
  We've been making that every single year.
• 12:23
  And we, you know, as long as it's, you know, reasonable,
• 12:25
  we're going to continue to do that.
• 12:27
  Nice that I think that's one, one really, really nice thing
• 12:31
  that you managed to do it first to do it every the family
• 12:34
  reunion, because usually unfortunately, we only take time
• 12:38
  for that when you have a we have a family event and usually are
• 12:41
  the sad events that get you together, which is kind of sad
• 12:44
  because you don't take time to to to be happy about something
• 12:48
  about getting together. And so you only get together in
• 12:51
  in the saddest event. And this is something which is
• 12:53
  really it's so sad. It's so sad when you think about
• 12:56
  it, because we don't take time to be happy.
• 12:57
  We don't just take time when something really bad is
• 13:00
  happening. No, it's an important point.
• 13:03
  I think more people should focus on just making sure to have
• 13:06
  these little get togethers with family.
• 13:08
  I mean, a lot of my family is in in their elder years.
• 13:12
  You know, my grandmother's her mid 80s.
• 13:14
  My wife's mom is in her mid 80s. You know, so we've had other
• 13:17
  family members pass, of course, but it's nice to see.
• 13:20
  And then other generations are coming along.
• 13:22
  Younger kids, they're like too cool for the family reunion now.
• 13:25
  So like the teenagers, they come and they show up for like 3
• 13:29
  days. My wife and I are there for 8.
• 13:32
  You know, it's a nice little spot in Pennsylvania we've been
• 13:34
  going to. My family's been going to since
• 13:36
  the 1970s. Wow.
• 13:39
  You have the same place that you're visiting.
• 13:42
  It's just a little lakeside resort.
• 13:44
  They really, they, they take care of you like family.
• 13:46
  We've known their family that runs it the entire time.
• 13:50
  So these same group of families, four or five families, have been
• 13:53
  going to this resort at the same time for about 40 to 50 years.
• 13:59
  It's been pretty amazing. Yeah.
• 14:00
  So they're kind of like a big extended family.
• 14:02
  It's like 1 big absolute family. And everyone has fun.
• 14:05
  You go to the lake, you go to the pool, you play some games,
• 14:09
  you play some board games, you overeat, you know that kind of
• 14:13
  stuff. I like this and what I think
• 14:16
  it's kind of a pattern when you're with a family, right?
• 14:18
  Right, especially in the United States, it's.
• 14:22
  The same. Yeah, of course.
• 14:24
  Good time, Absolutely. Yeah, exactly.
• 14:27
  You think only this time you only visit twice.
• 14:29
  So. Right, exactly.
• 14:31
  It's always a special occasion. It's always somebody's birthday
• 14:33
  or something like that. So no, it's really nice that we
• 14:35
  get to do it. And we just booked our tickets
• 14:37
  last week actually to go back in the summer again.
• 14:39
  So we're pretty excited about it.
• 14:41
  Last, it's really cool. Can I ask you, may I ask you how
• 14:44
  old is your grandmother from? 8484, yeah.
• 14:50
  Nice. Yeah, nice.
• 14:51
  So I have to say this is this something that some everyone is
• 14:54
  like with the family? I think the fact that you have
• 14:56
  your grandma around, I think that's an that's a gift that you
• 15:00
  have to take take advantage of. Oh yeah, my grandparents raised
• 15:04
  me, so they're more like parents.
• 15:05
  And my grandfather, rest in peace, passed away during the
• 15:08
  pandemic. So we're very, very close and
• 15:12
  helped formulate a lot of, you know who I am as a person.
• 15:15
  My grandmother is a tough, tough cookie.
• 15:17
  She would say. She's, you know, born and raised
• 15:19
  in Manhattan, in the Bronx as well.
• 15:21
  Wow. Yeah.
• 15:22
  Crossing guard, Superintendent, you know, every odd job you can
• 15:27
  imagine. She even still does them now.
• 15:29
  She takes, like, little trips to the grocery store for her
• 15:31
  girlfriends, You know, like, she's a hustler.
• 15:34
  And she ingrained in all of us. It's really.
• 15:37
  It could be that that's the reason why she's still there and
• 15:40
  active with with being that age, because whenever you tell your
• 15:45
  body, you know what, I have nothing to do to tomorrow and I
• 15:48
  think about just saying, OK, then I will not not try to
• 15:50
  protect myself anymore. So you're a. 100% right.
• 15:54
  You're 100% right. If you have something to wake up
• 15:56
  for every single day, especially later in life and with
• 15:59
  everything going on with your health, I think it's so
• 16:01
  critical. That's why, you know, I don't
• 16:03
  think she would ever fully retire, you know, like, she's
• 16:05
  retired, but you know, she makes sure she makes up her days.
• 16:08
  Yeah, I would too. Absolutely.
• 16:11
  We actually have a we have a good friend of ours from back in
• 16:13
  the states whose family is from Romania.
• 16:15
  I can't remember exactly where but he's AI think first
• 16:20
  generation American. His name is Mihai Popa.
• 16:24
  There are out of movies as well based on that, but they have
• 16:30
  there are also big Romanian community and especially in New
• 16:32
  York. So fun fact, I said on one of
• 16:36
  the previous episodes that the guy developed the subway system
• 16:41
  in New York. He's a Romanian engineer.
• 16:45
  Is that so? Yes, he actually built all these
• 16:48
  fast tracks. So you have these
• 16:51
  interconnections where you have the the one stopping in every
• 16:54
  station and then you want you have the Transit 1 going through
• 16:57
  all the stations. Yeah, exactly.
• 16:59
  So all that system. So he developed it.
• 17:01
  He I think he moved, He was wow. He was sold, sold by the
• 17:07
  Communist Romania to the US as a professional engineer.
• 17:11
  And he started doing that in the I think in the 70s.
• 17:14
  He died last year, I think was was an actual news, but he was
• 17:18
  the guy developing the the subway system, which is
• 17:21
  incredible for me. Yeah, yeah, it's one of the
• 17:24
  biggest in the world. It's it's absolutely not 5 bar.
• 17:26
  I'm four of the five boroughs. Absolutely incredible.
• 17:29
  That's yeah, it's nice. I love history so that's nice
• 17:31
  too, but. Yeah, I I have the same I have
• 17:34
  the same things. I'm I'm in love with this this
• 17:36
  interesting facts that nobody gives a right S about.
• 17:40
  Sure. Yeah, I've been there.
• 17:43
  I've been there. So you told me something
• 17:46
  earlier. Interesting.
• 17:46
  I was I was very interested in saying how much of a fan you are
• 17:50
  of like US pop culture and things like that.
• 17:52
  So what is like your favorite or your couple of favorite movies
• 17:55
  from the USI? Grew up so maybe a bit of a back
• 18:01
  story. I'm we, I come from a communist
• 18:05
  country. We didn't have access to much
• 18:09
  until we got off the communist. So funny, funny story.
• 18:13
  I actually talked one of my guests that there was an piracy
• 18:18
  system in which the the airline pilots brought tapes, brought
• 18:23
  VHS tapes from outside of Romania.
• 18:26
  And there was a there was a lab in Bucharest where they were
• 18:32
  copying one tape to 300 different tapes in the same
• 18:35
  time. So there was an industry and
• 18:39
  there was a one lady that was usually translating every movie
• 18:43
  with her voice. So they were actually recording
• 18:46
  on the original VHS tape her voice on top because she was
• 18:50
  able to speak English and to translate the movie.
• 18:52
  So I grew up. Wow.
• 18:55
  In the 90s with the with the Van Damme movies and Arnold movies
• 19:01
  and currently. Action.
• 19:03
  Exactly action movies. Then I switched to Saved by the
• 19:07
  Bell as I grew up, yeah. My wife loves that one.
• 19:12
  Absolutely. Saved by the bell.
• 19:15
  Then I've seen Beverly Hills 19210, so I think that was a big
• 19:18
  one. Do you know it?
• 19:21
  Yeah, 9029021 Beverly Hills 90210.
• 19:24
  Yeah, exactly, 90210. Exactly.
• 19:28
  Then I, I grew up and I was Captain Planet.
• 19:31
  We've watched a lot of cartoons. Captain Planet, Dexter's lab,
• 19:38
  Joey Bravo and all of. These smuggled in and re
• 19:44
  recorded with dubbed Romanian. Is that correct?
• 19:46
  Not all of them. So some of them, yes, some of
• 19:49
  them, yes. But some of them I we get.
• 19:51
  So I think in somewhere in the 95 we got Cartoon Network was
• 19:55
  the first time when we actually got the Cartoon Network station
• 19:58
  3 station and it was all in English.
• 20:00
  So that's why that's when I start to learn English by
• 20:03
  watching all those cartoons. So we had no other.
• 20:07
  No other possibility, no translation, nothing.
• 20:10
  And exactly. And then the the the dub one,
• 20:16
  we've seen the movies mostly because, you know, nobody will
• 20:19
  investing time for kids like we had the cartoons at the
• 20:21
  beginning of the movie, maybe 1-2 Tom and Jerry episodes.
• 20:24
  And that was for those who didn't need translation.
• 20:28
  And the last one that I that I loved, the last cartoon that I
• 20:31
  loved was Life with Louis. I spoke to a lot about this.
• 20:35
  I don't know if you know it. Sounds familiar?
• 20:38
  So there is done by the comedian Louie Anderson.
• 20:42
  I don't know if you know. Oh yes, I do know this.
• 20:45
  Yes. It was like Bobby's world.
• 20:46
  And. Exactly.
• 20:48
  Exactly. Exactly, exactly.
• 20:50
  And I think that was the last one where I had the actual this
• 20:53
  action. They were so far sort of nice
• 20:55
  because there was this actual American culture.
• 20:57
  I loved it in every movie to see what what do I I love?
• 21:01
  I love the streets where all the kids were playing together.
• 21:03
  I love this, this community that I saw in every movie.
• 21:07
  I don't know if it was real. I I've saw the cliche in every
• 21:11
  movie, but I cannot I, I, I was in, I was in 2017.
• 21:17
  I was in the US because of my work, my job that I have at the
• 21:20
  moment and no, there was 2 No 20/20.
• 21:25
  It was 217. But last time I was in 2023 and
• 21:29
  a business trip in North Carolina and I do did drove
• 21:33
  through the neighborhoods and I've seen those houses with that
• 21:35
  porch in front and I everything that I've seen in the movies.
• 21:38
  You have no idea how, what, what kind of feeling was that?
• 21:43
  Because that was only something that I have seen in the movies.
• 21:46
  So I, I had, I had the impulse to stop the car and go somewhere
• 21:50
  and walk in. But I thought that would be the
• 21:52
  worst though if I done that. Because yeah, yeah, you might be
• 21:56
  met unfriendly as well. Exactly.
• 22:00
  Yeah, that's amazing, man. I love that.
• 22:02
  I loved everything because every I grew up with that.
• 22:05
  I I still remember my first story, my first trip to the US
• 22:09
  when I saw the first yellow school bus.
• 22:11
  I was impressed. Man, I didn't know that was a
• 22:13
  real thing. I thought first time it's only
• 22:15
  the movies, but that was that was a real thing that was.
• 22:18
  Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, It was a dream.
• 22:20
  I never dreamed of the reaching of being getting in in the
• 22:25
  United States. I'm honest, I now am kind of
• 22:30
  afraid to go. It's a little, yeah, it's a
• 22:34
  little. Right now things are a little
• 22:35
  chaotic. That's why I'm doing a lot of
• 22:37
  volunteering. It's, it's sad for me.
• 22:41
  I've been in 2023. I've we have done no 2024.
• 22:47
  We have done a nice road trip on the East Coast.
• 22:49
  Driving from New York to Miami with my wife and my son was such
• 22:53
  an amazing experience. But it was a great road trip.
• 22:59
  Country right now. Yeah.
• 23:02
  Sorry to cut you off there, man. Yeah, right now the problem is
• 23:05
  the chaos emanating from the top and the forgetfulness of the
• 23:10
  true values of what the United States of America are supposed
• 23:12
  to stand for. Immigration made the United
• 23:14
  States of America the biggest economy in the history of
• 23:17
  humanity. It's the reason the United
• 23:19
  States of America is great. And back when people were just
• 23:23
  going through Ellis Island, they'd say, they'd say, cough in
• 23:27
  one hand, are you a criminal? No.
• 23:29
  And then you would just be a citizen.
• 23:30
  The direction that unfortunately the president has echoing down
• 23:36
  to the rest of it is a disgrace. But I'll just tell you, I'm part
• 23:40
  of a very, very, very big movement trying to put an end to
• 23:43
  that. I, I, I honestly hope, I am a
• 23:47
  dreamer and I really hope that this, this, this state will come
• 23:51
  The, the, the, the, the, the good things will come back and
• 23:55
  without. And I think I see that you are
• 23:58
  on the same thing. You're not making it a political
• 24:00
  discussion. It's just a discussion about
• 24:01
  the, the state of things at the moment.
• 24:03
  We don't talk about politics. We just think that we are, we
• 24:07
  are having other people's fights.
• 24:10
  And I think this is something which is not natural and we
• 24:12
  should not do that. And there was a nice statement.
• 24:15
  I don't know if you have seen the Grammys today, two years, 2
• 24:20
  evenings ago. My wife did, yeah.
• 24:23
  I think Billy Eilish made the statement where she said
• 24:25
  everyone is allowed to be in a stolen land.
• 24:28
  So. Yeah, I mean, that's a
• 24:30
  fairpoint. Manhattan isn't exactly born and
• 24:34
  bred from the Yeah, no. You're right, yeah.
• 24:39
  So yeah, sad, sad times, but we hope for the best, yeah.
• 24:44
  Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm actively working with very large groups
• 24:48
  to ensure that sanity comes back to my home country.
• 24:50
  I, I feel that I can't abandoned it.
• 24:52
  So I do participate in voter registration events.
• 24:55
  I do participate in ballot absentee ballot request events
• 24:58
  and communications roles and stuff.
• 25:00
  You know, I do what I can, but yeah, I, I think it's important
• 25:03
  to understand the perspectives of living in different
• 25:08
  countries. So I think I have a lot to offer
• 25:10
  by my years outside of the States.
• 25:12
  You know, there's a lot I've learned here.
• 25:16
  There's a lot of ways that things work here that I never
• 25:18
  even thought possible. I mean, my, I go to a, my local
• 25:22
  hospital takes care of all of my healthcare.
• 25:26
  I show them a card and then they go go to any pharmacy in the
• 25:30
  city and you can get your prescription.
• 25:32
  And then I go, how much I owe you and they say nothing, what's
• 25:35
  wrong with you? You don't owe us anything.
• 25:37
  So there are things that I think I've learned a lot being out
• 25:40
  here and I'm very, very lucky to have that.
• 25:44
  And I just, you know, I think it's something that a lesson
• 25:46
  that I can help convey hopefully to my fellow countrymen.
• 25:49
  I, I think the, the important thing is that there was a lot
• 25:53
  of, a lot of discussion about this because they said the IA
• 25:56
  Healthcare is not free in Europe.
• 25:58
  And I would say no, for sure it's not free.
• 26:01
  That's why we paid taxes for it. And I think that's exactly the
• 26:05
  right message that we have to send.
• 26:06
  Not that it's free, it's just the fact that the monies are
• 26:09
  going in the right direction to support the, the, the
• 26:12
  population. I think that's the important
• 26:14
  message from my. I think it's so critical that,
• 26:18
  yeah, I mean, let me not misconstrue the, the, the point
• 26:22
  that of course it costs money to do this stuff.
• 26:26
  But at the end of the day, the, the United States healthcare
• 26:29
  programs have been a complete disaster for people that need
• 26:32
  them. If you're rich, it's the best
• 26:34
  healthcare in the world, but if you're not, so many people go
• 26:37
  bankrupt on that. And it's not, you know, it's,
• 26:39
  it's not necessary. There's a $1 trillion a year
• 26:42
  budget for the Pentagon, so it's definitely not necessary that
• 26:46
  people have to go bankrupt for healthcare costs.
• 26:48
  So it's, you know, call me, get me on my soapbox, but it's sort
• 26:52
  of a, you know, sort of a thing. I'm sorry to get you all into
• 26:55
  get you down. No, I told you I wouldn't do
• 26:58
  that. I'm no, no, no, I'm, I'm
• 27:00
  absolutely fine with that. And I think that all of these
• 27:02
  are topics that have have to be discussed.
• 27:04
  And I think it's hard when you think that you are financing the
• 27:08
  Ministry of the Secretary of War now, which is the new name, Some
• 27:13
  believable man. It's, it's, I cannot cope that I
• 27:16
  really cannot cope that I'm, I'm, I'm reading the, I'm, I'm,
• 27:21
  I'm reading the New York Times. I'm a subscription payer for the
• 27:25
  New York Times because I'm getting my news from there.
• 27:28
  And I of course you have a lot of U.S.
• 27:31
  News behind besides the international news and oh man.
• 27:36
  Yeah, it's yeah, there's a, there's AII like to and I just
• 27:41
  laugh because if you don't, you go crazy.
• 27:44
  Absolutely. The absurdity and the
• 27:46
  ridiculousness of it. So yeah, I mean, I think staying
• 27:51
  informed is absolutely critical. And unfortunately, now that's
• 27:55
  going to make you a little depressed.
• 27:57
  So I always try to recommend people to, you know, if you feel
• 28:01
  like you're powerless, you're not, you know, you have you have
• 28:05
  a platform, you have friends, you have people, you have things
• 28:07
  you can do. There's every, everybody can do
• 28:10
  something, you know, whether it's hey, you have some American
• 28:13
  friends. Hey, did you register to vote?
• 28:15
  Are you have you requested your absentee ballot?
• 28:17
  That's what I do. Hey, you know, there's some good
• 28:20
  causes like civil rights attorneys that could use money.
• 28:24
  Do you have money? Give them money.
• 28:25
  If you don't, you have time to get on the phone and call
• 28:27
  people, call people. Like there's a lot of different
• 28:29
  things people can do that don't require every single day focus.
• 28:33
  I just happen to make that focus because I just in who I am and
• 28:37
  it's a little bit too crazy for me to just not work as hard as I
• 28:40
  can to put a stop to it. Completely understandable from
• 28:44
  completely understandable. Let's switch back to the main
• 28:50
  topic. Yeah, yeah.
• 28:52
  I know I I do love to talk about this.
• 28:54
  As I said, I I love the US and I'm I'm I will finish this.
• 28:58
  I love the USII read the Michelle Obama's book becoming
• 29:03
  and I love that chapter, which is telling the story of the
• 29:06
  neighborhood in the US and just saying, OK, everyone was taking
• 29:09
  care of everyone. You had that thing.
• 29:11
  You're not you. You're afraid to do something
• 29:13
  bad on the street because Miss Johnson was calling your mother
• 29:17
  at home. There was three blocks away and
• 29:18
  saying we all be be, please be aware.
• 29:21
  Michelle did this and this and that.
• 29:22
  And when you come back, came back, you heard everything and
• 29:25
  you knew everything and nothing was a secret.
• 29:27
  So this, this community spirit is something which I loved in in
• 29:32
  the US, there's a. Lot of good.
• 29:34
  There's a lot of good. There's so much good and people
• 29:37
  are trying really hard. I like to say it is civilized
• 29:40
  humanity's greatest experiment, but it is still an experiment.
• 29:44
  It is not a finished product by any way, shape or form, but I
• 29:49
  think there is there are brighter days ahead as and good
• 29:54
  people. I always say, you see a well,
• 29:56
  I've heard and I always say and you see a crisis.
• 29:59
  Look for the helpers and. I said, I said something in one
• 30:04
  of the previous episodes and it was really, it became, it
• 30:09
  received a lot of hate. And I said that the US is still
• 30:13
  the only country was which was not the under an authoritarian
• 30:21
  leader or it wasn't under any kind of kings until now.
• 30:28
  So some Americans in the South during the slavery and Jim Crow
• 30:34
  eras, they're very familiar with authoritarianism.
• 30:37
  But yes, you are totally right in terms of the general
• 30:39
  population of the United States has no context whatsoever for
• 30:44
  authoritarianism, dictatorship, very, very low percentages.
• 30:48
  And you're learning right now that a lot of the systems in the
• 30:52
  United States were shame based and not law based.
• 30:56
  And somebody without shame decided, well, just gonna do
• 31:00
  whatever I want. So there's gonna be some new
• 31:03
  laws necessary. There's gonna be, but there's a
• 31:05
  lot of fires to put out. And you know, I, I call myself a
• 31:08
  little bit of a fireman. I'm trying to do everything I
• 31:10
  can to do contribute to that. And the best way possible, I do
• 31:15
  think there is light at the end of the tunnel.
• 31:16
  It's just going to be dark for a little while.
• 31:19
  Actually, it's gonna get worse before it's gonna get better,
• 31:22
  for sure. I hope November, this November
• 31:25
  is a very, very, very big November in the history of the
• 31:29
  United States of America and people should know that how
• 31:33
  critical this November is this election, in this November, the
• 31:37
  midterms where 90% of Congress is up for up for grabs, a bunch
• 31:43
  of governors and state houses, a bunch of a bunch of statewide
• 31:47
  and local positions. Be active, be be informed more
• 31:51
  most importantly, but be active and don't take your rights for
• 31:55
  granted. You know, we still have
• 31:56
  elections in the United States of America.
• 31:58
  I hope everyone uses them. Correct 100% the one of the
• 32:03
  more, if not the most important midterm process from the last
• 32:07
  century. Absolute.
• 32:10
  It's the off. It's the when a pipe is about to
• 32:14
  explode and you can channel the steam to another pipe, this is
• 32:18
  that process. I like the comparison.
• 32:21
  I like the comparison. Yeah, if you have a plumber in
• 32:23
  your family, you get the joke, but exactly so.
• 32:26
  But yeah, I mean, and I it's really informed me so well to be
• 32:30
  in and around expats, other expats, US expats, but also ones
• 32:36
  from different countries. I'm learning so much from
• 32:38
  people's experiences. Barcelona's a very, since the
• 32:41
  Romans, it's been a very cosmopolitan city.
• 32:45
  It's, it's always been a sort of a hub.
• 32:48
  And I think that's a beautiful thing.
• 32:49
  It reminds me very much of New York City in that, you know, I
• 32:51
  feel very much at home here because it's so internationally
• 32:54
  welcoming. And I know that that's not the
• 32:57
  perfect situation for everybody, but I think it's a good one.
• 33:02
  Correct. Absolutely.
• 33:04
  Rob, coming back to Barcelona, how was the how was the landing
• 33:09
  experience? What was your first impression?
• 33:13
  That is quite a question. The landing experience was
• 33:17
  surreal. I got here, we brought our 10
• 33:23
  bags off the plane and our dog and we got settled.
• 33:28
  We didn't know how to use the subway or the buses for quite
• 33:33
  some time. And it's so simple.
• 33:34
  Like, now that I think about it, how what, how dumb we were to
• 33:37
  not even like, really, you know, put, put, put, you know, think
• 33:41
  that through. But we didn't have our friend
• 33:43
  group at that point. That's been very informative to
• 33:47
  have a lot of friends here. But when we landed, a lot of
• 33:49
  things were shocks. Like, I didn't know eggs and
• 33:54
  milk can be out of the fridge. Yeah.
• 33:58
  I had no idea that this was even possible.
• 34:01
  Simple things, Right, Right. Oh, absolutely.
• 34:04
  And you know, it was fun to see little, you know, some United
• 34:07
  States products have definitely come around, you know, some
• 34:09
  candy, some chips, some alcohol. But like, there's no peanut
• 34:15
  butter. You have to, you have to go on a
• 34:18
  a journey. You have to go on a hunt through
• 34:21
  a supermarket to find a single jar of peanut butter.
• 34:23
  And it's one of my favorite things.
• 34:25
  So I found that a little funny. And yeah, the, the neighbors are
• 34:29
  very, very nice. You know, we we're all very nice
• 34:33
  to each other, but I don't think we're all like buddy, buddy,
• 34:35
  like hanging out, going to each other's houses and stuff.
• 34:37
  But I think that's the New York and my wife and I, like maybe we
• 34:40
  could be a little bit like we're very polite and good neighbors,
• 34:43
  but I don't think we're like super, you know, like, hey,
• 34:45
  let's all hang out kind of neighbors.
• 34:48
  So I think we can get better at that, especially, especially
• 34:50
  now. But yeah, landing was quite
• 34:52
  surreal. What blew me away was the
• 34:54
  architecture. I never saw buildings older than
• 34:56
  100 years old, you know, like Manhattan has some old ones.
• 34:59
  Of course, the Bronx, the the parts of the Bronx, parts of
• 35:03
  Brooklyn have some, you know, century old buildings.
• 35:05
  But I ever saw 200, three, 100,000 year old buildings
• 35:09
  before. It blew me away.
• 35:11
  I'm like now kind of an architecture freak.
• 35:13
  I get books and I'm reading, watching documentaries.
• 35:16
  Modernismay like the modernist movement throughout the
• 35:20
  throughout Europe is really blowing my mind on how
• 35:22
  incredible. Like I walked down, I purposely
• 35:24
  walked down different streets that I didn't go down and take
• 35:27
  longer to go places because I want to see all these beautiful
• 35:30
  buildings. So that blew my mind.
• 35:33
  Also the capacity for making plans.
• 35:37
  So our friend groups are very last minutes about things.
• 35:42
  So it's usually like, hey, it's Thursday night, anyone want to
• 35:44
  go out for tapas tomorrow? Oh, sure, OK, I guess that's the
• 35:48
  move. Whereas in the States we'd be
• 35:50
  planning things, OK, in two weeks we're going to see these
• 35:52
  people and in a week we're going to see your grandmother and in a
• 35:54
  week we're going to do this. So that was it going going with
• 35:56
  the flow was it was a learning curve for us.
• 36:01
  That's a that's a really interesting 1.
• 36:03
  So I have to say, did the architecture one?
• 36:04
  Yes, fully understandable. Now if you think about it, it's
• 36:07
  like the, the history, the complete history of US.
• 36:10
  You might have it in 3-4 buildings in, in Spain, like how
• 36:13
  do you have buildings which are old and the history of the US,
• 36:16
  because this is how it is. The village where I'm living in,
• 36:19
  in Germany was establishing, I don't know how to say it, 1286.
• 36:26
  Wow, yeah. That's.
• 36:29
  Incredible. My mind is blown every time when
• 36:32
  I think about this. I have to be honest, yeah.
• 36:35
  Right, 'cause I mean, like this happened, like I, I go to Roman
• 36:37
  ruins, you know, in Tarragona, about half an hour from here.
• 36:40
  It's the largest segment of Roman ruins outside of Rome.
• 36:44
  And that really, and I've been to Rome also and it just blows
• 36:46
  my, it blows my mind that I really love human civilization
• 36:51
  before the industrial evolution. There's just something about
• 36:54
  like where civilization couldn't say, hey, get the machine to do
• 36:58
  this that I just find so incredibly, like appealing.
• 37:03
  And so I wind up stopping myself before when I do like the my
• 37:07
  little deep dives on like European history now because I
• 37:10
  live here, I I want to learn about Spain.
• 37:12
  I want to learn about Europe. I want to learn about the rest
• 37:14
  of the world. And that got me into deep dives
• 37:16
  from the heat from the Bronze Age all the way up to, you know,
• 37:19
  the Reconquista in Spain. Just sort of my like, you know,
• 37:23
  range right now. But yeah, it's it's really, a
• 37:27
  lot of it is really just taken time to get used to.
• 37:31
  Like, wow, we're going to go sit in this cafe for the next two
• 37:34
  hours with our friends. My wife and I were leaving meals
• 37:38
  and restaurants in like 40 minutes and getting looks like,
• 37:42
  what are you guys doing when we first came here?
• 37:44
  Because that's not what happens. People sit and enjoy their
• 37:47
  meals. And I thought that was also that
• 37:49
  took some getting to getting to getting used to.
• 37:52
  I, I had the, I had the reverse cultures.
• 37:55
  I don't know if it's reverse culture, but we were in a
• 37:59
  chocolate in The Cheesecake Factory Factory in, in, in
• 38:04
  Raleigh, NC with my wife and my son.
• 38:07
  Absolutely. And we got the, we got some food
• 38:10
  and we finished the food and then said, can I bring you
• 38:13
  something else? No.
• 38:14
  Then here's the check. So go like go.
• 38:18
  That's polite. That's polite in the United
• 38:21
  States. Yeah.
• 38:23
  Oh, if, whereas here you got to hunt down the waiter because,
• 38:27
  you know, it's, they're not trying to be impolite to you,
• 38:29
  it's it's impolite to leave a check on your desk and walk
• 38:32
  away. Yeah, you got the you're right
• 38:33
  reverse for sure. As I said, I don't know if it's
• 38:37
  reverse, but it was something which I, I, I was a bit shocked
• 38:40
  about. How's the how's the language,
• 38:45
  the experience, the rope? So I'm glad you brought that up.
• 38:47
  I'm restarting my classes on Thursday.
• 38:50
  I'm intermediate. If you put me in a situation in
• 38:54
  jobs and projects that I've done with only or friends hanging out
• 38:57
  with that are only speakers of Spanish, Espanol or I can get
• 39:03
  real with the vocabulary of it and have plenty of
• 39:06
  communications with people. But conversations I should say.
• 39:10
  But what happens sometimes is my brain will just stop working mid
• 39:14
  conversation because a word sounds too much like another
• 39:17
  word. And then I'm like but no, isn't
• 39:19
  that word dog? And then my brain and I just
• 39:22
  derail myself. So that's why I'm back in
• 39:24
  classes. But I feel good.
• 39:26
  I mean, I'm intermediate. I definitely can speak in
• 39:29
  multiple past, present, future. I can convey my thoughts in an
• 39:34
  emergency. Like if and my restaurant
• 39:36
  Spanish is elite, I just, I get a culprit, a vino in me and I
• 39:40
  can converse with everyone in the restaurant.
• 39:42
  I'm like a genuine politician. Like I'm just having talks with
• 39:46
  everybody, the bartender, the camarados, the friends, the
• 39:50
  other guests. Yeah, it's just really fun.
• 39:52
  Actually. Just pretend the whole world's a
• 39:53
  restaurant and they'll be much better.
• 39:56
  So. But yeah, back at it.
• 39:58
  Takes the pressure off right. Exactly, exactly.
• 40:00
  Back at it on Thursday, though, that was another shock to
• 40:03
  Speaking of that, that wine could be so delicious and so
• 40:06
  cheap. So in Manhattan, a good glass of
• 40:12
  decent wine will run you between 10 and 14 American dollars USD
• 40:18
  like, and that's like a decent one.
• 40:20
  That's not the best you've ever had because the imports and
• 40:22
  everything like that cost money. And it's less like it's less
• 40:27
  strong, it's less Forte. I come here and every single
• 40:31
  glass of wine that I've had at a restaurant has been delicious.
• 40:34
  And it's cost €3 or €4.00. And I'm and I go to the and I go
• 40:39
  to the stores and the bottles or €10 and I get to try, you know,
• 40:42
  everyone loves Rioja. That's the famous one.
• 40:44
  And it's delicious. And that region is incredible.
• 40:46
  But our little region, Catalunya has amazing wines too.
• 40:49
  Preorats, Monsant Panetta. There's so many great, great
• 40:55
  wines here. And I think I've turned myself
• 40:57
  into a little bit of a little bit of a obsessive because I
• 41:01
  just, I, I can't get over it. Food as well.
• 41:06
  Food, it's going to be a different topic because I think
• 41:09
  food, food in Spain in general, it's impressive, but food coming
• 41:15
  from the perspective of a guy moving in Spain from New York
• 41:19
  has to has to be a different experience.
• 41:22
  Rob. Mind Blog, total mind blowing.
• 41:25
  I mean, the, the, the freshness, the caliber of fresh that
• 41:31
  everything is because the culture isn't load up your truck
• 41:35
  with bulk items from Costco or a warehouse distributor and have
• 41:40
  those for a month. The culture is swing by the
• 41:43
  market on the way home and let's cook something tonight.
• 41:46
  Get yourself some chicken cut. Let's get yourself some pasta,
• 41:49
  get yourself some white sauce and let's make let's make
• 41:52
  something up. It's really it.
• 41:54
  And I became an addict of I didn't know that I was addicted
• 41:57
  to this fresh baked bread from bakeries.
• 42:01
  It's probably my favorite thing in the world.
• 42:04
  Have you been in France? I have.
• 42:08
  I've been to Paris for a few days.
• 42:10
  Incredible. Incredible.
• 42:12
  Have you experienced the Boulangerie Le Boulangerie?
• 42:17
  I don't think I have. Le Boulangerie is the is the
• 42:21
  French name for bake for the place where you buy bread.
• 42:26
  OK, sure. I I probably my wife probably
• 42:28
  didn't help me out. The baguette in French.
• 42:32
  Yeah, French baguette. Yeah.
• 42:34
  French and living in in in Germany since 10 years, I can
• 42:38
  only say this this pretzel and that most of you know.
• 42:44
  Well, I love German food. I love a lot of German food
• 42:49
  actually. We went for Christmas markets
• 42:51
  last year and we did Heidelberg between Heidelberg and
• 42:55
  Stuttgart, a few different, you know, neighborhoods, my cities
• 42:59
  and towns, I should say my friends from just outside of
• 43:02
  Heidelberg. So she kind of toured us around
• 43:04
  and I was in love with absolutely everything like the
• 43:06
  pork knuckle and the brats and the I had this roulade was like
• 43:11
  this like rolled up beef thing in like a red wine sauce.
• 43:15
  And she was like, this is all great in the winter, but when
• 43:17
  it's, you know, 40 Celsius in the summer, you don't really
• 43:20
  want a giant pork knuckle, you know, you know, but I absolutely
• 43:25
  love the food in, in Germany and I love the food in Paris.
• 43:29
  I had the best cup of coffee in my life in a random Lotto shop
• 43:33
  on a random St. in Paris. And I'm like, why is this so
• 43:36
  good? Somebody's playing the lottery
• 43:38
  and smoking a cigarette right there.
• 43:40
  And this is better than any coffee I've ever had in my life.
• 43:43
  Yeah, I'm just blown away. I've I've been blown away by the
• 43:45
  high quality of pretty much everything that I've ingested
• 43:48
  here in and around Europe. I think, I think so.
• 43:52
  First of all, Heidelberg, best city in Germany, I want to say.
• 43:54
  It's amazing. It's amazing, hands down, hands
• 43:57
  down. So no question asked.
• 43:59
  But second, you see, I think this coffee thing is a is a
• 44:02
  question of experience and expectation.
• 44:05
  Yeah, OK, I had, I have had. I love coffee.
• 44:09
  I'm a coffee addict. Oh, is that right?
• 44:10
  And I don't do not necessarily enjoy the Starbucks coffee
• 44:17
  because I have the feeling that it's just just a factory, like
• 44:20
  you have an industry in the industry behind it and it's a
• 44:24
  factory and perfectly fair being being in New York for I think it
• 44:29
  was the first trip with my wife after my child was born.
• 44:31
  We have been, we have made a, we have had a four day city break
• 44:36
  in New York. I had only Starbucks and I found
• 44:40
  the coffee place in New York which is called.
• 44:43
  I just remember it Blank St. OK.
• 44:47
  I think it's a New York based chain and that was for me my
• 44:52
  best coffee and I think just because the expectation was so
• 44:56
  low because of the Starbucks coffee.
• 44:58
  Yeah, right. And I went inside and I said
• 45:02
  that was amazing. And I think for you it's the
• 45:04
  same. You had your best coffee there
• 45:05
  because the expectation of a place like you think I have
• 45:08
  Lotto and who would have here good coffee.
• 45:12
  Right. I mean, I was just sitting on a,
• 45:13
  you know, sitting outside and then being like, this is
• 45:15
  incredible. And I'm not much of a coffee
• 45:18
  drinker. It's more of a like when I work
• 45:20
  overnights, I'm drinking to kind of stay awake a little bit or,
• 45:23
  you know, how we all do sometimes you have it at the end
• 45:25
  of the night when you're drinking, you want to, you know,
• 45:26
  sober up a little bit, even though that's a myth, you know,
• 45:28
  I wind up doing that as well. Yeah.
• 45:31
  I mean, it's been because I went from never visiting Europe, you
• 45:34
  know, ever. We were married in Costa Rica.
• 45:37
  My I went to a friend's wedding in Bahamas and we went to
• 45:42
  another friend's wedding in Nicaragua.
• 45:44
  That is the extent of my travel in my entire life.
• 45:47
  And now we've been pretty much all over Spain, Germany, France,
• 45:53
  Italy and Stockholm. And we went to Stockholm.
• 45:57
  Sweden. Sweden So.
• 45:59
  Yeah. And so I, I, I feel very well
• 46:02
  travelled. We have the hack that I believe
• 46:04
  all Europeans kind of know where you, you take off on the
• 46:07
  offseason, you know, so you don't go traveling with all
• 46:11
  these tourists like that's any self respecting European doesn't
• 46:15
  do that. You want to go to see Rome, You
• 46:17
  don't do it in July, you know, you do it in February, you know,
• 46:21
  like a smart European. So the I've we've learned a lot
• 46:24
  of that and my wife loves to travel.
• 46:27
  She's way more travel than I am. And so we're trying to do places
• 46:32
  she hasn't been, you know, so we got to check off some boxes, you
• 46:35
  know, for a little while first. Like she's never been to Greece.
• 46:38
  And so we want to go to a few places.
• 46:40
  That's the next bucket list item for sure.
• 46:44
  I have to say travelling without kids and now travelling with my
• 46:49
  son who who is just became, who just became a school kid since 1
• 46:54
  1/2 years, it's more cost, cost costly to travel with kids
• 47:01
  during the school holidays. And I have to say this is man,
• 47:07
  there's an asshole move from every, every travel company that
• 47:11
  exists on this planet. So if you buy the ticket on
• 47:14
  Friday before the school holiday, it's €10.
• 47:17
  It's exaggerating, but it's €10. If you buy it on Monday in this
• 47:20
  or Saturday in the same week, it's €500.
• 47:24
  So that's the gap that I'm talking about.
• 47:27
  There you go. Yeah, it's.
• 47:29
  It's crazy, but yeah, I know, I, I know what you mean.
• 47:32
  Europe is impressive. I think the history of Europe is
• 47:35
  impressive. Whenever you go, you see a piece
• 47:37
  of history. I'm, I'm, I'm a driving distance
• 47:39
  from from Italy and we go quite often.
• 47:42
  We have about 5 hours 5 1/2 hours of drive to Milano from
• 47:46
  where we. Live.
• 47:46
  Not bad. Wow.
• 47:47
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 47:49
  So it makes it quite easy to be there.
• 47:54
  Like you don't really think a lot, you just OK, should we go
• 47:58
  for the weekend? Yeah, say if you have another
• 48:00
  extra day behind the weekend near the weekend, we are there.
• 48:03
  And I think seeing, seeing Switzerland, driving through
• 48:07
  Switzerland, I'm not talking about visiting Switzerland, I'm
• 48:10
  just talking about driving through Switzerland is one of
• 48:12
  the best experience that you can have.
• 48:14
  That has to be an incredible view.
• 48:16
  There's incredible view after incredible view after incredible
• 48:18
  view. Yeah, that's on the list.
• 48:20
  Sweden on the list. I mean, Switzerland, sorry, is
• 48:22
  definitely. On the list.
• 48:23
  Yeah, that's incredible. We did Rome for my birthday, and
• 48:28
  like I said, we did it like in February, and then we kind of
• 48:31
  crashed friends. So our friends invited us to
• 48:35
  their wedding in Toronto, and that was just like not really
• 48:38
  feasible. And then we found out that they
• 48:40
  were honeymooning in Florence. And so we coordinated with her
• 48:45
  husband, who's a new friend, good friend now, but at the time
• 48:48
  we didn't know him so well and he helped us surprise her and
• 48:52
  them. So we just kind of crashed their
• 48:53
  honeymoon, but only for two days.
• 48:54
  And then we, you know, we went and did our own thing.
• 48:56
  But wow, Florence, I mean, there's so many different parts
• 49:01
  of, of Italy that are incredible that I want to go back to.
• 49:03
  And I always tell my friends from Italy, like, you know, wow,
• 49:06
  this is this is like this is something that I could spend the
• 49:09
  rest of my life country, I could spend the rest of my life
• 49:11
  visiting. Easily a place which is amazing
• 49:15
  and we we've been there quite often.
• 49:16
  Now it's La Gua de Garda, I don't know if you know so the.
• 49:19
  Garda, I'm not aware. So there is, it's a huge lake
• 49:24
  somewhere in the northern part of Italy as well, not that far
• 49:27
  away from Florence. I think you're maybe 2 hours and
• 49:30
  3 hours away from Florence, something like that.
• 49:33
  I mean, everything is close in Italy because from one, from one
• 49:37
  side to the other, you have about four and a half, five
• 49:39
  hours when you go in the in the deepest part of Italy.
• 49:45
  But Tuscany got the lake. So everything in Italy is just
• 49:50
  fascinating. Just, I don't know, it's because
• 49:52
  of the history, it's because of the places, because of the
• 49:54
  differ. I don't know why, but it's just
• 49:56
  fascinating. It's a combination.
• 49:57
  They have such natural beauty and such significant historical
• 50:01
  impact. We're dying to go to Venice, but
• 50:03
  we found out this year for my birthday coming up.
• 50:05
  It's Carnival and they go nuts and I'm like, maybe that's not
• 50:09
  the prime we're looking for, you know?
• 50:13
  We'll go partying. You know, we can party with the
• 50:15
  best of them, but we like the house party thing more than like
• 50:18
  going out clubbing all night. And I feel like crazy.
• 50:21
  So what? We'll see.
• 50:21
  Carnival, I don't know if you. Know in Germany there's
• 50:24
  something which is called the fashion Carnival which starts on
• 50:27
  the 11th, 11th at 11:00 and 11:00 minutes and it's a it's a
• 50:34
  week of drinking. But yeah, sure, sure.
• 50:38
  It seems I'm trying to. Go for Oktoberfest.
• 50:40
  Actually, I think that'll be. That's also need your
• 50:43
  recommendations. You have to have a good liver
• 50:46
  for that. I'm I'm Irish, I'm pretty good.
• 50:51
  Makes sense. OK, good.
• 50:52
  Makes sense. I haven't said anything.
• 50:55
  Bad joke, Rob. I, I have to ask you, I have to
• 50:58
  ask you other things. So we talked about the, I'd say
• 51:01
  the, the fascinating lending experience, but I have to ask
• 51:04
  you, how was your interaction with the authorities?
• 51:06
  So you went in through a bank account creation process,
• 51:09
  apartment hunting and so on. How was how was the all that for
• 51:13
  you in Spain? Very.
• 51:14
  Well, difficult at first because I didn't speak the language.
• 51:17
  So it's actually quite interesting that we've done, you
• 51:21
  know, you get your paperwork, immigration paperwork and your
• 51:24
  knees and all this other stuff. And it was quite difficult
• 51:27
  because I needed my wife to do a lot of it.
• 51:29
  She's fluent in Spanish. She's, I mean, she's, she has
• 51:33
  several different types of education from pretty much all
• 51:36
  over. But so she helped a lot with
• 51:38
  that and we got through it, but it was cumbersome.
• 51:42
  The I, I, I understand why a large bureaucracy is necessary
• 51:49
  in these situations because you're dealing with, you know,
• 51:51
  massive programs for millions of people.
• 51:52
  But it was cumbersome. It, it felt a bit maze like, you
• 51:55
  know, that was, and it was tricky for me back when I didn't
• 51:58
  know as much of the language because I was like, well, what
• 52:00
  does this mean? And I'm always Google
• 52:02
  translating and picturing and trying to now it's a lot better.
• 52:06
  It's a lot smoother. You know, I can go to my own
• 52:07
  doctor's appointments, you know, like a big boy.
• 52:11
  So it's easier now. But back then it was definitely
• 52:13
  intimidating. We talked about food and you
• 52:19
  mentioned the freshness. Is it something that you miss
• 52:23
  from yours food wise? Oh yeah?
• 52:25
  Well, New York City is, in my humble, humble opinion, some of
• 52:29
  the best pizza in the world. I do miss the style of pizza
• 52:34
  from New York City. Obviously Italy and, and it's
• 52:38
  incredible and it's been around forever.
• 52:39
  I understand. It's amazing.
• 52:40
  Every single time I've eaten at an Italian restaurant, it's been
• 52:43
  heaven. But I personally miss the New
• 52:45
  York City pizza and the New York City bagel.
• 52:49
  Big bagel guy. Like, you know, so that it's the
• 52:51
  precursor to my bread addiction here, I guess, is that I was a
• 52:54
  big bagel guy back in the States.
• 52:57
  Kansas City BBQ is very, very good.
• 53:00
  It's on a high, high level. And sometimes snacks, they're
• 53:04
  things that don't translate out here.
• 53:06
  Like, again, people don't love peanut butter.
• 53:08
  So my favorite Reese's peanut Buttercup candies are very
• 53:11
  difficult to procure when I'm out here.
• 53:13
  It's one of the it's one of the things I forced my friends to
• 53:15
  bring for us. Like you got to bring me Reese's
• 53:18
  peanut butter cups. They're my favorite candy, but
• 53:22
  it's not something well liked out here.
• 53:23
  So it's not. Very small small secret.
• 53:25
  Small secret since 2 years they are in the stores in Germany.
• 53:29
  Wait, what? They're in the stores in Germany
• 53:32
  since about two years now. Oh, that's amazing.
• 53:35
  Yeah. I hope, I hope to bring that.
• 53:36
  I hope to bring that wave here to to Barcelona.
• 53:39
  I've seen it here and there in the touristy areas, but it's
• 53:41
  very uncommon and we have different stores, you know,
• 53:45
  America, it's called Taste of America or something, I believe.
• 53:49
  And I've been there a bunch of times.
• 53:50
  It's like when I feel a little bit, you know, nostalgic for
• 53:53
  home homesick. I guess I go and get a bunch of
• 53:56
  my wife is a joke. A bunch of my Christmas presents
• 53:59
  where items from that store so like sugary cereals that no one
• 54:05
  would ever eat here, peanut butter cups that I love frozen
• 54:09
  bagels. Like it was a very funny, cute
• 54:12
  package of gifts from the one place, but that's really it.
• 54:16
  Honestly, I'm so blown away by the high quality of food here.
• 54:20
  I can never. It really takes family run
• 54:23
  establishments in the States to compare because that's made with
• 54:27
  love. It's made with attention to
• 54:29
  detail. It's not like going to an Olive
• 54:31
  Garden. This is a third generation
• 54:34
  restaurant you're sitting at up the road from your house and
• 54:37
  you're going to get to know that person because you see them
• 54:39
  every single day and they would be insulted to give you bad
• 54:43
  food. Correct.
• 54:45
  Where 100. Percent.
• 54:46
  Outside the tourist areas, of course, you know, every tourist
• 54:48
  area in the entire planet is, you know, is sort of a
• 54:51
  tournament Burnham kind of situation.
• 54:52
  But yeah, 99% of the places when you're outside those tourist
• 54:56
  areas, they want to have a best foot forward, high quality kind
• 55:00
  of meal for you. They take pride in it, even the
• 55:02
  waiters and, you know, take pride in making sure the
• 55:06
  customers, you know, enjoyed every bite of it.
• 55:08
  And and I thought that and I think that's incredible.
• 55:10
  Like I, you know, I could stay and eat a little less maybe, but
• 55:14
  I do love it. I do absolutely love it.
• 55:18
  Have you, have you experienced and you have for sure
• 55:22
  experiences, experienced holidays in Spain, right?
• 55:26
  Oh, surely. How do you see them in
• 55:29
  comparison with the one that you knew from US?
• 55:33
  That's a good question. There's no Halloween very used
• 55:38
  to it's, it's we're making a little tradition with our
• 55:41
  friends and we throw costume parties on that day and invite
• 55:45
  friends to the house because we're trying to like bring it in
• 55:46
  a little bit. Christmas is quite different.
• 55:50
  I'm Catholic by, you know, born and raised Catholic, so it's a
• 55:54
  Catholic country. So I'm pretty familiar with the
• 55:56
  traditions, but it's, it's quite different.
• 55:59
  It's quite, quite different. How you basically, from December
• 56:04
  20th until January 7th are in this weird, nebulous kind of
• 56:11
  existence where half the places are closed, half of them aren't.
• 56:15
  Some days are open, some days they're not.
• 56:19
  You know, you sometimes especially just bunker down at
• 56:21
  home for five days, you know, because you're just going to go
• 56:23
  out and see a zombie movie, you know, because it's a popular.
• 56:29
  So I love that. Obviously, you know, the
• 56:31
  Catholic thing. I, I have a lot of the
• 56:32
  traditions, but I didn't know. Here's very, there's some very
• 56:35
  interesting traditions like Cogatio, which is something
• 56:39
  where for the children, it's like a pinata, but it's a log
• 56:43
  that they kind of whack the candy out of.
• 56:45
  They beat the, the, the log until they get candy for
• 56:47
  Christmas. And then here I believe they're
• 56:49
  called the Cagan years, which is a Catalan tradition, I'm not
• 56:53
  mistaken, where it's sort of a fresh start to the new year.
• 56:57
  So you put this guy behind your sort of Manger if you're, you
• 57:02
  know, if that's your thing under your tree.
• 57:04
  And then he's pooping and it's a statuette of, of a, of a, of a
• 57:10
  yes, no, Yep, Yep, that's the thing.
• 57:12
  And you know, so we got, we got involved with that, but they've
• 57:16
  adapted the tradition that it can be anybody.
• 57:20
  So it can be Yoda from Star Wars pooping.
• 57:23
  It can be presidents, it can be prime ministers, it can be, you
• 57:27
  know, Titans of industry, you know, like it's, it's so, so
• 57:32
  that one was, was a little bit of a mix for me.
• 57:34
  And I never, we never really celebrated 3 Kings Day in the
• 57:38
  States. Obviously it's a religious
• 57:40
  holiday and it's, and it's, there's services and whatnot,
• 57:43
  but there was never any celebrating the day.
• 57:45
  Whereas here it is massive, almost bigger than Christmas.
• 57:48
  And that's, that's very interesting.
• 57:50
  Massive parades. Very cool.
• 57:54
  You said you were raised up Catholic, born and raised
• 57:57
  Catholic in the US. Do you have a feeling there is a
• 58:00
  difference in the perception of religion in the US?
• 58:03
  Comparison with how do you feel it in Europe?
• 58:06
  Well, yeah, I mean, people show up to, in the United States,
• 58:09
  people show up to church and flip flops and tank tops, you
• 58:13
  know, like there's a lack of reverence.
• 58:16
  I mean, in the Catholic churches in my experience, you know,
• 58:20
  people showing up anytime, I feel like there's definitely
• 58:22
  more reverence. And also there's so many
• 58:25
  religious holidays that are days off here.
• 58:27
  So I never knew so many Saints existed.
• 58:29
  I'm like, oh, great, it's another day off.
• 58:32
  OK, I'll see you Tuesday. Like, I mean, I love that part,
• 58:35
  you know, God bless. But yeah, that that's, that's
• 58:39
  the difference. But also the churches are older.
• 58:41
  I mean, there's Sagrada Familia here.
• 58:43
  There's Cathedral de Barcelona is 900 years old as well.
• 58:48
  The People's Church of Santa Maria Del Mar is, you know, was
• 58:53
  rebuilt from scratch because all the people came and put it back
• 58:56
  together again. I mean, there's so many
• 58:58
  beautiful and it's not Neo Gothic, you know, it's not built
• 59:01
  in the Industrial revolution. There's true Gothic, you know,
• 59:05
  style, Baroque style, Romanesque style churches, which I always
• 59:09
  find beautiful. And, you know, I don't go to
• 59:11
  church as often as I used to, but I definitely sit there.
• 59:14
  If I'm in a new church, I'm praying.
• 59:16
  I'm like, why the hell not? Like it's a good thing to do.
• 59:19
  It's a, it's a, you know, I'm a gambling man anyway, So why not?
• 59:23
  Why not, you know, bring it up, serve it up to the Almighty, say
• 59:26
  hey, you know, I just want to check in again.
• 59:28
  Just want to wish for happiness and health for my family such
• 59:31
  and. Such I'm here, just don't forget
• 59:33
  about me. Right, I'm here, you know, thank
• 59:36
  you so much. But it really is beautiful.
• 59:39
  There is a couple of old school in Manhattan churches like Saint
• 59:43
  Patrick's Cathedral that give you that vibe.
• 59:46
  But there's nothing like a like a European, like a European
• 59:49
  church, like a European Christian Church.
• 59:51
  This is great. Now I have to travel a little
• 59:53
  bit more, of course, but I mean, to my experience and being all
• 59:56
  over, I also had Orthodox family members.
• 59:59
  So I've gotten both. Upbringings.
• 1:00:01
  Yeah, My grandfather, who my grandfather who raised me, his
• 1:00:04
  brother was a Greek Orthodox, is a Greek Orthodox priest.
• 1:00:08
  So every single year I would go to the Easter celebrations, the
• 1:00:13
  Orthodox Easter celebrations, which are on another level.
• 1:00:17
  You fast for quite some time. My my uncle would not touch a
• 1:00:22
  hint of meat or dairy for 40 days where I was like, I felt in
• 1:00:26
  the United States cap is like, oh, just give up candy, you
• 1:00:29
  know, like it's a little, a little bit less.
• 1:00:32
  But that informed me very well. I was very happy about that
• 1:00:35
  learning experience. But also, honestly, I was a
• 1:00:38
  teenage boy and there's a lot of cute girls.
• 1:00:40
  So I was super happy to go to work festivals every year and go
• 1:00:45
  for Easter celebrations every year.
• 1:00:47
  And my little kid ties and shirt and tie.
• 1:00:51
  But yeah, I, I learned a lot from him in that, in that way as
• 1:00:54
  well, which was very fascinating.
• 1:00:57
  My uncle is a very, very good man and a very fair man.
• 1:01:01
  He used to take us for, for summers and just go out to lakes
• 1:01:05
  and and activities and stuff, you know, when we were young
• 1:01:08
  too. So yeah, I had that sort of dual
• 1:01:10
  upbringing with those info, both of those influences.
• 1:01:15
  We talked about holidays and we talked about religion.
• 1:01:17
  I think this too somehow brings together the family, the family
• 1:01:20
  discussion I want to hand. I want to ask you, how do you
• 1:01:23
  guys handle the, the, the home sickness, the family sickness,
• 1:01:26
  the the distance from your family?
• 1:01:30
  Yeah, it's very sad. Like I said, if we could
• 1:01:33
  magically teleport, we'd have no reason to ever leave.
• 1:01:36
  We make these trips once a year to make sure we do it calling,
• 1:01:40
  we send letters, we send little postcards from cities we visit.
• 1:01:44
  Yeah. So we'll go.
• 1:01:45
  We've been to like Valencia or Madrid, Madrid or, you know,
• 1:01:49
  Stockholm, and we'll get a bunch of extra postcards and we'll
• 1:01:52
  send them over to family and usually break them up in times
• 1:01:55
  like twice a year. Last year we didn't do it, but
• 1:01:58
  we're back at it this year where we'll have right before
• 1:02:02
  Christmas and then right before we're going to visit, we'll send
• 1:02:06
  a bunch of postcards of family. My grandmother's refrigerator
• 1:02:09
  looks like she's bad. I mean, it's crazy.
• 1:02:11
  She's got like 20 of them. Yeah, I got to send you a
• 1:02:13
  picture. It's pretty cool.
• 1:02:14
  She loves it. She tells all her girlfriends
• 1:02:15
  when they play bridge. Oh, my grandson and my
• 1:02:18
  granddaughter, they went to Rome and that stuff.
• 1:02:20
  You know, we get a fridge magnets, you know, so that
• 1:02:24
  helps. You know, we call, we chit chat.
• 1:02:26
  Social media helps a lot. But yeah, you know, it stinks.
• 1:02:29
  So that would be the only thing that's bad about the move.
• 1:02:33
  It really is. I mean, I have some of my, some
• 1:02:35
  of my friends are absolutely family.
• 1:02:39
  I make the most of seeing them when I'm there.
• 1:02:41
  And they have basically all of them have come to visit, which
• 1:02:44
  is great. I've gotten to show the city and
• 1:02:47
  other places off to pretty much all of my closest friends.
• 1:02:50
  Not every single one, but pretty much all of them.
• 1:02:53
  But yeah, it's really sad not to.
• 1:02:54
  You know, I was a 5 minute walk away from my grandparents and my
• 1:02:58
  aunt and now, you know, it's a 7 1/2 hour flight and then then
• 1:03:03
  you got to get home. But we do make the most of our
• 1:03:06
  trips there and I think they do love the corresponding with the
• 1:03:08
  little postcards from the cities.
• 1:03:10
  I recommend that to anybody because I think it is on us to
• 1:03:14
  keep those ties. People go live their normal
• 1:03:16
  lives, you know, like sometimes weeks go by, sometimes months go
• 1:03:20
  by and they don't intentionally, you know, not talking to you.
• 1:03:22
  It's just life. So if we're outside of our, you
• 1:03:26
  know, old former homes, I, I think it's on us to, you know,
• 1:03:28
  step up a little bit in the communication department.
• 1:03:30
  So we try to do that. Correct.
• 1:03:33
  I have to say this postcard things we did, we did in the
• 1:03:37
  last I think two or three years. And I have to say, there was
• 1:03:39
  such a nice thing when, because of course takes two weeks, you
• 1:03:43
  forget over that you send it and then someone is sending a
• 1:03:45
  picture via WhatsApp and I think, oh, nice, it got there.
• 1:03:48
  And this is such a good feeling. Yeah.
• 1:03:51
  And it's like, you know, a friend of mine gives a yearly
• 1:03:53
  update where at the at the beginning of the year, he'll
• 1:03:56
  send a Christmas card and a picture of him, usually
• 1:04:00
  something silly, and he'll give like a little sheet of paper
• 1:04:02
  that's updating everyone up to his year.
• 1:04:05
  And I think we're going to start doing maybe something like that.
• 1:04:07
  Yeah. Like at the end of the year,
• 1:04:08
  like, yeah, you know, here's our year in Barcelona, you know?
• 1:04:11
  Etcetera. Do you know, do you, I guess you
• 1:04:14
  know friends talking about TV shows?
• 1:04:16
  Yes, yes, absolutely. Do you know the Remember the
• 1:04:19
  Gallery Yeller? Don't know.
• 1:04:21
  No, it's been so long since I watched the show.
• 1:04:24
  I've seen it a lot and I think the Ross and Monica were talking
• 1:04:27
  about the family update letter that they were sending every
• 1:04:31
  year that was called the Geller Yeller because the Geller was
• 1:04:34
  the family name and then the Yeller because it was just the
• 1:04:38
  like the update from the family. Yeah, exactly that sentiment.
• 1:04:42
  Yeah, when I was funny in that hole, there's a little bit of
• 1:04:45
  AUS thing from classic shows in the 90s.
• 1:04:48
  And I was a little bit more into Seinfeld, which is like more of
• 1:04:51
  the sarcastic show, you know, that was sort of my branded my
• 1:04:55
  brand of humor. But my wife's in love with
• 1:04:56
  friends. She's watching a billion times.
• 1:04:57
  We watch it together. And then the but I was super
• 1:05:00
  like obsessed with Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
• 1:05:04
  So like that's that's more my reference of my growing up.
• 1:05:08
  But yeah, there's definitely things in there.
• 1:05:11
  I know a lot of my friends learned English using Friends.
• 1:05:16
  I've seen friends. I I lost the count.
• 1:05:19
  We both love it, me and my wife and I, I, we actually lost the
• 1:05:22
  count. How often?
• 1:05:23
  We have. Oh great.
• 1:05:25
  And it's you just love it. You just whenever you have
• 1:05:27
  nothing else to watch and just start another episode of Friends
• 1:05:30
  because you know exactly what's happening.
• 1:05:31
  You don't miss anything and you can get jump in and out every
• 1:05:34
  time you want because you know everything.
• 1:05:36
  Well, I'm doing the opposite for learning Espanol, so I'm
• 1:05:39
  watching The Office with the American office, not the British
• 1:05:43
  Ricky Gervais office. And we've seen that so many
• 1:05:47
  times, yeah. The American office, Yeah.
• 1:05:51
  Well, we've seen it so many times that now I just watch it
• 1:05:54
  in, I watch it in Spanish, Spanish with the subtitles in
• 1:05:58
  Spanish because I'm so I know exactly what's happening.
• 1:06:01
  So that has helped a lot and since I've known so many people,
• 1:06:05
  friends and otherwise people that I know of that have really
• 1:06:08
  taken a shows to help learn the language and help with the
• 1:06:11
  language barrier. I've tried that as well recently
• 1:06:13
  and I like. It on the on the funny note, I
• 1:06:16
  made this recommendation a few times, but I I feel obliged to
• 1:06:19
  do it to you as well. There is a there's ATV series,
• 1:06:23
  the TV show. So due to my remaining heritage,
• 1:06:26
  I can understand, I, I would say seventy, 8090% of the Spanish,
• 1:06:32
  OK, depending on the, on the, on the, on the context and so on.
• 1:06:37
  But I get a lot of it and my wife can understand completely
• 1:06:41
  100% and she can also speak. But we watched a series which
• 1:06:45
  was done by Antenatres from Spain, which is called Aquino.
• 1:06:50
  I can Viva and it follows an apartment building and in the
• 1:06:57
  apartment building you have everything.
• 1:06:59
  You have a normal family that normal.
• 1:07:00
  You have a family with mom, dad, two kids.
• 1:07:03
  Then you have the gay couple. Then you have the old lady
• 1:07:07
  living with her sister, both in their 60s seventies.
• 1:07:10
  Then you have the the gossip lady on the stairs who's always
• 1:07:15
  gossiping about the others. Then you have a lady complaining
• 1:07:17
  about everything. Then you have the grumpy old
• 1:07:19
  man. Then you have the doorman, who's
• 1:07:21
  also so every possible characters in there.
• 1:07:24
  And then they have, of course, episodic events.
• 1:07:27
  Man, I have to say biggest laughs of my life.
• 1:07:31
  That's all. Aquino Vive.
• 1:07:33
  Aquino Aiken Viva. OK, OK.
• 1:07:39
  So it's like you cannot, you cannot live here or something
• 1:07:42
  like this. So Aquino.
• 1:07:43
  Aiken Viva. Yeah.
• 1:07:46
  And on the funny note, there is I think there are two videos on
• 1:07:50
  YouTube like really short what called Kyo Rice.
• 1:07:54
  And they said that they are played by actors who have done
• 1:07:59
  four weeks of Spanish in the 4th grade.
• 1:08:02
  So due to the fact that you understand, Spanish is going to
• 1:08:06
  be extremely funny. You got to send that to me.
• 1:08:08
  That's incredible. Yeah, that's I'm looking to
• 1:08:10
  learn in any any which way. Exactly.
• 1:08:12
  Exactly. I talk to my dog in Spanish.
• 1:08:15
  Anything I can do to speak because my brain is a lot like
• 1:08:18
  an old car in the winter, I have to warm up to the new language
• 1:08:22
  coming in out of. But makes sense, makes sense.
• 1:08:24
  Practice, practice. So they, they, they have a thing
• 1:08:27
  in Germany which says practice makes the expert.
• 1:08:30
  And that's correct. I mean, as soon as I started
• 1:08:33
  speaking the language German, I of course was extremely hard for
• 1:08:36
  the first six months. But then you get the habit in
• 1:08:39
  and then you start thinking it and you are faster and faster
• 1:08:41
  and faster. You get the reflexes there and I
• 1:08:43
  think that's it's a brain exercise, right?
• 1:08:45
  Nothing. Else, yeah, of course.
• 1:08:49
  How many languages? I'm always curious, if you don't
• 1:08:51
  mind me turning it on you for no.
• 1:08:53
  How many languages do you speak? I speak, I, I I'm Romanian
• 1:08:58
  native because I speak, I speak Romanian.
• 1:09:01
  I learn English, as I said through due to a lot of a lot of
• 1:09:05
  Eurosport, Cartoon Network and movies.
• 1:09:08
  That's the combination and I speak like German because I
• 1:09:12
  learned it here. Since I live here.
• 1:09:14
  I came Germany also without speaking any kind of language.
• 1:09:19
  And I have to say, due to the fact that I speak Romanian, I
• 1:09:22
  have a really easy process of understanding Italian and
• 1:09:26
  Spanish. They're yeah, very similar,
• 1:09:29
  right? Yes, absolutely exactly.
• 1:09:30
  Some historical and Indo European.
• 1:09:32
  Stuff, of course, as I said, of course I cannot get 100% of what
• 1:09:36
  people are saying, but you can get some something out of
• 1:09:38
  context or you can try to to guess what that what the other
• 1:09:42
  world was meant which you didn't completely understood, but.
• 1:09:45
  Yeah. So you have an ear for it.
• 1:09:47
  That's incredible. That's really cool.
• 1:09:49
  That's really cool. And I love other languages.
• 1:09:52
  That's another thing anyone I speak to in Europe, like any
• 1:09:55
  waiter is going to speak 4 languages like, and that's the
• 1:09:58
  thing, the United States can definitely learn that the
• 1:10:01
  international, the conversational ability in
• 1:10:03
  multiple languages is so critical and it's so valuable.
• 1:10:06
  I mean, it's absolutely amazing, but it's so easy here because
• 1:10:10
  it's so focused on, you know, I think that's incredible. 3
• 1:10:13
  languages is incredible. I don't even know how you juggle
• 1:10:14
  that. Like my brain can't even like,
• 1:10:17
  it's so hard for me to learn a second one.
• 1:10:19
  So I'm just, that's amazing. I just think that's really cool.
• 1:10:21
  I have to say half an hour before, no, yeah, half an hour
• 1:10:24
  before we start our discussion. I finished my last meeting at
• 1:10:27
  work because I had the, I had a Home Office there and there was
• 1:10:29
  a one hour long meeting in German, Went upstairs, I talked
• 1:10:33
  to my family in Romania, which is funny.
• 1:10:36
  And then I came down and dude, it, it felt so natural, man.
• 1:10:40
  I have to say. It doesn't feel like an effort
• 1:10:42
  anymore. And that's such AI.
• 1:10:44
  Even if I talk that, if I talk about, that's really cool, I
• 1:10:47
  have to say. Yeah, it is cool.
• 1:10:49
  I mean, are you kidding me? Like so in the past three hours,
• 1:10:52
  you've spoken three different languages and extensively, and
• 1:10:54
  two of them aren't even your native.
• 1:10:56
  That's incredible. Exactly.
• 1:10:57
  Yeah. I want to get there so bad.
• 1:10:59
  Yeah, I will. I have to see there is.
• 1:11:01
  But Rob, we have to be honest. There is an entitlement in every
• 1:11:06
  English community, right? Because you always, you always
• 1:11:13
  know that you can get along with your own language.
• 1:11:16
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 1:11:18
  Yeah. And this is something which is
• 1:11:19
  hard to, to overpass to think, you know, I, I, I need to learn
• 1:11:26
  the different language because for sure, if you speak English
• 1:11:29
  and you learn Spanish, I think and go for 80% of the world,
• 1:11:32
  right? You're right, yeah.
• 1:11:35
  So that's why I think the need is not there.
• 1:11:38
  And that's why I'm always saying everyone that is coming from an
• 1:11:42
  English background, from an English background, society
• 1:11:45
  background that is speaking another language, I have all the
• 1:11:48
  respect for because they don't need to.
• 1:11:50
  There is no need there, it's just because they want to.
• 1:11:54
  It gives me a whole new sense of understanding of people trying
• 1:11:57
  to learn English. I mean, I sit there, I feel, I
• 1:12:02
  mean, I'm not generally somebody.
• 1:12:03
  I, I do speeches and I do public appearances and stuff like that.
• 1:12:06
  So like, I'm not easy to like, you know, shame.
• 1:12:08
  Like I don't feel like, you know, afraid or scared of public
• 1:12:11
  speaking, but I do feel what I'm doing in another language.
• 1:12:15
  I feel it for sure. And that's something that I'm
• 1:12:17
  working through. And now with the classes, now
• 1:12:19
  that I'm back in classes, I think I'm going to really hammer
• 1:12:21
  that home. But yeah, it's you don't ever
• 1:12:24
  think about it. I don't, I've never thought
• 1:12:26
  about needing the other language outside of one year of
• 1:12:30
  sophomore, you know, very remedial level, you know,
• 1:12:35
  Spanish where my teacher was great, but I never did it again
• 1:12:39
  stupidly. And now I'm paying the price for
• 1:12:41
  it. You know, I think it's, I think
• 1:12:42
  it's so important. I think the biggest, the biggest
• 1:12:46
  thing that you have to overcome in when speaking in your
• 1:12:50
  language is to your ego. Because the ego is the one
• 1:12:54
  telling you you should not speak it because you'll make
• 1:12:56
  grammatical mistakes and they will judge you and you'll think
• 1:12:59
  they will, they will think less of you and so on.
• 1:13:01
  And in the moment when you are able to overcome this, and I
• 1:13:04
  think you know what, suck it, I will just say it and that's it.
• 1:13:08
  Like, for example, I know I'm not, I'm not grammatically
• 1:13:11
  correct in English. I know that maybe sometimes I'm
• 1:13:14
  misusing words, but I just try. If it's working, I'm happy.
• 1:13:18
  And if it's not working, then I have to correct it.
• 1:13:20
  But at least I tried. No.
• 1:13:22
  And, and, and you're totally right.
• 1:13:24
  That's that's more of I've been doing that more and more,
• 1:13:27
  especially over the last year, putting myself in these
• 1:13:30
  situations, language exchanges and hanging out with my friends
• 1:13:33
  that don't speak as much. So I went to a rock'n'roll
• 1:13:37
  concert with my buddy who doesn't speak a word of English.
• 1:13:39
  So we had to kind of, you know, communicate though we were there
• 1:13:41
  all day watching like 30 bands. So we had a lot to talk about.
• 1:13:45
  And it just, you're right about putting yourself out there and
• 1:13:49
  making it happen. And I'm, I'm good enough at
• 1:13:51
  that. So I just got to make sure to,
• 1:13:53
  you know, I want to get my foundation back with a teacher
• 1:13:55
  like I'm doing on Thursday. And then I think I'll be out
• 1:13:58
  there, you know, as crazy as possible, you know, talking with
• 1:14:01
  everybody. I'll talk to anybody just to
• 1:14:03
  get. Absolutely.
• 1:14:04
  Absolutely. Yeah, I'd probably talk about
• 1:14:06
  the evolution of the language, but I want to ask you what How
• 1:14:11
  did moving abroad change you? How did moving abroad change me?
• 1:14:19
  Well, again, we had just said having a whole new series of
• 1:14:22
  understanding for people learning a second language,
• 1:14:26
  especially people in the United States trying to learn English.
• 1:14:28
  I'm sitting here like, whoa, like, I'm a reasonably
• 1:14:31
  intelligent adult and I'm reading children's books because
• 1:14:35
  that's the level that I'm at. It changed me to be more
• 1:14:40
  cognizant of my place in a community.
• 1:14:43
  I'm a guest. People are very kind and
• 1:14:46
  neighbors are very kind. But at the end of the day, I am
• 1:14:49
  a guest. And so it's made me, you know,
• 1:14:51
  mind my manners. In the States we say mind your
• 1:14:54
  PS and QS. I've thought about that.
• 1:14:57
  And again, I mean, I circle back to for the billionth time, but
• 1:15:00
  you know, I'm, I like the idea of the healthcare system here.
• 1:15:04
  I think it's playing like that's not perfect.
• 1:15:07
  There's never going to be a perfect system.
• 1:15:09
  But I think if you want to prioritize where your tax money
• 1:15:12
  goes, not going bankrupt needing healthcare in your life is, is a
• 1:15:16
  very noble thing. So I think those three things,
• 1:15:18
  you know, empathy for people that are learning another
• 1:15:20
  language, appreciation of the community that I'm in and being
• 1:15:23
  more respectful of that. And then obviously healthcare.
• 1:15:27
  That's what I'd say. One of the parts of learning a
• 1:15:30
  new language, I was talking to Stephanie, one of the previous
• 1:15:33
  episodes is this having this audacity that you have in your
• 1:15:37
  native language to ask what did you mean by that?
• 1:15:40
  Because the. Yeah.
• 1:15:42
  This is the the confidence to do that question is only when
• 1:15:46
  someone is speaking your native language because you know, Oh, I
• 1:15:48
  should have had should have understood that.
• 1:15:51
  So why he didn't I have to ask why?
• 1:15:54
  What do you want to say? And now coming here, I'm just
• 1:15:57
  have to ask you, what do you mean by mind your P's and Q's?
• 1:16:01
  Oh, it's an old saying. It's from prohibition.
• 1:16:02
  It calls pints and quarts. Mind your pints and quarts, but
• 1:16:05
  it's just about being having manners and being respectful of
• 1:16:09
  the, you know, situation. So I mean, there's situations
• 1:16:13
  here where I'm behind four people in a in a drug store and
• 1:16:18
  the person is having a conversation with the first
• 1:16:20
  person. Then it's been 20 minutes and I
• 1:16:23
  could be like, Hey, I'm a New Yorker.
• 1:16:24
  I got places to be. But if that's just rude and
• 1:16:27
  that's just being me being being worse of an outsider and also
• 1:16:31
  just because like, you know, I'm trying to I I consider Estado
• 1:16:36
  and he didn't say like are United States citizens living
• 1:16:39
  abroad to be mini ambassadors? So I wouldn't want to like be
• 1:16:44
  the I wouldn't want to live up to stereotypes, I guess.
• 1:16:48
  And so that's on my mind as well, is what I mean by that.
• 1:16:51
  Thank you. Thank you for the explanation.
• 1:16:54
  I have a question though, is that you have Irish, you have an
• 1:16:58
  Irish heritage. Do you know why the whiskey
• 1:17:00
  bottle has 700 milliliters? No.
• 1:17:07
  When they discover whiskey in the 1600s and they realized that
• 1:17:12
  the the nice feeling that the alcohol is bringing us, bringing
• 1:17:16
  you, everyone started to drink it limitless.
• 1:17:20
  And the king said no, no, no, no, no, this cannot go on like
• 1:17:23
  this because nobody was working anymore.
• 1:17:25
  Nobody was going to work anymore.
• 1:17:27
  And they said, OK, you have a limit of 100 milliliters per day
• 1:17:31
  that you can drink. And the 700 milliliters, the
• 1:17:34
  bottle was the weak dose. Oh, yeah, of course.
• 1:17:38
  Oh, man, that is interesting. Yeah, that is really
• 1:17:42
  interesting. OK, right.
• 1:17:43
  I mean, and what were you going to do back in the 1600s?
• 1:17:45
  There's no Xbox. Yeah.
• 1:17:47
  You're going to drink whiskey, you know, and.
• 1:17:49
  You're going to sit around. In pain like yeah, that's.
• 1:17:54
  A good tip and you know, this is this is one of the things that
• 1:17:56
  they they keep seeing. I think if better one would have
• 1:18:00
  had TV. We don't have any classical
• 1:18:02
  music. Right.
• 1:18:05
  And we should really appreciate people that are doing this
• 1:18:08
  creative works today because the amount of distractions that we
• 1:18:12
  have today in comparison with the past, it's incredible.
• 1:18:16
  Right. You're supposed to be bored and
• 1:18:19
  do like things then, you know, like there's too much to like.
• 1:18:24
  Oh, let me stream online on Instagram for three hours.
• 1:18:27
  That's time you should be learning a language this time.
• 1:18:29
  You should be taking your class. That's time you should be
• 1:18:32
  reading a book. And no, I agree.
• 1:18:33
  And, you know, it's, it's harder now, probably more for people.
• 1:18:36
  I completely agree with you. Yeah.
• 1:18:38
  Someone someone said in the One of my guests said that the way
• 1:18:42
  in which they are using their algorithm for Inst from
• 1:18:46
  Instagram in their own advantages than just watching
• 1:18:48
  Spanish videos because yeah, yeah, they anyhow in which you
• 1:18:54
  can trick your brain in a positive way.
• 1:18:56
  I follow, I have multiple pages and one of them is just
• 1:18:59
  information like I just want to know influencers in the country
• 1:19:04
  and I follow 100, maybe more Spanish language accounts just
• 1:19:09
  to make sure that I'm like seeing it every single day.
• 1:19:12
  Yeah, I'm, I'm with, I'm on that train 100%.
• 1:19:15
  And then, yeah. So tricking your, you got to
• 1:19:17
  trick your algorithms because it's, I don't know, man.
• 1:19:19
  For me, like social media is a little bit like cigarettes for
• 1:19:22
  the brain. You definitely need to take some
• 1:19:24
  breaks. You definitely need to like
• 1:19:26
  refocus. They say the old saying is go
• 1:19:28
  outside and touch grass, you know, like So yeah, I think if
• 1:19:33
  you could trick your, you trick your algorithm, it's for the
• 1:19:35
  best. But I think it depends exactly.
• 1:19:38
  It depends on your algorithm if that cigarette break is getting
• 1:19:42
  your energy up or down. Yeah, true.
• 1:19:46
  Making you happy or making you not?
• 1:19:48
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 1:19:49
  Is it cute dog videos or is it all the world's horrors?
• 1:19:52
  Like, what are you watching? Like, yeah, no, Absolutely.
• 1:19:55
  Exactly. Absolutely, Rob, I have to say
• 1:19:59
  it was more than a pleasure to talk to you.
• 1:20:01
  The discussion with the. I enjoy it all I we are not done
• 1:20:05
  I but I have to I have I I need to say it because it was it was
• 1:20:09
  really a pleasure. I usually have a kind of and in
• 1:20:13
  which in which I prepare some kind of a hot fire question.
• 1:20:19
  I have always 5 questions tailored tailored on the guests
• 1:20:22
  so. Well, I gotta say thank you too.
• 1:20:25
  It was really great talking to you, man.
• 1:20:26
  I'm really glad to get to know we kind of went cold on this.
• 1:20:28
  So I'm it was really a great conversation.
• 1:20:30
  I appreciate talking. To you, I love it.
• 1:20:32
  I love it as well. Rob.
• 1:20:34
  What is Spain doing better than US?
• 1:20:37
  Don't say healthcare system, please.
• 1:20:39
  Yeah, let me give you something better.
• 1:20:43
  Ham Ham Ibetico. Ham Ibetico is the best I've
• 1:20:47
  ever seen. Ham Serrano.
• 1:20:50
  Or like, really ham. Ibetico the the top tier, the
• 1:20:54
  top tier Serrano's great, but Coloni Betico is is a lead.
• 1:20:58
  It's, it's on a level unforeseen, really good travel
• 1:21:04
  infrastructure. The subways are Immaculate.
• 1:21:08
  The metros are Immaculate. You get Internet connection and
• 1:21:11
  you can eat a sandwich off the floor if you really wanted to.
• 1:21:13
  It's a joke. But the subway, the public
• 1:21:17
  transportation systems in the United States, because they're
• 1:21:19
  so car focused, are severely underfunded.
• 1:21:22
  And the sub, the, all the trains I've taken and all the metros
• 1:21:27
  I've taken throughout this beautiful country and region
• 1:21:31
  have really impressed me, have really, really impressed me.
• 1:21:34
  It's, I grew up on the New York City subways.
• 1:21:36
  They're, they're massive, but they've fell into disrepair,
• 1:21:39
  unfortunately. So without a doubt, public
• 1:21:41
  transportation to give you a different answer than
• 1:21:43
  healthcare, which would have been obviously one.
• 1:21:45
  I have to say Spain is unknown in Europe, even in Europe, for
• 1:21:49
  them, for their train system, for their it's.
• 1:21:52
  Incredible and cheap and cheap. You know, it's subsidized
• 1:21:55
  obviously with tax dollars, but again, another good thing to
• 1:21:58
  spend tax dollars on like public transportation.
• 1:22:02
  And then they they really are handling the flu outbreak very
• 1:22:07
  well. I got a, my wife and I got
• 1:22:09
  vaccines immediately. They had timing periods about
• 1:22:13
  where, you know, if you go to hospitals and doctors, this is
• 1:22:15
  mandatory to wear a mask if you're around sick people, you
• 1:22:18
  know, but they were very smart about the timing of all of that.
• 1:22:20
  And they're having a far less problem with that.
• 1:22:25
  And, you know, as of last year, the economy is on a pretty big
• 1:22:28
  upswing and it's been for quite a while. the US economy is
• 1:22:31
  unfortunately heading and on the downswing.
• 1:22:33
  So those things I like a lot. The US economy is just great.
• 1:22:38
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, for now. For now, yeah.
• 1:22:43
  I have to say the, the, the health system, the, the health
• 1:22:45
  system in Spain was really bad 2025 years ago and they have
• 1:22:52
  invested massively in recovering that, getting doctors back in
• 1:22:55
  the countries and so on. That's why they are where they
• 1:22:58
  are today. Oh man.
• 1:22:59
  It takes it takes investment. It takes investment.
• 1:23:02
  It's not something you can just put on autopilot.
• 1:23:05
  And also the economy. The economy is something new,
• 1:23:07
  which is impressive. They are on the best growing
• 1:23:11
  path in in the whole euro so well.
• 1:23:13
  You're going to get a lot of doctors from the United States
• 1:23:16
  of America that want to come live in the Costa del Sol or
• 1:23:20
  like in a in Galatia or in Barcelona.
• 1:23:23
  Yeah. And then you come in here and
• 1:23:24
  you go and you're having a great quality of life.
• 1:23:26
  So I think they're also doing quality of life pretty well.
• 1:23:30
  Rob, what is the US doing better than Spain?
• 1:23:33
  What is the US doing better than Spain?
• 1:23:37
  Huh. What is the USB move?
• 1:23:41
  Not elections, but the US is doing really well showing that
• 1:23:50
  dissent is patriotic right now. The right to freedom speech and
• 1:23:57
  protest I think is strong in the United States and stronger than
• 1:24:00
  any pretty much anywhere else in the world.
• 1:24:02
  I even though obviously right now you have a little man baby
• 1:24:05
  in the White House trying to get people cancelled and send the
• 1:24:08
  government after them. But in reality, the, the United
• 1:24:11
  States is, it comes with caveats and it causes damage.
• 1:24:15
  But I think the that freedom is critical and I think they're
• 1:24:18
  doing that well. The economy, see the, the
• 1:24:22
  misnomer in the United States is that the jobs you can get a job
• 1:24:25
  and, and it's a super easy to form a business as well.
• 1:24:29
  But the problem is a lot of jobs don't pay enough for people to
• 1:24:32
  live on in the States. There are a massive amount of
• 1:24:36
  jobs that people just can't afford their daily lives on in
• 1:24:39
  the United States. But it is easier to start a
• 1:24:44
  business and that's the way up the American dream.
• 1:24:48
  I think the quickest path that way is being good at something,
• 1:24:51
  starting a business and and making a great livelihood for
• 1:24:55
  yourself and your families. It's so easy to come like make a
• 1:24:58
  Romanian restaurant, Romanian food restaurant.
• 1:25:00
  It's so easy to come build an app.
• 1:25:02
  It's so easy to come do that. And that's why, again, I think
• 1:25:05
  immigration is so important to the United States of America
• 1:25:08
  because the superpower of the United States of America is who
• 1:25:11
  wants to be an American? And then bring it.
• 1:25:15
  Bring me your, bring me your PhDs, bring me your engineers,
• 1:25:19
  bring me your chefs and your elite seamstresses, bring me
• 1:25:24
  everything. And so I think they're doing
• 1:25:26
  that really well as well. This is one of the base on which
• 1:25:31
  the Spanish economy went up based on the immigrants, because
• 1:25:34
  they took the lower job so that people could focus on
• 1:25:39
  development of studies and so on.
• 1:25:41
  And this is how the economy is growing everywhere.
• 1:25:45
  I think this is. And they pay into the system.
• 1:25:48
  So if you're worried about the financial viability of things
• 1:25:51
  like universal healthcare, immigrants are great because
• 1:25:53
  they pay into those systems long terms of time and and you and
• 1:25:58
  you and they pay rent and they buy food and they buy clothes
• 1:26:02
  and they buy tickets to flamenco shows.
• 1:26:05
  You know, like there's all sorts of great, great things.
• 1:26:07
  And you know, I'm a little biased because I'm a expat
• 1:26:10
  myself, but I am always been. Even back in the States, I was
• 1:26:12
  always this way. I have Irish immigration
• 1:26:16
  heritage, my family of course. What's Spanish word that you
• 1:26:23
  can't really translate 1 to one in English?
• 1:26:30
  There's so many, though, so it's not one to one at all.
• 1:26:35
  The what what I've learned in my classes is you're going point
• 1:26:40
  for point. I'm making a similar point.
• 1:26:43
  The words are never going to add up.
• 1:26:45
  Like, but I just told the guy who delivered our groceries,
• 1:26:49
  Bueras Bonaire Todo Aki puts everything here.
• 1:26:53
  Like it's not necessarily something you would say, like,
• 1:26:54
  oh, can you just throw it on the ground for me?
• 1:26:57
  But direct translation, that's such a good question.
• 1:27:00
  That isn't oh man, and I pass and come back to it.
• 1:27:05
  Oh, it's there's definitely examples.
• 1:27:06
  I'm going to feel bad. Yeah.
• 1:27:09
  So I always have in mind this ayunar because I don't have the
• 1:27:14
  feeling that there is a verb in English, because you don't say I
• 1:27:18
  will breakfast, you never say I will breakfast.
• 1:27:21
  But this ayunar is something which is always on my mind.
• 1:27:24
  You do not think about this breakfast as a verb.
• 1:27:27
  You do not use dinner as a verb. You do use lunch as a verb, but
• 1:27:30
  that's only in corporate America.
• 1:27:32
  You do. Let's do lunch.
• 1:27:35
  Let's do lunch. So you're right, it's not a
• 1:27:37
  verb. Actually, no, I'm.
• 1:27:39
  Wrong. It's not a verb.
• 1:27:40
  No, no, no, no, I'm wrong. No, it's not totally right.
• 1:27:42
  But that, that would have been interesting.
• 1:27:44
  Interesting. Yeah.
• 1:27:45
  But yeah, we, we, there is this, there is this thing of the
• 1:27:48
  Spanish word of the Spanish language that they are using
• 1:27:51
  this the the verbs as actions, which is kind of interesting.
• 1:27:55
  Absolutely, that's my answer. Rob, Rob, Rob, if you would have
• 1:28:02
  the possibility to go back and take this decision again, would
• 1:28:07
  you do the same? A. 100% make the come do the
• 1:28:11
  same thing all over again. Absolutely.
• 1:28:13
  Yeah, absolutely. It was the best decision, one of
• 1:28:14
  the best decisions I ever made. It's made our marriage better.
• 1:28:17
  It's made our lives better. We have friends.
• 1:28:20
  I mean, our friends are just wonderful people.
• 1:28:22
  All my best friends are Justin and Lucine.
• 1:28:24
  Justin's been an old buddy from university, and so we always
• 1:28:28
  stayed in touch. Happy birthday.
• 1:28:30
  You know, on Facebook kind of thing.
• 1:28:32
  When I, I told him we're going to move out, he was like, oh,
• 1:28:34
  just let me know. You know, we'll, we'll set you
• 1:28:36
  up, we'll get you settled. And we just merged seamlessly
• 1:28:38
  into their friend group. Just the coolest, most wonderful
• 1:28:41
  people. International as hell.
• 1:28:42
  I can list off a dozen different countries that people are from
• 1:28:45
  and, you know, some Catalans and some Spaniards as well.
• 1:28:48
  But yeah, it, it was, I would definitely make a decision 10
• 1:28:51
  times, every single time, 100 times out of 100 to do this
• 1:28:55
  again. I I don't regret it at all.
• 1:28:56
  Just, you know, missing my family and friends.
• 1:28:59
  But even with that, it was such an important thing that I did,
• 1:29:02
  and I'm happy I did it. We, we, we, we, of course I say
• 1:29:09
  I, I'm some guy. I'm some specialist.
• 1:29:11
  Yeah. Rob the the the the the the last
• 1:29:16
  question of today, where is home?
• 1:29:21
  This home's with my wife and my dog.
• 1:29:25
  I love the sensor. I love it.
• 1:29:28
  I always keep saying that. It keeps saying that it's a
• 1:29:30
  feeling, is not a place. Right, right.
• 1:29:32
  I mean, we love where we live, but we could go live in the next
• 1:29:35
  body or the body of where her job is and we wouldn't make our
• 1:29:40
  home. We were very happy.
• 1:29:41
  My little my wife likes to sleep on my chest.
• 1:29:43
  My dog sleeps on my leg. That's home.
• 1:29:47
  Good night. That's a nice description, Rob.
• 1:29:50
  You're an amazing person. I I enjoyed the discussion with
• 1:29:53
  you and I'm happy that I got to know you.
• 1:29:55
  Really too, man, let's keep it going.
• 1:29:56
  You know, I I consider you a friend now.
• 1:29:57
  I'll keep chatting and I got some connections.
• 1:29:59
  Same. Same here.
• 1:30:00
  Yeah, yeah. Nice.
• 1:30:01
  I'm happy. I'm Would you mind telling
• 1:30:05
  people where they can find it? Do you use social media or
• 1:30:07
  something like this stuff? Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:30:09
  Can you can you share it? I will link it in the
• 1:30:11
  description as well. Absolutely.
• 1:30:12
  Yeah, I can share it on on a number of networks.
• 1:30:14
  I'm gonna, I'm gonna torture all my friends with them as well.
• 1:30:16
  So very good. Perfect, perfect.
• 1:30:20
  I will put it in the Sonos description.
• 1:30:21
  I will also put it on your on. Your fantastic listen.
• 1:30:24
  It was really great talking. Everyone can find it.
• 1:30:26
  It was really, really great. Same.
• 1:30:27
  For me, Rob. Thank you.
• 1:30:28
  And I hope, I hope honestly that we get this in, we get to do
• 1:30:32
  this in person in a few years so that I get more of your, of your
• 1:30:35
  Spanish experience. Yeah, and yours and yours in
• 1:30:38
  Germany as well. I got to go back there for the
• 1:30:40
  food, so absolutely. Just let me know when you're
• 1:30:44
  around. Can't wait to talk again then
• 1:30:46
  have. A good same for me.
• 1:30:48
  Have a good night. Bye.
• 1:30:49
  It turns out that you can't take the man out of the Bronx, but
• 1:30:53
  you can't take the hustler out of the man.
• 1:30:56
  Whether it's 84 year old grandmother who's running
• 1:31:00
  errands in New York or Bobby himself navigating the beautiful
• 1:31:04
  bureaucracy of Barcelona, the whereabouts we chose aren't just
• 1:31:09
  about the rent prices. They are about the communities
• 1:31:12
  that let us stop coasting and start truly living.
• 1:31:21
  Rob's journey from the New York mid grinder to the Mediterranean
• 1:31:26
  reminds us that the only thing holding us to a place might just
• 1:31:30
  be our own fear of a new horizon.
• 1:31:33
  If we could teleport to see family, most of us might never
• 1:31:36
  look back. But until then, we find ways to
• 1:31:39
  build bridges across the Atlantic.
• 1:31:43
  And Speaking of New Horizons, starting next week we are
• 1:31:46
  launching A newbie weekly series, The Book of Tales.
• 1:31:50
  There is where we go even deeper, moving from the
• 1:31:54
  biographical to the philosophical.
• 1:31:57
  We'll be hosting other interviews, so deep dives into
• 1:32:00
  the whereabouts philosophy. If you've ever wanted to hold
• 1:32:03
  the stories we discussed in your hands, this series is for you.
• 1:32:08
  Until then, on Spotify, hit the follow button and leave us a
• 1:32:12
  rating so you don't miss the 1st chapter of the Book of tales on
• 1:32:16
  our podcast. Leave a review.
• 1:32:17
  Tell us what's one book that change your perspective on home.
• 1:32:21
  Connect with Rob. You can find he bought at Rob
• 1:32:24
  South America on Instagram. All links are in the show notes
• 1:32:28
  caption. Prepare your libraries.
• 1:32:34
  I'll see you in the 1st chapter of the Book of Tales.