Stargazing in the Largest Dark Sky Reserve in the Southern Hemisphere!
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Dark sky at night, Adam's delight! Adam celebrates his birthday at the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, the largest Dark Sky Reserve in the Southern Hemisphere. With stars in his eyes, the stargazing is cut short, when he flies down a rabbit hole! Rice for Breakfast takes on a British theme this week, with the iconic Fish & Chips taking centre stage. Tune in to find out the true origins of Britain's most famous dish. Something smells fishy!
Tales of a Trip welcomes a romantic story of love and commitment. Navigating countries, continents, and a few naked strangers, nothing was going to stop this couple from travelling the world in the name of love!
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - It's Adam's birthday!
04:11 - Adam reveals his birthday surprise!
07:26 - Dark sky stargazing causes the accident
14:07 - Rice for Breakfast: Fish & Chips
25:55 - Tales of a Trip: Global travel romance with a twist
29:48 - Reflecting on, and relating to, the tripological travel romance
TRANSCRIPT
Alun:
[0:02] Hello and welcome to this episode of Tripology. It's the only backpacking show where the hosts pack all their belongings into a tiny little bag and head off around the world. I'm Alun and I'm here with my best friend and one of the greatest travellers on the old internet. It's the ever starstruck Adder.
Adam:
[0:21] And am I glad to be here, mate. Really looking forward to this show. Gonna give you a little update as to what i've been doing the last week as you all know i turned 36 can you bloody believe it and then we're gonna do a little rice for breakfast the food section that's back and then of course at the end of the show it's tales of a trip where we hear from one of you lovely listeners right.
Alun:
[0:38] Man well very little in the way of further ado i would like to be the first to wish you ever such an happy birthday i'd like to wish you store lat near ria ria nam. I want you to have the most excellent birthday of your dreams. How was it?
Adam:
[0:56] It was absolutely brilliant, mate. It was one of my most favourite, most enjoyable birthdays in recent memory, apart from the last one that we had together. Do you remember where we were on my birthday last year?
Alun:
[1:06] Oman.
Adam:
[1:07] Yeah, Muscat, wasn't it? In Muscat, probably having six coffees.
Alun:
[1:11] Have you been in a different location for all of your birthdays in the last five years?
Adam:
[1:17] Different locations, not different countries, though, if that's what you're asking.
Alun:
[1:21] Oh, I did mean countries.
Adam:
[1:23] I've done New Zealand this year. I've done it. I've done New Zealand this year. And then last year I've done Oman. And then the year before that I've done Canada. But the year before that and the year before that I was also in Canada. What about you?
Alun:
[1:34] I've had a good long streak of being in different countries. I was in the UK two years ago, but that was the first time I was in the UK for about five years preceding. So I've had a pretty good run.
Adam:
[1:45] Yeah, we've got good birthdays as well, haven't we? June and August. I mean, they're like slap bang in the middle of summer. So normally fair weather, fair to say.
Alun:
[1:52] Yeah, have you ever heard of the birthday dilemma, the birthday paradox, I think it's called?
Adam:
[1:56] No, never.
Alun:
[1:57] How many people do you think have to be in a room in order for it to be more than 50% likely that two of them share a birthday?
Adam:
[2:06] Oh, isn't it ridiculously small, like 25 people or something?
Alun:
[2:10] It's actually only 23 people, Adam.
Adam:
[2:13] Oh, I said 25. It's not a bad guess, is it?
Alun:
[2:15] 23 people. If there's 23 people in a room, the chances... it's 50% or more that the two of them will share the exact same birthday. And that's the case because everyone thinks, oh, but what? No, in my year, there was no one with my birthday at school and all that stuff. But you can't remember it compounds with every additional person because there's that many more opportunities for someone in the group to have the same birthday. You know what I'm saying?
Adam:
[2:41] Yeah, I do know what you're saying. I have met two people recently that have got the same birthday as me and I've never had sort of a shared birthday bash. Have you got anyone close to you that's got the same birthday as you?
Alun:
[2:54] I know a few people close to me have the same birthday as me and also a lot of my best friends have their birthdays in the same week which is the only thing that makes me think that star signs are actually irrefutably true. And what I would like to ask you is did you like the people that you met that shared your birthday because I think that they're probably similar to you. So if you didn't like them, it says a lot about your capacity for self-love.
Adam:
[3:21] Yeah. Well, I mean, you have got 25 friends as well, so that does check out that they would all have birthdays at a similar time to you. Have I got anything in common with them? Yeah, we got on like a house on fire, to be fair. They are both women. They're both a lot younger than I am, but they are both wonderful people who also work in the wine industry and are far more intelligent than i am but
yeah we got on like a house on fire it's great i need more friends i'm a virgo did you know that i'm just a virgo like.
Alun:
[3:50] A house on fire like it was quick it was bright it.
Adam:
[3:54] Was ferocious and.
Alun:
[3:55] Then it required other people to.
Adam:
[3:57] Step in to.
Alun:
[3:58] Put out immediately and ensure that no further harm was done.
Adam:
[4:02] So lovely.
Alun:
[4:03] I'm glad that you had that experience.
Adam:
[4:04] Yeah yeah a couple of fire engines worth of hunky firemen easy so what did I do is what you're going to ask me yeah I I mean what an amazing trip, It's always a good occasion, isn't it, to go away for your birthday. So my girlfriend, would you believe this? My girlfriend organized a surprise trip that I had absolutely no idea about, apart from the fact I was getting a bus from outside where we live at 9.18 in the morning. And you know, I mean, people that listen to this show, they know that I like to plan or I like to know what I'm doing and have a degree of control over what I'm doing, especially for my birthday. How do you think I fared in that situation where I knew I was going away for three days? I had absolutely no idea what we were doing.
Alun:
[4:45] I imagine you were vaguely insufferable. 9.18.
Adam:
[4:54] Insufferable. That's the age, though. That's not just my personality. No, no, I mean, I completely surrendered, and I just said, all right, let's go for it.
Alun:
[5:04] Did you surrender in a way that she knew you were unhappy about it? Fine. I surrender. 9.18. I'll be ready. I'll be there. on my birthday. We're doing what you want, are we? A bus at 9.18? Great.
Adam:
[5:22] No, no, no. Every five minutes, you can imagine me going, just make sure this is definitely something that you think I would want to do. Not something you... Just to make sure. The months that we've known together, spending time together, just to make sure, just to make sure this is absolutely something you're sure that I would want to do on my birthday in New Zealand.
Alun:
[5:40] Let's not go shopping or something that girls like. It's my birthday.
Adam:
[5:45] That was amazing. I absolutely love the audacity as well, because we got off the bus to then collect a car, and I found out that I was driving for four hours.
Alun:
[5:54] Wow, what a beautiful birthday treat, because she knows that you're Tripology's best driver. She knows that you love driving.
Adam:
[6:01] Yeah, and she, much like you, she can drive, but she won't.
Alun:
[6:03] But hold on, you got a bus at 9.18, and then you had to drive?
Adam:
[6:08] Yeah, because we were collecting a car from one of her friends who very kindly lent us his vehicle for the three days.
Alun:
[6:13] Okay, right. Nice. I like it.
Adam:
[6:15] And then we drove for four hours to the centre of the South Island, to a place called Lake Tekapo, and also Mount Cook, which is the highest point in the whole of New Zealand, I think.
Alun:
[6:25] Yeah, okay, nice. How resentful are you while this is happening on a scale of one to five?
Adam:
[6:30] Well, I've been given a coffee on the way, so I was, you know, in good spirits. And, I mean, driving around New Zealand is, you just look out the window and it fills you with joy. It is one of the most beautiful countries, I think, on Earth. So, I was in good spirits. We made it all the way down to Lake Takapo, beautiful, beautiful lake. It is also a dark sky region. It's like a dedicated dark sky reserve. And talking about star signs and all this sort of stuff, you know quite a bit about constellations, don't you? Certainly more than I do.
Alun:
[6:59] Oh, yes. I know awful about constellations, mate. Ask me anything.
Adam:
[7:06] I'm just going to tell you the sort of stuff that we saw. But there was quite a funny twist, being the operative word. So we had a lovely, lovely day. We walked around the lake. It's quite barren, actually, the landscape, quite barren and a little bit rough. There's not really much going on, but the mountains
are beautiful, covered in snow as well because it's freezing down here. It's winter, by the way. And that night, we got a couple of beers. We climbed up to the top of a hill on the edge of the town, so there was even less light pollution, right on the edge of the forest. And we were just sitting there. You know, it was like kids. It's like kids in an American film. You know, we were – it was amazing. I just felt like a little child again. It's so nice.
Alun:
[7:45] Why American? You were like, hey, you want some candy?
Adam:
[7:50] No, because, I don't know. Those are the films that I've seen. I remember, I'm sure, it feels somewhat nostalgic where there's kids in a field looking up at the stars. Maybe there's less light pollution in the US. I don't know.
Alun:
[8:02] Hey, girlfriend, you want to go to a baseball game?
Adam:
[8:05] Why are all your characters from Chicago?
Alun:
[8:08] I've only got one American accent. It's like, hey, we're there on the mountain watching the sky. What's wrong with you?
Adam:
[8:15] Keep it down over there.
Alun:
[8:17] I'm driving for four hours on the freeway.
Adam:
[8:22] But no, it was lovely. So we were sitting there just watching the stars, and we were there for about two hours. We had a couple of beers. Saw a shooting star.
Alun:
[8:31] That's my favourite constellation.
Adam:
[8:33] The shooting star. There's one, the scorpion, which I imagine is Scorpio.
Alun:
[8:37] Yes.
Adam:
[8:37] I don't know if we get different stars down here, maybe. There's also a centaur. I didn't see Orion's belt for Love Nor Money.
Alun:
[8:43] A centaur?
Adam:
[8:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know the one, the horse with the archer and the thing? There'll be people listening to this that know what I'm talking about.
Alun:
[8:50] I think he's the centaur that trained Achilles, maybe.
Adam:
[8:53] Okay. Yeah, anyway, you know what it's like in dark sky regions? There's almost too many stars. The only other time I've seen a sky like this, I guess actually maybe in kind of roughly where we were in BC, but definitely in the outback, when you look up, and it looks ridiculous, quite honestly.
Alun:
[9:10] I feel that way about the universe writ large. It's ridiculous. Too many stars. I think if when the Big Bang had happened, if it had imploded into more manageable chunks just maybe five six or seven stars the world as we know would be in a better state now and i struggle not to be resentful when i look up the night scar and go well you spread yourself too thin the.
Adam:
[9:31] The planet to star ratio it's good they got it all wrong didn't they.
Alun:
[9:34] Somewhat too many stars what an infant infinitesimal stars great and now donald trump's president so thank you very much.
Adam:
[9:44] Happy birthday me uh no no so we were just as we were leaving my my partner bless her she remembered everything there we were like getting the little picnic blanket folding that up putting it in the bag making sure we were taking our litter and this sort of stuff but i didn't have anything with me i left even left my phone at home she had a head torch so as she was scanning to make sure we had left the area completely free no trace no trace you know only leave footprints all that bollocks um we were walking down the hill and just at the moment she turned her head obviously it was pitch black i felt straight down a rabbit hole and twisted my ankle in.
Alun:
[10:26] A literal sense or in an alice in wonderland style like you went oh my god what does it all mean who am i where is my place in the universe that kind of a rabbit hole.
Adam:
[10:34] No no no no the beers we were drinking weren't that strong um it was a literal rabbit hole and my foot went straight down it i sprained it immediately that's.
Alun:
[10:43] My least favorite type of rabbit.
Adam:
[10:44] Hole and uh and the walk home was pretty painful but the rest of the weekend i didn't want it to to go out the window but she had to tell me at that moment we did actually have two enormous hikes planned for the next two days oh.
Alun:
[10:57] Great so she didn't think to come out there and make sure there weren't any rabbit holes prior.
Adam:
[11:01] To your birthday no unfortunately not a bit selfish all the all the work that had gone into the entire weekend she'd planned it down to the minute we went to we went to hot springs we went out for lovely dinners we went on these lovely walks even the cafe that she you know it was all it was all planned down to the tea a lot of research and a lot of things went into it but um i wasn't about to let that um you know on.
Alun:
[11:28] Day one you're gonna fall down a rabbit hole so on day two we'll go to the hot springs to reduce some of the inflammation.
Adam:
[11:32] Oh would you look at that in your birthday card popped a couple of ibuprofen um but no the next morning mate it blew up like a like a balloon it was awful i had a really bad night's sleep and then woke up in the morning and um she was like how's your foot doing is it all right do you think you're going to be able to walk today i looked down it was like the size of a balloon i said that's fine i can float, happy but no it was uh i'm still suffering basically mate is what i'm saying but it was amazing amazing time we did so many so many things um and like i said it's it's just it seems like it's a shame now that i didn't do this sort of thing for all of my previous birthdays well.
Alun:
[12:15] I'm very very sorry that i had a somewhat uncomfortable time but i'm very very happy that there's someone there who cares for you enough that they would give you the kind of wonderful birthday that i gave you the last year in muscat because i was just such a great partner to you then and she's a great partner to you now that's.
Adam:
[12:32] Okay we have different partners at different stages of our.
Alun:
[12:34] Lives i'm very very happy for you um here from our sponsors.
Alun:
[13:50] There are many components that go to making an absolutely fantastic, effervescent sort of a birthday. And just one of those components is what you insert into your mouth whilst having it. I'm talking, of course, of the birthday meal. Oh, let's go and hear what Adam had in an item he likes to call rice for breakfast.
Adam:
[14:14] Rice for breakfast, mate. It's back. It's been a few weeks. it is my birthday and like i was saying my partner she's curated this whole weekend for me i didn't know that i was going to have this on my birthday but it was so bloody delicious i've decided to talk about it on the podcast so the meal that i had it kind of defines british food think about the most iconic british food you could potentially have on your birthday birthday cake is that british a birthday cake.
Alun:
[14:42] Well they sometimes have them in the supermarket that one there's a caterpillar on a big chocolate log i reckon he's.
Adam:
[14:47] British oh no she knows me pretty well do you think that would have been something that she organized my birthday bloody tesco's caterpillar what's it even called charlie or something don't.
Alun:
[14:55] Look down on that.
Adam:
[14:56] Caterpillar he's.
Alun:
[14:57] An iconic part of british.
Adam:
[14:59] Culture no it's not that good i'll give you one more guess iconic british food think about it.
Alun:
[15:04] Like a sort of brown carvery with the yorkshire pudding and gravy on it and beef everything that's brown on a plate.
Adam:
[15:12] Even more british than that it's fish and chips mate oh Oh.
Alun:
[15:15] That's difficult to pronounce in New Zealand.
Adam:
[15:17] Oh, because they say, go on, you're the one who can do accents.
Alun:
[15:19] Well, they famously allied the I sounds and say something akin to fish and chips.
Adam:
[15:26] But that also sounds a bit Scottish.
Alun:
[15:28] Yeah, well, they're...
Adam:
[15:29] Fish and chips?
Alun:
[15:30] Similar accents.
Adam:
[15:31] There is actually a place in the South Island called Dunedin, which I've been told is the Gaelic word for Edinburgh.
Alun:
[15:36] No way.
Adam:
[15:37] Way. So the fish and chips, mate, that's what we had. And in Lake Takapo, there's this little car park. There's not much there. But around the side of the lake, there's this food truck that's called the Betta Bata. And it does traditional fish and chips. Traditional British fish and chips served by an Indonesian man and his Korean wife.
Alun:
[15:57] Oh, perfect. Well, I like that because they know what they're doing.
Adam:
[16:02] But it is honestly absolutely delicious. And I was so, so happy that this is going to be my birthday meal. Love a food truck at the best of times. We got the chips, the fries, and also the fish, and then some crispy squid, and we walked it back under the stars and then ate it in a backpacker hostel. So you can believe I was totally fucking made up, mate, because I was there with my bottle of Chardonnay, a bottle of natural wine Chardonnay that I bought from work, and I have my fish and chips, and it was just stellar, stellar, just so on point, exactly as if I had designed it.
Alun:
[16:34] Are they just fighting against their Asian etymology, the people making that fish and chips? They're like, no, we're just going to do fish and chips. It's going to be British cuisine. Oh, well, should we not add something else to it? No, no, fish and chips. That's all we're going to do. It's just fish and chips. Are you sure we don't want to add anything? Oh, it's crispy squid. Fine.
Adam:
[16:56] Are you trying to appeal to the ever-increasing Asian market?
Alun:
[17:01] Whatever. Fish and chips and squid. We'll do a few prawn crackers, but that's it.
Adam:
[17:07] Multicultural's the new cultural um but mate i tell you what i've been researching fish and chips it ain't half interesting all this stuff i'm learning do you want to hear do you want to hear some facts and figures about fish and chips because do you like fish and chips i know we do we have this tendency to be a bit anti-british and uh.
Alun:
[17:27] You know slag.
Adam:
[17:27] Off the cuisine and stuff but when it's good it's bloody good isn't it.
Alun:
[17:30] So i famously so dislike fish and chips that it's caused tension in my life go on it's caused full-on arguments what.
Adam:
[17:41] Is it you don't like about it.
Alun:
[17:43] Well it stems back to wanting mushy peas at harry ramsden's when i was a kid and i was too i was rude to my parents and so was denied the mushy peas and that caused such a visceral scar in my mind that i feel sick at the thought of fish and chips and then later in life i've justified that by saying that they're slightly too greasy for me but it's um i mean it's difficult because when what i've found is when people want you to have fish and chips and you say i'm not i'm okay i don't actually want to have the fish and chips that causes such a terrible reaction to the people people really want you to have fish and chips when they want to have fish and chips i've noticed yeah.
Adam:
[18:26] I could imagine that being true do you think that's because deep down and it's not even that deep we all know that it is so unhealthy that they feel some somewhat challenged.
Alun:
[18:35] Might be yeah yeah i think it's to do with the unhealthiness i think it's to do with the harry ramson's mushy peas incident i think there's a lot of baggage around fish and chips.
Adam:
[18:46] Yeah i mean like most british foods and probably foods in this ilk which are your fast food kind of category it's it's fried it's fatty it's carbohydrates on carbs um but when it's gourmet and when it's expensive and when it's made by an indonesian man and his korean wife in a food truck next to a lake yeah it's it can be great it can be really really good um but the fish and chip research that i've been doing right like all good things like all good things um that we've got in britain it isn't british at all it actually stems from um what was brought in originally by immigrants jewish immigrants ashkenazi jews apparently brought it in fish.
Alun:
[19:31] And chips was.
Adam:
[19:32] Yeah well apparently the the the marrying of the fish with the chips is probably of um or by this jewish immigrant called joseph malin and he's credited with having the first fish and chip shop in london in the 1860s um of course fish that had been sort of cured in vinegar or sort of you know a bit of flour around it and then fried that already existed uh right.
Alun:
[19:58] And he thought you two are not going on the plate together without an official marriage.
Adam:
[20:03] It's disgusting muzzled off so yeah something along those lines i'm sure that's pretty much how it happened we'll ask bag about 3000 if he can do some fact-checking but um so days that's a very very long time there was actually a mention of a shop in manchester in 1863 but i left that out because i didn't want you know the whole london versus manchester thing it was less romantic for it to be something from manchester yeah.
Alun:
[20:25] My ego would start inflating to such a huge degree that i would gobble up a fish and chips right here on the show.
Adam:
[20:31] This must fall every now and again my dad will be able to tell you exactly how often but we can't um the first friday of every june which is sometimes probably your birthday in the uk is national fish and chipster yeah you know exactly that's.
Alun:
[20:48] The whole problem how do you think this.
Adam:
[20:50] Story started um fish and chip shops were at their peak apparently, So it started off in the 1860s, obviously it caught on, then there were more and more fish and chip shops. At their peak in the 1920s, there were 35,000 fish and chip shops. That has reduced, and now there's only about 10,500. But guess what? It's still more than McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, and Subway combined.
Alun:
[21:12] If only they were banned together under one franchise.
Adam:
[21:16] And try and take on fish and chips.
Alun:
[21:18] Yeah, well try and take on those other franchises like McDonald's, you know?
Adam:
[21:22] Oh, you mean like Harry Ramston did? What even happened to that? ever since the mushy pea incident. But another interesting thing, throughout World War I and World War II, fish and chips was one of the only foods that wasn't rationed, famously referred to by Winston Churchill as the good companions.
Alun:
[21:40] Wow.
Adam:
[21:42] That's cute, isn't it?
Alun:
[21:43] I mean, the actual good companion for Winston Churchill was cocaine, so it seems... But unfortunately, he saw more fit to ration that than the old fish and chips.
Adam:
[21:55] Oh dear oh dear, that'll stay in. But today, Britsa, this is mind blowing, if this is true, which I hope it is, because I did look at a couple of different sources, and I'm not talking about Tartar.
Alun:
[22:06] Today- I knew you couldn't resist, as soon as you used that word, I knew.
Adam:
[22:11] Well, what do you have when you do? Imagine if you were someone who liked fish and chips, what would you have? Which sauce? Would you have a sauce? Curry sauce?
Alun:
[22:18] I'd probably have tartare. I certainly wouldn't fucking do curry or brown or gravy or anything that I've seen other people do in a fish and chip shop.
Adam:
[22:26] Or ketchup. Would you put vinegar and salt on chips? You don't have to be next to a fish. Don't.
Alun:
[22:31] I'm cut a tonic in the corner of the shop. I just let them do whatever they want.
Adam:
[22:36] You're there. You're there just beside yourself thinking. I was in Chargal a couple of months back having some yellowfin tuna, you know, just out of the water. And now I'm here in this fucking fish and chip shop.
Alun:
[22:47] Do you want to start on vinegar on that? Just do it.
Adam:
[22:53] So Brits eat an estimated 382 million portions of fish and chips every year. That's six servings per person per year. Can that even be true?
Alun:
[23:04] Oh, yeah. No, that's once every two months.
Adam:
[23:06] But some people aren't having any. I reckon the way that Britain works usually is there are people that have fish and chips every Friday, as they would. And then some people just never have them. And that's probably 382 million portions.
Alun:
[23:21] And do they care about the stats? Someone's like, I've had fish and chips every Friday, so that means you can't have any now for the whole year. Right. Because we don't want to mess the fucking stats up.
Adam:
[23:32] Jim and Wendy over at Road, they haven't had fish and chips in weeks.
Alun:
[23:36] Oh yeah i've been intercepting there or burritos.
Adam:
[23:42] Um but yeah i think what you like about fish and chips maybe you like it maybe you hate it but i do think that that seems to be from traveling the world and speaking to people fish and chips seems to be the one dish that everyone thinks of when they think of british food so if you are going to have one just make sure it's a bloody good one and get mushy peas as well well.
Alun:
[23:59] How was the fish and chips that you had on your birthday, just to round off, you know, rate it for me.
Adam:
[24:05] I might go as far as saying, It's the best fish and chips I've ever had.
Alun:
[24:11] Why?
Adam:
[24:12] The quality of the batter. It was very light. It was super crispy. I think it was probably a combination of beer batter and panko crumbs. The fish was really tender. Sorry, Alun's laughing here. Is that because I'm starting to sound a little bit like a wanker? It's my birthday. Let me be a wanker.
Alun:
[24:30] It's just you fishing for the fourth time in an episode for a panko sponsorship.
Adam:
[24:39] My favourite brand still hasn't called us after all my emails.
Alun:
[24:43] God, if the listeners knew the amount of emails you send to Panko in a week. Guys, we do this hit travel podcast. People love it. It's really cool and vibey. Alun's in the Philippines. I'm in New Zealand. Send us some breadcrumbs.
Adam:
[24:57] Yeah, what else was good about it? Like I said, the portion was small and it was reasonably priced. Very fresh. And the crispy squid. It was delicious. I mean, my partner didn't eat it because it just looks too much like an animal.
Alun:
[25:10] Good. Well, I mean, it speaks to the quality of the dish as a whole. The two best things about it were the fact that it was, A, so small that it was virtually non-existent, and B, there was another thing added to it that's not what the dish is that you also liked. So a review comprehensively there for fish and chips. Thank you for the rice for breakfast. Do you know what I want to hear now, Adam? it's uh what you know my favorite item on the show is and i'm sure it's yours as well it's when a listener goes to tripologypodcast.com forward slash tales of a trip and sends in their greatest travel story three minutes of compelling heartstring pulling blood pumping stories baby let's go let's hear it right now this is what a listener said.
Tales of a Trip:
[25:58] Hi, Alun and Adam. Liam here, long time listener of the show, and I'm loving all the things you guys are doing. So for my tales of a trip, I would like to share the time when I met my partner, Emi. So back in 2023, I set myself a little bit of a challenge to visit 12 European cities in 12 months. So I was heading off to Finland to see Helsinki before jumping on a ferry and heading across to Tallinn in Estonia. So whilst I was in Helsinki, I met this beautiful Finnish girl called Emi. We went on a date. We headed off to a speakeasy bar, one of those little secretive bars where you've got to ring a telephone to get in. We had plenty of cocktails. It was a really good time in there.
Tales of a Trip:
[26:49] And then we headed to this kind of like crazy Finnish bingo night. I had no idea what was going on. Emmy had to translate everything for me. It was a lot of fun, but I had no idea what was going on. Then Emmy says, grab your towel. So we head off walking down the street, towel in hand. And we go through these. It's like an abandoned industrial park. We're going through these warehouses. and I'm thinking, where is this girl taking me? Am I going to be murdered? But eventually, we get through these warehouses and there's these cute little fairy lights dangling in the distance. And this place is actually called Sampa Sauna. And it's these saunas that were built back in 2011. They were actually built illegally on this abandoned waste ground.
Tales of a Trip:
[27:45] And then the government would come knock down the sauna and then the volunteers and the locals would build two saunas and then the government would come knock those saunas down and then they'd build three saunas so it turned into a bit of a movement and it's actually a recognized thing by the local government now uh it's free to go and run by volunteers it's incredible so we're there uh We're jumping in the frozen Baltic Sea and then going jumping straight into these saunas. It was a pretty incredible experience. There's naked people everywhere, completely eye-opener for me. But then at the end of the night, it was a bit bittersweet because I thought that's the last time I'm going to see you because I'm going to Australia. So I head off to Australia and after being there six months, I come back to Europe and we message and say, it would be a shame not to see each other again whilst I'm still in Europe. So we booked this random spontaneous trip to Montenegro to see Kotor and Budva.
Tales of a Trip:
[28:51] Just before the trip, Emi actually got really sick. She was in hospital and she missed the flight to Montenegro. So I thought that was that. However, the next day she jumps on a flight to Croatia and then gets the bus down to montenegro we had the best time in montenegro together and again very bit sweet because i was heading back off to australia so i head back off to australia and emmy says i'm coming to australia with you so two months later she gets on a plane flies over to australia, and now we're just about to move into our first apartment together. I've got a 240-day streak on Duolingo learning Finnish and the rest is history. So that is my story of how I met my partner. Hope you guys enjoyed it and keep up the good work. Cheers.
Alun:
[29:49] I absolutely love it. Congratulations, Liam, to you and Emmy. My goodness. That's an awesome story. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Travel, bringing people together through the accessibility of moving between countries and meeting people and doing all sorts of crazy, amazing things. Two people who wanted it to work actually made the chess pieces move in order to make it work. It's beautiful, isn't it, Adam?
Adam:
[30:16] It is. I love that. I was like along for the ride. You know, I just that kind of excitement that you feel when you're in this kind of relationship and you're not quite sure where it's going to go and everything's novel and new and there's travel involved as well that heightens the senses and there's speakeasy bars and naked people everywhere. I mean, God, what a trip. That's awesome.
Alun:
[30:37] It's also the uncertain nature of it gives you this like resigned feeling of like, oh, maybe they're not going to make it to Montenegro. I guess it's not going to quite work, but it can. It can work.
Adam:
[30:48] Yeah, it definitely can. I mean, both of them needed to put everything on the line, I suppose, because it's not just about Emmy saying, do you know what? I really want to be with you and I'm going to pull the trigger here on a flight and I'm going to come to Australia. it's also about Liam accepting that as something and then and then sort of going I mean it's like jumping in at the deep end isn't it but um yeah I just love the story from start to finish thanks so much mate for sending it in we do of course talk to Liam quite often he's sort of a I feel like he's a good mate now and I just bloody hope he's.
Alun:
[31:18] A Patreon subscriber isn't he Liam's one of the people that went over to Tripology podcast on Patreon and he's you know a good friend of as a result of that.
Adam:
[31:26] Yeah, one of the OGs supports us quite literally. And now we're hearing his story and it's bloody inspiring.
Alun:
[31:32] I love him.
Adam:
[31:34] Well, he's in a relationship, sorry, and he's learning Finnish and you don't speak Finnish.
Alun:
[31:38] Well, I'll learn. And that owl, that arrogant owl on Duolingo, I really profoundly dislike that owl.
Adam:
[31:45] Yeah.
Alun:
[31:47] Always popping up in here, like, oh, it seems to me you've not tried learning Spanish this week. Are you okay? Yes, Duo, I've had a lot on. Because unlike you, some of us have multiple jobs, Duo.
Adam:
[31:59] Okay. Bloody hats off to you, Liam, mate. This is a message to you. Just Finnish, of all the languages, I think is bloody difficult. Especially when you've got a little owl chirping in your ear. But it just goes to show that, like you said, Alun, you can make it work. Even against all the odds. You didn't let us know whether you made it to all 12 cities or 12 countries in 12 months. What else did you do? Send another voice note in. We'd love to hear it.
Alun:
[32:22] What I found really interesting is the idea of the Finnish government sort of going, oh my God, but this is amazing things happening. Whenever we knock down one of these saunas, they're replicating and no one knows how or why. So we can have infinitesimal saunas. If we just keep on destroying them, they keep on reforming.
Adam:
[32:42] You'd think it was all part of the plan. trying to save money on the council budget on construction.
Alun:
[32:49] Yeah, we actually want 10 saunas, so we'll have to destroy five, okay?
Adam:
[32:53] That is so up my street, going to a sauna.
Alun:
[32:55] On a first date?
Adam:
[32:56] I think so. I think so. Ironic that he went to a speakeasy when he can't speak Finnish and he was complaining about not knowing what was going on.
Alun:
[33:02] What's the greatest date that you've been on whilst travelling?
Adam:
[33:05] The greatest date that I've been on? It's a good, it's an interesting question. I was thinking during that story, actually, you know, when she didn't show up, when they were supposed to meet, I think it was in Montenegro, and then she missed her flight because she was sick. I don't know if you remember, I lined up a date with a girl in Mumbai, and she told me about 45 minutes before we were supposed to meet that she was really sick.
Alun:
[33:28] She said i'm still she was still prepared to meet you but she was like i'm ill no.
Adam:
[33:31] No no she said i'm sorry i can't come to the date i'm really sick i thought yeah i hope you're not but if you're not just tell me you're not interested it'll just be much better if we're all honest because it sounds like complete bullshit.
Alun:
[33:43] I prefer that because once i was sat next to someone for an hour i was working they were a sort of dj and i was sat next to i was helping them with some stuff and after a good hour of like being sat next to them and i was talking about i've got some really important things on this week they turned to me went i've got to be honest with you Alun i'm sick as a fucking pig and i would have been grateful if you told me that prior yeah.
Adam:
[34:07] Yeah so you could have scooted over a little bit.
Alun:
[34:10] And not kissed him yeah.
Adam:
[34:11] Yeah well talking about dates i did um i think she listens to the show actually but um it was it was in macedonia macedonia and greece and that we didn't do episodes on those actually but it was a it was sort of a maybe a a meeting way back in tokyo.
Alun:
[34:29] Well perhaps we can hear the story of that meeting on patreon oh patreon.com.
Adam:
[34:34] Forward slash tripology podcast and in the lost and found section maybe maybe i'll divulge i'd.
Alun:
[34:39] Be willing to hear you divulge right now shall we pierce through the back of the show and go straight to patreon.
Adam:
[34:45] Let's do it leon mate thanks ever so much we uh we love you to bits we really appreciate it was a wicked story and we wish you and Emmy all the best let us know how you're going with the finish won't you and we'll see you on the other side bye bye.
