Latest / New Worlder / Episode #93: Lisa Abend

Transcript

Episode #93: Lisa Abend · New Worlder

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is the New Worlder podcast, and I am one of your hosts, Nicholas Gill.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Co-host Juliana Duque will be joining shortly.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Today, we are speaking with Lisa Abend.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Lisa is a Copenhagen,
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Denmark-based writer that covers food,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: travel,
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: and all sorts of other topics for publications like Time Magazine,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: The New York Times,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: and Full,
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: among others.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: She is the head of communications for the Copenhagen-based nonprofit MAD and is the
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: author of the 2011 book,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Sorcerer's Apprentices,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adria's El Bulli,
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: where she spent a season at the restaurant documenting its team of stagiaires and
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: what else goes on behind the kitchen walls.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: She is one of the most respected voices in the world of gastronomy,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: and it was a real pleasure to be able to speak with her.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Recently,
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lisa launched the Substack newsletter,
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Unplugged Traveler,
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: where she posts about going to destinations in Europe that she has never been
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: before and,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: totally without any research prior to the trip,
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: experiences them completely offline.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: That means no looking at her phone or the internet for recommendations or planning of any sort.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: For the most recent post, her brother suggested she should go to Zadar.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So she booked a flight there and went without even knowing what country it was in.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I never heard of Zadar.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you pack for that?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's unlike any travel writing being done anywhere else, and there isn't a better moment for it.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Travel has lost much of its meaning since the advent of the smartphone.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is booked in advance.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: We seem to know everything about a destination before we get there and we go armed
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: with lists of recommendations on where to eat and drink and what to do and see.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: There is no room for surprise or discomfort of any sort.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: The same stories get written repeatedly,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: which is leading to overwhelming swells of tourists in certain cities.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we are seeing a backlash to that.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Locals are getting upset.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Aside of limiting tourists from a destination, what else can you do?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: One thing is to get back to the essence of travel and go to places where you can
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: experience something new.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Some place where you can have a trip unlike anyone else.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't ask her this,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: but I hope she turns this project into a book one day because a lot more people
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: need to read this.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: So go to The Unplugged Traveler and check it out.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Lisa also lived in Spain when El Bulli was still around.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then she moved to Copenhagen and got to see Noma's Rise.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: For a little while,
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: she had another newsletter with some other Copenhagen-based writers called Bored,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: which she told in-depth stories about the restaurant industry in that city.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, things like kitchen abuses and the situation with stagiaires.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: she has watched as those two restaurants,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Noma and El Bulli,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: one right after the other,
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: propelled by the oversized influence of the world's 50 best restaurants list,
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: have changed the conversation around fine dining and cuisine as a whole.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: We discuss if that will happen again.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: What will be the next big thing?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it isn't a fine dining restaurant.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not even a restaurant.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't subscribed to my newsletter,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: just go to newworlder.com or search for New Worlder on Substack.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's free to subscribe, though paid subscribers get access to all content and archives.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that's newworlder.com.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Also, look for my books, such as The Latin American Cookbook at bookstores or online.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: There are links to them in the newsletter as well.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Also, we have a New Worlder YouTube channel.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Some full episodes are there, as well as some shorter clips from older ones.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Just go to youtube.com slash newworlder.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And please subscribe, like us, share us.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Every little bit seriously helps us get seen and try to make a living in this crazy medium.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the show.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Lisa, how are you?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm well, thank you.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Lisa.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_03: Hi, I'm very glad to be here.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So have we ever met before in person?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: I was wondering the same thing.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like we move in so many of the same circles that we must have, but I'm not sure.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I don't think I've ever like,
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: we've had like a real conversation or anything,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: maybe like,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: like DMS or something.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: But
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like once we were in some crowded place somewhere and met briefly,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: maybe like the World Restaurant Awards in Paris.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Were you there?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: I was.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was there.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: What about – is Mistura a possibility?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, maybe.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: That was a long time ago.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe there too.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so on the same note –
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: So last year I was at a restaurant in Reykjavik called Skal.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I was with a friend.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Her name is Shruti Basapa.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: She's a great food writer from the Reykjavik grapevine.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw a woman on the other side of the bar that looked vaguely familiar.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't think anything of it.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: No way.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then like a month later, you had a story in the New York Times about hot springs in Iceland.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I assume it was you.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: It was definitely me.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my God.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: That is so funny.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was so random because I just glanced over and I was like, she looks familiar.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then I just got lost in conversation and then you probably left or something.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't think anything of it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then I saw that and it was like, ah, that had to have been her.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: That is so funny.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: It definitely was.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: I was there.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I was there to do the Hot Springs story, but then I haven't...
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: That was actually a smaller assignment that was tacked on to the larger one,
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_03: which I think is finally coming out later this month and is about knitting tourism
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: in Iceland.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Knitting tourism.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know this was a thing.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: Either did I. But now we both do.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to reading that.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, but I was seated at that bar with my friend Lindis, who is a great knitter herself.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so she was sort of my inside source who was helping me as we went around
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: Iceland and learned about sheep and wool and stuff.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, wow.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: We could have had such a great conversation about knitting, I guess.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: So sad.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, missed opportunity.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you just launched a new Substack newsletter.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's called The Unplugged Traveler.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of months ago, maybe?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: It was at the very end of April.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So in a few months.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And every month you're in a new place in Europe.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: You have an
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: been before and you do it entirely offline you just kind of book a ticket and go
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: and figure it out and have adventures like what why do you do this yes um excellent
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: question um
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's a combination of things.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_03: There's like the selfish argument, which is that freelance journalism being what it is these days.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: I had to take a real job about a year ago.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: And as a result of that,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: and because there's just fewer outlets out there that are paying for travel writing,
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: I really miss doing it.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: I realized that
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: that kind of writing where you get to go and submerge yourself in a new place or a
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: new culture is something that is really exhilarating for me.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I wanted it in my life.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_03: So that's the selfish reason.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: I guess the more journalistic reason is that it's something that I had been noticing.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot of people have been noticing
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: how travel has changed,
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_03: not just as a result of what gets called over-tourism,
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: but specifically because of the internet in general and social media in particular,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: that all of,
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: not all,
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: but a lot of the serendipity,
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: the unexpected,
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: the sense of
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: oh my gosh,
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: anything could happen,
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: has been,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think for a lot of us,
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: just at least diminished,
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: if not totally stripped away.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: And we have a tendency now,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: and I'm as guilty of it as anyone,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: of doing tons of online research,
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: whether that is Googling hotels or using lists like 50 Best Restaurants or various apps,
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: or just scrolling Instagram,
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: And coming up with a sort of list of places that,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: not just places,
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_03: like actual experiences or dishes or views that we have to have or somehow it won't
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: feel like we've been there or we've had the best experience that we've had,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: that's possible.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that...
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: That has, it has sort of, yeah, taken a lot of the magic out of travel.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: And at the same time,
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: it's guaranteed that a lot of times when you go to a foreign place or a new place,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_03: you...
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: end up seeing the same kinds of people and doing the same kinds of things that you
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: would have done at home.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's had a flattening of effect.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: And so all of this was my attempt to see what would happen if I tried to just
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: switch off and see if I got some of the adventure back.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: I love it because like I used to travel this way,
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: like when I was in my early twenties and,
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I spent years just kind of traveling around with a backpack and I would just,
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: and there was no really,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: there were internet cafes and things,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: but there wasn't like all the information in the world in the palm of your hands.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would just go on a whim with like very little information to some river town in
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: the Amazon and wait for a boat that might,
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: or might not ever come and things would just happen, you know?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And even if it was this disaster of sitting around and waiting and,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: getting eaten alive by insects or something,
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: it was still wonderful and enriched my life in ways that I don't think anything
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: else ever could.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't do it quite like that anymore because,
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: I have a wife and kids,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: but I still tried to,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: get off the map and go somewhere where there's no, you know, listicle for as much as I can.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: But like,
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: as you say,
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: travel writing,
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: at least what you see in the glossy magazines,
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think has become fairly predictable.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's all those lists.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then when it is a feature, it's usually a story about a new resort or, you know, the same kind of,
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Boilerplate, Story of the Chef.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: Ten hot fourth-generation coffee shops you must visit in London, yes.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: But even when it's something immersive,
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: it's still booked online and you have an exact list of all the details discussed in
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: advance of exactly what you're getting.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this kind of like element of surprise and –
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: being uncomfortable and getting lost.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, it's just like, it's so hard to find.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I think you're right.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: The element of being uncomfortable is like not having that possibility
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: I think actually has the effect of making the really exciting times a little less so.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's very rare
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: that you'll find anything negative happening in any travel writing that makes it
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_03: into newspapers or those glossy magazines these days.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: But without that possibility, the really crappy hotel or the bad meal or getting lost,
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: The the experience itself I think becomes a little flatter and you know it's I used
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: to travel that way too and it's been interesting to me to like how hard,
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: sometimes it is to remember that and to imagine that often when I tell people about.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: about this project, the response I get is either astonishment, how could you possibly do that?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: Or like outright fear, aren't you scared?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_03: Aren't you scared something bad is gonna happen?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I think allowing for a little discomfort makes the travel a little more exciting.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: but Lisa,
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: there is also this,
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: and I think it's very valuable what you,
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: because in your subsect,
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: you explain what it's all,
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: this is all about,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: right?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like why to do this and, you know, what, what it's allowed and what it's not, right?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: What are your own rules to unplug?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think is, I mean, obviously at the core, there is this like worry of traveling and
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: being flattened by everyone telling us what to do, right?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like the best of the best.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I was thinking, even if you don't know, even if you have to be prepared to disappointment, right?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because this is part of, or it was part of traveling in the past.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think something that people tend to disconnect from when connecting so much to
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: social media and advice is their own criteria,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: right?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: You still have your criteria when you are already there without all these tools and
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: you have to decide by yourself,
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: right?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: You can still look at the menu.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: You can still decide to go.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, your instinct, your body, your...
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's like by disconnected from all this information, you realize, oh, there is this, right?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: My own criteria, right?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, absolutely.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's criteria and it's also skills.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: I mean...
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I've discovered that my sense of direction has definitely atrophied.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: And,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: and sometimes like,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: looking at a paper map and figuring out and not having that blue dot that moves
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: when I do,
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: it can be hard to figure out where you are.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: Or,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: to trust your instincts when you see or when you're standing on the street outside
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: of a restaurant or a hotel and trying to decide whether to go in.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: I think that those were skills that back when people were traveling without the
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: Internet that were a little more sharply honed than they are now.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the latest story in The Unplugged Traveler, it's from a place called Zadar.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: I never, ever heard of the place.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: How did you end up there?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: I had never heard of the place.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: I ended up there because when I created the newsletter...
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: I created a, there are two paid subscription options.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: One is the normal one.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: And then Substack lets you create this higher price category that it calls founding member.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: But I decided to call patron of the unplugged and with it,
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: I would create a sort of perk that if you wanted to give this higher amount of
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: money to support the newsletter or to support me,
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: that you would get the opportunity to choose a destination for me.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: And a few people took me up on the category, but only one person, my brother, decided where to send me.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: And he chose that place.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: And to be honest, I do not know how he chose it.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: I suspect it's because he had never heard of it either.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was a very strange experience because...
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_03: The one thing that I allow myself to do online is to book the ticket there because
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: there is just no project in the world that is going to make me put up with being
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: online with an airline call center.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: So I do allow myself to do that part online.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I was astonished to discover when I went to book...
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: this ticket,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: expecting that I was going to have to make all kinds of connections,
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: that there were actually direct flights from Copenhagen,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: which in turn only made me feel worse about myself for not ever having heard of
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_03: this place.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: But it turns out, for those of you who don't know, that it's in Croatia.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I did not learn that until I arrived.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so I had no idea how to
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: I was trying to cover all of my bases.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_03: And even once I arrived, it was pretty clear that it was on the coast.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: But even so, getting into the city involved going through a couple of pretty scary looking landscapes.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: So I really wasn't sure what I was getting myself into.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you had no information.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you didn't even know it was in Croatia?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's how, how can you even?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: You just show up at the airport and it just says Sedar on it.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't say anything else.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: I guess so, yeah.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it wasn't like Croatian Airlines or something.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: No, it was not Croatian Airlines.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: It was, I think it was, I'm sorry to say, I think it was Ryanair.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that makes sense.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you get there and like, what do you do?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: You get off the plane and you're like, so where's the center of town?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: You know, usually there are usually two things in life.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: airports that are really great and turns out really great, useful.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: One is a tourist office or some kind of information desk.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: And one is some kind of transportation into the center.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: Zadar actually did not have that tourist information desk, but it did have a bus to the center.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I just got on it and figured I'd get off when it seemed like I was in the right place.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: And it did, it led to, the bus led to what was the old part of town.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_03: Zadar itself has the old part of the old city is on a peninsula.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: that is sort of surrounded by a bit of harbor where the more modern part is developed.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was very distinctive.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: It was clear that I had arrived.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: So I got off,
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: walked into the first hotel I found and booked a room and then just started
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: exploring from there.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Did you enjoy Zadar?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was, I mean...
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: I got to be honest.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: It didn't blow me away.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: And what I write about in the piece is that at least for,
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know,
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_03: the first 24 hours at least,
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: I kept trying to figure out why are all these people here?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: Because it was all tourists.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: And it was nice, but it wasn't that nice.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't like, oh my gosh, this is so beautiful.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't Venice.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't,
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: it wasn't some beautifully,
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: I kept thinking of,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you've ever been to Santiana del Mar,
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: which is this tiny town in Northern Spain that is perfectly preserved and
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: absolutely gorgeous.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: it's nothing like that.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's, it's, it's, it's got some, I mean, it turns out it's really old.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's been a city for 4,000 years and it definitely has some of those, those monuments still.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: And it is on the sea.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: So that's nice, but it's not like,
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: breathtaking or any of like those kinds of travel writery adjectives I would not apply to.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: So I was just kind of mystified and trying to figure out what it was that had drawn
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: all of those people there.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I eventually realized that it wasn't Zadar itself,
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: but what Zadar gave you access to,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: which was a lot of islands with,
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: some pretty breathtaking beaches on them.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Took a while though.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: You'd be surprised how long it can take when you don't have, when you don't have Google to look it up.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: So in like, they're not all, all these destinations, they're not all totally off the radar.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like,
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: like you,
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: for,
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: for instance,
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: you went to Bologna,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: which,
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: everyone knows where,
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: knows Bologna,
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: at least the name,
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: but you had never been and you didn't know much about it.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is that correct?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, my criteria are basically, um,
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: Is this a place,
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: A,
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: that I've – it needs to be a place I've never been to,
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_03: but it also needs to be a place that I don't know about.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so like my cutoff line is would I know where to go eat?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I have done a lot of food writing in my time.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: And so I do know that about some places that I've never been.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like I was really –
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to go to Bergen in Norway because I've heard it's beautiful.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: I've never been.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: I know it has like a whole cool student scene.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_03: But in the end,
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_03: I had to rule it out because I know of at least two restaurants there that are kind
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: of like on the international circuit.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: So it wouldn't be the same experience.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: But you wrote about when you got to Bologna,
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: you still,
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: you kind of had to face this fear of like FOMOing that you're going to miss something.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a part of our lives that you come so prepared of,
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: this list of restaurants and you can't miss places,
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: especially in a place like Bologna.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like Bologna, I don't know much about it either.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: But you just assume there's something great there.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big Italian city with lots of history.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: So there's certainly good food somewhere.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, I did know that Bologna was considered like one of the great food cities in Italy.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's, it's, I mean, it's where Bolognese comes from.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's where lasagna comes from.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: It, you know, it's the head of the region that produces Parmigiano and Prosciutto and Balsamico.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so I,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: I knew that it had this long and rich culinary history.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_03: And that was actually one of the things that drew me to it because I wanted to try
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: and engage with this question.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: And exactly, Julia, as you said, like to see if I could sort of divest myself of
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: of that,
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: not just of the list that I knew was out there,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: but also of the criteria that I generally carry around about how a place needs to
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_03: look or how it,
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: what kinds of dishes need to be on the menu and just try and experience it.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I was wondering, it's such a powerful question.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, just new way of doing it.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess writing for you because,
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: apart from traveling,
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think we underestimate how much we have lost surprise,
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: the feeling of surprise because of all this information,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: which is,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: overwhelming,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: apart from the anxiety of,
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: this fear of missing out.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I was wondering if...
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: So far,
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: although it has been,
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: three or four months,
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: if you have noticed that your audience experience this journey through your writing
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: in a different way,
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: if you can sense a different reaction or something that has caught your attention
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: just because you are doing things differently.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: In myself,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: I definitely have noticed that I make more of an effort in my daily life to leave
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: my phone in my pocket.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I noticed that.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's great.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, and it's hard.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: Let's be honest.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's hard.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm not like some kind of.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: Luddite guru on this.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_03: But another reason why I wanted to try this is I think we've all had that
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: experience of being on a train or on the subway somewhere and looking around and
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: realizing that every single person in the car with you is looking at their phone
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: and that we're just completely disconnected from each other.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I wanted...
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to see what would happen if I tried to resist that.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it's hard to resist, but I do find it getting easier.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I find myself enjoying being the only person in the subway car who's actually
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: looking around at people and just thinking about them and observing it rather than
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: staring at my screen.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: But for other people, I have had a few people already say that they were inspired to try this too.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: And often in very limited ways.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't heard of anyone else getting on a plane to a place that they've never heard of yet.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm sure it's only a matter of time.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: But I have...
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: I have heard from a few people who've said,
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: I was traveling and for one afternoon,
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: I just like decided just to wander around and see what happened.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: Or I just randomly chose a restaurant instead of coming all prepared with it.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_03: And that's kind of exciting to me.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: That is great.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: So such a treasure already.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if a few people, even for an afternoon, they are trying that.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's a lot.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_03: Would you guys try it now?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: I mean... Oh, yeah.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: You try to sometimes.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean... Yeah.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, I'm so addicted to my phone.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I admit it.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I...
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't even realize, you know, it's like, that's how addicted I am.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I, I like, I'll just be, you know, just sitting down outside or something.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then just suddenly like,
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: the notification or a buzz or some kind of,
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: twinkly light comes from the phone and you just,
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: it just ends up in your hand.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly you're there for 45 minutes scrolling endlessly over the
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: nothing but yeah like i i treasure moments when i have no internet access like when
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: i'm in a remote place or when i'm on a plane and i never buy wi-fi in a plane so
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: like those are the most peaceful moments but yeah like traveling without a phone
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: yeah i would that would be lovely
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: because it's not only,
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: I have to say,
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: it's not that I don't check my phone all the time,
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: but I think social media wise,
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not into that too much.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: So that part doesn't worry me.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's just more like, let's say WhatsApp.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: half of my work or more is through WhatsApp so that disconnection will already be a
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: lot but I was wondering in terms of and I can't remember from your explanation if
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: you use uh physical maps or you just ask people for example I I do both um I do use
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: physical maps um
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_03: tourist offices will give those out for free.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's actually amazing.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so I do use that,
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: but I also ask people in part because as I said,
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: my,
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: my map reading skills aren't what they used to be.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: And that also is, it's nice just to have those small moments of connection with people where you're,
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're asking directions or you come across something and you're looking for greater information.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, nine times out of 10, people are delighted that you're interested.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: I was the next issue.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the next destination will be about Glasgow.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I was just there over the weekend.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I had these experiences where it was just like following this chain of
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: connections where one thing led to another.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_03: But I had,
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: I had been out walking because I was trying to find a hotel and I was in a park
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: trying to get to the other side of trying to get to the other side.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: And it turned out that I thought it was pretty early in the morning.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_03: It was a Sunday morning.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: excuse me, no, it was a Saturday morning and I heard bagpipes and I was in Scotland.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_03: So it didn't seem, you know, totally out of character there.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: But as I got closer, I realized it was a lot of bagpipes and they weren't actually all playing in unison.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: And it turns out that there was some kind of
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_03: bagpipe world championship taking place that week.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: And this park was where everyone was allowed to come to practice.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: So there were all of these bands there.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: But I couldn't really figure out by myself.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't sure.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know any of this.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I was just like, why are all these random people standing around not playing together?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: And there was just a woman seated on a bench.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I went up and asked her what was going on.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: And Kelly is her name.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: She's from Florida.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_03: She was there because her son plays in a pipe band and was there rehearsing.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, we probably had wasn't a massive conversation.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_03: It was probably about 10 or 15 minutes.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: And she gave me all the history about that.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: her son and about type bands and about the competition.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it was just this like nice moment of connection and about learning about this
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_03: whole other culture that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: And that kind of thing happens all the time since I've been doing this newsletter.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: You just open yourself up to those kinds of experiences when you're not
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, so programmed on what you're doing.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've just become so focused on checking off all those things you want to
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: do in every single place you visit that you totally just miss those beautiful
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: little things that you could never plan.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: They would never be in a guidebook or on a website that these people would be there at that moment.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: And Lisa,
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: your writing has this balance,
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: which is so hard to find between telling your experience of a place and a situation
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: and then opening up a journey for people to figure out their own path.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: way right and that's that's great no it's it's really i mean it's wonderful and i i
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: wonder i mean the way i see it is just like this way of doing things uh makes this
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: just more insightful both ways right your own experience and then a whole you know
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of options for people to just get excited about it i don't know if you have
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: fine if you have found
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: a different scenario when you are going to write or you feel inclined to write more
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: about certain things just because I'm sure you are feeling a lot more and you know
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_03: just yeah it's it's an interesting question because I do find myself I mean even if
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm only in a place for
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_03: a weekend,
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_03: I do find myself having so many experiences,
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: many of which are,
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: I think,
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_03: are worth writing about or might be interesting to other people.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, and not, not having an editor on the one hand is really nice.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's fun, but you know, editors serve a purpose.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_03: They help you.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_03: So I do find myself, I do find myself like,
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_03: conscious of not just,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want it to be first I went here and then I did this and then I did that.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like I want to be telling a story.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I've discovered as I go along that a lot of what I'm writing about is this sort
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_03: of circling around this question of what is tourism today and what is it doing to us?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_03: Europe and what is it doing to us.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: I just had a very interesting experience because I was assigned a story to write
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_03: about over tourism in Barcelona.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: And that story hasn't come out yet, but I was just there to do the reporting for that.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_03: And that was much more of a kind of traditional reported piece with formal interviews and all of that.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: But then I realized that some of the same questions that I was asking other people
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: when I did that are what I'm asking myself as I go to a place like Zadar and wonder
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_03: why all of those people are there and at what point did a city like Zadar decide
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_03: that it was going to
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_03: take its most beautiful historic part and basically surrender it so that the people
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: who live there no longer have any reason to use that part of the city.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's been abandoned completely to tourism.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I think you see that all over the world.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_03: I see it here in Copenhagen with some neighborhoods that are entirely given over to tourism now.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I just find myself fascinated by that phenomenon
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think what I'm trying to do with this newsletter is write about that in a
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_03: more accessible and maybe meandering way,
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_03: even though I'm also sort of addressing it more formally,
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: I guess,
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: in some of my journalism.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you're also offering an alternative to... Hopefully.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: To everyone just going to the same places all the time.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I think especially in Europe, like, there's so many tourists.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's amazing in the summer.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, you see it in Latin America and in the U.S.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: too, but it's... I don't think it's as widespread.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: No, I don't think so either.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean...
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_03: you know, the numbers of visitors to different places in Europe are just, it's extraordinary.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_03: And when you see cities trying,
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: coming to grips with the impact in every possible way,
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_03: whether it is,
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: the environmental impact,
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_03: the economic impact,
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_03: or just like the impact on their own
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_03: on their own lives and what they can and can't do anymore.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's, you know, it's, it's massive.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_03: And,
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: Barcelona,
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: I watched,
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_03: the weekend I was there,
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_03: on the Sunday I was there,
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_03: it wasn't even the whole weekend,
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_03: on the Sunday I was there,
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_03: five cruise ships,
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_03: pulled into port.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: All of them were only there for the day.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_03: So between the hours of 8 and 9 a.m., together they dumped about 25,000 people into the city.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: And that is happening almost every day.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_03: In a city of 1.6 million, it's getting 13 million tourists this year.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so there are just parts of the city,
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_03: including what was once one of the great markets in the world,
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_03: the boqueria,
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_03: that just nobody local goes to anymore.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_03: Is that the world that we want?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think so.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'd like to think that there are solutions to that.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't mean to depress you.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's super depressing.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is, but I mean, it's, it's like, how do we, what do we do?
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, does it just like, does it just become so terrible?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: so many people that everybody stops coming or is there like some kind of middle way
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: to improve the situation?
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like how can you stop
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: So many people, like cruise ships, you could, you know, close the ports, I guess.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_03: You could limit the number of licenses you give.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I talked to an official in Barcelona who kept saying you can't stop
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: You can't stop tourism.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_03: You can only control it.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think from a city's point of view or from a government's point of view,
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_03: definitely more regulation.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: And you are seeing that take place in different points throughout Europe.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: But then there's the individual's point of view,
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_03: which I guess is like in this teeny tiny little way I'm trying to address with the newsletter,
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: which is...
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_03: you know, try something different.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe don't go where everybody else goes.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: I was going to say, maybe it's not only, I mean, maybe travel less just because of, you know, how,
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: climate change and that, right?
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: And there is that question like, okay, why I'm traveling this time?
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then maybe that reflection is helpful too.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I think if more people do things like the one you're doing,
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: diversity comes naturally and that creates balance because the problem is like
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: everyone doing the same thing just because,
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: social media creates these like...
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: monopoly of success of some places dishes everything right so exactly so yeah i
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: mean the different strategies control maybe always double check between traveling
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: if it's you know like camp
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: do I have to travel or,
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: is this like,
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: or do I put together different trips in the same package,
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: whatever it is.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then these like diversification, right.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: Of, okay, what if I don't go to Barcelona as everyone else?
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: So Lisa, this, this is your actually second Substack newsletter.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: I just keep coming, you know.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the first one is called Bored.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it was written with another writer.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going anymore, right?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_03: Or is it officially over?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_03: I have fantasies of bringing it back.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_03: Two other food writer friends and I,
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: they are both Danish,
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: started Bored during the pandemic and the focus was on Copenhagen's
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_03: restaurant scene, kind of behind-the-scenes stories about that.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_03: It was not, I should say, it was not a list of where to go eat in Copenhagen.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_03: That's very important to establish.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_03: And it certainly wasn't reviews,
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_03: but it was trying to ask some questions about how the city had become the
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_03: destination for dining that it had and how it was changing.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_03: And it was...
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: it was really satisfying in a completely different way from this one,
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_03: which is that it really,
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: it felt like we were going deep into what is a pretty wonderful community and sort
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: of strengthening some of those,
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_03: those connections.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: I think it, you know, honestly, I think it's probably what any, um,
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: beat reporter feels,
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_03: if you work on a local newspaper somewhere and maybe you're just covering PTA
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_03: meetings or something like that,
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_03: or a city hall,
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_03: but you get to really know your,
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_03: both your audience and your subject and bored felt like that.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_03: It was, it was unfortunately at that point, I was only freelancing and I,
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_03: I found we got into a situation that was a little kind of in between.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_03: First of all, one of the writers, his real job, he's a reporter for one of the Danish newspapers,
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_03: It got too complicated for him.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the newsletter itself,
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_03: it was a paid newsletter and it was more successful than I expected,
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: but it wasn't successful enough to allow me to cut back on the stories I was doing
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_03: that did pay.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_03: And so I just found myself caught in between having this semi-successful thing that
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_03: wasn't quite enough to allow me to give up some other work.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so I was having a hard time finding the time to do it.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_03: But, you know, when I sell that film script or something, I don't know.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_03: I'd love to bring it back.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've been trying to figure it out for 20 years.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_03: But yours has been super successful.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, it depends on how you define success.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think I found some success just by keeping with it,
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: but I still haven't found that comfortable living as a writer as much as I would
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: like to.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know,
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like there is,
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think things like Substack are becoming a viable alternative to legacy media,
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: but I don't think it happens overnight for most people.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: So there's still that balance of trying to do as much as you can for it and grow it
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: while still keeping your sanity.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, exactly.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_03: But it seems like,
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_03: I mean,
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_03: it seems like for you as well,
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_03: it's a place to tell these stories you care about,
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_03: no?
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, that was kind of my whole reason for, you know, starting the newsletter.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: But like,
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: it's been in so many forms over the last like 10 years,
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: but it was just,
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really have a place to...
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: tell stories about food in Latin America.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't just like some bucket list thing or some just making everything sound
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: exotic all the time,
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know?
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like,
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: you can,
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: you can do that a couple of times,
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: but then it gets boring and you want,
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: you want to move into those stories where that have some depth and you know,
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: it's,
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: it's hard to do that on your own though.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: I found out.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: I do my best, I guess, is what I say.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_03: I think you do an amazing job, and I understand.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's always a work in progress, but for me, you're definitely a model to follow.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to talk to you a bit about...
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you wrote this story for Fool in 2018, the food circus.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk to you about it because I think you've been covering this kind
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: of fetishization of celebrity chefs and 50 best from the beginning,
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like this...
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: this world of restaurants with all this hype and influence and you like,
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: you were in Spain when El Bulli was still around and you wrote,
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: the,
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: the Sorcerer's Apprentice,
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: you spent a season at El Bulli and talking to the stagiaires there and everyone in
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: the kitchen and kind of seeing that.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: And in, you know, then you moved to Copenhagen, you're in Noma.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like what's going to happen when Noma closes?
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like where is this kind of,
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: bubble of hype and yeah it's going to like what's going to happen i always feel
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_03: like this is um i get asked that question a lot normally it's framed as what's the
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_03: next big thing um and i think that one of
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_03: The perhaps false expectations that have been generated,
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_03: not just by things like 50 Best,
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_03: but also by this weird glitch in history has been that
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_03: we think that there always will be a next best, the next big thing.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_03: And there is no reason why that is actually the case.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, 50 best part, like this was a mutually reinforcing, these were mutually reinforcing phenomena.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_03: But the fact that a restaurant like Abouye and a chef like Farhan Adria, who succeeded in
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_03: kind of overturning everything that,
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_03: or at least interrogating everything that restaurants had been up until that point
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_03: and became influential on a level that had never,
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: ever been reached before by a chef.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_03: The fact that he was followed
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_03: immediately by and overlapped with a chef like Rene Redzepi,
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_03: who did the same thing and helped create this whole new approach to food.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_03: And that this
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_03: this like chronology happened simultaneously with an institution that could rank
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_03: them and say,
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_03: Oh,
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_03: here's a number one.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_03: And now he's being followed by this other number one.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_03: I think it just generated this sense that that,
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_03: that there would always be this baton being passed off,
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_03: but that there's no reason why that might happen.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_03: And when I,
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_03: like the hype machine is still there and people,
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_03: restaurants are still paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_03: hire a publicist who will promise,
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_03: making promises to get them on the world's 50 best list.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_03: All of that is still happening.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_03: But I haven't seen that next, you know, that person coming along who's changing everything.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I,
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe that will never happen again in our lifetime.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: So what has surprised me is,
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: from that story that,
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: it was,
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: what,
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: 2018 when that was written in full?
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't really deter anyone.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: from believing in the list.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like if anything,
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think it just let restaurants outside this little bubble understand more how to,
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: get on and move up the list.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: And now,
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: six years later,
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: there are probably 10 times as many restaurants like clawing their way,
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: at this.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I think you're right.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, there's, there isn't like that next big thing.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: or at least how we see the next big thing as,
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: this,
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: chef in restaurant,
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: launching something.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, it's kind of like, like, I know that it is, it is not very fashionable to refer to
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_03: two chefs as geniuses,
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_03: I know,
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_03: and I know possibly as well as anyone out there,
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_03: how much what a restaurant does depends on an entire team,
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_03: not just the figure at the top of the hierarchy.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_03: But
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_03: I will say that both Adria and Redzepi had an extraordinary amount and have an
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_03: extraordinary amount of talent and vision.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_03: And in my mind, it's sort of like, okay, what if Rembrandt had...
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_03: been alive at the same time as Picasso.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_03: And like one of, and there was a list there to say, which was, who was the greatest artist in the world.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_03: It really was,
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_03: this,
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_03: those kinds of,
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_03: the fact that they were recognized by this whole machine or circus doesn't change
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_03: the fact that they did have extraordinary talent.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_03: talent and we're all lucky that we got to experience it when it happened but the
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_03: expectation that somebody else would come along with that same degree you know of
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_03: talent and vision within that very short time frame I personally I haven't seen
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_03: somebody who is having that kind of revolutionary impact right now in the food
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: world yeah yeah now I mean it's
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think there are those people, but it's just not within that bubble.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like,
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: like maybe it's not going to be a fine dining restaurant that leads the next
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: movement or something like that.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's not in Europe.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's, you know, like I think maybe it's probably not.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think maybe that's where it goes.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_03: but to your point about nobody listening to what I was saying,
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_03: I think 50 Best,
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_03: there's something about it that consciously or not,
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_03: they were super,
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_03: super smart about,
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_03: which they understand implicitly,
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_03: which is everybody likes recognition.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, of course, these institutions have changed.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_03: I think you can make a very strong argument that the list doesn't even...
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_03: even by its own terms, the list doesn't mean what it once did.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_03: Now that you are immediately kicked off after,
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_03: after you reach number one,
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_03: but you could say this,
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_03: you can say the same thing about the Michelin guide,
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_03: the list that Michelin guide three stars doesn't mean the same thing.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_03: Now, when you know that if you're Denver, Colorado, you can buy your own guide, for example.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um,
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or at least parts of Denver.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_03: But none of that changes how people feel when they make the top 10 or when they get those three stars.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_03: And that is just human nature.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_03: And that's not going to change.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_03: And as long as there are
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_03: organizations and institutions out there that can express that and that like let's
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_03: be honest like that keep multiplying because it's not just those two there's other
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_03: ones as well um oh yeah restaurants are gonna keep playing ball no yeah
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_00: We could probably talk about this all day, I'm sure.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know you have to go.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, thank you for speaking to us, Lisa.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was a real pleasure.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone should subscribe to the Unplugged Traveler.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Lisa, thanks so much.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_03: It was a real pleasure talking with you.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I wanted to say that...
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, one thing is understanding why a system works as it does, right?
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: And you have been very helpful, you know, explaining people why.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: But then the other part is for people to find motivations to do things differently.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's when, you know, all these discussions you were having.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we can hope for, I don't know, just different people maybe having different visions, right?
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_02: maybe more balanced, more communal, more something else.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_02: And the,
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_03: and you know,
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_03: and the possibility of surprise because it's pretty,
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_03: it can be pretty great when it happens.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: As you have shown.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Lisa.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lisa.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you everyone for listening.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed that interview with Lisa Abend.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: Check out her Substack newsletter, The Unplugged Traveler.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_00: Also, pick up her book, The Sorcerer's Apprentices.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: And also, if you haven't subscribed to our newsletter yet, please do.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: Just go to newworlder.com or search for New Worlder on Substack.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: There are both paid and free subscriptions,
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_00: but if you listen to this episode at all,
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: the paid ones really do help,
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_00: and it helps me create a life for myself without slumming it in the writing best-of
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_00: list all the time.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: So please do it.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: It really helps.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: And a big thank you to my friend Pat Buzzard for providing the music to the show.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again everyone.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_00: See you soon.