Latest / bit of a Rambler / 052 Ramble On

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052 Ramble On · bit of a Rambler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I am a bit
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And today it's time to ramble on. Let's talk about
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: what I'm going to be doing, what it did, what's
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: been going on. First starts with Kusko. I've decided to
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: go to Peru. Kusco is pretty near Machu Pichu. I'm
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: undecided if I want to go to Machu Pichu, just
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: because it's such a tourist trap, but it seems like
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: they have pretty good guides and infrastructure and the money
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: is used for good local development. And however much of
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: a tourist trap whatever, it is still mountains. I mean,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: the mountains are real and original mountain. So I'm still
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: making up my mind. And there is one nice ticket,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and you can pay to go to all of the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: tourist sites with just one ticket. I'll let you know
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: how it goes. But I was telling my friend about
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: how I decided to go to Peru next, and originally
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I was going to go to Bogatah because that is
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: at eight thousand, six hundred feet roughly of elevation, and
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: meda Ian is at fifty six hundred feet, so i'd
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: be going another three thousand feet up, and that's well
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: above the elevation where you can start getting altitude sickness
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: really easily. And my friend was like, oh, well, why
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: don't you just stop by there before you go to Peru,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: since it's only three thousand feet away. I was like, no, no,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: it's hours away. It's just three thousand feet higher in elevation. Okay,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: but if it's only three thousand feet higher, then how
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: can it take ten hours to get there. That's less
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: than a mile. That's not very far. And I was like, well,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: it's not on the same mountain, it's not in the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: same place. And she was like, but it's only three
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: thousand feet away in EA. I was like, no, it's
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: in a completely different location. It the city, like far away,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: is three thousand feet higher in elevation, so I'm at
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: fifty six hundred, Bogata is at eighty six hundred. I
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: think you're mixing up elevation and location. Elevation is just
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the height of a place, and the location is where
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the city is. And her brain like twirled and whirled
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: for a minute, and then she realized what she was
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: doing and started laughing out loud, and it was really funny.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: She just mixed up elevation and location. My brain does
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: that sometimes I'm so focused on what I'm thinking about
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: that I don't zoom out and realize I'm not even
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: talking about the right thing. So even though everything I've
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: heard about Bogatah from everybody, that everybody tells me just
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: go to Median. Median's better, and Median is springtime, eternal,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: the food is amazing, there's rain, great weather, nice people,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: not too many people. And I was like, man, I
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: can just stay in Median, but I really want to
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: go to a higher elevation. And eighty six hundred is
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: pretty high. That's two thousand feet higher than Denver. Now
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: that's three thousand feet higher than Denver, because Denver's lower
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: than Median. Median's like fifty six hundred, and yeah, Denver
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: is fifty two eighty. So it's significantly higher than the
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: famous tall city in the US. It's at a higher
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: elevation than most cities in the world. So I still
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: wanted to go because I thought it would be interesting
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: to live at a higher elevation. And I started reading
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: about Bogata But it really does sound urban. It just
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: sounds like a big urban area with seven times as
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: many people. There are two million people in Mediian and
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: fifteen million plus in Bogata, and I don't really want
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to get all crowded. So I was looking at where
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I would go next, and I figured I put the
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Bogatan the back burner. If I really wanted to go,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I could stop by on my way out of the country.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: And then I was looking around, and for some reason,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I saw Cusco, and I was like, that's cool, because
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to fly into Lima just because it
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: seems like a city. It's probably a cool city, but
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I kind of wanted a small town, more local experience,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: and Cusco just kind of called to me as a
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: smaller mountain town. And then I looked up Cusco and
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Cusco's at eleven thousand, six hundred feet, so it's almost
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: twice as high as where I am now. It's more
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: than twice as high as Denver. That was actually pretty
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: shocking to realize. I don't think I've ever been up
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: that high. I mean, I've climbed so many mountains in
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Sichuan in China, I don't I couldn't tell you if
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: one of the mountains was higher than eleven thousand feet,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: but I feel like I would have known that because
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I would have been freezing at that height. I believe,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm gonna have to go there and
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: find out. But luckily, I've been jogging every day at
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: that grass top two kilometer running track, and my endurance
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: is definitely growing. I'm definitely getting my breath. I can
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: jog for I don't know, indefinitely without breathing hard. My
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: running technique is still intact, which is nice since I
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: haven't run half a year or something, and now I
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: just hop back on that grass track and I feel
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: very comfortable jogging again, which is great because yeah, I
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: should work on getting as much oxygen as I can,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: because I'm about to double my elevation, which is going
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to do far more than double my chances of getting
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: altitude sickness. Every single Airbnb in Cusco has a warning
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: that for the first day, don't do anything, just rest
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: because you're probably going to have altitude sickness. And I
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: will ignore that. I'm going to rucksack from the airport
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: to my airbnb, and maybe I'll collapse on side of
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the road or pretend I'm taking a nap and really,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to catch my breath for four hours. Shoot,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: you know, it's going to be crazy, though, even if
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I train all the time here, I have a long layover,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: not too long, like seven hours, but I'm at fifty
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: six hundred feet now or fifteen hundred meters now, and
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: then I'm going to fly through Lima to Cusco and
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I have to waitane Lima for seven hours, so I'm
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: basically going to be acclimatizing to a zero elevation. It's
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: right on the beach, so I'm going from fifty six
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: hundred feet to like maybe five hundred feet, and then
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to fly again, and after a couple hours,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be at eleven eight hundred feet or
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: ten thousand, eight hundred feet eleven thousand, one hundred feet.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: That's going to be crazy, especially after stopping by the
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: seaside for seven hours. I assume I am there for
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: a month, which actually is an ordeal in and of itself.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: But I do have a month, so I should be
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: able to recuperate and see everything, because again Cousco isn't
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: too big. But there is a town called Pisac that
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: I want to go to. And look around because they
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: have ruins like the Machu Picchu ruins, but they're basically
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: unregulated and anybody can just walk around that area. And
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: that appeals to me more than buying the tourist thing
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and buying the Machu Pichu tike in taking the train
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: over there and all this kind of stuff. But I'll
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: see how I feel when I get there. I almost
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: bought a house in Pisak instead, but settled on Airbnb
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: for various crazy reasons. I guess we can just talk
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: about that now. So I have had a couple weird
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: experiences on Airbnb, nothing unexpected from sometimes you live with
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: a crazy person. So the one landlord in Las Vegas
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: stole my birthday present and then thren to call the
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: cops on me when I asked for it back, so
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: that was odd. And then there was another guy who
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: was extremely inappropriate also in Las Vegas. I think to
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the girl that I was traveling with at the time
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and asked if she could introduce him to her sister.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: It was really gross and weird, but both times Airbnb
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: support was very supportive. They immediately answered. The phone is
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: a big one actually, whenever I call up Airbnb support,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever waited more than two minutes.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: They answer very quickly. They asked for the entire story
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: from your point of view, and then they keep everything
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: recorded and then they deal with it. They flagged those
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: people's accounts that I'm talking about, so they basically have
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: a strike and if another one comes up then oh,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: and they also warn the host so that if another
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: thing comes up, then it's like, we warned you, now
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: you're penalized, or we warned you, now your listing has
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: taken off Airbnb. Airbnb does serve the guests and hosts
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: pretty well. There's pretty good communication anyway between Airbnb support
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: staff and the customers, the renters, and rentees on it
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: in my experience so far. And I had another support
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: necessity that came up and support helped me with it.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: So this was the first time this situation exactly has
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: happened to me. And what's been really weird is the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Airbnb app stopped working for like six weeks, but after
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I reported it to Airbnb just two weeks ago, they
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: apparently somehow were not aware of the threads detailing the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: search button being broken, even though many people were complaining
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: about it and it's been two weeks. There were three updates,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: and on the third update, over those two weeks, the
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: search bund started working and Airbnb is functioning completely normally again.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: So it apparently they just weren't aware of the problem
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: until yeah, I gave them a call, so that's very satisfying. Again,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: the support staff seems to be really on it with Airbnb,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: even though they're all not from the US. Everyone's from
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: India or usually India. I think I've only talked to
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Indian people, but they're great. They're great support people, even
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: if they aren't whatever from the country where it was founded.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Who cares all tech support is. Actually, when I was
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: in Bubonesha, that's like the tech capital, that's where all
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the IT support buildings are, so I probably lived near
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: the Airbnb IT support building also while I was living
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: in India. Anyway, what happened was I was looking at
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: all these places and lately I just want a private house,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: washing machine, full kitchen, and then a nice place, maybe
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: hardwood floor or tile, someplace very clean. But yeah, I
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: like a large private house with a kitchen and a
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: washer or washing machine for my clothes. But when I
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: saw how small Cusco was I decided to rent the
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: apartment earlier than I usually do, which can literally be
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: the day of If it's any big city, you don't
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: need to worry about booking too far ahead. There's always
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: stuff available in any decent sized city. But Cusco is
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: very tiny. There's maybe half a million people in Cusco
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: altogether to include all of it, like outside of the
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: urban areas also, so a little bigger than I thought,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: but not that not large enough to have a huge
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: selection of houses that fit my criteria with the washing
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: machine and the kitchen and big open areas and green
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: stuff and private houses in particular. But I was very
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: happy because I found one and I booked it and
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I got a response immediately, and then the host didn't
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: say anything, and I was like, Oh, that's not too weird.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: We're pretty far out. Usually they're just like, hey, thanks
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: for renting my space, see you in a couple weeks,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and this time we were more than three weeks out,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and I was like, well, whatever, I'll talk to him
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: when I get closer. So then I was about two
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: weeks out and he still hadn't said any welcome message
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: or anything. So I decided to reach out and say, hey,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: is this close to a bus line. I just said
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: something normal to start the conversation, just ask some regular question,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: and I got the weirdest response. First, he didn't answer me,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: so it's already been a week that Oh, and that's
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: an instant book. I paid in full, so he had
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: the entire rent money already and it's a non refundable reservation.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: So I asked if the Airbnb map was correct so
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I could get there, and he said, good afternoon. The
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: correct location is behind the archaeological park, close to the
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: archaeological sites above climbing stepso axis is only on foot.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: The car leaves you nearby. I said, great, thank you,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: three no five hours later. Five hours later, Wilson writes back, Hello,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: good evening. Sorry for the inconvenience. I'm having a problem
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: with a guest's stay. I don't know if I could
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: cancel the request. Thank you very much, my apologies. And
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I was like, what are you talking about me? Did
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: you mean to send that to Airbnb? And I asked him,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: did you mean to message me or Airbnb? Because it
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: sounds like you want to ask someone about my state
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: that you'd like to cancel. And all he types back
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: is please cancel it apologies for the case, and I said, well,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I can't. I already paid, it's non refundable and you
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: have all of the money. Is there something wrong with
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the house, Because that's the other thing about Airbnb. If
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: you're going to host, you can't not host someone, especially
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: after you already accept the reservation and the money has
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: been transferred, So they can't cancel for no reason without penalties.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: And the penalties can go from twenty five to one
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: hundred percent of the money and that money goes back
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: to the renter, and Airbnb takes cuts from future earnings
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: for that host. Also also it gets you a blacky.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: It's like a huge thing. So it's very rare for
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: hosts to cancel after they've made this reservation. And it
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: just sounds weird to me the way he's not talking
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: a lot and the kinds of answers he's giving me,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: And I suspect it's because I got a good deal
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: on the house. It was three hundred and fifty or
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: something for the month, and it's a full house to myself,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: washer washing machine in the kitchen, and just had everything
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I was looking for and it was a pretty big place.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: That's not crazy. The other prices were around that, but
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: that was probably the best priced one. Actually it was
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: three twenty I think yeah, because I think he just
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: wanted more money, because he didn't answer if there's anything
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: wrong with the house, and he said something very vague,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: I have a problem with a guest, and he just
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: asks me to cancel. And then he tried to change
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: the price, to double the price to six hundred and sixty.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: But you can't do that because it's already made, agreed
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to and the money has been transferred, So the host
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: can't change how much the house costs after you've already
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: agreed on a price and paid for it. Also, if
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you're wondering why that's so cheap, I rented twenty eight days.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: If you rent more than twenty seven days on Airbnb,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: you get the monthly discount. It's huge. It's it can
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: be seventy five percent. It's just always a very large discount.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I think this one was something like seventy five percent
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: or fifty percent something. Anyway, he tried to double the amount,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: and then that doesn't work because he can't change the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: rate after it's been paid for, and so it rebounded
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: back to the original rate. And basically sent messages to
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: me and him so I could see him trying to
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: change the rate and then see Airbnb saying no, this
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: is the rate that's already been paid for. And I
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: was like, what the is going on? And he wasn't
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: giving me any good answers. So I decided I would
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: talk to Airbnb support, but it was already really late,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: so I figured I talked to them the next morning,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and I woke up to a message from Airbnb Support
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: saying that my reservation was canceled. But because that guy
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: didn't answer me. Now, I'm less than two weeks out
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: from getting to Cusco, Peru, and there are not many
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: houses of the kind that I was looking for in
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: that same price range around even more expensive. There's not
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: many full houses with washing machines and kitchens. And what
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: my host that canceled wrote after I got that notification
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: from Airbnb saying they canceled the reservation is I have
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: to cancel because I have to travel for an emergency.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: A family member has died. Second, my lease is expired
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and I can't rent anymore. And I was like, okay,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: why did you accept it then? But I didn't ask him.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I was just like, why the heck would you accept
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: something if that was true, which I don't think it is.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I think those are consequences that won't get him a
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: black mark on his record as a host, even though
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: he will still pay financial penalties. So that's what he
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: told Airbnb so that he could cancel it that someone
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: in his family died, and also his own lease for
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the place expired so he can't rent it out. So
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: that was already weird. It's very rare for a host
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: to do that. I think I've only encountered it one
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: other time, and when the host realized what steep penalties
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: he would be facing, he just let me stay in
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: whatever place I had rented because he also just wanted
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: more money and had sent his monthly discount low enough
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: that he wanted more money. Okay, So that's already pretty strange.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: But I had encountered it before, and I have heard
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: of it occasionally, so it's like okay, and Airbnb was
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: kind enough if something like this happens again. Airbnb Sport
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: takes care you pretty well. They automatically, I didn't even
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: have to talk to anybody, sent me a twenty five
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: dollars gift card to cover the cost of being closer
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: to the day, and they recommended a house that looked
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: a lot like the one I had just rented, and
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: it was only about twenty five dollars more and I
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: would be able to get basically what I wanted. Again,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: it wasn't the exact same, but nothing else houses there different.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: So I booked that one because it was the one
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: recommended by Airbnb. It had a ton of great reviews
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: for years, It's been around for a very long time,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: nearly a decade. And I was like, okay, yeah, I
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: guess that's okay, and then I booked it. And one
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: thing everyone talked about was the responsiveness of the host,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: and so I just asked the same question, like, hey,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: is this address correct, and they didn't answer me, and
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: then five hours later they didn't answer me, and then
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: they declined the reservation, maybe like twelve hours later. Hosts
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: can decline reservations, but it is going to like raise
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: flags if they do it too much, and especially if
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: there's no reason, and especially if their house was listed
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: as available on those dates. They should give a valid
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: reason why they're declining a reservation. But this apparently good
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: host didn't even answer me and declined the reservation. So
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: now I've had a very strange cancelation and then I'm
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: recommended something by Airbnb, I pay for it. It uses
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: up some of my credit and that's not refundable if
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: you use the credit. So they used up with the
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: twenty five dollars or some of the twenty five dollars
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: credit that I got with this reservation, and then it
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: was canceled also and the money was refunded the payment
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: for the actual house. So odd. Everything is odd already,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: And I just called up Airbnb because I didn't know
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: what to do, and I wanted to ask, like, is
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: something wrong with the city right now? Why is nobody
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: renting things out? But there were people renting out because
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: you can see which days are currently being rented. I
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: might have just gotten super unlucky twice. And the Airbnb
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: support staff listened to what happened, said, yes, that is
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: all very rare and very strange, and yes, the first
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: time it happened to me. It's the first time she
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: heard about it, this Airbnb lady. And I thought this
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: was extremely inconvenient considering now I'm closer to my date
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: out to fly, I don't see any houses that looked
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: like what I was looking for. What I booked twice,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: still within that same price range, and if they can
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: give me twenty five more dollars, I will just leave
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: it at that. I'll go find something. There are plenty
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: of places, they just won't be exactly what I wanted.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: And instead she stayed on the line. She gave me
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: a bunch of places to look at. Oh, actually, you know,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: before that, before I got to talk to this female
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Airbnb support, I called up Airbnb to be like, hey,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: what the heck's going on? And a guy answered, and
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: he went through my security questions, all of them. Instead
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: of like the three or whatever that they're supposed to
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: ask you, he asked me all seven or eight whatever
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: there are, And after I had answered all of them,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: he asked all of them again. And he asked some
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: of these questions five times. And I was like, I
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: actually said, I'm sorry, how many questions do you need
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: because this is taking a very long time and I've
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: already given you the answers, and he said, just one more,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: just one more. I was like, okay, and I gave
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: him whatever the last one was. He said, okay, okay,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: tell me your situation. So I told him, and he said,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I'm going to look into it. Can you hold for
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: one minute? And I was on hold for one minute
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: and then the call disconnected. And this happened right after
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: the second declination or really after cancelation and then a
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: declined reservation. And then I get hung up on by
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the Airbnb support, which has never happened. Like I said,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: They're usually very on it, the Airbnb support, and I
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: was like, this is crazy. So I called back and
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: it was the same guy and he asked me the
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: same questions again to verify my identity for Airbnb. And
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: then he was like, I'm so sorry that happened. Can
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: you just wait for one minute. I'm going to fix
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: this right now. Okay, just wait. I was like okay,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and then I got disconnected. After a minute, I like
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: the music whatever played, and then I got disconnected and
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I have a great signal. I had just called somebody
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: up internationally, so I knew it wasn't from my end.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: And then he called me back and he says, I'm sorry,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: we keep getting disconnected. I don't know what's wrong. Are
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: you sure you have good signal? And I was like, yeah,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I have full bars and I just called someone else
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and there was no problem, and he said okay, and
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: then he got disconnected again. If he was accidentally pushing
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the disconnect button instead of hold or connect button, that
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: would not surprise me at all. He seemed very confused.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Maybe he was a new guy. Okay, So anyway, after that,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, if he answers, I'm just gonna
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: hang up and try and reach someone else because there's
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: no weight time. It's very short weighttime. So I called
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: up Aerabbe again and I just happened to get the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: female support worker who was on it. She asked the
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: proper amount of Social Security questions, understood my answers the
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: first time, asked for my side of the story. I
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: told her what happened. She confirmed it, and they can
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: see all of the messages that host and guests send
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: each other. And she also acknowledged that this is a
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: very weird situation where one you got a cancelation from
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: a host who, for all intents and purposes, was recently
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: renting out his place and nothing seems wrong with the place,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: so it's really weird that he would have it available
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and then cancel, and then also very weird that the
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: place Airbnb recommended, I rent declined that reservation, and she
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: contacted both hosts and they gave her some story, and
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: she said okay, and she told them the penalties they
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: would face, well, the cancelation guy much more than the
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: declined reservation, because with the canceled reservation everything already went through.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: With declined sometimes you haven't paid the money upfront, and
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: it's just not as big of a hassle for the
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: all parties involved, really, So she acknowledged it was weird
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: that that had happened to me twice and then I
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: got disconnected from Airbnb twice or three times whatever, and
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: I said, look, just give me twenty five more dollars.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I will find something. It's fine. And she said, no,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I'm going to look into this, and she did, and
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: she said, I've talked to my managers. Look for a
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: place in your budget that you like. It can be
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: around your budget, and then let me know and I'll
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: see what I can do with the money. And I
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: found one for three eighty something, so sixty dollars more
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: than before. She applied to credit and I paid the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: same amount that I had for the first canceled reservation
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: for this sixty dollars more expensive house that looks pretty nice.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Still not as nice as the one I was originally
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: going for, but very nice. It looks like a nice house.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I think I'm going to be happy there. But let's
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: knock on some wood and try not to jinx myself. Huh.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: So it could have been a lot worse. It was
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: a very strange situation and one that I have never
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: encountered specifically like that before. I think I've encountered someone
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: who needed to cancel a reservation at some point before.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I can't remember when it was, but it was years ago.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: So a canceler reservation has maybe happened to me once
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: every five years, because I've been on Airbnb for over
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: a decade, and both times the AIRBNBA support staff has
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: immediately applied a credit so that you can pay a
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: little higher rate for your next booking and listened to
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the problem and apparently tried to address the problem. And
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: like I said, with the app that they fixed, they
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: do address problems pretty quickly, considering they're such a large
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: company and they have so many individuals contacting them. The
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: fact that they fixed the app so quickly shocked me.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: And the fact that they fixed my housing problem so rapidly.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Also shocked me because it was a tiny town and
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: it was not easy to find these houses. And when
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I at first she gave me a list of houses
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: that were just not good. They didn't have a washing
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: machine and a kitchen, they weren't private, even though I
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: had explained all those things. Actually, I think I had
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: to find the second. Yeah, this house I ended up
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: eventually getting. I don't think it was on the list.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I just looked at all the available ones and said, well, hey,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: this one's three eighty, but it has all the stuff
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I was looking for that that first canceled house has,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: and that's the one I was able to get for
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: the same price. So Airbnb is not morally beneficent. They're
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: not always going to do the right thing. But when
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I have had problems, Airbnb support has helped me every
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: time that getting disconnected from Airbnb. That was also the
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: first time that has ever happened to me, And I
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: do call them up. I don't need help with this
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: kind of thing, but I have called them up before.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: So it's a big for profit company. They're not paragons
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: of virtue, but they do run the business well. From
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: my experience, and I've just had this great experience. Really,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: I felt very taken care of and acknowledged, and then
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: my problem was actually solved. Like when was the last
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: time something went wrong you called up the support line
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: and they actually worked to solve the problem. I can't
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: even think of a I don't even know the last
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: time that has happened to me. Like the last time
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: I called up a support line and got a practical
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and effective solution to the actual problem, I was telling
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: them just directly. That's pretty rare these days, and I
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: have encountered that every time I call up Airbnb support.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: So Airbnb, you can get houses for three hundred bucks
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: and they fix your problems if you are not the
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: one at fault. All right, that's Cusco baby. So I'm
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: going to go to this crazy high elevation city, get
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: some altitude sickness and see what's up over there. I
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: hope they have good food. I feel like I'm going
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: to miss all the food. It just feels like it's
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: going to be more Guatemala e, which you know what,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: they had great food in Guatemala. It's just the food
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: here in Median is so good. Yeah, I think that's it.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: I'm just spoiled. Speaking of food, I went around a
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: median and just looked for all the different types of
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: cherisas they had, because I've been getting curisos from this
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: one guy. But he's getting lazy, I think, because I
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: go there every like I'll go there three days in
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: a row because he's there Thursday to Sunday. And now
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: he doesn't cook the sausages a long time, so they're
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: not slow cooked. They're just charred on the outside, and
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: that's not tasty. I want the slow cooked lots of flavor,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: not burnt, and he's just burning them and then scraping
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: off the burn stuff and giving them to me. So
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: I went around the city and just looked for all
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: the different trisos, and I got a great one burrito
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: with tomato salsa slash something I don't know. It wasn't
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: exactly just tomato salty. It was like maybe it was
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know, there was onions and maybe it wasn't
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: pico de gayo though there was a salsa element anyway.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: And then in that was a chariso and that was good.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: But I don't like traditionally made tortillas very much, honestly,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: because they don't have xanthem gums, so they crumble very easily.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not a huge fan of handmade traditional tortillas, but
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: the chiriso was great, so I was happy. And then
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I found another lady who had cherisas on skewers with
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: a little tortilla on top and then a potato on
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the skewer, so you hold it, and
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: then from the bottom up it's a potato cherriso and
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: then a little piece of a tiny tortilla. The tiny
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: one's okay, because the flavor of the cherisas are so
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: strong that that little bite of flour sort of mixes
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: in well with that and takes away what may be
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: too oily or too overwhelming a sensation of flavor, but
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: probably isn't. I usually just throw away the tortilla. So
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: that churisa was great. And there was a potato there
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to nibble on, which was like salted and rolled in spices,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: which was pretty great. Maybe some oregano, but it was
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: just like a tiny baked potato on the bottom of
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: this chrezo skewer, and it was great. And then I
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: got a third one, and that was just by some
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: lady who said it was twenty five hundred, and I
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: forgot the word for five hundred, so I just stared
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: at her for four seconds and I was like, twenty
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: five hundred. I got okay, sorry, my brain has to
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: translate very poorly and slowly, and she was like, haha,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: no problem, and I got my jariso and hers was
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: really good too, So I'm probably going to go back
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: to that third lady. Second or third lady are good.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: The first one was just a regular trio was not good,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, said, the guy I go to usually
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: is getting lazy. But two and three that's just an
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: old lady. I see her constantly cheriso ing. I don't
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: think she's ever gonna change her method, and so they'll be.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: They're going to be exactly what they are. And I
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: told her I like mine cooked for a longer time,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and she gave me one that was cooked a longer
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: time and it was great. Those are my chariso ventures.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: And then I wanted to find other new foods around
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the city that I hadn't been to yet because I
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: don't have a lot of time left in Median And
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I found this pizza place and I wasn't going to
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: go there, but it smelled good, and it was two people.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: It was like a middle aged mom and pop pizza shop,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: and I just trusted them, as I do trust most
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: mom and pop shops. And I went in to look
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: at a menu, and then I realized that I didn't
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: have any money on me. I just didn't have cash
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: on me because I had gone running and didn't have
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: my money on me. So I didn't apologize. Actually I
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: was gonna say I did, but I didn't. I just
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: said thank you and walked out, and the restaurant was empty,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: so I felt bad, but I walked back to my house,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: got some money, went back to the pizza place and
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: said hello again. Let me look at the menu again,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: and I got one and then I was like, no,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: just give me be a special, give me the one
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: with everything on it. So I got this big especial pizza.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: And this place was called Mega Pizza, and I was like, oh, interesting,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: because they're pizza. Pie box were not squares or circles,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: they were triangles. And when he made it and brought
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: it out, it was a giant slice of pizza with
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: like six triangles cut into it. So you lifted triangles
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: out of this giant just imagine if you had a
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: large pizza, but in the shape of a triangle, in
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: the shape of a giant slice, instead of in the
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: shape of a giant circle. So it should have been
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: called megaslice, not megapizza. I know that bothers me a
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: little bit, but I get it mega pizza. That's fine,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: and it's especially fine because it was a good pizza.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: The only thing I would want is a little more
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: sauce and maybe blackening on the bottom of the crust.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: But the crust itself was good dough, It was good crust.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: It tasted like real pizza crust. The tomato sauce that
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: was on there did taste good. All of the ingredients
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: were very fresh, and Columbia has remarkable cheese. I don't
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: know if it's just they make the mozzarella here different
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: or if they're actually calling a different kind of cheese mozzarella.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Because all the mozzarella type cheese they put on tortillas
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: or in this case, on the pizza, it doesn't taste
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: exactly how I associate with mozzarella. It's a little more crumbly,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: but it still holds together very well, and it does
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: melt well like mozzarella does. So maybe Colombian mozzarella is
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: made differently somehow, or maybe it's just the elevation. I
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: really don't know, but it's better, actually, it's a lot better.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: It tastes much more fresh than the mozzarella I usually
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: get on pizzas in restaurants. And then there was bacon
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: and sausage in the bacon was cooked perfectly. Everything was
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: cooked perfectly. All of the vegetables and meat were cooked
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: perfectly on this well made dough, cooked into the shape
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: of a giant slice of pizza, which was really cool.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: It is remarkable to look at it. And the cuts
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: were really interesting too, because he must always cut it
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: in that way. And I thought, maybe he has a
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: circle one and he cuts it and then rearranges it
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: to look like a slice. But the crust of the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: megaslice goes all the way around the slice, so he
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: must for some reason or and he must be very
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: good at because that was the other thing, the speed.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: He made this pizza in like ten minutes, So he
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: must already make all of these big slices and then
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: just do them up and throw them in the oven
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: as soon as somebody orders. Because I can't imagine. The
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: shaping takes a while, but it was good pizza. It
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: was fun to eat, it looked fun, and it was
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: fun to hold because it was they were slices. They
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: cut a bunch of triangles into this giant triangle or
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: from this giant triangle. And that was a great megapizza.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I recommend Megapizza if you come to Median Well.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I finally saw a car crash here, which the traffic
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: here is great. People do not hawk at each other.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: They don't drive very fast. They're pretty careful. The ones
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: who drive fast, the bikes, the motor scooters, they drive
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: kind of fast. And the teenagers will of course drive
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: faster than responsible adults a lot of the time. But
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: that's what it was here. There was a bunch of
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: like twenty year olds or maybe they were teenagers, I
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: don't know, and they crashed into another car and nobody
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: was hurt, but the front of the car was craned.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: It was accordion pretty bad, so it was good that
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: nobody was hurt. It was pretty wild though it was
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: right next to my house, like right next to my neighborhood.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Not I didn't hear or see the crash when it happened,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: but it must have just happened. Everybody was still there.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: The police had just shown up and started asking questions,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: and the police are that's the block. That place they
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: crashed was maybe five hundred meters from the police station tops,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: so as soon as it happened, they were right on
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: over there. Oh. The airbnb thing was also funny because
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: I'm helping a couple people move abroad right now, and
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: they're both getting pretty close to actually moving, it seems like,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: and one of them was really excited about Mediian because
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: that's Oh, that's what I have to talk about too.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: I think Mediian is going to be added to my
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: list of countries to move to our at least cities
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: to start traveling in. Thailand was always basically the top
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: choice because of it's super cheap, the food's good, super
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: friendly people, good healthcare. It basically just has everything, and
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: it's very affordable and fun to live there, and it's beautiful.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: But it's super hot in Thailand A lot of the year,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: like eight months, it's unbearably hot for me. I just
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: stay inside with my ac until nighttime comes and then
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: it's bearable and I can go hang out at the
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: night markets and go talk to people and stuff, but
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: it's hot. Median, on the other hand, is absurdly climate controlled.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Nobody here has a see because for three hundred and
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: sixty five days out of the year, the low is
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: about sixty four and the high is about eighty three.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: So all year you have seventy two degree fahrenheit weather
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: twenty two celsius all twelve months of the year. That's
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: the average temperature. And at night it gets a little
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: bit cooler, and during the day it can get a
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: little bit warmer, but it still never goes over low eighties,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: and it's often cloudy, so you still a little cooler
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: during the day, maybe at eighty instead of eighty three fahrenheit,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: and then it always loses those ten degrees or five
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: degrees celsius and the night time it just goes away
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: and it's comfortable. So nobody uses ac here. There are
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: of course houses that you can find, and it's a
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: little warm for my I run hot, so even seventy
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: two is a little uncomfortably warm for me. I'm not
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: going to have that problem soon in Cusco. It's going
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: to be freezing, maybe literally, I don't even know. Well,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: it's going to be eight celsius. That's not bad, forty
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: two fahrenheit during the nights, that's understandable, and then it'll
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: be warmer in the day. Should be good for me.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: I been looking forward to some colder temperatures these days.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: I liked Panama, but it was warm and Mediean is
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: least comfortable. I can walk around without constantly sweating, which
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: is nice. But I'm looking forward to being in cold
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: temperature and I might actually change my travel plans that
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: are tentative right now anyway, to go to some cold
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: places like Iceland or Greenland. After this, When I was
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: walking down to the running track the other day, the
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: grasstop running park to practice my oxygen inhalation for the
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: double elevation. Soon I was passing by this guy selling
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: well looked like onion rings, but I realized we're churos
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: and great churros here on the street. I don't really
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: like them. They're very corn mealy in Guatemala and the
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: other places I've tried, but they were great here. They
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: were just like thin, little crunchy doe churros and they
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: had arequipe dulcete lech or like caramel sauce that they
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: put on it, and it was delicious and it was
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: so much sugar and I was like, I can't get
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: those again, but that was very tasty. And that same
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: day I was so happy. After my first wife of Turoa.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I was just floating down the sidewalk and this old
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: man stopped me and asked me if I could throw
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the ball over the fence, and I was like what,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: and he was holding a soccer ball, and I realized
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: that the kids inside the soccer field had somehow kicked
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: it up those thirty feet or whatever it is over
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: the fence and it landed in the street, and this
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: old man picked it up, but his shoulder hurt so
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: he could have thrown back over. And I failed twice
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: because there are electrical lines running outside the chain link
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: fence around the soccer park and I didn't want to
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: hit those, so I was over compensating and smacking into
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: the chain link fence. But then I walked around the
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: corner and I threw it up there and it went
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: over and everybody said thank you, and it was very cool,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: very satisfying. I was glad I got to help, and
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, you're welcome haha. And I walked away,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: and then the old man called after me because when
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: I threw it up. When I took the ball from him,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: I gave him my churros to hold so I could
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: throw the soccer ball over, and I had forgotten to
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: take them back, but luckily he remembered and gave me
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: my churros back. And I enjoyed the rest of my walk,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: I munching on my caramel chiros. I tried a new
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: fruit because there's so many drinks here that are flavored
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: in lulo, and I was like, I don't know what
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: that is, and so I've just been ignoring it. But
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: then I was like, wait, this is why you travel.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Learn what lulo is. And it's an interesting fruit. It's
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: super sour. It's in the tomato family. It looks tomato e,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: but it's a little it just for some reason, it
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: feels more like a fruit than a tomato does. Maybe
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: it's just not as savory, but it is very sour.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: That's why they make it into a lot of drinks,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: and I got a couple, but mine never got sweet
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: at all. It says they're supposed to get a little sweeter,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: but they're usually still pretty sour, and so I just
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: had these weird tough sour tomato fruit things called lulo.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I did get lula flavored ice cream that was great,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: but the lulofruit itself was it's hide. Its skin is
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: so thick that I sharpened my knife and then tried
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: to cut the top off the lulo, and I literally
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: couldn't cut through it with the knife unless I stabbed
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: into it, just like slicing across the top of it.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: The skin was so tough the knife didn't go through.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: I was pretty shocked about that, but it's worth trying
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: if you're down here, especially one of the drinks. That's
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: the nice thing. They make all fresh drinks here, so
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: there's just yeah fresh drinks. I got one with a
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: pork skewer. That's another interesting thing they do here. The
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: pork skewer. Guys all tenderize the meat in the middle
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: of cooking the skewer, so they'll cook it or grill
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: it for a little while, then move it over to
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: the counter and smack it with a meat tenderizer a
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: few times, put it back on and grill it, smack
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: it with a meat tenderizer a few times. After a
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: couple more minutes and then finish it off on the grill.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: And when I ate it, it was super tender and delicious.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: It didn't take too long to make, maybe ten minutes,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: probably under ten minutes, and it was delicious. I finished
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Pebble in the Sky, which is Isaac Asimov's first book.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: I recently watched I Robot and Oh I Am Legend,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: so I was in the mood for some classic sci
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: fi weirdo tales again, and I hadn't read Asimov in
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: a while, so I decided to read his first book ever.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: And it was good and I could see why it
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: was the first book he ever wrote. That was a
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: little apparent, but it was still well written in a
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: fun a fun read. What was actually more fun was
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: I got an audiobook to narrate recently, and it was
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: interesting timing because I started reading The Mosquito Coast for fun,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: which actually sort of stars a maga guy. It's from way,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: it's from decades ago. It's from like one hundred years ago.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Almost this book The Mosquito Coast eighty three years ago,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I guess eighty something years ago, and it's about the
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: scientist and inventor Ali Fox, who's a general handyman. But
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: the crux of the story is he makes his family
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: travel with him down into Central or South America, I
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: think South America to found his own community because he
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: thinks he can do everything better than everybody else, and
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: his family can't say no. He's they follow him. He
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: has a forceful personality. It's extremely narcissistic, full of hubris,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: and takes them down here and chaos ensues. The movie
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: starring Harrison Ford, is great. I recommend it. It got
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: me interested in reading the book. I started reading the
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: book for fun, and then right after that I got
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: an audiobook to narrate for Audible, and it's a very
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: well written book. But what I like is that it's
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: actually very similar to this book. It's called Nightmare Reef
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: and a narcissistic husband makes his whole family go on
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: this voyage across the Pacific with him as the captain.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: He's very domineering. His wife doesn't feel. She doesn't have
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of pride in herself or independence or identity really,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: but she read to me a lot like Shelley Duval
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: from The Shining and so when I narrated the book,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: she was instantly Shelley Duval from The Shining to me.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: So that was really interesting because it was a long book.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: It was a good I don't know, nine hours or something. No, no,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I think eight hours. Who knows I do, but who cares?
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: So I get to act as Shelley Duvall and the
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: writing is very good in Nightmare Reef and then Ali Fox,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: the scientist from Mosquito Coast. I did his mannerisms. I
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: don't try and imitate either of those actors, and I
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: don't try to do like perfect impressions. I just get
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: a feeling from a character I'm familiar with, and then
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: I make that into my normal speaking voice, and I
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: just differentiate by imbuing that with a little bit of
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Shelley Duvall or a little bit of Harrison Ford as
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Ali Fox, the inventor in this book. And then so
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: I got to act as two characters that are very
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: interesting to me in movies and media, and I think
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: it turned out really good and it was really fun
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: to do that performance for eight hours or whatever it was.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: There's one guy in this neighborhood that shouts intermittently, like
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: once or twice a day, you'll just hear and I
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: always thought it was so weird, and then a motorbike
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: drove by and it sounded like a guy screaming. And
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not one hundred percent sure, but it might actually
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: just be they have a lot of crappy bikes around here,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: or at least all bikes that are not electric are
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: like crappy to me now. They're very inefficient and loud,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: and it's just can you hear that? Yeah, that's one
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: of them. Whenever I hear a gas bike these days,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: I just feel like I'm It's like if I saw
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: a horse and buggy pulling people down the street and
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: the horse was crapping all over the street, I'd just
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: be like, I guess, okay, you like that, but it's
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: really inconvenient for everybody else and dirty and loud horses
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: or these motor scooters, but that's what they have down here.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: There are some electric scooter shops and electric scooters down here,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: for sure, and electric cars, but gas is still the
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: big one here. Although if you're from the US, I
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: guess that's pretty normal to you too. There's a lot
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: of gas cars there that is rapidly changing around Asia
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: with Chinese ev factories, they're man taken over and considering
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: recent US track record for civil rights and progress progress,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: it'll be kind of a relief when the US can't
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: pretend to hold any sort of strategic advantage anymore, because
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: what they do with their power is very damaging to
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: the planet and its people, not least of all its
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: own citizens and its own country. I tried beef ribs.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've got pork ribs a ton of times,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: but beef ribs are not very common. I don't see
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: them a lot, but there's a bunch here in Colombia.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: They're as common as pork ribs, and they're the same
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: price or cheaper here. So I got those and they
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: were great. I air fried them for forty five minutes
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: or something. Oh you know what. I steamed them in
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: my rice cooker first for forty five minutes, and then
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: I air fried them for ten minutes or something, and
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: they came out perfect. And I have the barbecue sauce
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: with a beer flavor inside, and that was delicious also,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: And so I got a couple. I got beefribs again sometime.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Got some chicken wings just yesterday, made a bunch of
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: great spiced chicken wings, crispy, just how I like air fryers.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Air fryers, Man, they're the best. I've been thinking I
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: should just buy an air fryer whenever I live anywhere,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: because I do live there for a month at least
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: each place, so at the most, I'm only paying a
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: dollar for my favorite kitchen appliance if they don't have
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: an air fryer yet, and then I'll leave it there
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: and everybody will enjoy it when I move on. Because
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: I was so interested in ribs because they were so good,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: I went to the supermarket I haven't been to before,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: called Exito Exito. I don't know Exito, Yeah, it must
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: be that Exito, And it looked like one of the
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: big supermarkets. But when I walked in, I realized it
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: was like the local version, which usually I like. But man,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: when I walked near the meat, the meat was bad.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: It was stink and when I asked him to hold
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: up a piece of beef ribs, he did and it
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: was off color, like it was very dark bruising across
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: the meat, or maybe they just didn't inject that part
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: with the red, but it looked bad and it smelled bad,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: and I left immediately, and I found this other local
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: butcher with great meat, and he gave me a bunch
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: of beef ribs and I had great beef ribs that
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: day too. I learned how to say cornett cone cuckarucho
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: cono de kukurucho. That's a waffle cone. Here they don't
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: say waffle cone, which is really weird because the ice
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: cream place I like to go to is called Waffley.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: It's called waffle like, but they don't call it ConA
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: de waffle a waffle cone. They call it a cornette cone,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: a cono de cucuruco. And when she told me that,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: she was like, do you want the ConA de cono
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: regularo cucucho something like that, or maybe it was I
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: don't know what the other one is, but I was like,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: cucko what? And I had to have the ice cream
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: layer to repeat it like five times before I said it,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: and instead of saying seekukarrocho, see is correcto, she was
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: just like she didn't say anything. She just watched me
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: say it, so I wasn't sure if I was saying
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: it correctly, and I had to say cuckuucha like five
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: times before she was like, Okay, you are saying it correctly,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, great, and I always feel
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: bad because my Spanish sucks, but my accent is pretty good,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: so they always think I can speak more than I can.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: And they even mentioned your accent's really good. And then
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: they said something else and I was like, but my
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: vocabulary suns, but I don't know anything. Don't worry, you'll learn.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: That's the same lay that Tammy Arikipe. I learned my
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: ice cream flavors and condiments in that place, except I
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: can't remember sprinkles right now. It's something fun like Chucco's
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: or something something fun. So the next time I went in,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: I said, well, actually, I went in like five times
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: after that, and I said like, kyo marcuyo con. Uh, yeah,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: kyo marcuya ando de Cucuruco. And so now I could
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: order regularly what I wanted and they scooped it out
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: for me. And after a few times of that, I
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, it's me Senor Cucarucco, the cornet guy,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: because I always got the cornet con the waffle con,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: and I thought that was really funny, Sennor Cucuruco. Nobody
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: else seemed to think it was very funny. So I
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: said it again because I'm an idiot. I was like,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: they probably just didn't understand, and it's like, it's me
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: signor cucaruco po kosta la cono de cucuruco. And one
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: of the girls, the girl who taught me the words,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: was like uh huh, like so clearly, like that's great,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: what do you want? But they were nice. Everyone's nice.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: Then they're very patient with my dumb assory. Oh. When
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: I got the good meat from the good butcher, I
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: got to talk to him in Spanish too, and he
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: was good at talking to someone who isn't good in Spanish,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: so he asked me questions he knew I'd be able
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: to answer at my level, and it felt like we
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: had a real conversation for like five or ten minutes
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: because he held the bag of ribs next to him
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: after he was finished cutting them up, and instead of
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: holding them out to me, he just started holding them
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: to himself and asking me questions like holding my ribs
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: hostage unless I talked to him. And it was a
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: good conversation. It was fun to talk to him. But
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: as soon as he held out the bag, I was like,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: I was like, thank you, I have to come make
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: these and that left. Yeah, the cheese and Columbia. I'm
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: just gonna bring it up real quick again. If anybody
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: knows what kind of cheese they make in Columbia that's
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: mozzarella like, or if they just have a different type
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: of Colombian mozzarella cheese, definitely let me know. I'm very
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: curious about this cheese. I don't All of the cheese
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: here has labels, but I don't know which of those
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: cheeses because they have dozens of varieties, which are the
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: one which is the one I keep tasting. It's got
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: to be one of the more common ones and the
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: cheap ones because all the street food people use that,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: but I'm not sure which one it is exactly. Oh,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: a vegan asked me about my eating tendencies and opinions.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's morally okay to kill animals. I
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: do think it's perfectly natural to kill animals and eat them,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: So not morally okay, but very normal and natural to
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: do that. So I eat animals often. If I'm in India,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: I went vegan for literally and I didn't even notice
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: I went vegetarian because I started eating panier. I went
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: vegetarian for one month, didn't notice. So I was vegetarian
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: for two months and vegan for one month in India
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: without even noticing, because the food is so good. If
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: I had that option here, I would probably be eating
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: less meat. My body seems to run better on plants,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: but I have a great time frying up things in
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: the air fryer. It's a really easy way to cook food,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: and it's very efficient for the human body to, you know,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: metabolize fat and protein. It's just all there in a
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: tiny little chicken wing or rib or whatever you want.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: So if anybody else is wondering, Nope, I'm not vegan,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: but I liked being a vegan while I was in India.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: Eating meat seems as normal to me as walking on
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: this planet anyway. All the things eat meat here. I
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: consider humans animals. I don't see the difference between them
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: and other animals. So if other animals meat, seems perfectly
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: natural for humans to eat meat also, and plenty of
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: animals eat plants, so it's perfectly natural for humans to
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: eat plants. Whatever you want to do, do it. I'm
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: an omnivore one meal a day guy, I guess for now,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Right now, that's what makes me feel healthy. Oh boy.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: And speaking of good food, I recently had a fantastic
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: patacone concarne with guac. It's actually so it's a fried
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: plantain circle and he fries that, and while he's frying it,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: he's cooking pulled pork, like barbecue flavored pulled pork, just
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: a little bit of sauce on it, and then he
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: puts that on top of the fried like plantain toastata,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: and then you can get whatever you want on the top.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: He has a bunch of condiments. I always just get guak,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: and holy cow, it's just this big toastata on the plantain,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: pulled pork, guacamole. Delicious. I got a bunch of those.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: But he's not there every day, and he ran out
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: the last time I was there. But I should go
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: back because it's so good. It's such a great toast tata.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: That's I missed the toastatas from that girl in Guatemala
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: in that town. Shoot, I can't remember what tiny town
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: that was, but her carrot toastatas were great. And this
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: guy's pulled pork toastada is fenta. I guess I should
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: just call it Patacona because it's not that crispy, it's
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: it's the perfect amount of crispy. This pulled pork toastata
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: whatever it is is so good. Patacone. Yeah, it's a Patacone,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Patacone with guawk desmit Chada. I think that's like pulled
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: pork catchada, something like that. I got a pretty big
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: topic about medi Ian on the you know, on the
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: topic of it becoming my new recommendation, at least in
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: tandem with Thailand. Thailand still has so many great advantages
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: being in Asia, and it's just it's so cheap over
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: there and it's so safe, so that's nice. But the
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: climate here and the city itself is very safe. It's
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: really difficult to choose one as better than the other.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to do it. I think they're just
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: both great options. If you're uncomfortable moving to Asia, you
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: can move to South America in a great country. If
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: you're uncomfortable with South America, you can move to Asia
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: to start in a great, safe country with all the
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: civil amenities at an affordable price. It's really funny too,
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: because once you're in this mode, like you heard me
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: talking about my three hundred dollars house, and I was like, oh,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: it's so expensive. That's because I try. I know that's
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: not expensive for US Americans and a lot of the
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: rest of the world, but if you travel, those are
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: the prices you get used to and even before you travel.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: So those people I'm helping right now travel. One of
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: them was talking to me and she's paying close to
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: two thousand and a month just for rent, no utilities
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: or anything in the States and wants to have financial
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: freedom like I apparently do. As I share with her
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: and tell her these prices, and she's finally looked on
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: Airbnb and believes me about the prices because they're right
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: there on Airbnb and they show you exactly they're available,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: you can book them. They're real prices. It's just cheap
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: to travel. But she was looking at houses in meta
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Ian and she said, hmmm, four hundred and fifty for
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: two months. Yeah, that's not bad. It's so as soon
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: as we accept that something is real, it's so weird.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: I do this too, But as soon as I accept
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: something is real, it becomes routine and my mind tries
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: to find the faults in it. And so I think
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: it's really important for me and everybody to consistently remain
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: aware of what the fundamentals of what something is. So
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: like four hundred, Oh, maybe there's a better house. There
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: probably is, but that is a four hundred dollars house
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: in the same amount of time you would be paying
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: three thousand, five hundred or three thousand, two hundred in
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: a couple months. You're just paying four hundred and fifty
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: four hundred thirty eight something like that. So when she said, yeah,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: four hundred for two months, that's not bad, I just
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: had to remind her, Yeah, that is about fifteen percent
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: of what you're paying right now in the state. So
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: eighty five percent off your monthly rent for the price
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: of a plane ticket, including all utilities and Wi Fi. Great, Yeah,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: not just pretty good, but that's an amazing deal that
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: you can just get from one week to the next
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: if you fly to a different location, if she does anyway,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: on a GOOFYR topic, I watched Adam Sandler stand up
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: because I didn't even realize he did stand up still,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: but some people were talking about him on a podcast
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: and mentioned his stand up, so I watched one. It
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: was funny. I bet if I was there in person,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: i'd be laughing as loud as everybody else. It's very
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: similar to what I remember seeing him do stand up
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: back in the day with his guitar on stage. It's
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: basically the same thing. His buddy plays the piano on
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: stage as well. He might have even done that back
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: then in the nineties or whenever he started doing that.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: I watched Happy Gilmore too, it was fine. I've been
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: watching a lot of movies. I'll to go through those
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: real quick and then we'll wrap it up so rapid
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: fire Companion twenty twenty five. Good. Take This Waltz, the
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: best movie I think I've seen Seth Rogan or Michelle Williams.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: In Michelle Williams, definitely, She's fantastic here for ninety four minutes.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: And then the extra twenty minutes or whatever at the
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: end of that movie is in my opinion, completely unnecessary
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: and abstract and should not be there. It would end
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: perfectly at ninety four minutes. Ah. That was such a
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: disappointment one they did that, But it's still great acting,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: a great movie, great a bunch of stuff. Take This
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Waltz twenty eleven. The Guilt Trip twenty twelve, Sethrogan and
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Barber Streis and I go on a road trip. It
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: was fine. I watched it. I enjoyed parts of it.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: I wanted seth Rogen to be funnier and more loose,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: but it was clear he was tied into this relationship
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: with Barbar streisand a living legend and he It was
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: just a very conservative, older type of road trip comedy.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: Then I would want to see seth Rogen in. I
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: want to see him go wold and have a little
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: more fun, all right, more faster. Kumiko The Treasure Hunter
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. She believes in the movie Fargo that the
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: money is real and goes looking for it. Great movie.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: Highly recommend it. I kind of had explosive laughter moments
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: here and there, but it's just captivating performance and captivating cinematography.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: Is just a good fun movie to watch. That is
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: a good movie. Kumiko The Treasure Hunter twenty fourteen. Mars
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Express twenty twenty three. Very interesting take on robots and
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: the near future and or maybe one hundred years ahead,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: but just yeah, developing android people. And it's a police
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: crime mystery with some sci fi androids in there, and
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: it's great. It's a very good movie. It's a French animation.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: And there's a few countries that respect animation as much
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: as any other art form, because why wouldn't you, But
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: many countries still don't understand animation. France does. France has
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: a wonderful animation culture, and this movie is a clear
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: reflection of that. Mars Express twenty twenty three, very interesting
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: detective story. Love hurts, No, I haven't finished that. Oh okay,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: real quick, I just dropped my phone again and swore
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: very loudly. This Motorilla phone is. It's better. It's so
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: much better than my Pixel six ever was. And I've
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: dropped it twice now on hard tile and it still
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't cracked, so that's amazing. I really like the plastic case. Actually,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: I bet if it was metal on the screen, what
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: it cracked. I can't believe I've dropped it twice already though.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. Of course, it costs one hundred and fifty bucks,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: so maybe I'm not as careful with it as I
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: should be. But anyway, this phone frickin' rocks. Okay, I
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: have so many movies, though, what else did I watch?
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: The Stranger twenty twenty one. One of my favorite actresses ever,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: Micah Monroe, she is an uber driver. Guy gets in
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: not a great guy. She's a great actress, and the
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: story is really interesting, partly because it's told in eight
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: minute increments. It was a mini series of twelve episodes
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: for eight minutes each worth watching. It was kind of
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: like retcond episode to ask episode I think, or something
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: like the plot was changing. I don't think it was
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: as effective as if they just give her another ninety
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: minute movie, because she's a great actress and it was
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: an interesting plot, but it the time in between the
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: episodes also gave my brain a couple minutes to put
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: together the plot. More so, I was outside of it
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: looking at it as a diagram rather than just enjoying
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: the story, which I would rather do in an unbroken
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: ninety minutes instead of twelve seven or eight minute episodes.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: Men twenty twenty two, Holy cow, great really weird ends
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: with the scene you probably haven't seen before. You should
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: watch it. Men twenty twenty two. Also, the woman is
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: drop dead gorgeous and the village countryside is simple is
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: drop dead gorgeous. It's a beautiful, beautiful movie with some
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: very wild ideas, and it's thrilling. It's a very fun movie.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Or it's a very exciting movie and is just a
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: joy to watch in general. I finally finished Jean Claude
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: van Johnson, which is a very funny idea, but it
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: was pretty incoherent plot wise for me. I kept being like, wait,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: what the heck are they doing? Why are they doing that?
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: And I guess it's a comedy, so it doesn't matter
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: and everything is a satire, but I found it pretty
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: confusing to follow, and it seems like they just threw
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: away entire plot lines whenever they got boring. And it's
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: only six episodes of maybe thirty minute episodes, but it
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: seems like anytime something wasn't working, they just threw it
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: away and the next show was like, forget about that crap,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: let's talk about this crap. Still pretty funny, and every
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: time the coconut water joke came up, I laughed. Magpie
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, No, Magpie twenty twenty four. I hadn't seen this,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: and it's Daisy Ridley, the new star Wars girl, and
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen her in a serious drama yet, and
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: she absolutely murders this serious drama. That's a very satisfying,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: complete movie. The whole time I was like eh, But
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: then when the movie was over, I was like, oh, okay,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: that was a very good ride. The Faculty nineteen ninety
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: eight Josh Hartnett. The teachers are aliens great or fun,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: like a goofy, fun time high school aliens. I've never
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: seen it, or if I did, it was so long
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: ago I can remember. I feel like it has some
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: kind of cult classic cachet, something like that. So I
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: just watched it for fun and it was fun. Oh.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: A Classic Horror Story twenty twenty one. Weird horror in Italy.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: But they are mostly speaking English. I think, yeah, I
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: think they're mostly speaking English. It was fun. It's a
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: fun horror movie, very folk horror. Good stuff. Really. I mean,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: if you like horror movies, that one's a good one
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: to see. A classic horror story from twenty twenty one.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: Reptile twenty twenty three. Because this other actress who is amazing,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: Matilda Lutz. I'd heard her name recently, I hadn't realized
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: how much she's been working and how good she is,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: so I've been watching a bunch of her movies. She
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: was in a classic horror story and this movie Reptile
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: opposite Justin Timberlake, and she's actually not in a huge
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: part of this movie, and it's really interesting. She takes
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of smaller roles. I don't know if she's
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: choosing to take those or she's so early in her
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: career that she'll take any job. But she does well
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: no matter how small her role is, and it's always
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: a critical role even if it isn't a huge role.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: So yeah, justin Timberlake was very good in this movie.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: This movie was stacked. It had Benicio del Toro and
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: just a ton of actors are going to recognize. This
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: was my favorite Benicio del Toro appearance in a very
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: long time. I got so irritated with his mumbling that
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: I basically stopped watching his movies. But if this is
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: what he's doing now, which was great Reptile twenty twenty three,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: I should probably pick up a couple more of his
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: movies or watch some new ones because this movie was
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: extremely exciting. It's another murder mystery thing, but it's pretty.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: It's very surprising at a lot of points, and all
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: the actors are good, and the story's complex but not stupid.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: It's it was exciting straight up to the end, and
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: when it was over. I was just sort of bowled
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: over and surprised at how good it was. Have I
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: mentioned Revenge yet, because that movie is freaking insane. Mantilda
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: Lutz thing again. Revenge twenty eighteen is a revenge story
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: and Matilda Leutz stars and she's amazing in it, and
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: the movie itself is very frenetic. It's a bit over
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: the top, but in a good way, in a Tarantino
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: we fun way. I watched it because it's the lady
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: that made the substance, which if you have a moved
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: you should see that. If you haven't seen that, this
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: was her first movie, Revenge from twenty eighteen and knocked
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: me on my butt because the substance knocked me on
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: my butt for sure. This is a different style and
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: it's a little simpler because it is a revenge story
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: at its core. But I really liked it. And if
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: you like revenge movies, this is one to see. Revenge
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. Those are a bunch of great movies. You
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: can go watch them or not. Thank you so much
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: for listening. My name is Kai and I'll talk to
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: you soon. If you want to talk to me, you
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: can hit me up a bit of a rambler at
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: gmail dot com, or a bit of a rambler on
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: Let me in Blue Sky and I'll talk to you soon.