Russillo on the Road: France Travelogue | The Ryen Russillo Show

Hey, we're Silla listeners, you can find every episode on Apple podcast and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon music. If your hair isn't performing like you used to, the answer isn't another hat. It's a proactive approach. NutriFull is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand. It's also NSF certified for sport and the official hair growth partner of Major League Baseball. The only hair growth supplement trusted by the pros. Visit NutriFull.com in our promo code PMT. Get 10 bucks off your first month subscription and you get free shipping. That's N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com promo code PMT. The Ryder Silla show is presented by DriveKings, well, we did it. I think we cracked a three hour mark for France travel log, it started with the idea of going from France to Sweden to Amsterdam and instead we just did the North of France and then we dabbled in the South of France. So, enjoy. Something big is coming. 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I have been to Amsterdam once before. It was on a high school trip to Germany where we flew in to Amsterdam, and then we had this like long, weird layover. I think because of the adults that were shabbering us on the trip, again it was a singing thing. I have told the story before, it is sort of absurd, but they wanted to see the tulips huge part. You want to talk about the price of peltz globally, the price of tulips. That market didn't last, but that is a different lesson. But the parents, the adults, they really wanted to see the tulips, and I will just never forget us being exhausted, teenagers jet lagged first time ever. I think it was the first time I had ever been on a plane, other than for basketball, games in the end tuck it, and we went to Amsterdam, and we were asleep on the bus, and we were getting yelled at, not appreciating it enough, and we don't want to look at this stuff. However, some of the dudes, when they got to Amsterdam, were fired up to try the hash brownies. I was just not my speed then or now, but we were basically unleashed on the city for a few hours. If you want to talk about the face of some dudes experiencing things, they've never experienced before. A lot of the kids in the vineyard went pretty hard, there are smart kids too, but they just immediately inhaling hash brownies, and I think we looked at the hookers to the windows, and that was it for Amsterdam, and then we were off to Germany. The plan is likely going to change, but that's kind of what is on the docket now for maybe a couple of weeks here, so we'll see. The flight over, just to fully capture everything, watch the Michael Jackson bio-pick. These music bio-picks do not do it for me, I know they've been really popular, where it's like one works, so then it's like, okay, who's next? I haven't seen all of them, I'll admit, but Michael Jackson was a big deal, and I know I say that as somebody but like, if you're of a certain age, that is, he was at one point it felt like the most important person on the planet. He was probably at one point the most famous person on the planet, so I was a little interested because I grew up, I'm a thriller kid. My father didn't let us have cable, I think, until we were 13, and I think that was really because he wanted to watch the Big E's games on Monday and was sick of not watching him, so prior to that, if you were over your friend's house when Thriller came on, it was like, what do you do this week? It was like, it's been an unbelievable week, I saw Thriller twice, because that's how big that video was. I would say, you know, I love off the wall, still to this day, and I'd say there's a couple tracks that you almost are like, man, I didn't realize how much I love this song. So I think the music in the movie is really good, I think the casting is really good. I think that's what, a nephew of Michael Jackson that plays him, he's terrific, and the father's terrific. Miles Teller's hair is terrific. I would tell Miles Teller to maybe just bring that look back and stay with it the entire time, although casting him like that with that hair may limit some of his roles, but he's always, he's always fun to see in a movie. But I did turn it off when Bubbles, the CGI monkey showed up in the movie, and I was like, I don't, I don't want to watch this. And then I was like, well, what are you going to do? It's flights 11 hours, LAX direct to Paris, so you might as well just ride it out. So I finished the movie and, you know, whatever those movies, it's fine. I also watched, is this thing on with Will Arnett, which I like that those movies are made. I thought he was great in it. His triceps are incredible in it. He has one scene where his mom first shows up in the movie and he's leaning against the counter in the kitchen, talking to his kids about like being separated, and his tricep is just absolutely on fire. Honestly, his arms look so good. I don't think any wife would ever divorce a guy like that. And normally I don't like watching movies or shows about divorce. I probably think about divorce more than somebody who's not married, which is its own topic. But normally I don't like sitting and hanging out watching a divorced couple or about to be divorced couple for two hours, but I did like that movie. And I think Cooper's Bradley Cooper's character. I think his name is Bals. He must have just had a blast playing that character, writing it and then directing it as the kind of wayward friend who's high all the time, but it was a good movie. I enjoyed it. So if I slept 45 minutes on the plane, which is pretty standard for me, I just don't sleep on planes. Okay. My history with the French. I've never been to Paris before, which I know is probably surprising. To some, usually you just know my deal. Where's the ocean? If I'm going to go somewhere and with no ocean, that's usually not going to do it for me. I did study it for seven years. I was okay at speaking passable if I had to on trips to Montreal. I could say what I needed to say to make my point. I wasn't as great at listening, which I think there probably be a few people close to me that would say your English is a lot like your French then as well. I do remember this story, which I'll share with you. In high school, again, Martha's Vineyard's High School was a different experience. I got there at the beginning of my sophomore year. We had this awesome French teacher. She was great. And we were not a super locked-in group, even though I would say the room was generally on the smarter side. And she wasn't super tough on us. I do think there was something, too, if you think about the early 90s and think about some of the teachers that would have come over from the mainland, like maybe in the 70s, decided that I'm going to live on Martha's Vineyard year round and be a high school teacher. That's just a different, you're a very specific type of person to do that. And most of our teachers are terrific. And like anything, there were some teachers that were bad. We have one teacher that I'll never forget that always was trying to tell us who to tell our parents to vote for. It would turn into like propaganda season if you had him at the wrong time of the year of the voting cycle, which was always a little annoying. When you're a bunch of kids going like, "Hey, can you give us homework so we can do stuff," as opposed to this. Though we had this French teacher, and then I think our junior year, there was this exchange program where she got to go teach English in France and then switch houses with a French teacher who would then come over and teach us French for the year. And our French teacher that we had in this exchange was just right out of central casting, a little petite French woman from the countryside, you know, tightly cropped, curly black hair, super intense, told us like day one, we're going to be just speaking French in the room. And I was like, "Yeah, actually, we're not that good, so that's not really going to work out." And then it kind of turned into like substitute teacher mode, except for the entire year Thank you for her. So she was definitely consistently telling us how bad we were at French and how let down she was because I think, you know, we were like supposedly third year French students. I think I ended up, again, I don't know if I just said that. I had taken it for seven years, and I was all set and done. And so I'll never forget like she didn't, she didn't smell great, okay? And I think the principal or the assistant principal had to address our classroom to suggest like, hey, different cultures, prioritize different things and he kind of was beating around the bush until he finally said like, and some of that comes down to like hygiene. So I'll just never forget a principal basically saying, hey, we know she smells, and you guys know she smells, and she might even know that she smells, but can you just back off? And this is kind of sad, but I think by the end of it she'd almost like had a nervous breakdown with the class. So then our teacher comes back, and this is why I can't remember if it's our junior or senior year, because I can't imagine I'd go to a teacher's house after I was done with high school. But she was great. She had us all over, and then she just talked about the exchange and how she loved it and wish she could do it again because she got to live in this like a state in the French countryside, which was that teacher's home. And then this woman was thinking she was moving to Martha's Vineyard, and I guess again, the house, and she was very self-deprecating about our American French teacher. House wasn't that great. So she was like, you know, we got to live in her like palace, and then she like came here and lived in this two bedroom like one story home on Martha's Vineyard because real estate is so expensive. I'm a teacher. And so it probably wasn't a great trade for her, and she was like, yeah, it was incredible for us. It was unbelievable. And the other reason why I remember my French teacher so much is that her husband, I think hated me because I remember like that early 20s phase where I'd come home for Christmas and the first thing that I'd want to do was like, hoop, and they'd have this super intense men's league thing. And then they'd have these like non-men's league games from the men's league guys. So I would just show up to crash those and just see like because they'd actually be the men's league games would be on public access on Martha's Vineyard and everybody would like talk about it. So I'd be like, I wonder how many points of game I would get if I played in this men's league. So I would come back and there would always be like a handful of us that played, that would come back for Christmas and just ruin these pickup games for these guys that were playing in a year round or like, hey, it's bad enough that we're stuck here year round. And then you dickhead show up for like a week and decided to take over. And I remember I was going up against this kid who was like the best player from high school who would just graduate and he was really good player. And I had a couple of times, I had a couple of drives on him that I wasn't working. I couldn't get to him, but I'm sure I would have figured it out. And I don't say that like as an arrogant dick because I remember then her husband was on my team and maybe he was like the point guard when I wasn't there. I just didn't care. I was like bringing the ball up and going and he finally after like two times, he was like, hey, are you going to do that? Because you can't fucking beat him and like, let me have it. And I was like, whoa, wow, like that was pretty aggressive man. And he wasn't a very good player. So I didn't really like that and it still bothers me three years later. So land at the airport and 50 minute taxi to Saint Germain, which is where I'm going to stay. Some of you a certain age may remember the first Saint Germain CD kind of this techno jazz thing. I was usually the new music guy at the bar that I worked at and I think it was actually one of the other guys. So that was kind of mind blowing that he was like, hey, wait until you hear this. And I'm sitting there going like I just got so many marked for him mushroom jazz volumes with right should shout out to Danny McBride. Then somebody else is on the scene with the Saint Germain thing. That first CD is incredible. That's why I was thinking about this, but there was just a little on the left side of the send that I wanted to check out. So that's where I'm at staying at the hotel Dame Des Arts about 400 a night. It's pretty boutiquey. Room is kind of small. That's not really the point. I like it. Seems like everything's good here. And you just start walking around these little villages, at least in the Saint Germain side and granted Paris is massive with all these different neighborhoods that are assigned by numbers. And that was the old system that they've kept in place for a while. I think they changed it like five or six years ago with all different administrations of these specified neighborhoods by number throughout Paris. So Paris is massive, which has been kind of cool because even though normally when I get to these big European cities this time of year, when it feels like the entire world is descending on these cities, it doesn't feel as overwhelming. So the plan is to be here for a day, but it's kind of absurd to think that I would get to it all in a day or at least what I want to see. So immediately get over the Eiffel Tower, got to do it, get out of the taxi. And I don't know what I was expecting, but it was kind of like, oh yeah, there it is. I think it's just this idea that it's the Eiffel Tower and it's going to cast a shadow over the entire country and that it can't be big enough, like as big as it is, it can't be big enough in person with the way that you've thought about it because I'd never, I'd landed in Paris plenty of times and connecting flights, but I'd never actually got out into the city. So walk over pretty touristy as you would expect a lot of caricature artists, put in the hours, lifting all those weights, getting the reps in, hoping to be discovered. Something about caricatures in general that I think is interesting is because Instagram makes you look better, caricatures make you look worse. Although I feel like the artist and I was looking at somebody like, okay, that's a good looking guy and now he looks terrible in this sketch. And then you see somebody was like, you sure you want one buddy? And then it would look like the artist would be building them up. So it's just something to think about. Our caricature artists keeping the people in check that need to be kept in check, but then building up the people that need to win that day, I don't know, something I've never really thought about. Also some of the samplings where you don't have to get one of yourself, you can get one of someone else who's famous, Dale Earnhardt, that was available, I was thinking about getting it for Kyle's mom, but it may be too soon. So I'm not sure. I also saw, believe it or not, multiple artists offering up Mr. Bean sketches. And you just have to think, it wasn't like one guy had it, multiple guys had their interpretation of Mr. Bean. So there's a market there. I don't know who that market is. I don't know who buys that for themselves or buys it. Hey, what's the pairs who got you this Mr. Bean caricature? I want to frame that one, but it must move. They must do numbers because it wasn't just like one dude had a Mr. Bean sketch. I saw multiple versions of Mr. Bean. Walk underneath the Eiffel Tower, go through security, that part of it's all free so you can just roll in. But to take up the elevator is a ticket and the line was so incredibly long, even though I'm sitting or standing underneath the Eiffel Tower and looking at it, I don't feel like dealing with this right now. So over to the Trujadero, which was mobbed to be expected, yes, if you go over there and then you have the Eiffel Tower in the backdrop, it is spectacular. It's worth all the pictures to go ahead and do it, but it's going to be really crowded and probably the most touristy thing that I saw on the first day, which again was totally expected. It's not like you expect to go over there and it's like, oh chill, no one else had this idea to go take this picture over by the Eiffel Tower. Another thing on live violins, which I've noticed in my travels, I've seen the guys hook up to their electric equipment, just go Dwayne Alman on that fucking thing and belt out these songs. It is the same song. I think this has happened four times and I'm not even worried about finding out the song for you because I'm going to figure it out because every time I've seen live violin in some promenade, some plaza and some other part of Europe, I swear to God, they're all playing the same song. So I don't know if there's some mountain jam violin song that everybody just knows that takes 30 minutes because it seems to be every time I walk past anyone playing the violin publicly, it is this like big crescendo song and I know some of you are saying, oh you're just confusing it. It's like a bunch of songs the same. No, it's the same song I have an ear for it. All right. So I'll keep monitoring that. I would not go back to the Trocadero again. Went over to the Notre Dame Cathedral. A lot of people pronounce that differently when they're talking about the football team. It still looks like it's being repaired even though it says that the reconstruction of it that started in 19, ended in 24, obviously with the fire. But that's right across the river for more of my hotel is so I walk back over there, check that out. You know, it's obviously staggering and beautiful to look at and just all of those buildings on the right side of the river, I guess it would be the right bank, even though I'm staying on the left bank. Just they're pristine, they're clean, there's these promenods all around them. I walk past the Senate and I checked out that area and there's these fountains and everybody's sitting out in these gardens and they're reading books and they're just taking time granted their rip and cigarettes but like good for them and it's despite it being touristy and highly populated, it never feels like as overwhelming as other places that I've been in Europe. So just love to see people out there reading. There's also a fountain in front of the Senate that you can rent a sailboat for 30 minutes for eight euros and look, I'll admit I was like, hey, when are you going to do this again? When are you going to be parrots with the bail, you love boats, the availability to rent a little sailboat and run it out there and then I started looking at it and I'm like, oh, these aren't even remote. You just throw it in there, heavy ballast, keeps it afloat, they catch a little wind and then they cut across the fountain and then you have to go to the other side of the fountain. and then turn it around, and then of course there was some sort of power source in the middle of the fountains, like a multiple boats were like over there just stuck and you just kind of have to like wait hoping the wind changes so the boat comes free, and then if you're working the boat with a stick, you just like there's no remote control, you just have a stick, and then you poke at the boat, and then it goes the other way, and then you have to walk to the other side of the fountain, and I was like I've wasted eight bucks in a worse way, but I don't think I'm going to do that today, and then I started watching some kid with um, I don't know, it wasn't umbappe, it was a different French player for the national team um, and belly, I think, so I don't know if that means anything, but he took his stick and never used it on the boat, there was these massive fish in the fountain, just love and life, tons of food in there, no one fishing, so massive, these things were huge, and I guess the only downside would be a kid unsupervised with his stick who doesn't care about his sailboat, just smashing these fish over the head with the stick, and you know, you're watching it, and you're like alright, it's not really my place to say anything, so made it back to the hotel, World Cup final, Spain dominant over Argentina, got myself a nice little winy dish, I'm over three on asking for ice and a glass, and getting ice over three on that one may give up, World Cup, dinner was fine, out of the shoot the meals, this is on me, I know, classic, but I just wanted to find a cafe, outside, TV, whole setup, cigarette smoke, sort of bothered me a little bit, um, and just glad that I wasn't on the air for, or even just consuming any of the, is messy actually good content that would happen to an NBA player, after a final loss, so that's part one for you. Part two, still in Paris, an absurd, absurd idea that I was just going to do Paris for a day, and then make it to the coast, I love Paris, I'm a huge fan, and I know, look, I knew it was ridiculous to go, you're going to go there for a day, and I didn't think of clearly, I mean, I'm not going to get to it all in the limited amount of time, it's just normally the big cities don't want to be there, but Paris just has felt different than some of the other cities that I've been to, and again, I don't know if it's because it's so big that it never feels quite as overwhelming, and that there's a million little side streets in the area that I'm at, where you're just walking and walking and exploring, and it never feels like you're tired, you just want to keep seeing more and more of it. So I decided to extend another day, even though I did the early check-in thing, because when I got to Paris, it was like, I was at the hotel at 11 a.m., and I actually paid for the room the night before to finally do that, because I was like, you know, if you show up and it's in one of these joints, it's like, hey, the room's not going to be ready until four o'clock, you're going to be super annoyed. So budget-wise, not my favorite thing to do, but whatever. What else do we have here? Looking at the notes. Yeah, so extended here, made it over through a gym, did legs. What do I do? Thanks for asking what I do. Doing a lot of dynamic stuff in the beginning to really mess up the nervous system once I started with this trainer. So we started with a 45-pound plate that you slide between your legs for 30 seconds back and forth, working on that, growing to get the kicks a little stronger, then right into a plank with the 45-pound plate on your back plank for a minute, and then right into box squats, granted if I'd had a trainer, I would have done a lot heavier weights. I did kind of a goblet kettlebell thing, box squat, and then right into lunges with I would say 25-30 pound dumbbells in each hand, 12 on each side, and then you just do it all over again, and you do it four times, and you try to do it with no rest. I do cheat at the end, and usually look for a minute somewhere in there. It's so bad, it sucks so fucking bad that the plank is actually a bit of a rest. So again, thanks for asking about that. All right, after the gym, checked out, have a little cafe theory. It's not that insightful, it's not groundbreaking. It's pretty straightforward, but you know, we've talked about in the past, the restaurants closest to water sources usually just get away with being shitty because they're near the water, and you go, this is amazing, like I'll just sit here next to this river or next to this lake or next to the ocean, and then boom, and then the food sucks, and you have to go off onto these little side streets. In Paris, what I've noticed here is that you just kind of like one cafe looks amazing and has this great awning, and then it's empty, and it's open, and then the one right next door to it is absolutely packed, and if you just stay with that being like, I may not get a table right away, but I want to eat here and not at the other place, like you'll just notice these streets, you'll go down, and you'll go like, this place is completely empty, and this one is busy, and then empty, empty, empty, and then busy, and so far sticking to that, every meal has been terrific, especially after a rough start, which is very classic me to write out the gate. I wouldn't exactly nail the food. A little breakfast cafe called Lulu, I see bowls, consistency, thickness, we need to examine that in general, but they had this side potato dish and the fresh juice and everything. The juice here is just off the charts. Every single juice experience has been terrific so far. The idea was to check out the Louvre, but the ticket thing, you've got to plan it out at a time, like when you know you're coming here, get the tickets like two weeks ahead of time. So I was at the front desk, we had a ticket available, I kind of felt like I needed to do it, even if I knew it was going to be a shit show over there, and then the hotel was like, we have one available at one o'clock, same day, which is unheard of, and then as we were like executing the purchase, it didn't hold the ticket. She's like, oh, it's actually gone. And I was like, all right, Laura J. La, Laura Jury, then we'll we'll check that one out. Instead, another museum, write it down the gardens from the Louvre. I did go over to Louvre and ask, like, hey, what's the story over here? And they were like, we're sold out. In a lot of times, I'm able to pull off like, hey, it's just me. I don't need a tour. Is that going to work out? That place is a little buttoned up because it is chaos outside of there. And so I don't, even though I felt a little bit like it's right there and you're not going to go, which I know is going to horrify some of you, I didn't really care. Through the two Louvre gardens, which have their own history, which are pretty extensive, but it's just these pristine areas that you would normally think with this much traffic, just get worn down and the French just do it right with this stuff. The gardens have all sorts of crazy history with the royals, like having it be hunting grounds, exotic animals, a silkworm section of trying to have their own silk industry, different royals during different changes of power escape through the gardens to get away. And then you have Napoleon III. We're going to get his story a little bit here, who was captured by the Prussians. And this is 1871. And then after this whole period of like 1871, you have the coming arts who were this group of like working class radicals, who honestly, when you look to their policies, their policies were great. A lot of them, and we're pretty ahead of their time on some of the stuff that they were fighting for. And so when they were coming back to like takeover, which did not last very long, basically like the French army comes in and kicks their ass again. I mean, France is just going through all sorts of shit. It's unbelievable. I love looking at a lot of this stuff, but it's hard to even like keep up with the transition of power and like what's going on. But the point is, is that during this time, they set the gardens on fire. And we're like, we're taking it with us. And then there was these false reports that Lou was actually set on fire. And I think it was just like a library. So you can go back and research some of that stuff if you want to. It's actually not that rewarding going back and looking at a lot of it. So I was right at the doorstep and it didn't happen. I'm going to do a little bit more on that for a second. But let's go into the oratory, which the main attraction is the water lily display exhibit by Monet, where he had this property where he would just sit and redo these lily paintings over and over and over again, trying to get everything right. And the paintings themselves are massive. There's like four in these two different rooms. So I think it's eight total pieces. They're huge. They're the entire wall. And the whole idea was that Monet would just sit obsessively outside and just be at peace with his own determination. This almost like unbelievable determination of trying to get this right to make it look like it was an active movement. Like it was it was real water moving along. I'll be honest to you, like this exhibit didn't I didn't blow me away or anything, which I feel a little guilty about. It's not like the trains at St. Lazar where that kind of stuff from him I like a little bit more. And then we were getting yelled at all the time. Well, I wasn't talking because I wasn't talking to anybody clearly, but it's just a bunch of groups rolling through and it's it's going to be chaos in there. And the French, they don't even know if I call them security guards. I mean, they were right out of central casting of like what you would expect like an older woman who works at a museum to look like. But they were shushing everyone like every five minutes because the whole idea is you're supposed to go in there and kind of like meditate and be at peace and be in total silence. You're like, yeah, good luck. There's international people from all over the world. A thought on Asian women. I think I've got you figured out. I do. And you may not like what I have to hear, but I figured it out. You cut everyone. And you do this kind of like and it's a certain age, right? It's not every Asian woman I've ever seen. But I've noticed this in my travels, and something needs to be said, but you do this kind of like confused meek thing, and you know you, you know exactly what you're doing. You're fucking cutting everyone in line, but there's this language barrier, and you never make eye contact. I think I may have said this before I crossed out the notes, but like I don't even mean this as critical. I'm just noticing it, and it's part of your game. I admire it, because if like, there's no line that you're like, whatever, I'm just going to pretend I don't even know what's going on, and then everybody's going to be like, well, whatever, she's confused, this can be. It happens all the time. And on the way into the museum, three women cut me, like all north of 40, they look around, they never make eye contact, they all have confused. No one has any chance of understanding, oh, fucking word, they're saying. And then they know, they know the game, they know exactly what they're doing. So needed to be said. Who else? Also hit or miss for me, Russo, there's a big Russo thing. I respect the fact that it took him like 40 years, self-made, you know, just kept grinding. Everybody told him it wasn't going to work on his own. He was like, I got this, you don't understand, and it totally worked. I don't really love it. He kind of looks like somebody from a different and older generation, just like, look how good the tracings are. I know that sounds ridiculous. Maybe some of you love it, who's any of us to argue over any of this stuff. But all the Russo stuff that I look at, it's just, doesn't really do anything for me. I think out of this, Maurice Utrilo is my guy. I didn't know what kind about him, but I really liked his stuff the most, despite the Monet, Russo, Picasso, exhibits that you had. Out of the museum, over to Obistro went with the busy theory again. It was killer, this tomato kind of barada pesto, which I think is one of the most overrated things, but this one worked. I'll admit, some of the French dishes that you want to be colder come out a little less cold than you want them to be. And they're slicing of their beef carpacio. They probably go a little thicker than somebody who would like the Italian version of it. But it's very simple. They nail this stuff time and time again, simple, less ingredients and it all tastes incredible. And all you want to do is eat every single piece of bread that you could possibly have. So we're going to do some bread numbers. Back to the Parisian infrastructure because reading about Napoleon, Andrew Roberts, I think Lord Andrew Roberts, I forget. We had him on the show after reading his massive Napoleon biography. One thing that you would say about Napoleon, although, you know, horny little guy who once said love is the distraction of the warrior, which I related to quite a bit, a lot of other stuff that he did, I didn't relate to. But he was beyond an extraordinary military mind, although, you know, like Russia, did you really think that was going to fucking work, dude? His understanding of him's structure, I mean, the guy could have been one of the great city planners of all time, right? Okay. So that's the turn of the century, 1800 stuff. His nephew Napoleon III, during that time, the French are like, you know what, let's get back to basics here. You know, never underestimate the value of brand awareness. And that's basically what happened when Napoleon III, as he wins presidency in the after a couple of years, he's like, you know what, I'm actually emperor now. So suck it. But during that time, because there's certainly a lot of things you'd be critical of, he's like, we have to make Paris like the most attractive city in the world. And he commissions another Parisian houseman, I don't know, who's man, whatever, to redo basically the entire city. And that's why when you walk around Paris, a lot of the buildings aren't as old as maybe you would think. And that's why they have these wide boulevards. There's 12 of these roads that lead to the architrium, which are supposed to represent the ray of a sun heading towards the center of the city's identity. And it's fascinating. Like going up to Charles Sully says, you're like, okay, this is, this is this six lane thing that goes right in the face of the architrium, depending on the angle. And this is like the right angle. And it was just after best deal day. So all of this stuff was set up. They were taking it down as I was exploring this part of it. It's just incredibly gorgeous layout. And normally when you have cities that are this old, you just have so many areas that have been around for so long, it's like no way to fix anything. Now, there was a reason why they did this is that there had been all of these uprisings. And so many of these smaller streets and these little kind of slummy village areas of Paris that it was actually very easy from a military standpoint to execute some of these uprisings because you couldn't, you could like shut down these streets and you could just hold up in these areas. And it was tough for the National Guard, essentially, the National Army to, to quell this stuff. So part of the strategy was if you made these super wide boulevards in these front facing buildings and got rid of these slum areas, which again, it was the gentrification of like hundreds of thousands of Parisians. And again, the criticisms would be that he was catering to wealthier individuals. But the benefit is when you're walking around, the structure and the setup, the beauty is all really because of all of the stuff that happened in the mid-1800s. So I thought that that was sort of important to bring up. All right. What else? The rest of the night, okay. I made it over to this Italian, I don't even think it was Italian. It was kind of this French pasta place, La Cremere, I think, I don't know. One of those little side streets in Saint Germain where it's just going off and you're just so, I would also say this is the worst city to come to by yourself. You want to just like share it with somebody else. And so I roll in, and sometimes the place is really nice, you're kind of like, all right, solo, and I don't get dressed up or anything. And roll in the guys like, whatever you want, man, he's like right in the back. And my waiter looked just like James Harden, which was hilarious. So I ordered some ham, obviously did the bread, a little white wine. And then I was like, what is up with this beef ravioli? And then I was like, what's the sauce situation? He goes, there's no sauce. I'm like, come on, man. There's no sauce. And clearly there's probably like some butter and there's some olive oil over the top of it. There's a specific parmesan where he's like the parmesan, the way it works, the olive oil. That's all you're going to need. And it was incredible. Like every bite was so good. And maybe it's a little placebo effect of being in France, but like the place was clearly a very, very nice restaurant. And it was these beef raviolis that didn't need any sauce whatsoever. It was sick. And it was funny to you because my bread basket was done. My waiter kind of like, the way he was so coordinated and slick with the way he kind of like grabbed the bread basket with his hands. I was like, this motherfucker can probably ball. And it wasn't just because he looked like James Harden. And then I made it back to the hotel, which I noticed there was all this commotion and all these people being turned away when they would come up to the concierge. And so I went up and said, hey, what's going on upstairs? He's like, we have one of the greatest rooftops in the city of Paris, like our rooftop bars. And I was like, so I should go up there. He's like, yeah, of course. Like one of the whole reasons you should stay here is you want to go up there. And I'll also say this to like the whole thing about like people from Paris being rude and hating Americans. I didn't catch any of that. I honestly, maybe you know, it's just running into people that are working in hospitality. But from the taxi drivers to everyone in every restaurant, even going to the gym to everybody at the hotel, my French is not helping me at all. It's fucking terrible. Some woman came up to me asking me for directions and I don't even think I said in city stage and I said, Pa, I was like, Jean Pa, which I think she figured out what I fucking meant. But he was probably super confused. I was confused after I said it. So I hit up the rooftop bar, which kind of reminded me of like why the James Hotel used to be my favorite in New York City back when it owned the rooftop bar, the Jimmy up there, because they would only let like mostly it was people or models, obviously, but they would let people in that were staying at the hotel. And so it was never too crowded. It was always kind of fun. And then eventually, I don't know. I haven't stayed there in a while. I think I went there one time and it was like four nights at a row. They had rented out the place for a private party. I was like, so I can't even fucking go up there, huh? And I'm like, yeah, well, maybe not really. I was like, all right, I'm done with this place. This place that I'm staying at in Paris, that was the whole point is like, no, we don't want to crowd it up there. And it's just hotel guests except for exceptions or if we're incredibly slow. So you go up there and it's nine stories up and it's a view of the entire city, Eiffel Tower in the backdrop by the sunset had a sunset, which is a real go to and try to chase the night for you a little bit for the audience here because I was giving a heads up that on the other side of the river, there's this taco shop that also has a speak easy. It's called the Candelera, this taco shop. So it's like the most basic taco shop on the side street, there's one counter for like four seats and then there's a table in there for like another eight seats. There's a guy on the grill making up these incredible tacos, even though again, it's corn tortilla, but you knew if this place was going to try to like be cool about it because everything they were doing was cool. They were going to go with corn. The whole point is like like you actually walk through the kitchen right next to the guy in the grill, if you get the okay from security to go into the speak easy that's in the back and the guy that gave me the heads up on it was like, look, um, depends on how busy it is. It's not a guarantee you'll get in. He's like, try to speak French to the guy and I'm like, you know, say just wow. And he's like, then he just goes, you want to go into the bar? That's like, yeah, yeah. Is that cool? And then he gives you the okay and they don't walk you in. You walk through the kitchen part of it right as this guy's chef in up tacos, open this white painted door and then boom, it's this sick room with couches and chairs. And it's like 20 plus people in the lighting. So it's like walking through a door and it would completely different world had a beer there and then realized like, okay, I'm actually not going to stay out. I did that for you guys and for the, uh, the audience woke up before 30 again, um, this morning, which sucks, um, did go to the hotel gym in the morning. I almost broke my finger on the bench. The hotel gym was very strange. It was almost like a catalog for an antique gym. So they had like, ever last boxing gloves. And then I was looking at and I was realizing like, oh, these are decorations. You're not actually supposed to use them on anything. And then they had the weird leather pouched stuffed weights where there'd be a little handle on them and the weight was in the leather pouch. And there were like four different weights for that, which is strange. It was kind of something right out of like a level even above restoration hardware was like, hey, do you want to decorate a room that has fitness equipment that you're never ever going to use? And then the bench had a sliding thing, but no knob to, so you had to stick your finger into the dang. And of course, I crushed my finger and yelled fuck in the gym in front of everybody. Um, then I just kind of kicked it in the afternoon, hit up this dumpling spot. It was incredible. They gave me ice, uh, Arctotrium went up there, totally worth it. Didn't take that long. Um, and I'm getting, oh, yeah, I went by Pontinif, where my taxi cab driver said, what you do is you bring a padlock here with your lover and then you lock it onto this thing. But then they made everybody stop because there's too many padlocks. And I was like, we're good. I don't have to do that today. And he laughed at me in my face. Um, and then I hit the train and I'm headed up to Deville, the coast in the Normandy region. Raising canes is turning 30 this month to celebrate the milestone. Canes is hosting a 30th birthday pop up museum in Baton Rouge, located directly behind the original restaurant, the mother ship. Todd Gray's will be unveiling the museum on August 25th in honor of 30 years of Canes. The brand is also launching a commemorative 90s plush puppy available beginning August 26th featuring Kane in her 90s best net proceeds, benefit pet welfare organizations. I know if I were going to be there on the 25th, what I would do, I'd be like, where are the Kenny at combos? I'm going to be like, hey, Ryan, you've got to hear the speech first. I'm like, I don't know. It smells like chicken in here. And I wouldn't mind getting a couple of fingers. I'm usually a no slog guy, but I make up for it with extra sauce. And if I'm feeling just outrageous, no one's looking, I'll order extra finger. I'll do it. I'll do it. I don't have to answer to anybody. It's one of the reasons I didn't get married. So I could just say two extra chicken fingers. I don't care. No one's in charge of me. Raising canes, chicken fingers. One love. Part 3, Deville. The plan of the last two days is spend time in this seaside village in the Normandy region and took the train up from Paris. It was about two plus hours. I still never understand the European train thing where I think the regular ticket was 87 euros than first class is 91. And it's completely, well, that's not that big of a deal. It's not like first class on a plane. But for the four extra books, it seems like an absolute no brainer. The train ride in was everything you'd hope it would be French countryside, these small villages, a lot of walls. And I don't think it's just because of like horses or cows, although there's tons of cow pastures all over the place because those are more like traditional cow fences, but a lot of walls around the property that are like over six feet tall. I constantly whenever I see these small villages or the train stops or it's going slow enough that you can kind of like get a sense of what the town is like. Like granted, you're still depending on which part of the train ride you're at. You're like, okay, this is still only like an hour away from Paris. So if you needed to go to a city, although clearly like any place in United States, if you were to drive around and be like, oh my god, this is the middle of nowhere, like how do people live here? Sometimes it's like, yeah, it's the best. It reminds me a little bit of driving through Quebec, even though there's parts of Quebec as soon as you get over the border that is about as flat as it can possibly be, which would make sense with the way borders are naturally kind of designed by topography. But in this case, you're just rolling through some of these towns and you're like, all right, it's just a street and a few houses and then just rinse and repeat. Although there was one guy who I noticed like on the third floor of a house, it might have been more of like an apartment building, just shirts off out of a bay window, just kind of he wasn't talking to anybody, just kind of monitoring the situation. And you look at the guy and you're like, I wonder what his day is going to be like, probably a little different than mine. So the train ride was terrific and then you pull into this just gorgeous little village of develop. So the history here, we'll go back to 1066 Duke William of Normandy, also AK William the Conqueror. He originally went across the water and he was in charge of England for a little bit. And then of course, so many of these areas, it just goes back and forth, back and forth. 1860s probably when this place takes off as a resort town, the Duke of Mourney, who was the half brother of Napoleon III. Apparently like his wife's friend was like, hey, why don't we just make a resort town? And they did that. I think it kind of goes back a little bit earlier than that where there was a doctor with somebody else who got together and they were kind of like, let's just make this place awesome. And that's exactly what they did. They built a horse track here, which is still in operation. That season picks up I think in a few weeks, it's kind of a legendary horse area as far as horse auctions and everything that goes along with that. They did have the Deville Grand Prix in 1936 because they wanted to add auto-mobile, I guess what we just say, auto racing to the area, cars such as Bugatti, Alfa Mero, Masarati. The problem is, is if you look at the track, it's insane. It is basically this long rectangle with four 90 degree left turns, unless they're going the other way, I guess. But two people died, one guy in a crash immediately, then another guy later on at the hospital. And so they cancelled it immediately. And looking at the race track, you're just kind of like, how was this going to work out? I think only three cars finished. So that was the end of that. After that, 1936, like looking at some of the World War II history, it's not as extensive. I'm sure there's more to it, but this was generally the Germans just went, hey, this place is sick. Let's just post up here. The casino was part of their headquarters. They took over all the luxury hotels, but I think a lot of the battles were in the surrounding areas. And then eventually this place was cleared once the dudes landed on the beach. So we covered the train right in, walking from the train to the hotel. Probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but I wanted to kind of take the town in, but when you're sitting there with a roller bag and originally I put in the wrong hotel, even though they're next door to each other, but there's still a little bit further a walk. I probably wouldn't do it again, but it gave me at least the lay of the land and wanted to kind of see what the town was like, although with the streets and the cobblestone and all that kind of stuff, eventually you're like, all right, this is a little annoying, but the town itself is incredible. I cannot believe this place is not a bigger deal. Maybe you're saying, yes, it is a big deal and people have known about it for a while. I don't know. I mean, I understand the South of France and Mediterranean and the climate. It's a little bit colder up here. It's felt like it's in the low 70s for the last two days, but it's great. Maybe a little windy at night, so you could, well, I'm not telling you like, hey, make sure you pack a jacket, but I would just say like in the grand scheme of things, some of the international spots that we're all well aware of. I think very few people have ever heard of this, and I've told people that I'm here. They're like, where is that? What is it? And I would say it's kind of like the town of Greenwich, Connecticut in if a West Anderson movie had a baby. That's what this town is like. It's only 4,000 people year round. Apparently peak season, it's 40,000 people. So when you compare this, because you look at some of the store fronts and it'll say Deville or CentriPay. So you're like, okay, well, there's a connection there. It's the same as like when you see something in the Hamptons and then the other location says Nantucket or something. So there's like a lot of high-end stuff with the Marina and the real estate and just all of these luxury amenities. But at the same time, it's just incredibly cute. I can't think of a better word for it than cute because it's exactly what it is. There's a carousel in one of the town squares. There's a train where families just kind of like roll around. There's horse wagons, horse-drawn wagons that kind of take you through if you want to do that. And then there's a ton of Michelin star restaurants and high-end luxury shopping and all that kind of stuff. But it doesn't feel as bougie as some of the other places that would have some of these kinds of restaurants and kind of the resume that this place has. The hotel, I'm staying it. Well, I've finished my stay as I'm checking out now. La Royale Barrier, which again, feels a lot like a Wes Anderson movie when you check in, it is like he casted the entire staff here, like right at the front desk checking in, you know, like, okay, this guy looks like he would be in one of these movies. The hotel is old in a way that's kind of charming at first and then maybe not as I tell the entire story. He walked through the carpet is old but it's like, it looks like it's 1920s, 1930s, the walls are covered in fabric, which is very European beach finish to it with the red and white stripes. And you walk through the door, the revolving door at the front, it's an old wood frame with glass where it's almost loose and then it feels like it's kind of charming, the downstairs old red velvet chairs. It just looks straight out of a movie. I mean, there's really no other way to explain it. I have a terrace, I was upgraded to the terrace because I don't think this place is that busy, it was 700 euros a night, so whatever. But the terrace looks out over the beach and the terrace itself, you're like, okay, these older chairs and you know, this iron railing and, you know, the tile, like everything has this kind of cool older feel to it. Then you could also go, yeah, or it's also not kept up well enough because there's a huge bird nest right above the balcony that I have, which is probably not exactly what you're looking for because the bird stop by a few times while I was here. Another little tidbit about the hotel is that my room is 412 and then coming over dinner, only one glass of sunsare. But as I was sitting there sliding the key into the door into room 412, it would not work. And then I pulled on the door and I'm like, what is going on? And it wasn't that late, it was only like, I don't know, 11. And by the way, the sun, I don't even think if like fully was down, maybe it was like 1045 when it finally went down. So that's pretty incredible too. But I'm sitting there at the door and I was like, this doesn't make any sense. I guess I'm just going to have to go back down on the elevator, go to the front desk. My key card isn't working. And then I looked to the right and realized that both doors set 412 because it's in a joining room that is at this point locked off because I don't have both rooms. Deep breath. So that worked out. It was fine. And then it didn't work out because I fell asleep from a little after 11 to 130. The room was so incredibly hot. And I called down to the front desk and said, is there a thermostat anywhere where I'm sitting there? For some reason, not turning on the lights because I took the key card out and so I'm walking around my phone trying to find the thermostat. And there's no thermostat at all. So I called down and I was like, hey, is there any way to control the temperature? And they were like, is it too hot or too cold? Like who the fuck is saying it's too cold? It is too hot. Malfair. So they sent up a guy with this like futuristic blade fan. And again, because I had taken the key card out of the room to control the lights. But he and I were sitting there on the floor of my room trying to figure out how this fan works because it had settings 1 to 24. And then more settings 1 to 12. He didn't understand it. He's like, oh, these are brand new fans. He didn't speak great English. He had a mustache and glasses. He was older. It was right out of like, it was like Indiana Jones sitting there with a guy in a cave going like, can we figure this whole thing out? And we couldn't understand each other the entire time. And it was 130 in the morning. So we finally got the thing going. It was the dumbest like futuristic. Hey, look how cool this fan is. It sucked. So I was awake from 130 to 530, which wasn't great. Woke up around 10. And then checked out the on-site gym. Not great. All of the game room was killer. Game of Thrones. Pinball and then a foosball table. There was a full blown bridge tournament going on with posters and everything. Like a real, I don't know, sanctioned part of the tour. Average age 82, 83 in there. Just a bunch of people playing bridge. Super passionate about it. A lot of yelling. And this host or this hotel is also host the American Film Festival, which takes place in September, which also makes a lot of sense because you're walking these hallways where this place is kind of like a museum. So I know giving it shit a little bit about the temperature. But it's kind of cool to just look at all of these pictures of all these actors and actresses and directors and everybody that you would think of staying here at the hotel, partying here after all of these different film festivals that they can place over the years. So that part of it was kind of cool. The hotel, again, like I said, is right on the beach. It's next door to a casino. And I just cannot overstate that this town is absolutely awesome. It is and it will remain to be like one of my favorite places I've ever visited. The influence on the buildings and stuff, it's called Normandy style. I think it would be safe to say that a lot of it feels very Scandinavian. With the way the wood is exposed, the finish, the painting, but it's all like a seaside version of that where it just it I can't like everything seems like it's in the right place and looks exactly like the way you would want it to look like you get off, you travel, you go to all these places and you just land in a town like this and you go holy shit, this place is awesome. So the gym thing wasn't going to work out, shocking, went down to the front, said is there a gym here in town and they said, well, it's probably like a 15-minute bike ride away. I was like, I really don't feel like dealing with that, but you know what, what's a better warm up than a little bike ride to go push them way around and in fact, it ended up being fantastic because I was able to explore different parts of the town and then I was in this other village on the way over, which is part of this bigger athletic facility with tennis courts, just kids everywhere, pounding balls. You know, it's the next great one who knows I may have seen them. There's also a shooting range, I think, but I don't know who's eligible for that based on some of the pictures. We'll just leave it at that. And then I was in the gym. It was fine. It was old, old equipment. It was only 10-year-olds. It was kind of funny too because they were like, if you get there by 12, you can use it, but after 12, everybody takes lunch and they'll be gone for like two hours. I'm like, you guys are not putting in the work here. If you close the gym in the middle of the day, but then it was weird because once I was in there, like there was like six or seven dudes in there. There's also an older guy who was pretty strong, but he wasn't that big and I could see he was kind of eyeing me a little bit. And then he was like getting in my way to kind of show that like, hey, I can curl. And usually whenever you see a guy like swinging his entire torso into curling 40-pound dumbbells, what you can do, but it's just sort of pointless unless you can completely control the weight. And he couldn't, but I think he was like hoping I would notice it. Decent numbers, I just decided to go full bench. I'm incredibly sore today because I don't think I'm sleeping at all, but considering I haven't slept much, I felt pretty good about it. We threw a bunch of kilograms on. And then behind the bench was a poster of the Avengers, which, you know, if you can't be motivated by that, can you be motivated? Also a picture of Jay Cutler, which was pretty interesting. So left the gym, biked back towards the hotel and on the way back, you get to see the race track, which is just a maculate. You can ride your bike around the stables. You know, is there getting ready for the season here? It must be incredible. And apparently this place is kind of like considered that originally when it opened up, and it was like this destination that was so close to Paris, even though I think back then, the train ride took six hours. I said, two hours. They called it kind of like the other neighborhood of Paris. When I was talking about like the different numbered administrations of Paris and how it's all mapped out, they called this like at the time, the 21st, if there were 20 in Paris, but I think the number's 26 and then they change it again. So whatever that parts are relevant. Biking back through that village, I saw this kid. And look, I'm never going to meet him. He's never going to hear this. So I don't think it matters. He was an unattractive kid. But he was kicking a soccer ball down the sidewalk, like where cars are and people are walking and incredible control. And maybe it's because I've watched more World Cup than I'm paying more attention to the first touch. And he was just all over it. And I'm like, okay, that kid, I don't know if he's sad or if the parents are fighting again and he want to get out of the house, or maybe there's some mirrors in there or what. But he looked really bummed out. So it was kind of depressing. But at the same time, like watching him kick this soccer ball and have the control that he did while he was just on a sidewalk. Incredible first touch because it may be a while for a second touch. So back to town, lunch at list planches. I know that sounds less plunge. One of the best meals I've ever had. The food here is fantastic. Every time I've had anything here, it has been everything you could possibly want it to be. And this was even a little bit different. Went with the traditional ham and the bread to get things started asked for ice. They brought me ice. And then they came out with the piyard, which was this lemon grilled chicken over this Teziki whipped cream cheese, which is something I would never order normally. I may get it again before I leave. It was fucking ridiculous how good this thing tasted. And they bring out a little potatoes. They bring out some more fruits and top and odd, which was like capers and olives and tomatoes and some onion in it. And so you could spread it all over everything. One thing that I have learned is they want you to take forever. So if you go to lunch, it like 11 something there's no one there and then at 12 there's this massive rush and it's hard to get a table because people take two plus hours and it's just part of the deal which is totally understandable, very European thing. That's not really how I roll so I can tell they're almost, I mean even even red that it's considered offensive to be in a hurry and I'm not in a hurry but I also if you're by yourself you're like I don't want to sit and have lunch for two hours but adjust for that amount of time or allow for that amount of time, although very few of you are ever going to come here by yourself so probably don't have to worry about it. The night before I had dinner it's a legit car but then there's a side portion to this restaurant. I think jacars considered one of the best restaurants in the area and in that main area I couldn't get a seat but then the guy was incredible he was like well wait a minute you know we can we can see you at the bar if you're okay with that so they brought me up to kind of this like private hangout room which I was the only one in there and I think maybe like there was a couple guys that worked there or maybe it was an owner or something and they were just pounding booze and rip and cigarettes and then I sat at the bar and was like yeah I'm totally fine with this and they were almost like apologetic to be like are you okay to go do this I'm like yeah man it's like you know who you're talking to and so looking at the menu I'm like let me just grab a steak because I don't well I'd had something in in in Paris but I grabbed a steak in the guy spoke no English and for me to try to discover like what French words were gonna work we were at an impasse and essentially he was asking me what temperature I wanted to steak all right and so he started doing like a saute pan thing with his arms and I went like oh a temperature tempered and he was like yeah yeah so I said like medium and I try to do like low on a ladder and then high on a ladder and then like put my hand right in the middle and he looked at me like okay we're totally on the same page and out came the rarest steak I've ever had to fucking eat my entire life and I know some of you guys are total bad asses and it's like I wanted to move and I wanted to be bleeding and whatever this was straight up Pittsburgh style like a piece of beef seared on both sides for maybe 30 seconds and then cut open and it was cold at the center of it and I fucking hate that but there was no way I was sending it back because it was already hard enough and the guy was like a younger dude and he was a good kid and you could tell he almost felt bad that he couldn't understand me and I was like trying to just emphasize to him like don't worry about it and a lot of ginecon pram what what the fuck was that ginecon pram pal yeah a lot of that so anyway I I just muscleed it down and it's still like I was just going like hey if you like arpachio like here you go buddy big chunks of carpachio for you and there was some weird kind of green sauce that I have no idea what it was but it worked and it was terrific and then there was one piece that had like a massive massive line of fat in it because I was trying to eat it all and that piece took about an hour to chew and I was going to spit it out except he was just watching me the whole time because he had nothing to do because I was the only one in there and I'm like I don't think I can spit this out and put it back on the plate so you guys that eat all the fat in any kind of piece of beef I don't know how the fuck you do it but it just might be like a kid and taking a bad bite and going like I just want to spit this on the floor underneath the table but fought through the entire thing headed over the beach little beach chair drama you know I went to the front desk and said hey I want to get a beach chair but I'm not going to be there until a little bit later because I've got some stuff to do with the room is it is it cool like if I just go over there late it was windy it wasn't the best beach day but again a bad beach day is better than most days you walk out to this board walk there's all these restaurants and bars out there and shopping areas so that's its own little part of the town and that's another cool thing about this town is like I thought I kind of had it handled and then I kept riding my bike around I'm like God there's even more to this so it's it's more than just some of these towns you're like all right this is going to get boring after a couple days because it's like three streets and doville has much more to offer than that I think you can probably do if you want to do a week here you probably have to love either the horse racing would be in season or you have to really really love the beach maybe that'd be too long for some of you but I feel like it's a kind of place where there's enough going on that you wouldn't just go like hey some of these magical places that you visit and you're like all right actually it's boring after 48 hours I would not describe that this way so headed out to the beach chair area about five o'clock and the guy was like hey look there's 65 bucks for the chairs I'm like when do you close and he's like in an hour I was like man you know and I just had told him I was like I talked to the conscience and they said you know this late in the day just go out there and you'll be totally fine and he's like well he was like a younger dude he didn't really know what was going on I wasn't certainly I'm never addicted to any of these people but I was just kind of like there's a thousand empty chairs I don't need a towel he's like well I can't open an umbrella or give you a towel and I was like that's fine I was like how about we do this how about I give you 20 euros you keep it and we'll be good and he was like still confused and almost like offended or I don't know there was a massive disconnect there or maybe he was like yeah dude it's 65 bucks but the hotel it's told me that it was fine so I don't you know who fucking knows whatever sat down started read my book jumped to the water then came back and then I'm telling you like at 55 they're like you gotta get out of here and I think I was like the only person sitting in the beach chairs and there had to be well over 100 beach chairs and they weren't pulling all of the beach chairs either they were just pulling the tables um although it was really windy a little mini rizillo did look at some properties through the real estate offices there's maybe 30 real estate offices which tells you things are probably going well here um you know there's some affordable stuff here this isn't santropay even Paris when I would just kind of look when you're walking back by places going like oh that condo seven million euros yeah Paris has been discovered folks it's the secrets out so uh devils way different seriously could see doing um a month here you know at some point with NBA though probably we get a little difficult probably with any sporting event so then I get this fantasy land of like hey you could maybe do this you're like you probably can't though um dinner at legit car I ended up getting in there the second night they were awesome uh an incredible warm chicken Caesar salad one of the best I've ever had glass of sunsare and then I went with the black cod inside a rice the rice was pretty mid shockingly but this is one of the best restaurants I don't know if jacar noir was named after this restaurant it would make sense um but incredibly friendly staff and then my waiter was a soldier who was telling me about the one time he's been in the United States he was in Houston um but then I was like Houston or Austin and then he kept saying Houston this Houston Austin hybrid where I still don't necessarily know to finish things off here the art thief is the book that I'm reading by Finkel quick short book I felt a little like hey man you're getting into it you're sitting here in France you're reading the art thief um a couple facts off of that that I didn't know Picasso the most stolen painter of all time which is ironic because he was questioned in the theft of the Mona Lisa um and hold on we have some people coming by here I'll be done in a second all right the walser the walser coming in they want me out of here all right uh yeah so Picasso was questioned in the theft of the Mona Lisa which again was ironic because I guess three years prior to the actual theft of the Mona Lisa that was done there was an inside job maintenance guy um who then held on to it forever uh and then it was ended up being returned but Picasso um this book is great because you know art history and art theory two areas I'm lean on when it comes to uh knowledge but Picasso had hired somebody to steal these figurines um prior to that but he was never caught but then he was so freaked out after being questioned and detained for a half a day in jail about the theft of the Mona Lisa that he then had somebody like return them and then dropped them back off of the Louvre uh goya my guy remember Madrid that travel log one of the few artists were watching it watching it looking at it you're like this stuff is insane saturday eating his son so still to this day one of my favorite guys and referenced in the art thief book is that if you're a James Bond fan like I am and there's some suggestions that this area was a heavy influence on some of the early James Bond writings that in doctor know when Sean Connery visits doctor knows layer there is a portrait of the Duke of Wellington which had been stolen a year before which is a goya painting so it had been stolen I think in 1961 and while they made the movie they thought it would be funny to have that actual picture in doctor knows layer so there you go I am off to Bayou which is not Louisiana um looking at some of the train situations they don't seem ideal there's been talk of a bus being involved that is not going to happen so we will figure it out and we will get into our World War II phase. of the pop. Part four. Two days in Bayou. So the plan is to leave Deville and that's what I did. I didn't really want to leave it but there is stuff to see in Deville. It's great as restaurants and the whole setup was history on the horizon. So heading over to Bayou which made me laugh every time somebody said it because it reminds me Louisiana. Taxi to Hundo. You know looking at some of these train schedules I thought it'd be a little bit more buttoned up in France of all places but there's I'm not expecting directs from every single village but there's apparently some issue with the number of trains so like they'll say a train is available the shorter one and then it isn't and then it turned into like hey it's a train and two buses and so that was out. It was going to take like five hours or something ridiculous. However this ride in the taxi 115 is what it took but it sucked. The guy apparently and I only know this from my one summer of driving a taxi at home which is his own podcast but he had to have been the dispatcher for the company or something we got 50 fucking calls look no exaggeration 50 phone calls and he answered every single one of them and it would always start with somebody pressing the buttons to some sort of automated direction so that went on the entire ride. I'm telling you every minute there was a call. He braked 100 yards away from any brake light like hard slam on the brake and then I think he picked his nose and ate it but I wasn't sure and then I realized like do I want to know if he's actually picking his nose and eating it. I'm going to give him a pass because I saw him biting his fingernails although he may have just tried to throw me off you know a bit of a decoy mission which is going to come up later. So Bayou I'm over at this great little hotel right next to the museum and Bayou I have the general pattern room which I thought was just perfect there's a few options and as I was walking by him I'm like oh one's the pattern room like I hope I get and they were like obviously you're going to get the pattern room so I got that and then Holland's Normandy 44s on the bookshelf did already read it but you know anytime you're you got a Holland you know he or his brother I think I've gone over to on both brothers and trying to have them on his brother is a big Roman Empire guy I had an entire summer laid out I read three of his books we're going to do a full Roman Empire thing and go through all three of the books maybe he was like I don't even want to fucking do that and I wrote them all so we did not hear back from him the museum is good I wouldn't say great I'm going to do like bigger museum facts for you kind of in the middle of all this to try to keep it contained because I wanted to share with you stuff that I thought was interesting but I also don't want to turn this into a lecture there was a movie was good again the museum is two minutes from the hotel I was at so super convenient enjoyed it banged out probably two hours in there I do always like reading about the perspective of the different German generals and how history remembers like their disagreement with all of the preparations in Western Europe now granted you know that could be a lot of people like an MBA team saying like I we actually did want to draft like a border junior but um that that part I always find kind of interesting this was odd too there was a huge French guy in his son these guys were big dudes and he was wearing like a Colin Kaepernick t-shirt jersey so not the jersey like the the cheapest jersey version gift that you could give anybody so it was like a t-shirt and we went into the movie and it's all of these movies are set okay like none of them are a good time or fun people are getting emotional in them and this fucking guy talks of the whole time and I was in his row and you know he spoke French so I wasn't going to get into it or anything but I don't know I don't know what that was I don't even Kaepernick would do that all right that's not a referendum on Kaepernick any that shit I don't want to revisit any of that stuff but I just thought of all the people that would be talking during this D day movie with people getting killed left and right and he's wearing this shirt anyway um after the museum stopped by I love a flea market big farmers market guy in Manhattan Beach uh just made the lap I bought a pen made out of cherry wood handlaid 47 euros magnet cap got it from my father he loves a nice piece of cherry wood um the guy did spoke zero zero English and he was trying to explain to me and I was like I don't understand I don't understand and he that was the word cherry which I wasn't able to translate and then finally and he was like juggling which I did not think was ever considered the international symbol for cherries and I'm going like I've never worked in the circus you know I don't want to go with you who's just a flea market like I was going to grab maybe you know uh sans ser and and some handcrafted works here like I don't want to I don't want to join the circus and then he was like no no no cherries and we finally figured it out cherries cherry wood he's very proud that that's why I was so expensive that it was made from cherry wood and then there was this old made um she had some leather works nothing like that it was bracelets and and pendants and and whatnot and I don't even know if they're that great 10-year-os one with a horse on it a horse your question and theme just every single town you go to I grabbed that for my sister I'm not even sure if she's gonna like her or not but I just couldn't this old lady was just so like I'm like you could be getting these from China and I'm all the way in flea market bio this lady reminds me my grandmother how do I say no to her so I bought one of those um what else what else happened at this flea market um there's this one stand it's like cakes deserts shit you've never even seen in the states you want to eat all of it and buy any I did wait in line for this hamburger setup that looked like a very fresh like hamburger deal I walked by it on the way in all the patties were cooked because I'm like if it's frozen I'm fucking out and then when I got back in the line which was a long very slow line but it was looking pretty good coming off the conveyor belt and then I saw the guy in the box in the back throw down another 20 patties and they're all frozen stiff and I went fucking out that was after waiting in line I just won't do it I'll ask at a restaurant and the thing is is every one of these tourist towns they've never heard of a fucking fresh patty to save their lives so point america on the burgers headed over to this dinner place uh where they had a water mill going and there's just this little stream there's like two that run through the town of bio um and it's just as pictures as it gets and the sun is setting down to the back of you as you walk down towards these little waterways and again they're really small but there's like a pink boat in there with full of flowers and somebody obviously tends to and the boats anchored it's kind of like a little design of the town and this church behind you has stained glass windows there's all sorts of organs going off there left and right nothing like church bells and a french village and by use very much like an old world village if duville is no a little bit more modern very beachy themed getting choked up about it um by use just exactly what you would expect old world we have some history that we'll get to on that in a little bit here uh the language part of this is going awful um i don't know if i've got to get babble going or what you know they talk about learning another language to fight Alzheimer's and if you think about it it's never too early to start fighting Alzheimer's but i'm i'm not going to talk about it anymore but i'm just saying like i'm like making up shit so i'm really disappointed in myself i even think three to four years ago the last time i was in france i kind of hung a little bit or maybe i'm just imagining it but it's a disaster so far so it didn't work out at the flea market did grab dinner it was good right next to the water mill place there was a sick bar facing the sunset up the hill back at the church through all the stained glass and i'm like that is a bar that you could let it fly and you could probably start a little bit earlier and then right across that was this open wood patio thing that overlooked the water um again a very small brook so it's not like some massive water seen through the whole thing but they're just kind of like the town itself kind of like each turn i'm like oh there's another section and here's another section because right around the church in the very beginning of it in the town square they're like okay this is where it all started and built out from here and then it's very much like an old quaint neighborhood with these massive walls dividing every single property which is something i'm going to have to study maybe it was the Germans maybe that's why they still have these walls up um but it's uh it's perfect it's it's very picturesque and it's it's been um exactly what i want so anyway rent the car the next morning after another terrible night of sleep and um we're headed over to Omaha Omaha Beach is the first first place on the itinerary i am tired i am in the car the driving super easy not a big deal at all um get over to Omaha pretty quickly on the way into the town and you kind of take the turn you're kind of getting excited you're feeling that ocean air um it's not super busy but certainly there is tourist traffic going on this is kind of the peak tourism season it's so far it's never it's busy in places, but it's never felt like it's annoying or anything like that. And because I had eaten because I had to get up early to go get the rental car from the place, I stopped at a pancake place and I go, you know what? Let me see what all these, see what these, what the craic thing is. Let's just do it because I've never, I mean, I'm aware. I just don't want Nutella and fucking ice cream all over something. I'm just like, hey, I'm just going to walk around and eat one of these. So I went with the raspberry and then I went with the plain pancakes, which they're always a little freaked out by it because they're like, don't you want caramel and then vanilla dusting with pearl sugar and then also two scoops of fucking macaron ice cream. Like not really, it's 9 a.m. I don't want that. So I didn't get that. I got the plain pancakes. They were terrible and the craic was even worse. So good start. Good OJ though. France still respects a morning OJ. The United States is years past it, unfortunately. Omaha, you pull in plenty of parking. I imagine like on the busiest busiest day, maybe parking is a bit of an issue. They do charge you for parking, just kind of like a couple hour limit and then there's walking areas where you can go left to right. Once you pull in and on first, like, hey, it's a beach. There's families there with kids with toys and they're making castles. There's horse drawn wagons. There's boats flying by in the front. It is a beach that people in the area go to. There's also a fresh water source that flows to the back of the beach, which then kind of has these like, it's not so much about the tides, but it breaks up the beach a little bit where these parallel lanes of fresh water that may only go a foot to six inches deep that are parallel to the land parallel to the front of the ocean, but it's obviously a very wide beach. And so I don't know what I expected. I knew I wasn't going to get emotional. It's been 80 plus years. I wasn't around for it. I don't have any relatives that lost their lives there. I've read it about it a lot. I've always wanted to see it. I sat down. I read my book for a little bit and just kind of took it all in. But it's okay. It's not like I expected in the middle of July on a Friday that it was going to be chill. There's people there. There's a monument in the front. There's American flags. There's Canadian flags. Obviously flags of England and the French flags. There are American flags literally everywhere you go. Every single village has American flags flying. A lot of a lot of Canadian love as well, but obviously because of what the Americans did in saying, all right, we're in and then hitting Omaha first, which was the toughest landing. And when I'm sitting there, again, I didn't really know what I was expecting to feel. I didn't think like anything was going to happen, but then I almost felt guilty that I didn't feel a little bit more. So I started walking around like on the beach and then looking back up at that ridge, you know, that you're picturing in your head. If you've seen saving private Ryan or you've watched any footage of the D-Day landing and you realize like why Omaha absolutely sucked in comparison to the other four beach heads because it is this miles-long ridge that is right across this road that exists now in front of the beach. And it's just uphill. And so imagine landing in these boats with the tides having to deal with everything that you're dealing with all of these mines, which will get to some of the numbers on that in a bit. You're coming out of this boat. If you even survive actually getting out of the boat, not drowning or not being shot immediately, then really all you can do is run at the hill to try to get without get within, get close enough so that you're also out of shooting range. So you're running straight at the defense with nowhere to hide. And when you see the topography of it all, you just feel like this must have been the fucking worst. And that's why that landing is so much worse than the other ones. Let's do some Omaha facts here, I think. Now, we'll hold off for a second because I have a couple of things here. Hang around there for a little bit, but I knew I wanted to hit up some other spots, drove down the coast a little bit. There's a gun turret there. I'll get the number for you shortly. There's a German deal, but it's like a one man or two man gun turret that's still there that you can walk to. You can walk inside of it. I took a video of the whole thing and it's completely blown out. I don't know if that's actually still the gun 80 years later, but it's like a destroyed gun. And this is this stretch where the guys once they settled the area, which was rather quick. They actually take over the beach and kind of set up everything within a few hours because they're just overwhelming. The Germans with their numbers and the Germans were kind of still caught off guard despite two years of preparation. But again, they were trying to defend the entire fucking coastline of France. There's this gun turret area here. And then you kind of walk up behind it and it's this massive like like it's not a mountain or a hill. But it's like a decent, a cent pretty quickly into this farmland where it's all that hedgerow stuff that again you see from the movie. So it's moments of being completely wide open. But then you're never really safe because there's so many areas in these fields where this is where the fight really starts to happen after the beach is taking worse. The beach is basically secured by 10 o'clock that night at all of the five landings. But you can just see like as beautiful as this land is. And I'm sure all of you have seen some version of it in movies and television shows or maybe you've been out here. But you're just walking around going like you're surrounded by beauty. But at the same time, you know, you're likely you could be toast at any given moment depending on who's hiding in the bushes because it's not forest. It's wide open but with cover everywhere. Cemetery. Headed over there. But on the way there, I made a decision that I know you guys are going to laugh about. I was like, I'm fucking exhausted and I need to like move my body around, exert something, put myself some through, you know, again, the routine of like I need to do something physical for 45 minutes to feel a little bit better because I was so tired. And so I put in the maps, Jim. And I'm like, oh my god, there's a gym like 20 minutes away. And it's in this marina town with all these boats. And there's a ferry like, yeah, you know what? I'll go to check that out. NBD. So I type in the hours the whole deal. I'm like, make sure you're not going to get host here. And then I pull in and I don't see anything that's even close to resembling a gym. There was like a tennis court. I'm like, I'd get hosed with that thing where like everything in Europe falls under like they just put a dumbbell up there. And they're like, this is our question facility. And you're like, where's the lat pull down machine? Apparently what popped up was a campground that had a gym. It was for RVs. And they closed in the middle of the day from 12 to 3. And I got there a little after 12. So I drove all the way to this town for a gym that was in the, who knows if it was even a fucking gym. They're probably gonna give me some like rubber ball and be like, yeah, a lot of a lot of balance work here. But I did check out this other town, the marina, whatever. All right. So I head up to the cemetery, which was something I also always wanted to do. And you pull in. It is busy, but it's not too much. And the cemetery is everything that you'd want it to be. And I don't really know what the proper way to phrase that is, but it is pristine. It's like walking into the inside the ropes of the gusta. Every single blade of grass, every single tombstone, every marking, every display, everything is fucking perfect, which is a great thing because I mean, that's the first, they just started burying guys immediately. So technically the day, you know, D days, June 6th, the first soldiers are buried in June 7th. And that's what started this whole thing. And there's 9,389 soldiers buried there. The museum itself is terrific, really good museum. And then there's these massive like areas. There's a place where you can go and pray. You know, the whole thing is just completely first class. I would expect exactly what you would expect with the backdrop of the English channel off of the hill of where all these soldiers are remembered. All right, let's do some facts here. This is a long part. I mean, just this part of the pod, but whatever. If you guys listen to Portugal, I imagine you're still listening to this. Okay, Normandy, the Normandy region, Rome taken over, then the Vikings taken over. It was considered kind of an independent duchy. Then part of the Kingdom of France in 1204, the Hundred Year War, 1337, 1453. The Lancasterian phase, though, was 1415, 1453. There's some Henry the fifth shit that I always like getting into 1417 on. He took Khan, which I'm headed to a little bit later. That's not nearly as brutal as some of his other castle sieges, one in particular, where they were throwing over the malnourished and soon to be dead. They did that hoping that Henry the fifth would take care of them and diminish their own resources. And Henry the fifth was like, nope, I'm not falling for this, which I guess he's been criticized. I just don't, I don't know who sits around and criticizes people in the 1400s. Like, yeah, no shit, it was awful. So I'll check out Connolly, little bit later. So yeah, that's what we have with the Normandy region. Bayou. Same population today is in 1793. I don't even know how that's possible because there's a commercial side of it that I saw a little bit later. Again, Old World Charm of Bayou, 9 out of 10 church. I'm not sure 10s exist. They claim to be the first city liberated from the Germans the next day on June 7th. I don't know if that's true because I've heard conflicting towns one of that I went to a little bit later. I don't think it was really liberated other than it was just the Germans didn't care because it wasn't an important enough place for them to sit there and use any resources. So Omaha on the day of the landing between 2000 and 2500 casualties, half of the D-Day deaths were just at Omaha on top of the four other landings. Utah by comparison, some of these numbers because of missing and that kind of stuff, there's variances between 200 and 589 killed wounded or missing. The missing numbers are kind of staggering, which would make sense. The natural walls of Omaha, which I've already explained, you have the tide messing up the deployment of the boats and then trying to get the Sherman tanks set up, which a ton of them sink. You have people drowning left from right. There's no separate number, kept for people drowning. Speaking of drowning, there was an exercise, a laboratory exercise called the Tiger rehearsal that happened on the southern coast of England where they thought that beach was very similar to where they'd be landing in Normandy and while they were running through this exercise, some German e-boats, not e-boats attacked and granted the guys thought it was a rehearsal, right. So now all of a sudden they're being attacked for real and it was new equipment like this entire amphibious landing was a new thing and it's also Operation Neptune not overlord. This is this specific part is Neptune, which some of the museums don't even make that, or not that I knew until it was corrected somewhere else, right. But during this Tiger rehearsal, 946 allied soldiers died during this whole time and a lot of them drowned because the equipment was heavy. They weren't used to using it. They didn't know how to use any of the light-preserver stuff or I don't know, but it was such a disaster that the military kept it a secret because they were like, well, fuck, we just had a practice and a thousand guys died before we're heading over there. The Atlantic Wall Defense by Germany, this was built up between 42 and 44 in preparation for being attacked literally anywhere. They built up defenses over 1,670 miles of the French coast all the way from Norway to Spain and then most of their defenses were actually towards the English Channel, Normandy because they figured that was the closest area. So their preparation of that made sense. In the English Channel, in front of Normandy, in this region, they dropped over a thousand sea mines. They had the Chech hedgehogs, which we've all seen. Those four-way iron things that look like mother fuckers that wreck holes. Ironically, one of the few things anybody rushing the beach could hide behind for a little bit. There are hedgehogs all over the place in every village. There's like a rustle hedgehog just sitting there and then you have Rommel's Asparagus, which was this kind of like aerial attack rifle, I don't know from the ground. Apparently, you could shoot 15 miles, but I just thought Rommel's Asparagus was an interesting name. So the first allies to land were the paratroopers in God. That's St. Mary Glace, which I checked out a little bit later. So we'll have some thoughts on that. The 82nd and 101st, they dropped at midnight, five and a half hours before the Navy started firing away at the coast. You also had bombers run a bunch of missions, but a lot of this stuff was super inefficient because when they dropped the paratroopers and there's airborne t-shirts fucking everywhere. Like guys are wearing them around, like they're at the concert, which again makes sense. I don't know. I wasn't going to check anybody's credentials or anything like that, but guys are taking a really serious, a lot of t-shirts available if you're into that kind of stuff. But they drop so many paratroopers. They're all over the place. They ended up covering this 10 mile area by, well, it's kind of all, it was supposed to be very specific on both sides of this one river, but they ran so many of these missions and all these guys were kind of like all over the place. And then if you go St. Mary Glace, John Steele, when you're walking around the town on the church as a mannequin with a parachute hanging from the top of the church, which is because the sky John Steele, a paratrooper, was hanging there when he didn't make it to the ground and then played dead in the Germans inside the church, realized he was alive. They captured him, but they didn't end up escaping, but the mannequin still is hanging from the top of the church. So the other crazy thing about D-Day is, you know, you have this bombing run, but they're worried about where they're dropping their bombs because of coordinating with where the soldiers are and then the Navy's firing away. But like a lot of this stuff didn't really wear out the German defenses. The paratroopers did take the town of St. Mary Glace, which again also claims to be the first place liberated. And that was pretty quick. The German turret that I looked at, the wider stands net completely blown out. Utah missed their target by 2000 yards, which actually saved the rest because it was a very like weak defense. And when you're at Utah Beach compared to Omaha, you're like, okay, yep, this must have been way easier. And then finally here, D-Day by the way, the D stands for day. That's it. That's all it is. In case you ever see that, trivia. And somebody's like, "Test the nation day." I'm like, no, no, it isn't. Miss information was a massive, massive part of a lead up to Normandy at the area called Patoclay. They put patent in charge of the invasion at Patoclay. And they sent out all sorts of information, having the Germans listen to their transmissions. And they were trying as much as they could to get the Germans to believe that we'll look if patent is in charge. Like, you're not going to have Tony Cooco showed it, right? Like, so patent was a decoy through this entire lead up. So the Germans actually had a ton of their defenses in this area that was never attacked, except that they were dropping dummies and parachutes. They had rubber tanks. There was even these like, when you get a T-shirt and an NBA game and it's in that mini parachute, they were dropping these mini parachutes with these almost like fruit by the foot long spirals of aluminum to mess with the German radars. And it totally worked. And here's patent who's like, where do you need me? Africa, Sicily, I'll go up and take on the Huns. And they put them in charge of something that's actually not going to happen. They do secure the beach again by 10 o'clock that night. So I always think of like the way we talk about the landing and how brutal it is. But they secured the beach pretty quickly. And another part of his, the Germans were like, oh, shit, I guess this is the real one. Like, let's get out of here. And then the war is really fought for the next two plus months in trying to liberate all of these different towns. I did look for death totals for Germans on the actual day of June 6th. And I thought a note was sort of interesting. It was like, it's speculated between four and 9,000 because they stopped keeping track. They had other things to do. All right. That brings us to yeah, a bad lunch in Samariglaise chicken, chicken, chicken, fucking finger, Caesar salad, like Costco chicken fingers, asked for ice in my Yeti, which I now can't open the top of. So the waitresses are looking at me, you know, like, look at this fucking house. And I couldn't open my own Yeti jug. So I put my head down in shame, but they were like, we can, we can't spare a lot of ice. And I was like, yeah, I noticed there's no one here at this restaurant. And it was in this incredible brick courtyard. It was one of the most beautiful, it's the best setting for a nice restaurant with the worst food gap I've ever experienced in my life. And that was after I was like, I'm not going on any of these tourist areas. Like I walked to this place being like, okay, there's, there's no way it can be that bad. And it was that bad. Went over to Utah Beach. And again, that bluff in comparison to what Omaha is. I don't know that it's like saying, attacking Nantucket versus Quinn, but you get the point. Also, shout out, Metery. I think this guy Gibson out of there originally from Omaha. I hope I'm not messing that up. You know, I got to look up his name here. What are we at 30 minutes already? All right. Well, if you hung out this long, right? I got to get that guy's name, right? Because he built those boats, those front loading boats, where the flap goes down. And like, you can walk into it at Utah and hang out with the whole thing. Oh, that's right. Higgins, my bad. Andrew Jackson Higgins, Omaha, but got these, got these ships going up out of Metery. And that's where he's buried. So shout out to New Orleans. So those boats where the flap goes down, the whole thing, and there's like one guy behind a wheel. I don't know what kind of engines there run out of there, but God, that looked like an awful time. And I'm sure it was. But yeah, they they missed their spot and it worked out for Utah. The group at Utah. All right, drive back to by you and then LeBron decides he's going to Philly. So we've got a tape and emergency pod at the hotel. I wondered if perhaps like me LeBron's going to fill it all for the history that he just loves history and wasn't getting enough culture and LA. That could be part of it, but he hates Boston with a passion. So how much could he really love history? Although maybe that's why he makes sense because Philadelphia hated Boston before during and after the Revolutionary War. So that one totally fine. All right, dinner. I had pasta. I desperately, desperately missed Deville. I have some thoughts on menus, which I've know I've shared in many European travels before, but I have like a final rant. And then I finally slept nine solid hours. I don't know the last time I slept nine hours. It was unbelievable. Hit the gym was completely rested on the move today. But I was like, I want a good, awesome workout walks through the town wave and a people feeling like just part of the community over the more commercial side. Although this gym was right next to a McDonald's. So inhaling those fries right before you go to the gym is sort of an experience. And then I got in their $15 day pass. Just a thought on rappers. Some of these rappers, the new guys that I like, I think they're fucking with us. Like they pump out so many songs. And they're not, not really like Jared Jeffries on the Wizards, Louis V, 55. I'm going to keep it all celery. And look, I'm not dissing it in the way that you would think of like, oh, you know, you just don't like me rap. I fucking, I think I like that song. I hope someone does drop that verse in a song. But some of you guys are totally fucking with us. There's no way that you're not getting done with these songs. And then everybody's like, oh my god, banger. And then you're not, you're like laughing driving home with your body being like, I put fucking four minutes into those lyrics today. All right. The gym smelt awful. Come on guys. It smelled so fucking bad. I walked down a hallway to kind of like get going and trying to find a place to go stretch. And I was like, what the fuck is that smell? And it was just rancid B.O. It was like they were pumping it through the place. And so I'm looking around. Everybody's got their towel, a couple of decent sized guys in there. Shout out by you. And I bought a towel from the vending machine because all the European places, like for guys like me, they're like, I don't work out with a towel. I don't, you know, I although I'm sweating more now with Paul, the trainer, but I'm like, I got to buy a towel because I have a thought on condoms. When you're young, you think the condoms about you, like, I don't have a kid. I have basketball practice. Men's league basketball practice. You don't really think about the condom in any other way when you're dude, you're just like, the condom, you're very narcissistic about the condom. And then you start to realize, like, oh, the condom could be because of the other person, right? And I think that's what the towels roll is in a European gym. It's not because I'm sweaty and gross. It's just perhaps making sure that I'm not sweaty and gross. Off to Khan tomorrow. Hey, it's PFT. Look, we all know NFL Sundays are sacred. 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Commercial use excluded, no refund. Okay, part five, I am in Khan, which is not to be confused with Cannes. Cannes out the French Film Festival. I've already been there before. Khan is inland from where I am in Normandy. It was not originally part of the plan, but I made meet up with some friends from Manhattan Beach that are in Cannes and they invited me down to a villa and I was like, "Hey, what's wrong with meat?" That was some people you know for a change on these trips. You never tell anybody when you're going or where you're going and then people will be like, "Hey, dickhead, I was in Sansa Bastion for three of those days. Why not shoot a text?" I don't know. I didn't know you were in Sansa Bastion. It's not my fault. So, Khan is a town, another town just with a ton of history. It's not exactly a place I wanted to go, but logistically, I was trying to get to Paris and then from DuVille and Bayou, that didn't make a ton of sense. Then there was a chance I would have to go back to DuVille, which I wouldn't have mined it necessarily, but look, I'm behind, which is totally fine. This is totally open-ended, but Sweden is definitely in trouble. So it's a quick ride from Bayou to Khan. The hotel is mid, which is by design. Totally fine with it, and then I'll look at flights out of Khan to head to the South to Nice. So there's a castle here, and there's apparently an amazing World War II museum, which is considered one of the better museums in the region. So a little history about Khan. Well, straightforward, 109,000 population. William the Conqueror. Let's talk about William the Conqueror. AKA William the Bastard. William the Bastard right around year 1,000. Now, if you want to spend any time on this, the Normans are kind of an interesting, fascinating group, descendants of Vikings year 9/11, which is they basically admit, like we didn't even know if this year is right, in this northern section of France, along the coast, which is where I've been, which was basically its own place up until I think like the 1200s and French people were just like, hey, what the fuck are we doing? Like this is ours. But prior to that, William the Conqueror, again, AKA William the Bastard, the Norman Conquest of England, the Battle of Hastings, we're talking, I don't know, 10, 40, 10, 60, something like that, I figure where the note is. But the Battle of Hastings is interesting because it's like the defining battle of William rolling in, and you know, like a lot of this stuff, at least these numbers are real. There's like 7,000 aside here for the English and the Normans. But there's just so many times you'd read about some thing, you know, like 80 guys showed up and took over a poor and then they technically like, they were the ruling class for 60 years, like what the fuck, there weren't some guys with rakes to just get them out of there. But this is real, like these are real numbers, even though only took 9 hours, apparently the battle got off to a really slow start. It wasn't going great for William the Conquer and his crew. So they pulled a little possum on him and did a fake retreat, pulled the English out, and then ended up winning. And you know, honestly had like a run there where it was like the Norman Conquest of England, all right. But that in itself is kind of a weird thing because it's like, what does this mean? Everything to speak French? No, like nobody spoke French except for an ability. And the nobles that maybe originally were from France that were in England already who had French territories, like they just basically became English because especially during the 100-year wars, get later on in the history with all this stuff. It's like, all right, so we don't even have any of our areas. I mean, just goes back and forth over and over and over again between these two countries, basically because they're close to each other. And that's it. You would think there'd be some commonality and they try time and time again with marriages to bring peace to it, but it just, it doesn't happen. And just, you know, guys didn't have a lot to do. So there you go. William is considered, I think, look, he was, I don't know if he's an absentee conqueror, like he wasn't around a town. And then he's buried inside the castle, which we're going to talk about here in a second, which is right in town. I launched right in front of it. Launch did suck. But we, I don't know, I mean, William kind of is like, I think, regarded pretty well historically that he was fair to the people. He was really just into conquerant, man. And that's why he had a great nickname. And on his deathbed, he basically said, like, yeah, I killed the English and, you know, for good and for bad, just like, all right, that's better than that's better than somebody else's last words. But who knows last words, I feel like, who knows who was keeping track of him back then? Let's talk about his wife Matilda, aka Matilda of Flanders, who, if you look at that courtship saga, there's some really bad versions of it. And there's some more loving versions of it, who's to know. But apparently this marriage was originally banned by Pope Leo IX because they are third cousins. And even though I was like, man, third cousins, they were strict back then. You know, there's, well, I'll leave out a joke. I'm not going to say it. Yeah, third cousins, like not cool. Then I was going through like the rules there and it's, you know, it's a little bit more extended than you would think during those times. But the Pope was like, because of penance, he was like, you got to build these two abbies, which are still intact today. The men's abbie and the woman's abbie and they're just spectacular. Once you go up to the castle and you see the skyline of Con, it's terrific. And she also made William a boat to help with his adventures. And I'm just telling you right now, ladies, there's not a lot of women out there. There's not a lot of wives. They're building their husbands a boat. So I think there's some true love there. Although there is a little speculation that with William being gone, conquering and whatnot, so much, she had nine kids, nine kids, he was gone a lot. I don't know what's going on there. Like, why does that guy look like Poo Richardson? Two of the kids, though, became kings, William and Henry, William the second, I believe, Henry the first. All right. So there's a little backstory on it, which leads us perfectly to the castle because the castle is fantastic. One of the coolest things that you will see. It is massive. You walk in, you're in the center of the castle, the grounds. It was damaged quite a bit in World War II, but it still like very much intact for the sense of like going to see something really cool. It still does better. I'm not that big. I think it would be bigger. She probably had other areas to go. Whether it was the keep. They also had this massive hall that was built where I guess like a thousand nights we get together and just around Christmas look out. The hall actually looks like a church from the outside and some of the stuff, obviously, it's been restored. Just looks fantastic. And then you can go up to like these embankments where there were these different defenses. You can walk through the top walls of the castle and look back down over the town. As I mentioned, you can see the abbies. And then through the walls, you can see like the defensive positions of where you'd be shooting arrows out of and the way that the rock is cut a specific way. So it's wide enough for a man's torso to be able to line up the shot, but then thin enough out of the shot that you'd never ever get a shot through there against someone shooting at you. And yeah, it was totally worth it. There's some grave sites. There's some medieval stuff there. And there's damage where technically, I guess, you're able to see like bullet holes. But I mean, to me, it kind of looked like, hey, that just looks like an old rock missing some pieces. So bounce from the castle and head it up to the World War II Museum, which I had heard great things about and it did not disappoint. So this is turned out to be like a pretty good day because between the castle and the museum fantastic. And I think one of my favorite parts about the World War II Museum here in Khan is that they do a really good job of laying out Germany post-World War I and then the momentum of Hitler and the messaging and why you had Germany heading in the direction that they headed in. And if you go back through anything that I've read about World War I, there's a million different things that I could point out here. But like just this obsession with Germany being jealous of French culture and just thinking less of everyone else constantly and just being like, why isn't German culture like more respected? Again, there's far more factors to it than just being jealous of the art and literature. But post-World War I, we know with the treaties, it was led to absolute economic devastation. Germany lost 13% of their territory, they lost all of their colonies, they were told they couldn't have an army over 100,000 people, no Air Force, no Navy, no tanks, no new recruits and then hit with a $33 billion tab. Now this is not to say like, hey, that's not what I'm saying. Is that human nature, whether it's people or a country, would be like, hey, sorry about the wars, but this is a lot, this is kind of excessive. So that leads to just disastrous economic situation in Germany in massive resentment that is all the backdrop of building up for World War II. And so you have a voice like Hitler and you have his party and you have people more susceptible to wanting to try something that feels like they're going to go back at everybody else. And of course, they don't listen to anyone, they tell everybody what they want to hear. And there's even one pact with Russia that I thought was amusing. It reminded me of the alliance with the big 10, pact 12 and ACC, where I was like, yeah, we won't mess with each other. And it was this pact with Russia where they wouldn't engage in any military conflict for 10 years and then by doing that, it's like, yeah, but we don't care what Poland thinks of this whole thing. And so therefore Germany can invade Poland without feeling they actually have to have a threat from Russia, which is all like, clearly everything they're doing, they're telling everybody what they want to hear and then doing exactly whatever they want to do. The Vichy French part of this is always fascinating that how quickly I think it takes less than two months. Whereas a Patan who just is like, I may be saying that name wrong, but he's like, you know what? I think Germany's here to stay, so we're going to change the country's motto to align with Germany more and like, hey, this is just what it's going to be. And it's basically like if you drew a line across the center of France horizontally, other than some of the Atlantic coast areas, it's basically all of that. It's just like, hey, this is, you know, it's occupied French and then France, France and then these the Vichy French thing where, you know, it's just fucking ridiculous. Like, we're good, we're done, we don't know if I should you guys anymore. The Holocaust section is brutal to be expected. The pictures are just really, really rough to look at when you're looking at kids' faces and getting on a train. It's awful and the worst picture, but an important picture is there were these four smuggled out pictures. It's amazing. They even get smuggled out, but it was leading women to take off their robes and get ready to enter the gas chamber. And this was like a really big deal that these pictures got out. There was a movie that I really enjoyed. It was a lot of the allied troops taking over the French villages and marching Nazi prisoners around. And there's this one moment in one of the clips where there's a Nazi prisoner where his hands aren't up high enough. And you can just see, it was like the most modern I've ever seen. I think somebody from like 1944 ever looked. It was an American soldier and he's looking at the German guy, basically yelling at him to get his hands up. There's obviously a language barrier there and the US soldiers like, you know, get your fucking hands up. Like, what are you doing in the German guy's like, is scared of death? That made me smile. I don't know why, but I enjoyed it. This is my sixth slash seventh museum, historical site. I guess you could say it's even more if you count like just a couple of stops here. I think I, I think I got it. I think, I think we're good. I don't, I'm just telling you, maybe you don't care, but I don't, I don't think I'm going to be a guy like who's 72 going well, the problem with a half tracks is that if you had a 50 cal on that, I don't, I don't think I'm going to be that guy. But I think, um, I think I'm good on, on the World War II stuff for the rest of this trip. I knew dinner would be a risk because I went back to the hotel, which is not really located to anything. Essentially, and I was like, let me just see if I can get a steak and some rice or something like that. It was fucking awful, very family-based hotel. It's just trashing the lounge, which is fine, not my kids, I don't have to deal with it. There's a soccer team there. I think they were soccer team. I don't know what their, their group was, but they were just like a bunch of hot Jack guys and we all got along immediately and hung out, um, because of the same interests. So I do have these, uh, believe it or not, friends from Manhattan Beach, uh, in the south. So I don't know exactly when they're going to be there. So it's like, I have a couple days to play with here. So I think the move, Sandra Paye is potentially back in the mix, a return visit, um, it'd be a couple hours away from where I think where these guys go, but when you look at hotels, sometimes you'll like, do I really want to do this? Like six grand, for a few nights, I could buy a fucking sweet, used dirt bike for that amount, which would be a very me thing to buy a dirt bike and live Manhattan Beach and not be able to drive it anywhere. So yeah, we're headed to the south of France and we will update you then. Part six. I'm in the south and I'm in on Teib. We just finished up a couple days here and this is a little bit more of my speed. Uh, on Teib, a little history brief here, um, because I don't want to do a ton of history right now, um, museumed out. I don't want to look at any fucking paintings, um, I think studying war for like multiple days in a row can do something to, um, not that I'm bummed out or anything. I just like, I don't think I want to keep reading about war every single day. Uh, but what I do want to do is tell you about the Grimaldi family. So on Teib, it's little rock that juts out from the southern coast. I want to hit it up before I guess I'll share that story here a little bit, but just to finish this Greek influence Roman influence way the streets are set up, um, the way that water sources are set up, the castle. And then you have the Grimaldi family, which originally is from Italy and they basically ruled on Teib from 1385 to 1608 and then the French were kind of like, what are we doing here again? And more importantly, if you are into Monaco, which I am not, uh, the Grimaldi family, where the line of rulers extends from this family. So originally, it's, it's this line of this family. So they're still, they're still making moves, uh, making it happen. And the castle that they lived in Chateau, do Grimaldi is now, uh, what houses Picasso's museum here and on Teib, which I don't think I'm going to check out either. So okay, I don't care. The story that I guess I'll tell because it was a. unreleased. When I did this trip, well, not the same trip, but I went to the South of France for the first time ever. I went to Nice. I went to Cannes. I went to Santa Pei, and that's where I kind of like fell in love with Santa Pei. I was like, "Okay, it's bougie, but whatever." Like, this really is that fucking sick, and I had to saw some experience at the beach, and the kids let me stay in the beach chairs for as long as I wanted, or excuse me, they took the beach chairs, and then said I could stay at the beach as long as I wanted. And I was just like, "This would just never happen in the States." And like, I stayed there until like 10 o'clock or something. It was just great. And then I worked my way up to Exile Provence, which was fucking stupid. And then even Dumber, I went to Verdune, where I wanted to see that lake, and I rented a boat for the day, and I took an Uber up there, and it was cool, but like, the boats are nothing. Like, anybody can rent them. So there's no like boat, Harto, Bragg, with that one whatsoever. But once your boy got out of the boat, I went up and tried to like, buy dialed up Uber on the app, and it was just like, "You're fucked in French." Like, the app was working, but it was like, "Are you high?" And then I went to the restaurant, because I think I was like four hours in, limit that point, coming up from Exile Provence, which was in, which was just basically another hot European city at that point, where I was like, "Okay, why would I come here?" But I was just trying to like go to as many places as I possibly can, the ups and downs of my travel experience. And so I went to a restaurant in Verdun, and I was like, "Hey, where are the ubers?" And they were like, "Uber." And they're just like, we didn't need a translator, because he's just like, "You're a fucking idiot." There's no Uber. Uber, you know? And they were like, fucking having people like a waitress and a hostess and some old guy with a cigarette. They're like, "This asshole thought they're being Uber here." Like, come take a look at the asshole. So I was like, "So what does that mean?" I'm like, "Okay, well, it's a little later. I was like, is there a hotel or something?" And they were like, "Hotel here? What are you fucking nuts?" So then it just comes down to a matter of money. I'm like, all right, who has a car who wants to make some money that can drive me somewhere? Because, I mean, this is fucking ridiculous. And then a dishwasher came out and he was like, "Oh, my uncle, he's a taxi driver. He'll bring you to Nice." And I was like, "Well, I don't want to go to Nice. I was just in Nice, and I don't really like it. I don't want to go back. And my flight back is still days away. So I still have some days to work with." I was like, "And it's also further away from here than other beach towns." Like, "Well, I can't we go to N.T. But I can't we go to, what is it?" Frejus probably isn't that, but whatever it is. That was another place that would have gone. And they were like 300-year-old and only niece. Only niece. So I did tell this part of the story before too, because I was annoyed as fuck. We make it to Nice, get to the hotel, and then he wanted like 400 bucks. And I had to go to an ATM, and that's when a guy who was dressed really nice asked me for money. And I think I said the line on the podcast, that he had a better chance of getting a hand job from me than a dollar. Because I was so fucking mad. And then I was just yelling at whatever French I could come up with at the taxi driver, just being like, "You told me 300-year-olds, and then you fucking charge me 400, drop me off here." And then I had already stayed at the hotel on Nice, and they liked me, and they came out. And they're like, "What is the commotion, Mr. Masillo?" I was like, "This guy sucks." And then I gave him the 400 fuck, whatever. But then I was stuck in Nice, and I went to Monaco, which sucked. It sucks. It's not that fun. If you wanted to go watch other people on South Beach take pictures in front of Rolls-Royce's that they don't own, then Monaco's for you. You also can't take your shirt off there. So yeah, I don't want anything to do with Nice, but I want a lot to do with Untie. And I love it here. Now it's not the perfect Beach spot, but let's back up a little bit. Hotel Check-In. I got there super early after the flight from Condonice, and then a quick taxi right over to Untie. It was super easy. Good ride didn't rip me off, but I was so early at the hotel I was there at 11 a.m. I'm like, "This is never going to work." And Sophie, my gal behind the desk, was like, "Your suite is ready." Because it's always great when you're by yourself. You're in the suite. And then I'm like, "Fuck, did I book?" Did I pull a fucking Portugal here where I booked some the biggest room in the entire place? Because I thought I was staying somewhere nice. And honestly, there's only one. It's this cool little hotel where it's its own. I shouldn't say it's its own little village because it's not that big. But the whole thing is designed where it's kind of like this center room, center building with a pool, and then these little villas off of it. So it's not a traditional hotel by any stretch. But my room was like two floors, but it was one bedroom. All it was, it was like the second best version of any room that you could get there because there were obviously more expensive ones. So first, I'm thrilled. I'm like, "This is going to be amazing." And then she's like, "Your room isn't ready." And we have some time to kill. So I use the gym, which I'm staying above. I'm above the hot tub and the gym, which is perfect for me. Worked out, was totally fine. Sophie was super, super apologetic about the entire thing. I told her not to worry about it. Then I'm a very easy-going person. And then she charged me double. I'd already prepaid. And I thought I was giving her my car for incidentals. And I got the car back. And I was like, "Oh, so $1,600." I'm like, "That's a pretty high incidental." And she was like, "That's for the room." I was like, "I already paid for the room." And then, "Zoodalores." She just looks at the computer. And she's like, "Oh, my God." And then it was kind of funny because she's like, "Well, I can't handle this right now." I was like, "When do you think you can handle it, though, Sophie? When do you think you can?" And we'll see how that refund goes. Because that's going to be. She was like, "No, you just call them. How about you call them or you just refund the car?" We'll see how it goes. But I want to get to the room, get her, and then kind of set up. So the way on Teab works is like, if you are looking at it on a map and you go up the left side of the coast, there isn't really a beach. It's kind of these scattered positions where there may be a little cut of sand. And then there's 10 people down there. And then that's packed. Or maybe there's like a little rock that you go sit on. Or then there's other little section. Or you can work your way up to the left side of the town that kind of stretches out to the west. Again, if you look at Teab, it's kind of this thing that just sort of drops down and there's a left side and then a right side of the coast. The left side felt a little bit like South Beach. It's not bad. It's not my favorite. And the store is the restaurants you can kind of tell. And the beach clubs are a little like, if I were 20 something, I probably would have really liked it, but walking around up there again. I didn't not like it. But I was like, this isn't really for me. And then kind of work my way down back again. I bought a beach chair, which I don't think is going to be the best beach chair I've ever had. But yeah, grab the beach chair and then post it up for a little bit and just kind of try to find a little bit of a spot for me, which I did. Like these just cement stone staircases, like some of it's new, some of it's really, really old and just kind of plop down and jumped off this thing. And then you're kind of navigating the rocks all the time and started reading my patty Hearst book again where that fucking guy that lunatic debris shows up, which is just crazy that I've read about this guy and back to back books, the Che Guevara book and now the patty Hearst book. Maybe a revolution is a little harder than you guys think it is. That's, that's my two cents. So beach it for a little bit and then change and then head up to the old town side, which is the right side, both location and the side that you want to be on. It is fantastic. There's a huge marine up there underneath the castle, the Picasso museums over on that side. And then there's those small little streets with all the different restaurants and cafes where you know, you're just going to be on your toes trying to figure it out, looking at people's meals, trying to figure out where you want to go, where you want to eat. And I found a place called Bosta Eposta. I looked it up a little bit. I made it in and it was fantastic. An appetizer of kupa fried items, very Italian. I almost asked for a side of marinara, which I know would have been like fucking disastrous to ask them for marinara. And then actually it all tasted so good by itself. I didn't need it. So I ended up not even asking and then had some rigotoni thing. I did notice this French family next to me because again, the way they run these restaurants, and I know it's like insulting to kind of rush your meal. But if I owned a restaurant, I would not be insulted, especially when it's impossible to get a table at some of these places. And I completely lucked out. Like I thought they're going to turn me away. And I was there close enough to close. And they were like, actually we can give you that one if you want it. And they were nice about the whole thing. But I was watching a pasta family straight ahead of me. And I'll just never understand like ordering a meal and not wanting to taste how that meal tastes. Because the dad just decided to go cacio a peppy, then he went some rigotoni, then he went some bolognaise and he just made himself a big fucking plate. And I'm like, all right, this guy doesn't care about individual tastes. All right, fine. And I know a lot of you agree with this approach to the whole thing. Like who cares? Some of you would say it's all going in the same place. But it starts off in the same place. And the whole point is for it to taste the way that you want it to taste. Not it be some fucking smoothie of pasta flavors. And on top, everything else, they did some charcuterie thing where it was like different hams, some spec. I was watching the whole thing go down. And he just started building this pasta thing and then throwing all this different ham on it. And then he sort of throwing a rugal on top of all that. Like this guy's a fucking barbarian. But who knows? Maybe he served. And he was like, look, it's about getting the calories, getting the energy in there. And then the family broke out of deck of cards for like the six or seven of them. The meal was done. They'd had dessert. And I'm like, who wants to play cards? Maybe because the place was closing. It didn't fucking matter. But I don't know. All right, observations over. I debated getting a few drinks. I was trying to do a night for the audience. I had a glass of wine the moment passed. And I was like, I just don't, [BLANK_AUDIO] I'm gonna go home, 'cause you get a long, long day ahead of us. As I was walking through the town, though I heard some live music, and I was like, this sounds interesting. Little trombones, some trumpet, some saxophone, some drums, maybe a tuba in there. And then if like Savannah bananas were a band, that's what this was. They were just like 10 to 12 dudes, although there was a woman on the tambourine. I'm like, seriously guys, 2026, we can't get her better instrument. And they were just doing a bunch of songs. The first two were in French. It was actually enjoyable. And we know about that street performer life. If you're gonna do it, you can't date it. You have to be all the way in. Like when your buddies are like, you're seriously gonna do this. You have to be like, yeah, I'm fucking doing it. And I'm psyched to do it. And then you probably won't be friends with that guy anymore. But these guys are super passionate. So I'll give them that back to the hotel, sleep. Jim, on day two, basic fit. My spot brought my $6 towel with me. Made it up to the gym. And then right next to the gym, I noticed a Muay Thai gym called La La Bo. Not to be confused. I think with a very unisex perfume slash cologne that did really well a few years ago. Went in and signed up for a class. So we will tell you about that a little bit later. After the gym hotel went down to Eden Rock, which is the very bottom of Untieb. And maybe it's Cap Untieb is how you would know it. The Eden Rock thing there looks like the coolest fucking compound ever. I wasn't gonna stay there and spend that much money there. But it was sick. And from there you can walk past the Eden Rock compound. Although you can't see anything 'cause these fucking walls everywhere. And then work my way to the very bottom of Untieb and walk around all these rocks with my chair, book, some water, Yeti. I still can't get any ice in it. I can't open this lid. And I even researched a little bit. I guess it's something that happens. They were like, you have to get a strap for this. I'm like, okay, let me buy the Yeti assisted strap thing. So I posted up the chair, started reading a little bit. And it was, you know, look, this is not beach the way, and this is why I'm so spoiled where I live now. 'Cause I'm like, actually, manhand beach beaches are kind of better than a lot of these other beaches. Maybe not this protective reviews the sides, depending if you get a clear day looking at PV or Malibu. But, you know, it's these kind of rock things. You've got to navigate. And then like once you find your spot, you then have to like navigate the rocks to get into the water. So I was doing that back and forth and it was great. And I loved it, but it's not fucking easy either. And I get in and I'm looking at all these rocks that are covered with this like moss that is so incredibly slippery. And you're just going like, I have to kind of get down on all fours and work this out. And I can only imagine like how bad, 'cause I've got that planner stuff in my feet and spurs. And so stepping on rocks is so fucking painful for me. So I have to like crawl to get over it and then get into the water and then get back up. And I'm like, you know, dudes are probably looking at me, like that guy, fucking, do you see that 68-year-old guy? It's the oldest thing I do. Other than watching boats in the Marina and trying to figure out what their docking procedures are, those are the two oldest things that I do. Try to envision myself docking a boat that I don't own and walking on rocks to get into the beach and then getting out. It's a disaster. It's not a good look. And then they're like no wonder that guys by himself, Jesus Christ, you seem to try to get out of the water. So then I decided to just kind of go for a walk and I had heard about Mason de Bacon, the house of Bacon. It's this amazing restaurant right off the water. The people at the hotel told me, go ahead, you'll be fine. I'm like, even just like an asshole. I did bring a change of clothes but it was just in another short and t-shirt steal. But again, a lot of these places, they don't really fucking care 'cause they know like, it's hot out and it is hot here. And I walked and I kept walking and I walked through the nicest part of town and then I caught the sandy beach. That was absolutely packed. But I could see that back where I was like, okay, well, that's like the best sandy beach on the right side. Looking at some of the properties, did a quick Zillow search, 20 millipop, 20 million euros. So these places are just these massive sick fucking villas. Spectacular, but again, you can't always appreciate all the scenery because there's these walls that are like 10 feet high in front of every single property for security reason. I would imagine more than anything else. But made it back to Old Town and then because of the Muay Thai class that I will have the next day, I went into the pharmacy being like, you know what, you don't have with you, you don't have your niece leave because there's something torn in there. And it's my, you know, I switch kick and it's my plant leg. I'm not worried about throwing the kick with the right leg. I'm worried about it planning. That was the nice to have a little extra compression around that knee. So I went into a pharmacy and the pharmacist, I don't even know if she's technically like past any courses or anything, but she was stunning. And she was working in the pharmacy and I was trying to explain to her that I was like, yeah, do you have, I'll be doing some kickboxing tomorrow. Do you have a knee, you know, like I'm still pretty functional, but you know, do you have a knee brace or anything like that? She was like, what the fuck are you talking about? And then I googled it and pulled it up on my phone and showed her the picture. And she was like, look, that's not gonna happen. So couldn't find one. Then closed it off with a meal, decided to get some pizza. They had a chicken millenase dish, which you know I love and I looked at the menu. I was like, let me give this a shot. And it was great because this kid didn't lie to me. French kid. Girls were just eye fucking him the entire time. He was running around the restaurant, waiting on tables. And he was a good looking kid, you know what I'm gonna say. And I went, hey, with that chicken millenase, I'm like, is that a fucking frozen thing? Is it like a chicken nugget? You guys just throw in some arugula and he goes, yeah. He goes, it's like a chicken nugget. I was like, thanks for telling me the truth. And he was like, yeah. I was like, no, what are you doing so well with the ladies? You're just, you're immediately honest. So pizza, whatever bounced and went back to the hotel. Taxi rides. I don't think I like the techno or EDM remix of going back to San Francisco. I don't think it was needed. Did a sunset spectacular. The pictures will be on the YouTube early for bed because I've got MMA in the morning. And we'll update you after that. Hey, it's Rhea from Chicks in the office. When I think of denim, I think of Abercrombie. It's just that iconic. I mean, I practically live in Abercrombie denim at this point. There are high-rise 90s relax is my go-to everyday jeans when I'm in the city. And I've been wearing their low-rise ultra-lose out in So-Hell. Love it with a cute top and a kitten heel for dinner. Between classic fit and the viral curve-love fit that eliminates waste gap, there's literally a pair for everyone. It's truly denim-made iconic. Shop Abercrombie, denim, and more in the app online and in stores. Part 7. All right, I survived my movie tie class with Sam at his gym. He fought in Thailand. I think he was, you know, he was great. He was really great, but he was definitely critical of some of the stuff that I was doing. I don't know what I was expecting. I expected you better. I did not just not going to get my plant foot turned 180 degrees the other way on every single kick. This is not going to happen. And some of the striking stuff, some of the balance stuff, we stopped in the middle of some of it and was like working on balance. And I was like, yeah, he's not wrong. He's not wrong. So I was hoping to do a little bit better, but I did not. But it was quite the workout. Just an absolute faucet, leaving the gym, think Patrick Cueing at the free throw line. And now you're ordering an Uber. And who better? And you don't want to be that guy who just gets into the car. And you're like, all right, so I wasn't ordering fancy cars because it doesn't really matter. And I was trying to be like, all right, because there are any way I'm going to stop sweating. And you're like, you know, you're not going to stop sweating for at least 45 minutes. And I feel like walking around. It was fucking hot. I changed t-shirts immediately. That thing's drenched. And so then I just after, I don't know, 20 or so minutes, I ordered a car. And I got in and I told the driver, hey, look, like if it's sweaty legs on your seats, I don't want to do that to you. So I'll run into the hotel and grab something, some disinfectant, some towels, and I'll clean out the back of your car. I want to be courteous. I want that five-star rating. He was cool about it. He's like, look, you know, we're picking up people at the beach, sand, salt. And movie tie sweat. So, all right, back at the hotel, I have a bunch of time to kill before my next move. And I checked out. And they were great. They were super accommodating. And I said, hey, look, like, I'm going to check out. I want to leave my bags here, you know, the whole deal. And they're like, don't even worry about it. So I was checked out of the room, left the bags with them. And then they let me shower at the gym area, just to get some of this movie tie stank off of me. And then I'm going to spend the afternoon in town, grab some to eat, and then head over to the beach before I go to can to meet up with some friends from Manhattan Beach. So not a lot to report on the afternoon part of this went to Boston, Eposte again, terrific. I was glad I got there right before the 2 p.m. afternoon Mediterranean shutdown. Not every place closes, but usually the better place is closed. And so was able to house some more food. Almost got the exact same meal. I think I got the sausage. Oh, that's right. I got the sausage. bull and yeas but they did it without any tomato whatsoever. So like the sausage in this version of the pasta is kind of salted enough that it works. I'll tell you though I probably would have just loved a red sauce on there and I did ask the waiter after I ate the whole thing because it still tasted great. I said hey do you ever like do a scoop of marinara or the red sauce that you use on the rigatoni? Is this anybody like can you do that? And he gave me this look and he's like sometimes you do it for kids. Glad I didn't ask. But or brought my beach chair over which isn't great. I'm afraid it's going to cut me every single time I grab it. I brought the beach chair over the sandy town part of the antique beach which is just a ton of people you know. So went over there, read for a little bit and then off of that you know jumping in out of the water just kind of like killing some time before I have to take a taxi probably like I don't know less than an hour away anyway. So I wasn't gonna hurry to do any of that kind of stuff but I'm fed. I've got the nice workout in. I've got this beach chair that I want a thing to do with. I'm already packed up. I have to go back to the hotel to get all my stuff and so I was always reading and finishing up my day at the town beach to just get back into the salt water even though it was just fucking mob with people. There was this little French kid sitting there and he was just like sitting on a rock and as I was leaving and I do kind of love this move when I'm just over the beach chair. I know I don't want to bring it with me to the next stop or I'm leaving and I was like hey do you want this chair and he was like blown away. So there you go. Pay it forward. So on my way to Cannes nothing to really report there a few couples again. Somebody who's a pretty close friend of mine from Manhattan Beach. He was there with his wife a few other couples. I think there was like five kids under the age of six or seven maybe I don't know eight or nine. I'm sorry the guy don't think the kids are going to listen to this. Although there was one of the parents it was like we do listen to your podcast when the kids can't fall asleep and as soon as your voice comes on. Out cold. So there's got to be a market there. The village was in grass which is north of Cann and the villa was just awesome. It's exactly what you would hope it would be. Of course walls again everything gated up roll in stone driveway into this old farmhouse type deal with a massive front yard maybe an orchard even and then the back of pool with a guest house in the pool house and then a gym and fitness cold tub song of the whole deal. So I'm just sitting there being like how do I help kick in for a little bit of this because you knew it had to be not the cheapest thing. The kids it was nice to be around kids. I do really like kids but they were let me have it. I feel like they were like new blood new guy in town and he can't do shit to us and that was like they were let me know. I felt like a guy in the first day of prison and it was just like all right we're going to you know fresh meat here we're going to fuck with this guy fresh fish shush and production and one of the little girls was like you look old. I kind of probably the oldest person here so very very good observation. Anyway that night went to a dinner club in Cann by Palm Beach I think is what it's called and I like Cann when I had been here before four years ago it is smaller than certainly watch smaller than Nice and smaller than Santa Pay although I don't know like Cannes feels bigger now it felt like a little bit more modern in maybe the area that we were hanging out. I did get a super important agent phone call on a TV show that I had sold and I was like wait a minute. I'm like what a great story this is going to be. Cannes Film Festival my first show got Greenlit while I was in Cannes with friends we're going right to the white wines after this if this goes through and the pretty revealing thing about an agent when they call you with bad news is you don't even need like it's the first note of a song although the first note of a song cannot be the greatest note and then you can get there. The first note from an agent giving you bad news it's like you don't even need it is record time where you know this is going to be a no and that's what it was and I said hey look I'm in the South of France so I'm not going to I'm not going to be determined to have a worse time so we were on the phone for like two minutes and I was like I'm back to the dinner shared that with no one. Big table a lot of kids a couple nannies we'll get to them I did find it a little strange that the restaurant house entertainment was this older guy singing sexual healing to a six-year-old I don't know I don't know what that is maybe it's a French thing or not but serenading a six-year-old and like just the listen to lyrics man so all right no one is no one like it wasn't discussed and it seemed like the kid liked it so maybe everybody had a great time but I was just like if I were a lounge singer I think I would 12 and up if you're going that song I would think we're not going out we're going back but the nannies in particularly one I thought about our future for probably five or six hours minutes and like what our life would be like together and you know will she like my friends and is there going to be a language barrier or you know is she going to be confused by the lack of cleanness that you get with me and then I'm you know one of the wives is like she just had her third kid do like three weeks ago I was like well you know she is nannying so maybe maybe anyway so back to the house right to bed cold tub in the morning finished up patty Hearst this book um let's just talk about look we know in the the world you know when why do I want to say this there are a ton of things on the male female bargaining table that's suck for women but you know what doesn't suck is if patty Hearst were a dude there's no way that she gets out of jail then gets a pardon patty Hearst kidnaped sucks but then immediately joins the group the kidnaps her sleeps with the guys helps out on a bank robbery that leads to the death of just a normal fucking citizen whips out a machine gun and fires it at this sporting goods store which is actually not that far the area not that far from where I live now um and you know eventually she goes to jail for this but then Jimmy Carter commutes her sentence so she's out of jail after I think like two years and then she gets a full blown pardon in the last hours of Bill Clinton's presidency and when I read the book and I got done with it I'm like this wouldn't happen to a dude no dude would be able to say well you know they kidnapped me but fuck a lot of stuff going on they made me sleep with all the women and then you know I robbed a few banks and somebody did die and I also pulled out a machine gun in a parking lot of a Models um and kidnapped a teenager in the process all the way to go to the movies together um you know just kind of mixed up and you know just that time my life you know it's just kind of mad a lot of thoughts you know some stuff of my dad I hadn't really fully come to grips with so um yeah and then the art thief same deal finished that book we're close to finishing it and it's 200 thefts by the man character who's a dude who sucks but his girlfriend was the lookout for 200 plus thefts in all of these museums like one of the most staggering you could say impressive ruthless I mean the guy sucks if you read about it but it's a really good book but the girlfriend was there for almost all of it and she walks so look point women on that one all right uh back to bed the next day we've got a boat excited about the boat checking out the deal on the control panels follow pentas very familiar with that engine so if they needed me in a punch I felt pretty comfortable we took out the seabob in uh Sir Mayor which was a few towns over from where we were seabob's uh you know it's gonna fight you a little bit not quite sure what you're supposed to do it looks cooler probably in the James Bond deal I was thrilled to use it it was a lot of fun first time using it don't know that it's like hey I have to use this every time but it was a great group we had launch around the boat cruising around and you know there's uh there's a lot worse ways to spend your day then we get back to the dock I did help on the tie up again you know I thought I was just like I'm here for you man to the captain even though there was a language barrier so little refresher back at the villa and then that night it was kind of funny because like me and the one younger dude that showed up to visit uh you know I were like should we just go out tonight you and I and then there was this barbecue like a family style barbecue cookout whatever I know barbecue's like very different than north and the south not even in France in the states but it was just a big old cookout and it was like friends of other people and we're like all right let's just go and it was I'm so glad that I didn't end up doing something else it was one of the most impressive incredible collections of meats that I've ever experienced in any dining setting whatsoever they had some guy from Argentina cooking up everything I think the man of the house was really maybe the the inspiration behind everything like appetizer chickens I'm just smashing cutlets asking about the seasoning they gave me the seasoning to fly back with um sausage which again I don't really like but now I've messaged mess and uh mentioned I should say sausage twice now during this part so not a huge sausage guy like look if you can go to Riggly and pound one of those fucking things and you know more more power to you I myself want nothing to do with it breakfast sausages never zero okay but they're like hey we have these as Italian sausages where I guess they went to San Remo and picked them up and I'm like, fuck, all right, let me try it. And I ate like three of those. And then a Tom Hock steak and every other goddamn thing. It was just this absolute meat fest. And there was caprisons too for the kids, which was great. Really, really, just great family setup. The whole thing, the hosting was off the charts. They brought out this dessert. They brought out this aperitif, this sort of, I would say first class version of frangeloco that was like 50 years old. And then we started racing with the kids and then the whole thing turned on me. It got real ugly. Like the kids were just like, fuck this old guy. And yeah, that's it. So woke up the next day with a big decision as I sit here and try to figure it out because the sweet and things clearly out, debate of whether or not to fly to Corsica, but looked at that. That's a huge pain in the ass. Then I was like, should I fly to Sardinia? But then I got to go to Barcelona and then go back. And I'm like, I don't know that I want to do that. But maybe I could get out of Barcelona to direct. It's just sort of open. Do I just run a car and go to San Remo and then do the boat thing and talented Mr. Ripley it without the jazz club. And a gay dude that really likes me and the murders. So, you know, I probably just a lesser version than that. But really, as I'm sitting here, I'm sifting through the different options on Delta's app and then going like, what if she just went home? Six man Manhattan Beach, although I don't know if I'm built for it anymore. It is a grind without drugs for 48 hours in town, but it is an epic, epic setting. But I'm like, you're really going to miss six man. So anyway, as I'm sifting through all the different options, I go, you know what? One of your favorite places in the world is two hours away. So just go to Santrape. Okay, our final part of this French travel log, which is all going to be France instead of Sweden. I'm a little let down on that part of it. But look, Santrape is Santrape. So I loved it four years ago, fell in love with it. I've told people like, hey, I know it's bougie. I know it's rich. I know it's busy. I know it's hot, but it really is fucking incredible. And knowing it was only two hours away, I'm like, you already know that you love it. So why not do that instead of driving a San Remo from Cam? Because I was even talking as this one Italian guy and he's like, yeah, it's all right. You know, he's like, you could go to San rape or Santrape. Like, what the fuck are you doing? So it's a two hour drive from where I was. The traffic wasn't great getting in midday. Like, sometimes you get really backed up coming into town, about 45 minutes outside of Santrape. There's a monster truck rally going on. It hadn't started yet. Demolition Derby, the whole fucking deal. And I was like, man, it might be kind of sick to do that. But that's not why you go to Santrape. You don't go there for the monster trucks. Four years ago, like I said, I made it to town and I absolutely loved it. I loved the beach. I loved the town. I loved checking out all the different boats. And again, like, there are places that are bougie that you just don't feel accepted and you could get caught up in all that kind of stuff. And like, even though whatever, you know, I can go to any of the restaurants or I guess I could go to any of the clubs and do whatever I want. I don't really want to necessarily do all that stuff. So I don't feel like left out, even if I'm dressed like an asshole most of the time, because a lot of people are dressed like it is the last night out of their lives. And there's a huge like, I'm not acting like because four years ago, I went here and now, oh, the secret's out. All right. I'm not, yeah, I'm not like a pioneer here whatsoever. Gilgamesh. But this is, it's noticeably more people than just even four years ago. And I do not understand how the influencers pay for all this stuff. I don't understand how they can all stay at the cause. Chantrapay is so fucking expensive, like looking at hotels in anticipation of coming here. It's like, man, you know, three, four grand a night for some of these rooms. Now you don't have to do that. You can stay a little further outside of the town. The place I stayed at, which is the same hotel I stayed at a couple of years ago was less, you know, like over a grand, but you still don't love it, especially when you're by yourself. You're like, I don't know if I can spend that much money. I even stayed in the Louis Vuitton. I switched because the place I was in was sold out four years ago. And the people that ran the hotel were awesome to me. And I was like, I think I'm going to extend one more night and they're like, you can stay at the Louis Vuitton place. There's one room open. And I'm like, how bad is that going to be? It wasn't great. But again, it's, it's, there are so many hotels like right in town that are these unbelievable spots. And if you want to do that and you can pull it off more power to you. I just am like, I have to three nights and getting a hotel bill for 12,000 euros, you know, I don't, I don't want to do that. All right. So history, 4,000 people year round here, 80,000 people per day, July and August, it feels again different. I think those numbers are a little outdated as far as the history goes. I think the Romans were the first to turn this into like a villa place because there's some incredible properties outside of the town. It was the first coastal town liberated in World War II. It was still pretty much a sleepy fishing village throughout its history. And then Bridget Bardot, who there's all sorts of places that honor her. She was in the movie and God created women in 1956. And apparently, like after that, the place completely blew up and why that club 55 is such a big deal. Even though when you go there, if you're expecting it to be wild, like it isn't, you could maybe be underwhelmed by it, but like that's the famous beach club. And I think after that, just decades since then, this has become one of the international spots. And it's the yachts that are off the coast and the beach clubs. And I look at the yachts and I see the tenders coming in and they grab bottles of champagne, they grab some fucking Caesar salad that probably suck. And they head back out on their tenders to the yachts and they're out there and they're having a good time. And I get jealous, but it's jealous in a good way. I think jealous can be a good emotion at times. I mean, there's probably more to life than wanting a wide beam, but I don't know what it is right now. The name, Sandra Paye. That is for the Christian martyr San Torpez. It may, it may be just be Santa Paye, but not it's TOR as opposed to TRO. So the story behind him is Nero, brother Nero, beheaded him in 65 AD. Nero, by the way, because Sophie Cunningham isn't the news, the Nero would not be a fan of Sophie Cunningham. But they chopped up Torpez here, beheaded him and then kept the head and then dumped his body into a rotten boat into the water with a rooster and a dog. This is where the story early. I don't know if this happened, guys, but whatever we'll go with it. So his beheaded body in this rotten boat, they sent it off the coast to Italy. There's the rooster and the dog that are supposedly going to eat the body so that they have like like as if the dog and rooster get together and ration this out. Although then there's the exercise where you could be like, okay, well, you can't leave the dog with the rooster. So you'd have to drop off the rooster and then leave the dog with the body. So the legend goes that there was this vision of a woman that lived in the village of Santrape before it was named Santrape and then the next day that vision was executed fully and that this body shows up in the boat and she knew that it was going to happen and then apparently the boat was the rooster flew off and then the dog ran to another town. They named the town after the dog. They named another town after the rooster and the body was completely untouched throughout its journey. So anyway, then they're like, well, cool. Let's name it after this beheaded guy. So there you go. First night, first day, just a reset and I didn't care. You know, I know it's like, hey, let's go, but it's been almost two weeks. So it's like, hey, you also can just sort of take it easy here and you don't have to go to like a million things. I've been to all the museums here before already. So I did a lot more exploring then. So it was just kind of like, let me get a good dinner in here. Let me get a good night rest and get a nice gym day in there tomorrow. And that was the plan. Although as I was walking through the square, there's like this main square before you get in all the shops and towards the docks. And the first time I experienced it, I just loved it because you were like, hey, you could tell me I was in Italy, Spain, France, anywhere. And that's what's kind of the beauty of the Mediterranean is that it's just this mixing pot because of all the invasions and everything. But you're just watching old guys play botchi and there's these bands that are playing in these restaurants and like you can do the absolute like, hey, we want to have the most expensive best experience I've ever had for an entire weekend. You can do that, but you can also go and just sort of chill and you can like grab a fucking beer and then watch guys play botchi or they'll invite you to play botchi like I was. So as I was walking by these guys, an English guy turns to me and goes, hey, I'm not going to do the accent. He's like, hey, do you want to play a thousand bucks a game? And I expect that I would be good at botchi pretty quickly. And it probably is some other Italian name for this that I'm not getting right, but just so everybody's able to play along here and I didn't feel like fucking looking it up. I'd expect to be good at this sport quickly. But you know, you don't want to be that much of a sucker and go, yeah, we're, which through where I throw it, you know, and then you're down for grand. I'm going to do this to prove this to some Tom Hardy fucking want to be because as soon as I said no, he called me a pussy. And he did it in a little playful way, but just a note on the British men out there. I think the Tom Hardy thing is fucked up a lot of you guys. And you've got the neck tattoos, you know, you've got some arms to a lot of you guys are shorter. You're with these women who I mean, the variance of like, it's like a cam Thomas game. I'm like, is this a good game? Like I think it is. And then the next game you're like, shit, I have no idea what to make of them because of the contouring with the makeup I'm like, what is going on with the nose there? Like is that a prosthetic? Is it good? Is it bad? And the Brits will have these like not all Brits again, we don't want to generalize here, but there's this This 2026 version of the British male, which I don't know which town he's from But he just kind of carries himself and it's like look I think Tom Hardy's fucking cool too, but you're not Tom I'm not, I'm none of us are so fucking chill out a little bit So I didn't really appreciate getting called a pussy even though he's trying to be a little playful about it But I think it was probably the brusquies and I don't know maybe watching warrior or something although not the most English version of Tom Hardy and in the movies. So yeah, you're asking where I got dinner I went right to the rotisserie chicken stand. I didn't fucking care. I know I'm in Santa Fe I grabbed a whole fucking chicken and some potatoes and it tasted awesome because I was like here we go. I'm getting a full meal All right, so that's what that's what we did. So next day I get to the gym bought towel number five on the trip tight gym packed Good-looking people in it though telling you that right now different gym than where I worked out when I was here last time because when I asked the Who tells a case that gym still working and the guys like it is still there But where you want to go is the other one that's the gym and you roll in and be like man, this is fucking small Had to buy a towel like you said wanted to buy water. They didn't have a key for the cooler. So Tough day for the sales that day. What was the most fascinating part about this gym is they had this video that was running on this like 75 inch screen Because the gym itself was just like one room think of like a garage even though it wasn't a garage But think of like the size of a two car garage and then just equipment everywhere and it was tough Like you're just fucking on top of each other so not ideal But whatever they had enough stuff get it in figure it out. But while you're working out. There's this screen being played and It's like a guy who's jacked and his wife who's like one of those, you know that rare breed of like jacked Woman who's just obviously like spent her life. You just don't see many of them at the gym that often And she's while you're working out. She's injecting shit into herself while you're like watch, you know Like you do your exercise. You're done minute rest 90 seconds depending on what your routine is maybe go and have a two plus minutes And she's just injecting herself. I know it was all in French. So I don't know what she was saying subtitles didn't help and I'm like what better way to get locked in and motivate yourself than watching somebody just Fire in some shit and then she would stayed then then it was her driving to the gym and then just crushing fucking leg day After whatever it was she was pushing there. So After the injections Headed over to club 55 and The routine last time around what I love so much about it was that they closed at five But then the guys were like hey, just go buy a towel in the gift shop and then we'll dig a hole for you Like a sand chair and then you can stay here as ladies you want I stayed there until the sunset and it was just magical right little churn out Just awesome and then hiked up the beach for a while. So it was this one of those nights where I'm like this is fucking killer All right, so this time around I was excited to go again, and again, it's chill It's not wild. It's if you want the DJs and a crazy fucking party and yeah There's a restaurant that's inside that plays music and there's people that were singing at times But it's still relatively a little chill so some people go into it being like this this fucking Thumprin of a beach. This is what everybody talks about like this isn't Wild and it isn't it, but if you want to go and jump in and out of the water, which feels incredible Nice sandy beach and yet the European beach share things sucks and you're on top everybody else You can run a hut, but I ended up with like an Eastern European family around me And they're just so quiet all the time that it ended up being fine And I'm just sitting there reading my book jumping in out of the water It was a little crazy because there's fires hundreds miles away and People were asking me like hey, are you nearing this stuff? I was like now I'm so far away from all of that But on that day on the beach you actually could feel it and smell just the burning Wood and all of that smoke traveling so it wasn't like you were seeing hardcore Smoke in the air, but you were feeling it and you could smell it while you're on the beach But it didn't necessarily ruin it The other thing that happened last time I was there is there was this massive black guy think Kevin Willis Asking your wife if she wants a massage at the beach Just absolutely jacked and then he had jeans on that had like no jeans I know this is going to make any sense, but it was a full-on speedo No secrets whatsoever Whatever you want to imagine go ahead that's what it looked like and yet they were sort of jeans But again no jeans and then this guy would go up to women and be like do you want a massage Um looking like the guy from the seven-up commercials in the 80s and You know, yeah, okay, and then it's just full-on like are they having sex like what does this guy get paid to dry hump your wife On the beach well, he's not working there anymore or he wasn't there the day that I was there There were some Asian women asking if you wanted foot massage no problem. There's a snack cart going around Although the biggest advertisement on the side of it wasn't popsicles wasn't ice cream wasn't culturing It was a massive donut filled with cream And there's just nothing I can think of that I'd be like man super hot beach day Little forest fire in the air. You know it'd be great right now a fucking massive donut with a ton of cream in it finished my book Finish the Hearst book finished the art thief book I'm on a run here the last three books whether Che Guevara patty Hearst or this art thief brat Where I hate the people I'm reading about they're all terrific books, but I've got to find a book Although that's like do you read about LBJ Carol again? Do I get back into that because I couldn't stand him for 700 pages even though I love the book So I seem to be on this stretch of reading about main characters. I absolutely can't stand So on to dinner solo Italian place Marcos Little further away if you want to tip on the restaurants at Santa Pay just like everything else don't go to the ones next to the boats Don't cut any of the ones on the main streets not saying that there aren't really good ones But the best places to eat and the best places to drink are you just gonna do a little work and get off on a side street And do some of the alley streets and every single time those restaurants are better. It's unbelievable like you would think I just can't express enough how how much higher the hit rate is once you get off the beaten path a little bit all right Did almost get turned away because it's a nicer place It was an awesome room live music going on But I looked at the menu was all over it and you know, they have a meeting I've seen this meeting too many times as solo traveler like do you really want to let this guy in here by himself And then once I got in there they gave me like the worst table possible And they said do you mind having the worst table? I was like I expect the worst table I'm just really happy. I want to sit here. I want a glass of sunsare and I just want to have a massive fucking meal I want you to roll me out here in a will barrel and the waiters are cool Is hell and it was like a really cool back bar room So it actually looks like not just a great restaurant but an awesome place to kind of hang out there Maybe a pre dinner date drink if you're dating in the Santa Pay area and probably listening The dinner was just awesome and it was perfect and after that dinner. I'm like tonight is the night You thought about it and on tea, but didn't really happen. There was really no chance in bio There was Con I didn't want to go out in can was different Was with the family if we were gonna drink it was gonna be back in the house. I'm like tonight is the night So went over to that Irish bar right by the marino where I hung out the south african boat captains And a bunch of other guys years ago, which actually ended up being my that was my birthday It was kind of funny because I forgot it was my birthday at the time And anyway, so I'm I'm trying right? I'm like all right Got a couple drinks. Let's see what happens. You've got to stay out one of these nights have some stories And I just didn't have it. I'm like this. I just don't have it I don't want to waste the day tomorrow. I want to get up and go to the beach So I start walking back through town back to the hotel And then I run into a former NBA player that I know a little bit not saying we're best friends But enough to say hey man, and he looks at me and goes rassillo He's like holy shit huge hug. He's with a deep crew. He's like, where's your crew? Thank You're looking at it and then it's a bit like oh is he a fucking loser? Which I totally understand and then there was a wife that was like what is your deal? She because then he's like oh come with us We're going to this Asian place Not racist. He was like no, it's it's her sushi. So I I was getting a bit of the like what's this guy's deal again, you know over the wise and girlfriends and one of the wise is like Let me see your hand is convinced that I remove my wedding ring and that there was gonna be some sort of wedding ring tan there And I was like I'm not married and then my guy was like now. He's not he's not fucking married He's not he's not like and then one of them was like are you like a hooker guy and just super addicted to hookers I was like no, I've heard that theory before. I'm not I like to cuddle too much So that wasn't the case and then we rolled in and it was a really good spot. I don't know that they were ninjas I don't think it was the same dress but these guys are kind of dressed up in some Japanese garb. So And then they had like a hole like you know how clubs will do these sort of presentations But it was clubby but it wasn't clubby in that it wasn't overwhelming and they had the best table in the whole setup And yeah, I mean there was still some trepidation about like this guy's just fucking walking around by yourself your friends with this guy And then another current NBA player showed up and gave me the finger which I don't know. Maybe he doesn't like 10 good minutes. Maybe things it goes too long But then somebody else was like I think you think he's someone else So we hugged a bit but I it didn't feel real at all and then there was always the Hey, you know, why don't you get up on the table and dance with us and I stood on the table and the one of the girls is like, you don't dance either, huh? You're fucking by yourself and ginger pay and you don't dance. I was like, I usually don't dance on table with plates of sushi around sober. So no, not really. Then there was a pivot to this side club where escorted in, they seem to have this whole thing locked in pretty, pretty good. I think that's what this world does. It's certainly better than I do. And there was a moment there of like 130. There's this moment and you're like, all right, do you just fucking go for it because if you do the sun's coming up and that means tomorrow is going to suck. And you know, one of the guys is like, why don't you just stay? And then I was like, I don't think anybody's doing this because they want me to pay for stuff. But hung out for a little bit was like, I'm not going to dance in here. And you're in a club and it was like a club club, which is very different than the Japanese sushi place with the ninjas who again, I don't know what their training really was, but some great car. So went back to the place, woke up the next day with a little white wine hangover, but little waterboarding and workout three hours later. Right as rain was awesome. Like, hey, a little hungover, but now I feel great. And I'm ready to go back to the beach to close out my last day here. I got my head shaved. It was getting pretty gross. That could have been an issue the night before in the shaving of the head in a bit of a beer trim, which was 75 euros. They were done shaving my head after two minutes. I got a hair splinter in my lip. Never experienced that before. I don't know if the coarseness of the hair is getting thicker. I don't know what the grit rating would be on some of these beard hairs, but I was like, why is my lip hurting? What is going on? And then I would poke it and I felt the hair out of there. So I had to like pull out this hair splinter a little bit later on. Again, first time that's ever happened. It's stuck. And then I started to go back to the beach, but I was going to do the budget version of 55 because I didn't feel like buying the chair and the umbrella and the whole deal knowing that I was only going to be staying there for a little while. So I brought another beach chair that I bought at a grocery store, which was much better than the one I bought in Antib, even cheaper and then went up to some of the locals and bought an umbrella had to haggle with them a little bit. He was like, how much do you actually want to pay? I'm like, look, it's sort of the end of the night. These things don't look that great, whatever. And that umbrella was a fucking disaster. I ended up having to take the whole thing down because I was afraid it was going to impale another kid. I did want to head over to the club 55 gift shop. And the thing is they didn't close. They like stayed open until seven plus. I was like, I should have just gone there. The whole reason I didn't do that is because I don't want to pay for anything knowing that they were going to close in like two hours. Instead, I think they stayed open like a couple hours later than they normally would. So I don't know if that's like a Saturday, Sunday thing or what, but that was what was going on there. But it was fine. It was fine. And I needed a new book. So I bought 1984, which will cheer me up. I thought on 1984 by George Orwell, who the Portuguese love this book. I saw this book in every single fucking bookstore window. I saw in like the eight towns that I went to in Portugal in February. I know in today's political climate, there are some thoughts. There's a lot of people out there that are worried about the future that were headed down this path and all this stuff. I got to tell you, we're not even close to 1984. So when people start getting upset about like, I don't care who the leader is. Like, oh, we're heading down this path. Big brother, all these different things. We're not drinking thimbles of oily gin. Okay. We don't have to have sex in a bush. Secluded from anybody noticing we don't have our kids turning or so turning us in. Why don't you kids, but you understand kids are not turning parents into the thought police and having them executed and being proud of doing it with the young spies initiative by big brother. So there's plenty of things we can claim about in 2026, but we are knocked. We're not close to 1984 after 140 pages in. All right. But again, I don't know that it's improving my mood by reading that kind of stuff. I went back into the town. It is the last stretch here. Looked at paddocks for a little bit. Just not there. I'd love to do it one day. Just not there. Look, I just bought an umbrella for $30. I'm being responsible here. I went to the grocery store, wanted to grab some fruit. Just nothing makes your day better than fruit. The fresh produce also known as produce, not that great in Santrape. Shot. Head dinner grabbed a pizza at this point fairly over it. Okay. I want to finish this whole trip with a thought here running through all the different towns, whether it's Santrape, which is still probably number one. But if we did Brazil rankings, let's be realistic here. It's like saying, hey, I want to get a place in Colorado and ski a little bit. And then starting your search and aspen, it's just like, okay, this is going to be pointless. Doville probably maybe number one, but again, it's colder to English channel. It's not the Mediterranean. So that seems a little ridiculous. I say on tea, maybe third with this can, fourth, parrises and so on category. So you can't really compare it to this. Bayou was cool when we want to live there. Khan, probably my least favorite, even though I love the castle. I love the museum and everything. Okay. But the primary objective of all of this was the head to Normandy, to head to the Normandy region. And I've always wanted to do kind of this role or two sweep through and see all the sights. And I'm really glad that I did. I don't know that I expected to feel anything when I was at the cemetery. Again, any personal relationship to it. It isn't really there. My grandfather was in World War II. He was a tail gunner. And he was in Sicily. So he had nothing to do with France. But I think about him. And I thought about him during this time. And he died when I was I think six. I actually remember the night because my mother and father drove over to his apartment. And you know, it's my father's father. And nobody had heard from for a couple of days, I guess. And I remember I was in the back seat of the car. And then my little sister was probably two. So she wasn't going to be exactly paying attention what was going on. But I remember just kind of like, okay, what's going on? And they didn't want to say anything. And they were worried that he had died. And he did. He had died. And so my father wanted to do his apartment. And I remember it like took a while from the come out, which I imagine is something a lot of you have maybe had to experience firsthand. You know, you're sitting there with a dead mother or a dead father, you know, I guess he was like sitting up in the kitchen, I think. And I remember being like, mom, you know, let's get out of here. What's going on? And and then my parents didn't want to tell me what's going on. It was a little kid. And then I think after a little while, maybe my father collecting his thoughts or whatever that moment is supposed to be, he came out to the car and like leaned in and told my mother. And then she started crying. And then there was an ambulance. And I was still so confused, right? And it was again, it's my parents looking out for like a little kid that didn't want to say anything, at least right away. So the reason why I'll always remember that apartment. I always remember him. It's not specifically because of that night. It's that he had all these World War II medals. And there was all these pictures, you know, of him being in the army. And he was the epitome of like what an old man was like to me. He was just central casting of this tall, you know, kind of tall dark and handsome, scary, smoked constantly, just a man of his time, right? And I think the war shaped him in ways, you know, probably more bad than good. But it was it was something I've always thought about as like I've read more about it and read about so many of these men that went over there and the increase in production in America and, you know, going like, Hey, this is enough of this shit. Like we got to go over there and then everybody rallying to this in a very prideful way. And I know at times that generation has been written about as the greatest generation. And maybe there's selfishness. I think I was a Tom Brokel that wrote it. I mean, he may have written that book. And, you know, we could get fucking cynical about everything because that's all we fucking do now. And then go, well, you know, back in the 40s, people were much more submissive and impressionable. And that's why they went ahead and did it. But I'll tell you this, like I'm all the time that I've read about different conflicts. And the number of times like at the conclusion of the story, you just go, what an incredible waste of fucking time, a waste of lives, a waste of resources, setting, you know, cultures back generations and all of this stuff. Like reading about the Cold War, the summary is one sentence, complete waste of fucking time, right? Whether I've read about stuff in the Middle East, it's like, hey, let's try this now. Let's try this. Guess what? None of it works. None of it works. So when you compare World War II to all of these other things that we have more time removed from, like World War II feels like it was something that had to happen was fought for the right reasons. And the people that came back, it was it was a real like, I'd like to think it was, hey, there's actually no way of debating what the motivations were here. And I'm sure you can, I've read about some of the stuff, but like, give me a fucking break. All right, let's let's try to actually look at the greater good of of what this was. And so that's why I think that war in particular, like there's a reverence for it because it feels like, hey, this was, this was something that had to be done. And the fact that if you were of a military age back then, it was expected of you and not just expected of you to enlist, you wanted to. And this is where it kind of comes back to a personal thing too, because I remember I had this other uncle part of the province crew on River Av, so it would have been, I believe, my grandmother, who is married to the grandfather that I'm talking about, my grandfather's brother, right? So this is a brother and lost situation. And there was this one uncle who I remember going to visit him to my God, it was as if they had a designer for the home and they said, okay, what we really want to emphasize here is if you're a little kid and you come here, this is the worst fucking experience of your life. And boy, did they accomplish that? It sucked to visit there. And look, when you're a little kid, going to old people's houses kind of in general, isn't that great of a time? Unless you just have like, you know, whatever, there's like a rich grandfather or a grandmother and you're like, who wants to go down the slide again? That was not the case for us. And I remember like, even if I was scared of my grandfather, this uncle was never fun. There was never any part of it that was ever fun. And there were no medals because he didn't fight in the war. And this is something that I never quite understood about this dynamic between the grandfather and uncle, is that my grandfather apparently, and people told me about this later, was like the reason they had had so much conflict, wasn't about marrying a sister, it was more about like, my grandfather had zero respect for this guy because he didn't fight. And you know, you'd go and you'd sit there and you'd eat and the uncle was just miserable about everything. And he just would work you and he'd get pissed at you no matter what you did. And I wasn't even like a shitty little bratty kid. I just would be like, I'm going to get in, get out, I don't want to eat peas, like get me out of here. And then he was always on your case about what you did or didn't eat. And then it just wasn't, it wasn't ever fun. And then as I got older and I would talk to my father, you know, and you're like, hey, what about this, or what about that? And he was like, that was kind of the root of the dynamic was that whatever their, their, their differences was there was, it was an unsolvable deal. My grandfather was never going to have respect for him because he didn't fight. And that's just something I thought about when I looked at all the stuff in the museums, I looked at the unfortunate absurd death tolls in so many of the countries and you're like, okay, but this was something that felt like, celebrated feels like the wrong word. But I feel like there should be very little doubt about honoring the motivations to win this war because there's a lot where I wouldn't ever say that. [BLANK_AUDIO]