The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Russillo on the Road: San Sebastián Travelogue

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Russillo gives a day-by-day account of his solo trip to Bilbao, Madrid, and San Sebastián. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. The Ryen Russillo Podcast is heading to Philadelphia on October 1st. For more information, and to purchase tickets, please visit: https://www.universe.com/events/the-ryen-russillo-podcast-live-tickets-W4VSKD Host: Ryen Russillo Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the San Sebastian Travel Pod. And speaking of going on the road before I intro in a couple weeks in Spain, the show is headed on the road. And this time we've got a special one on the works. We're headed to Philly and I'm going to be joined by my friend and your favorite eagle, former eagle. He's a Super Bowl champ though, Chris Long. It'll be Tuesday, October 1st at 8 p.m. We'll be live from the Fillmore in Philadelphia.

We'll talk headlines, dish life advice. Kyle and Saruda are gonna be joining us and of course catch up and talk a ton of ball with Chris Long. Again, that's Tuesday, October 1st at the Fillmore Philadelphia and tickets are on sale now. Go to ringer.com slash events for more information. So this summer I want to do something a little different.

And I wanted to go to San Sebastian and I did San Sebastian, a little Beeryts, a little Pamplona, a lot of Madrid, a bullfight, a pinch of Bilbao, and some museums and observations. San Sebastian, the travel pod. Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of AmeriMXpress. Visit mx.ca slash ymx. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Greetings from San Sebastian.

Also, Donostia, San Sebastian, has two names. From what I can tell, most people call it San Sebastian. I've heard it pronounced Donostia. There will be mispronunciation. That happens all the time on this podcast. Why San Sebastian? Well, I asked a lot of different people that I trust, uh, people that have traveled much of the globe.

And I was like, give me the place you think is the best. I think four different people said San Sebastian, including aunt Kendrick Lamar's manager who I've become text buddies with, uh, my friends with Kendrick Lamar know could I have been possibly he used to rent out the house next door to the place that moved in, missed him by one summer. Who knows if I got in there earlier, could have been best friends. Can't rule it out. Made best friends is probably an exaggeration, but to say there's 0% chance we

would have been buddies. That's too low of a number. Okay. Um, travel in nothing nothing all that eventful. Didn't sleep though. I cannot sleep on planes, man. 10 hours from LAX to Amsterdam, about two hours, less than two hours,

Amsterdam to Bilbao. Did not book a hotel room until I landed in Bilbao. Thought about just staying there for the night, resetting, trying to get some sleep, and then being ready to go. But once I got to Bilbao, I was like, you know what, let me just get to San Sebastian. Bilbao is not as big as these other cities. The last couple of years, the epiphany has been once I was in Nice with 3 million people in July and the beaches suck. And granted, I got out of there pretty quick and that was always the plan. I just didn't like it.

I mean, it's spectacular. It's worth seeing, but I didn't want to stay there and Barcelona better than Nice, but still, you know, 2 million people, beaches better. I mean, it's beautiful. There's all these surrounding areas, the food situation much better in Barcelona than Nice, but it's just a lot of people. So, Bilbao is a pretty established city, but nothing even close to being on the scope of those cities. That was really a big motivation behind San Sebastian because even though it's a big, big tourist destination, it's just a smaller footprint, easier to navigate, and just not nearly as many people. Let's talk a little history. I think it's important to maybe start. We could go whatever you want to go. If you feel like I'm limited in my scope of

history, there's a website called google.com and you can look up everything that you want to look up. But let's go to 1808. Napoleon places his brother Joseph I in charge of Spain. It's like, hey, we're in charge now. He sets up in this area. The English don't like that, clearly, because everything is about England and France going back and forth in this area. The English don't like that clearly because everything is about England and France going back and forth throughout this time. But it's really important from that 1808 stretch to 1813 when the siege of St. Sebastian happens, which we'll get to in a second that Napoleon just spreading himself too thin.

And this is a lesson that we see over and over again from expanding empires like, hey, we we are gonna keep pushing in all directions all at the same time and start conquering everybody, but then it's just not sustainable. You're not gonna be able to control these areas when you keep spreading yourself out like this. So in 1812, the French invade Russia, a soldier number of north of half a million,

depending on where you want the starting point to actually be, the war independence. Sometimes they can get confusing based on similar battles or different campaigns with the same names, but they want to push Russia out of Poland and then they just keep working their way further into the interior of Russia. Even though they're winning battles and making progress as far as how much further they're pushing the Russian army back, they get to Moscow thinking, we're going to do it. We did it. We conquered Russia. Instead, the Russian army is like, look, we're going to burn down Moscow. You can have it. It's fucking deserted. Good luck getting back without any provisions,

your equipment failing, zero cavalry, and everybody having an awful time marching through Russia. Basically, they kind of won, but really they lost. If you look at the entire numbers from the French Army at that time, north of half a million soldiers, some numbers have it like 650,000 soldiers, I'm sure. It depends on how you want to – however you want to count is however you want to count. 100,000 lost in combat, 200,000 lost to disease or starvation, another 50,000 wounded, another 50,000 deserters. So you can argue this force of north of half a million soldiers under Napoleon in this Russian campaign ended up being like maybe 50,000 by the time Napoleon made it back to Paris. Now, why do I bring this all up from 1812? That's because they were so stretched during this Russian campaign, they did not have

the numbers to maintain their control over this area of Spain, which is just south of the border of France. And this Basque country region, which is just a small little footprint of the northwest of Spain, just south of the Pyrenees. So you have Wellington, who's the English general, you have Portugal, and then most importantly, you have the Spanish like get this fucking Joan Bonaparte dude out of here. And that leads to the siege of San Sebastian. There was a part of it where they felt like this is the best place to attack. You can look all this stuff up, but they get the French out of here pretty quickly. And then as the French are retreating, Spanish guerrilla warfare just taking on everybody. And I remember reading it in the Napoleon book with Andrew Roberts,

who had that author on months ago. But if you know, I remember reading it in the Napoleon book with Andrew Roberts. We had that author on months ago, but if you read through that part of it, it's just, it was pointless. I mean, they, they win technically against Russia, but really they lose. And then at the same time, it's like, well, wait, what are we doing with Spain? I thought we were, I thought we were running this

operation down here. It's like, you know what, dude, we're busy. We're busy. Everybody come back. Everybody come back. All right. So hotel right to San Sebastian, a terrific hotel right on these canal. Well, I shouldn't call them like canals, not like Venice. There's this just massive, um, saltwater stretch that goes deep into the city. Um, but man, pay attention to the tides.

If you're out here, your kayak could run aground. Granted, I'm a little more on top of the tides and depth charts than maybe your average guy. That's just the boat captain in me. But as I've monitored the tides when I walk by it, it is staggering what low tide does to this, where I don't even think you could get across a good stretch of this. I mean, it may be in a canoe, but then by the time it's at high tide,

I noticed like a center console, maybe 27 feet or something like that. The guy was fishing and he was kind of dicking around towards the bridge. So granted, if you're on top of it, you're fine. The outline of the city, these two kind of bays, one part's called Old Town, which feels like where more of the corporate jobs are because there's an Apple, there's McDonald's, there's a sporting goods store. So at first I was like, wait, is that, why does Old Town look more modern with the technology and then why does the town that I'm kind of walking around where it's more restaurants, bars, and then this other beach area that I'm kind of walking around where it's more restaurants bars and then this other beach area which is big surfing area as well like why is that

part called Old Town well I took like another walk down an alley in Old Town and saw the cathedral and everything else and these old almost like medieval type streets and you're like oh okay maybe they're right I've only been here an hour like hey I think you guys have your parts of the town's confused because this place looks older than that. Like, no, actually you're wrong. You've only been here an hour. As far as the first night, made myself stay up late, just to try to get back on track with the hours. Walked around, the food seen here is off the charts, but you have to know where you're going. You've got to research it. The ratings thing online is bullshit. There's very little English speaking. I mean, you still

can get by, but the menu part of it where other places I've been in Europe, like they'll just have it in English. They don't have that here at all. So a lot of times I'm just taking a picture of the menu and then translating it on my phone, which isn't exactly foolproof either I mean the best I can tell you is when you're walking through these little streets and these sections Try to find You know just look at other people's food and kind of whatever you're interested in There's this eating style. I don't know if it's a style that makes it sound like a technique and which one would eat eating style. I don't know if it's a style that makes it sound like a technique and which one would eat.

So I should just describe it this way. A big part of the culinary thing here is pinchos. And everybody raves about it and it looks awesome. And then I know ugly American coming out. I just noticed a ton of small food. It's like, oh, there's a couple slices of ham. And again, the ham here, the Iberian ham, which is their version of prosciutto, I like prosciutto better. I like prosciutto that is a little smoother. Hard prosciutto is not where it's at, right? But you know what I'm talking about. The good prosciutto that just feels like it could be disintegrated between your fingertips. If you crushed it, you wouldn't want to do that, right? But you get the point. It's like a soft, kind of, I don't know, delicate meat where the Iberian ham is oilier, it's saltier.

It's still really good and some people prefer it, but it will be like three little, I'm not even talking cutlet, I'm talking like three things, half the size of a deck of cards, like each card cut it in half. There are your three pieces of ham on this like three inch baguette and then you order like a couple of cards, like each card cut it in half. And there are your three pieces of ham on this like three inch baguette. And then you order like a couple of them. I think it's all just an excuse to tank beers and smoke, but that's this pinchos like, oh, pinchos, pinchos. Like, okay. It's like, what about the part where I'm fucking hungry after? Like now what do I do? So of course, I found an Italian place and was like I'm

just gonna pig out, get a ton of food in me because I didn't eat a ton on the flight and all that kind of stuff maintaining gains and I've never had this happen to me before. So I sit down, look at the menu and I go, I want the carpaccio, I want pasta and I want this thin crust like little bruschetta thing that you're doing. It's like it it's, it's a pizza, but whatever. And she just looks at me horrified and then she calls over another waiter. And then he says in English, he's like, my partner says you want three plates. You cannot have three plates. I was like, wait, I can't, or you don't want me to.

And I'm, I'm kind of laughing a little bit. And he was like, pick two. So it wasn't that it's a rule. They just haven't had anybody do it, I guess. And I'm thinking usually what I would do when I'm going someplace new and it's still, you're not a hundred percent sure unless you're just totally locked into all the food stuff and you're researching it like crazy and you want to go wait forever. There's places that have to take a taxi to go up to, but there will be this place that I will go to that I've researched, right?

Cause there's always a vandal of up to, but there will be this place that I will go to that I've researched. All right. Cause there's always a vandal of Mallorca out there for all of us. Right. But I'm just not going to do that like twice a day. Just have it be only about the food, only about the food. It's about the water. It's about the hang. It's about the research. So, uh, God, that sounded cool. Um, yeah. So whatever. My math is usually if I order three plates of something and one sucks, at least I'll still have two things that I can eat. I don't know what it is. Small food. I haven't seen a lot of huge dudes. I don't know if the two are connected. Could they be? All right, that'll do it for part one. We're going to be in France for part two.

We'll do it for part one. We're gonna be in France for part two. Now onto a special part of today's episode, sponsored by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. There's only one way to get serious about football this season, and it starts with NFL Sunday Ticket, with features like multi-view, where you can watch up to four games at once,

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NFL Sunday Ticket for out of market games, exclusive digital only games, device and content restrictions apply. Okay, Saruti. So this has been a game changer. I'll admit in the sea of things. And when I first signed up, I went, let's see what happens because it was a real change for me with my viewing habits in the past. This is one of those things that if you don't have it, you're, you, you just feel bad for the people that don't have it.

I don't understand. It's always one of the things that got to understand how people watch football without it. It's funny though, cause I had YouTube TV before this. So when they got, yeah, listen, what's up? Just the head of the curve. But when they got the NFL package, I was like,

oh cool. So I just don't have to do anything differently now and I'll have to download some other random app. I just have this awesome stuff all on YouTube TV. But Sundays are a marathon for me now though, because I start watching soccer, like the EPL's on at like 7 a.m. So you talk about the grind all day, sit on the couch.

Your boy is basically 7 a.m.ish to maybe 1 a.m. when we finish up Bill's Pod. So it's a long day of grinding the tape, as they say. So when it comes to London versus London games or CPL, we know where your allegiances are. Obviously, obviously, but love the crossover there. I like to get out of the house a little. I'm not going to lie to you. I like to get out of the house, kind of set the tone for the day. Just had a long Saturday, kind of like shoot around before a game.

I shoot around before a game No shoot around at 530 Tip it's warm up a little bit. Yeah I just like to be ready both physically and mentally and so This is it they got out of the house in this right and then once I'm once I'm ready to go Once I come back in after just putting myself through some kind of physical test, um, I'm, I'm just, I'm ready to go, man. And the multi view they've changed so that you can actually customize that,

which I think was something you were hoping could happen at some point. And it happens pretty much immediately. Um, and it's just the best way. It's the best way to watch the NFL. And I kind of can't believe like, look, this is just a very. Repeatable to hail, but, oh, I can't believe I used to do it this way. I can't believe I used to do it this way. I don't know what's going to be better than this way, because as far as it goes

with guys that work in it and talk about all these games and all these players and everything. It's the best way to stay on top of it and especially for the fantasy part of it as well. Thanks again to our friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. Don't miss a moment of the action. Watch every game every Sunday

when you bundle NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV. Sign up today at youtube.com slash Rosillo, R-U-S-S-I-L-L-O. Local and national games on YouTube TV, Sunday ticket for out of market games excludes digital only games device and content restrictions apply. OK, let's do a part two. Weather was not great today in San Sebastian trying to do a better job of just accepting that I'm on a vacation. Um, sat around for an hour at the hotel and was like, all right, what are you doing? So I rented a car for the day, 24 hours. And I'm like, I'm driving to France because

there's this town called Biarritz that I'd heard a little bit about, but I didn't know a ton. 22 miles north of the border, drove up in my rental car, not super complicated to figure out. There's always going to be a rotary or turn here or there. Instead of whatever, it just seems like every single road here has some kind of number assignment to it where I know that's kind of true in the States, but I think if you've driven in Europe, it's you see a sign on the highway and then it'll be like 15 different numbers for what the routes are. And it can be a little confusing as you're trying to search through it because there's exits on the left and right. So there's more exits on the left side of highways here than

I think we have in the States other than Hartford, which is infrastructure through the city still makes the least sense of any city that I've ever been to. A city that no one lives in, that there's impossible traffic all the way through, nothing like Mexico City, which makes LA look like Vermont. Speaking of Vermont, driving around, kind of reminds me of 89 sometimes, if you know that reference. So if you're driving 93 North or 91 North, and then there's this junction, White River Junction, for those that are curious,

and working your way up 89 to where I went to school or I lived in Burlington, and then even beyond that. There's actually some similarity here because the topography of it all is like, you know, there's, it's not raging mountains like when you're driving west of Denver into the ski resort towns. It's not like that ride from like Bozeman up to Flathead or Whitefish. Like that's some imposing stuff. You're like, look at this. But it's somewhat similar to maybe Vermont where there's just these unbelievable views throughout the horizon while you're also on the Atlantic Ocean. So it's really cool.

So anyway, I figured with the bad weather, I would do some exploring and try to hit up a couple of different towns. And Biarritz is one of the coolest places I've ever seen. It's not a, nothing Saint-Tropez. It's not a mini-Saint-Tropez, but since it's French, it just feels a little bit different and it's smaller. I mean, we're talking about a population of 25,000 people post French Revolution where apparently sea bathing was strictly for the mentally ill. I'm glad that rule changed. Napoleon III, his wife, built a hotel. Queen Victoria, King Edward VII used to go down there to party. So this is a place, Bioreitz, that's, it reminds me a bit of like if Greenwich were in France. Whatever you think of the Fairfield Coast, Fairfield County, I should say, the Gold Coast

in Connecticut, I mean, there's stretches of Greenwich that are just immaculate. So this is more old world than Greenwich is because it's been around longer. And the coastline of it is aggressive. I mean, again, the weather wasn't very good. So the beach was closed. There were signs up like you cannot swim. No one was in the water. The surf was nasty. You couldn't surf it even though there's a big surfing vibe there, much like San Sebastian. San Sebastian is really like a big time European surf destination, which we're going to do a little bit later because I was scouted out. But Bioreitz is just this beautiful like like elevated village. That's great to walk around.

You can walk the whole village, you know, you don't need a day. You just need a couple hours. There's a golf course up there. I think there's actually some tournament, which I would not check out, but it seems like a place where maybe I could find myself maybe turning around and checking out and staying up there for a couple days.

So really liked it, grabbed some food, was good. It was a big tourist day because it was Sunday. But again, with the weather maybe diminished a bit and the fact there was just no beach goers whatsoever. You were allowed to walk down on the beach even though the beach was closed. It was meant to be closed and not go in the water. And it would have been pretty nasty.

Like it was that rough, just waves smashing into all these rocks in this center next to this old hotel that looked like the foundation of it was, I don't know, a couple hundred years old. So the point is, is that I walked along the beach and was checking it out a little bit. And if you timed it wrong, and I did, you got the wrong swell, you could get trapped up against this concrete wall where it wasn't breaking. It was breaking like 50 yards shy of it. But then right, of course, as I went to walk down on the beach in this area, I caught a bigger swell and whatever, my feet got wet. It wasn't that big of a deal. But definitely a little dicey navigating that part of town. So yeah, if you're in that area, I would highly,

highly recommend it. So then on the way back down, turn around, the border thing was pretty easy. I figured there'd be a lot of traffic. I don't know if it's because it was a rainstorm. I don't know if it's because it was Sunday. up. Of course, single guy by himself who looks aggressive. I got flagged and they basically like, what are you doing? Like a rented a car, staying in San Sebastian. Where are you from? California. They're like, all right, whatever. On the way back, I don't remember going through any border thing. I don't know what that's about. I don't know if I could have missed it. I'd have to think at some point like I was going to have to check back in,

but I didn't. Maybe I shouldn't even admit this. Maybe there's a video of me going around right now. I checked it out. I checked out, you should say, Honduribia, which is a beautiful little harbor village, I'd say, port. Um, the surrounding areas, a little bit more industrial, certainly, I shouldn't say a little bit, a lot more industrial, you know, railroad, uh, shipping, but then as you work yourself across this deep, deep harbor, cause there's like two sides of this town. If the other part of it, I didn't want to go to it because it was more industrial, Honduribia is like a village. It was really slow on a Sunday,

but it was kind of cool because you just got to walk around, check out the boats. There were people out and about. A lot of the restaurants were closed, Sunday deal. I also saw something that I've never really seen before. I don't even know what you can call this, a Spanish thing, as much as we could call it just a frustrated parent thing. Um, a couple, two kids, two little girls, the youngest age one to two, maybe. And you know how they was steel grates around the base of a tree, whether it's a sidewalk in the States or like a walking pedestrian street, like you think of Boulder, Colorado or Colorado or Charlottesville or Burlington, Vermont, where there'll be trees lining kind of these walking paths, these pedestrian malls that were designed in some of these towns.

Well, this place had that, still does, I shouldn't say past tense. This place has that and it was weird because I guess you got to go, you got to go. And the mom just held her kid, like airlifted the kid over the base of the tree by the metal grate and just let her go. They don't see that a lot. So yeah, I don't wanna blame Basque country or the region of the people.

I just think that was a parent that was like, I'm over this. The cheesecake thing here is really cool. I guess somebody burnt the top of one, I guess on purpose. And so that's the Basque cheesecake where it has this burnt crust over the top of it. I will try it. I just didn't feel like doing a midday cheesecake.

Cheesecakes and investment, it's a decision that you have to make. And in the middle of the day, I'm just not gonna do that. Let's see. Uh, I found a place where, you know, I'm just scoping out menus. Cause the menu thing is complicated as we've already stated, but, uh, I rolled in, it was like, let me just get some sirloin here on, get some potatoes. I get a salad and I'll just eat as much as I can, right. I'll just eat as much as I can.

And that'll kind of be what I'm going to do." And so I was like, all right, I'll get the steak. And the guy's like, well, that's for two people. Like, here we go again. I was like, can I just get it? I was like, I'll just get it. And then whatever I don't eat, I will take away instead of saying to go, because that's what you say here. And he kind of looked at me like, all right, fine. And he's like, you still want the potatoes and everything. I was like, yeah, fine. No problem. The potatoes are fucking French fries. The salad is a disaster because every salad in Europe is a fucking disaster. And then the steak came out and it was terrific. Great T-bone, great piece of beef, but it was rare. And I know rare is cool. And as I've gotten older,

I've allowed myself to go more rare, but there's still a line of like, can you cook this thing? And it wasn't cooked. It was so, it was rarer than a hot male deadhead. Okay. And I just was like, whatever. I was, I'm just going to eat this. Five years ago, I wouldn't have been able to eat it. Five years ago, I would have said, Hey, take this back. You get to sear it, sear this a little bit more, huh? would have said, Hey, take this back. You get a sear, sear this a little bit more, huh? Brother, this thing's fucking cold on the inside. It was like Pittsburgh style. It's like, which to me is there's a point of like, I actually want the meat cooked a

little anyway. I ate it all. They kept the bone on the plate though, even though they cut it out for me. And then they left all the fat on the plate. And then the guy looked at the fat and bone and was like, take away. I'm like, to what? Like I have a dog with me, you know? But I didn't even think he was talking about a pet. I think he was like talking to me. He's like, you know what? Yeah, yeah, we're only gonna put that in a box. I want to be just maybe on the ride back down to San Sebastian in my rental car. I'll just

start gnawing on some fat or just, you know, start licking this bone. Like what kind of vibe am I giving off? But I don't, maybe he just didn't want to waste anything. So Honduribia, yeah, was cool. Also the home of Jose Maria Olathabal, professional golfer. Grew up on the golf course that opened up right when he was born.

I think the legend says to the day, that's probably bullshit. His grandfather was a greenskeeper, his father was a greenskeeper, and at two years old he had a short and club and started practicing on the golf course that is right there in town. So that's where he's from in case it ever comes up in a personal conversation. So made it back to San Sebastian and tried to work out today. Went over to this gym that I scoped out. It was closed

because everything's gonna be closed on Sunday. Worked down the hotel gym. They just didn't have enough. But this is a really nice hotel. Tomorrow we'll be about getting in the water, exploring Old Town a little bit more. And there's also this wine that I had when I checked into the hotel. It could have been because I hadn't slept in like 30 hours and hadn't tasted anything great in that amount of time. And he handed me this sparkling Basque wine where it's spelt in an entirely different way that it's pronounced, which I'm not gonna do with justice right now.

So anyway, the point is, I gotta tell you about that because it was incredible and I'm not even a huge wine guy, but that was true. I'm not afraid of a couple of Sauv's, Sauvy B, but you understand. So yeah, water and then maybe another exploration thing in the morning, but we'll see. Okay, part three, uh, chocolate is the wine that I had. And man, it was the greatest tasting thing ever when I rolled into the hotel. Usually, you know how when you go to some nice hotel and

they're like, Hey, do you want to apparel spritz? I'm like, no, dude, I want a water. I want to reset. But yeah, I downed that as soon as I got it. Okay. So I still did the rental car for the first half of the next day. And instead of just returning it, I worked my way south to Zamiya, which is known for its octopus and magnificent coastline. So I drove down through the highway area and then got off in the town and then drove north a few miles. And it reminds me a bit of the Northern side of Maui. Like if you're ever looking at houses on Zillow in Maui, this happened to me. Not that I was ever really gonna do it, but you know, a girl can dream.

And I was looking, I'm like, that place looks fucking awesome. 1.7 million? Like that doesn't make any sense. Look at the courtyard, What's the acreage? No HOA? That's 1.7 million? Like, let me see where it is.

Oh, it's on the north side, like the quiet area of Maui. That must be spectacular. And then you drive that road in northern Maui, which I've done now. And it is fucking horrifying. There may be taxi drivers who'd be like at night, if you went out on the populated side of Maui and they were like, okay, you know, had some drinks, had some food, midnight, can you give us a ride back to this house I found on Zillow with all this acreage and no HOAs to live in paradise?

Can you drive us back? And I imagine they're probably like, no. I mean, it's hairy to drive there during the day. Here, it wasn't even close to being as, like there's just moments when you do that drive. And those of you that have done it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. here it wasn't, it wasn't even close to being as, as like there's just moments when you do that drive. And those of you that have done it, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

And I had a massive SUV too. It was funny. Cause when I got to the airport in Maui, they were like, Oh, do you want to be upgraded? Cause I think it was like a slower time of the year. And I was like, yeah, who doesn't want an upgrade? And she was like, we have a brand new, it was the Grand Cherokee Wagoneer or something,

which is massive. It's almost like the size of an escalator, maybe even be bigger. It's the biggest thing I've ever seen from Jeep. And she was like, it's brand new. I'm like, yeah, of course I'll get that. And then once I'm driving that road and I'm like, this is a huge mistake.

You're just so afraid of any biker or some oncoming traffic and then you have to kind of stop and let the other person go before you go. So that's why those houses are way less expensive than you would think in a place like Maui, considering how beautiful those houses are, because if you had to do that drive regularly, you just wouldn't ever want to do it.

You'd never want, you would like want to leave the house like maybe once or twice a week. So anyway, Zamiya, hopefully I have that name right. Another just incredible little stop off the highway, 30 minutes south of San Sebastian. Really glad I did it. Checked it out. Checked out this incredible coast.

If you're a geologic guy, you know, geology, I guess a better way to say that. You're super into that. A lot of rock formations that are considered historic. And I guess the octopus thing is a really big deal. Then it's got a very Mediterranean feel, I think. Reminded me that some of the Mediterranean stops that I've made where it was this walking village.

I mean, granted, a lot of these places have been around such a long time. The roads are small and all this stuff is like within walking distance, but this had its own unique feel to it, especially as a smaller city that was absolutely gorgeous. So it was cool and worth checking out. So anyway, I got back, returned the rental car and we have some things to cover. There seems to be a real issue with me

ordering a ton of food. We've discussed it. It'll be recapped at dinner. I joined a gym. It was 51 euros for five days. Even if I don't use all five days, it's fine. But part of that $51 is they made me buy a towel. It's a rule at this gym. You have to have a towel. And so I didn't want to walk all the way back to the hotel. I was like, all right, just give me a towel. And she gave me a towel from the gift shop that had so much dust on it. I was like, I actually think this towel will do more damage. And for whatever reason, because I don't profusely sweat when I work out. No, if I do sweat, I would wipe it down, but this place is like, hey, this is the rule.

It'd be a great gym if they had a rule about BO. Oh my God, this place fucking smells. Don't know what that's about, but it was rough. There was also a guy lifting who I hated within 30 seconds. So it was tough to kind of navigate. It was really busy. This guy, full tripod setup for 158 reps of incline on the Smith Machine, which apparently is incredibly important footage for this guy. Yes, 158. He had one and a halfs on the outside. Smith's machine, incline, not a ton of reps. Wrist wraps, hold the water bottle,

tripod setting it up. So I started doing some shoulder stuff with dumbbells, looked over at him, he's setting up the tripod again. I wanted to knock it over. I wanted to knock it over, but I didn't because an adult shouldn't do something like that. He was repping out dumbbells, filming all that. Tripod was in the fucking way. I was trying to reach over to the somewhat dusty dumbbells, if you get it. And at one point he kind of like looked at me and then he moved the tripod and I just kind of looked at him being like, what the fuck? Jim's super busy, etiquette sucked. I wanted to do overhead presses and squat rack,

but I kind of knew, you probably shouldn't, it's busy. So a girl went over and kind of grabbed it for me, which happens a lot with the lunch seating here. If you see an empty table outside at a place that you want to eat, do not wait to check in. Do not check in with anyone. Walk right in front of whoever's waiting around and just sit down and take the table.

That's the way it's done. And I've lost that battle twice. I will not lose a third time. So yeah, of course, when that girl was on the squat rack, it was over. She might still be on it days later, never to be shared again. Although no one, speaking of Maui, will ever, ever break the record for the girl that was just doing full footage of 45 minutes of one rep deadlifts. Just one rep, seven minutes adjust the camera. One rep, seven minutes.

Guinness was like the category is forever closed. It can't be topped. But it was good to get a nice lift in, despite the vibe inside of there. And then, you know, just kind of kicking around town. A few things on the European restaurant business model. I'm never going to understand it. These places are open, what, 16 hours a day. And especially because it's Spain here, to be fair, they close probably a couple of times. They'll have one person staffed. The place can be packed.

person staffed, the place can be packed, the tables are never cleared after anybody leaves. The one waiter or waitress is completely overwhelmed all the time, but most people are just drinking and they're not eating. And then when you think about like maybe rents are just cheaper here or maybe the overhead is just cheaper, but to own one of these places, because there's a million of the places that are all the same, all doing the exact same thing. And a lot of it is mid as fuck. And you just think like, what did you guys do today? And be like, oh, we did 14 ham sandwiches and 17 beers and seven Chardonnays. Hopefully we'll be a little bit busier tomorrow.

I don't know if they have the same kind of like turnover rate that the States has of like just saying how many times restaurants fail, like what percentage of restaurants actually succeed past a certain amount of time. But I will forever not understand European restaurant business model. However, I found a basketball court right on the beach and had NBA insignia all over it. The court itself is huge. So I'm going, you know what? You love getting shots up. You've been a little hesitant post the calf tear, but why don't you go get some shots

up and kind of see how it all feels, you know? See if the jumper's still moist. So this is pretty funny. I found a Sporting Goods store, all soccer stuff. And I'm like, what are the chances? What are the chances? And again, a lot of guys here are not that big. I don't know if it's because of the pinchos.

But I walk in, I go, hey, do you have a basketball? And the guy was like, absolutely. And he points me to two that were the same, same ball, rubbers can be nine bucks a pop. And I was like, I don't care. I'm looking at it right now in the hotel room. It's called the Spyro multicolored. And so I was like, this is going to be awesome. I'm going to head out towards the beach. I'm going to play some hoops. Then I'm going to jump in the ocean, watch the sunset, read a book, and I'm really traveling.

I'm really doing it. And so I grabbed the ball and was so excited to go play hoops. I walked out of the store with it. I just walked out of the store and stole it, not intending to steal it. That's how excited I was about basketball. And as I left the store and stole it. Not intending to steal it, that's how excited I was about basketball. As I left the store, someone yelled,

don't worry, he's American, it's what they do. No one said that. I turned around, I went back in. No one even noticed what I had done. I paid the 9.9 euros. They even put a little air in it for me. I walked over, listened to Big Daddy Kane, aka Dark Gable. Big Daddy Kane holds up kids and got shots up for like an hour and a half, full raging sweat. There was a four on four game going on the other side. I think four and four

half courts, awful. A couple of guys were pretty good. One guy was like 6'8", dunked on dudes and left. I was not invited to play had I been invited, although in running shoes, would I have gone and played? Yes. Was I fine not being invited? Also, yes. Saw a Luca and Kyrie jersey going at it in there. Dudes were in their jerseys. Big time jersey representation out here. I shot around for a while, felt great, and then walked across the street. Oh, by the way, the ball at one point bounced over the fence on the street side and my ball rolled into the street and I thought, okay, it could be run over, somebody could steal it. That'll be the end of this. Maybe I'll go back to that place and spend nine bucks on another basketball tomorrow. Not the end of the world, not going to be upset and too good of a mood.

And a car stopped in traffic and an old man got out. I'm talking north of like 60. Although I shouldn't say he's that old now, right? And he walks over, waves to me, picks up the basketball and throws it back over the fence to me. It would have taken me five minutes to walk around the fence and go to the street if it were still going to be there because I don't think anyone was going to steal it anyway. And this guy was like, no, I'm just going to stop. He held up cars and threw me the basketball back. That guy is a hooper. I don't care. Clearly that guy hoops. Laurie has a million grandchildren, but he threw a ball back to a grown man. Got done with hoops, jumped in the water, watched the sunset. And again, European beaches late at night are the

best because everybody goes home. Update on the surfing culture. Surfing is an interesting thing for me. I basically admitted defeat. Surfing's a lot like when you suck at golf. You're like, why do I wanna do this again? Go do this thing for hours that I'm just not good at. Although when you suck at surfing,

it's a more of a pounding physically than the mental pounding of golf and having to get back into the car going, am I ever going to figure this game out? But in the beginning, I was okay. I couldn't really get the turn down. And then I went to Maui and I was like, oh wait, I've got it. I'm good. And then I came back to Manhattan Beach and I sucked again. And then it got worse. And then I was like, now I just paddle and my arms get really tired. And I'm kind of in the way. And if you get pummeled in your underwater, I don't care who you are. You're like, this isn't my favorite thing I've ever done.

Oh, nothing's really going to happen to you there. Right. It's not like you're in Portugal, but the first time I checked out the surfing here, it was all just tide related. I'm like, there's a hundred guys out there fighting over these little waves that close out pretty quickly. Like that looks disastrous, but as the night progressed and the tides changed, you could see they were some really nice workable, uh, I would

say right to lefts. Yeah. So got back to the hotel around 10 30 felt great late dinner, researched a place, super excited, says it closed at 11, made it over to old town, walked over to old town and, uh, I walk in it like, I don't know, I was there in 10 minutes, quick turnaround for this guy getting ready. Not a lot to worry about, a little bit of a

bireto, never hurt anybody. And so anyway, walk over, are you still open? He goes, no, we only have pinchos. It was like great. Like a slice of sourdough with tuna fish from a can on the top. All right. So I find another place, check the ratings, looks good, look at some of the food, looks okay. And I go, do you have any of that wine? I can't even remember how to pronounce it now since the

start of this. And he was like, yeah, no problem. I go, give me the filet, give me potatoes and give me the salad. So I was like, what's the salad? He goes, mixed green. I go, no problem. Perfect. Just want some greens. Brings out the salad, canned tuna fish all over the top of just a bed of lettuce, a tomato, a couple of olives and a stack of onions covered in olive oil. It was so fucking bad. The potato bravas, which is supposed to be this spicy potato thing. They have it at one of my favorite restaurants

in West Hartford, Connecticut. And this came out and it was like Jimmy Dean breakfast potatoes frozen deep fried. And I have a rule about end of night potato dishes. If you get end of night fries, even at the best restaurant, it's going to be terrible. I got end of night potatoes. They're basically just friolated home fries to go with a piece of steak that was supposed to be a fillet, but I could tell to the touch, it was microwaved and it wasn't grilled. The dinner was terrible. It was like a 4.8 on Trip Advisor. So I sat there being like, here we go again. And of course, there was two or three

American tables there. And they're, I think, drunk because they were just raving about it. They're like, Oh my God, the food is so good. The food is so good. The food is so good. And I'm like, this is, this is bad. So when the guy brought out the wine for me, he just left the bottle. I ordered a glass and I was like, fuck it.

Why not? And so I drank the bottle of wine, which I've never done before. I ate the steak, all of it. I ate a good chunk of the potatoes. I couldn't touch the salad. And the guy came over, barely spoke any English. And he was like, how was it?

I go, it was terrible. I go, but here's $20 for you because you're the only person working. And you've had to cover all of these tables. You're running around like crazy. He never did bring me my water, which I would have, could have used. And he was so thankful, but he was still so confused. And you've had to cover all of these tables and you're running around like crazy. He never did bring me my water, which I would have, could have used. And he was so thankful, but he was still so confused. It's like, why would this guy say like, yeah, this was all bad.

None of it was good, but thank you so much for how hard you worked. Cause he did, he was busting his ass. It's not his fault. They got a guy back there fucking microwave and filet mignon. So then the weird thing of like walking around Old Town after having a bottle of wine, it was like 1230, I was like, what are we going to do with this? I saw one place called The Hole, which looked pretty interesting. But I went, you know what? I'm out on this. But just

a final word on salads, I promise I'm not going to do this again. Would a crouton blow Europe's fucking mind? This may be my thing. If I get to a certain point of my financials being in place, like what if you just ordered, what if table, which makes the greatest meatball sandwich I've ever had in my entire life, North End, Boston, Hanover Street, it's the best meatball sandwich I've ever had in my life. What if that place is just like, Hey, we're going to make, granted they're so big,

Spain would be like, what are you doing? That sandwich, why is it so enormous? We're home of the three inchers. If a place like that opened in one of these touristy areas in Europe, would everyone freak out and be like, oh my God, look at all of this food and it tastes so amazing? If you took some butter lettuce, shaved some carrots, diced up some red pepper and threw on a few croutons with dressing that, I don't know, had stuff in it. I mean, Europe's had a massive head start on us. And why are there salads fucking terrible? All right. I've said this all before, but anyway, yeah, made it back to the hotel. I know you all make jokes. Um, it was not hung over because the wine buzz lasted like 20 minutes. It was very strange, like adult feeling buzz.

And then got up and worked out at the smelly gym again today. I'm going to get in the water. I'm going to read a book and then I'm going to plan my bullfighting adventure. We're in Madrid and been here, I don't know, 15 hours, 16 hours. So the plan was to take the train from San Sebastian to Madrid. You've got to look it up because there's some trains that make stops. I supposedly took the express, which was a little bit more. I also got a first class seat because it didn't make any sense. The first class ticket, I think it was like 112 and a regular ticket was 109 one way. So I'm going one way without really understanding. I'm not sure what my plan is the rest of the way, but I wanted to come here for the bullfights. So I'll get off the train 100 degrees Fahrenheit. We're going to use Fahrenheit.

Apologies to the world listeners. Um, and I, you know, Madrid is, is really impressive. It's both modern and historic all at the same time. It's really big, but since it's not on the coast, it's not the same overwhelming population, just everybody walk around. I mean, look, there's 3 million people that live here. There's 7 million people in the metro area, but it's not wall to wall people. I also realized, because originally it's a Thursday morning and I'm thinking, why is this so dead? Nothing is open. A couple of

restaurants that I checked out aren't open. None of the stores are open. I knew I wanted to go to the museum and then had the bullfight later, so I'm going to get a workout in because that's just what I do. I was Googling gyms and then I found one. I was like, okay, great. I walked over and it wasn't a gym. It was a gym equipment supplier. So gym equipment, but not for use. And it was closed. So I'm like, why is everything like, is this the best hangover city in Europe? Like they just, I, you know, I'm familiar with the concept of siesta and looking at some of the hours, even though most of the time it's not that big of a deal in the tourist areas, right? But the day hadn't even started yet. So like, what's going on? So I find a different gym,

kind of like a anytime fitness deal. I'm in this really nice stretch where again, Madrid is just immaculate. The people are immaculate. I would add the women are gorgeous. And I'm in this like shopping district, I think. And I didn't really pick it for any other reason than just logistically, it was closer to the train station

and also close to the bullfighting ring. So it just, I lucked out because I'm in this really nice stretch of Madrid and you can just tell by the stores and then kind of the apartments, a couple streets deeper, but it's the layout of it's gorgeous. There's like not a piece of garbage anywhere. So really impressed on that part of it too. And then I checked out the palace,

which is kind of a touristy little spot, but it was pretty easy to get to. Took a taxi up there, checked it out. I don't think the Royal family is actually staying there. There's some debate on that. You can look that one up. But yeah, I made it over to the gym again, checked in to one that I found that was actually open. I'm like, what is going on? Why is it so slow everywhere? And then he said he didn't know. And then he said to me as he was checking me in, he was like, oh, today's a holiday.

And I was like, what holiday is it? He was like, I don't know. I don't know. Not a history major. So he made me leave and grab a towel. So I had to jog back to the hotel, grab the towel, towel issue again, here we go. Go in there, get a quick workout in.

Again, if you're a big dude and you want a big dude energy life, I would move to this area of Spain or San Sebastian because there's just not that many big guys. You'd be, I mean, I'm not really big. I mean, big guys are huge. But if you're like a big guy who just like, that's what you want out of life

and you wanna be bigger than everybody else You have a much better chance here than say some of the cities in the United States like don't go to Texas Go to Madrid or San Sebastian. So work out in fine The train thing wasn't great got delayed Because of some traffic jam on some changeover. So a five hour train trip actually took seven hours. I forget if I said that already, but then I headed over to Prado, the museum, which is a world famous art museum.

And I'll admit some of these trips, you feel like you have to go to museums. And there was that hiking epiphany that I had in the New Zealand pod where I spent the day, I don't know if it was Christmas, New Zealand's Christmas or the state's Christmas, but it was one of the two. And yeah, I think it was because like the football game was on. So it must've been our Christmas.

And I hiked up this mountain and up and back, it took like six hours and it was hard. It wasn't easy. Now, if you listen to that pod, you also remember too, there, I think there was like a 60 year old Japanese woman who just like flew past me. So I was like, all right, dude, you know, pick it up here. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Enough orange breaks. Although you go on a deep hike straight up four hours and you have a nice orange to cut open. Those wedges hit different. So yeah, there are times when I'll go to a museum where I travel somewhere where I feel like I'm entitled to the wrong word. I'm required. Like it'd be the wrong thing to be this close to something and then not go. The point of this all is that within minutes

of being in Prado, it was incredible. I spent over four hours there. So I guess I loved it. So some works that I'll share with you. Yeah, I'm doing it. I don't care. Art guy now, St. John the Baptist by Antonio del Castillo Saavedra, 1640. There's different objects in these paintings

and you can see it kind of change. And I'm gonna spend a little time on this and just the timeline of how the paintings evolve, but different objects mean different things. A dog means something, a river means something, a snake is always bad news. You don't want those in there. And the saints are covered.

I had no idea. Apparently there are 10,000 recognized saints. That's a big number. I thought based on the pictures I've seen, you know, a few guys with better robes, bed dinners, I'm like, there's 10,000 of these guys. They just, you know, making anybody a saint, anybody can get a blue check now. So there's a lot I guess I've never heard of. I don't know a ton about any of this stuff, which the abundantly

apparent, as I explained more of it, but you know, Chad the saint, the patron saint of asking if you can sleep on your couch, doesn't exist. They also loved killing these saints. I tried to look up these numbers on, well, if there were 10,000, how many got killed? Because so many of the paintings are just up,

this is the saint, got wicked sick of him, constantly telling us what we should be doing. Let's just whip rocks at him or chop parts of his body off. Saint Paul, however, died in a fire. But yeah, I guess there's just thousands of lesser known saints that none of us will ever know. Like Saint Craig, who was cool, kept to himself, helped with firewood, not preachy, and they were like,

you know what, we're just gonna let this guy live. Again, I don't know really anything about religion. If you couldn't already figure that out, I'm very much a do you, hands-off guy when it comes to that stuff. But the point is, and this is a bit of the interpretation as I was reading all of the stuff along with the paintings. If you think about how fast news travels now, and then as soon as we get it within minutes, how that news is twisted. And I don't love where I'm at with my consumption of any of this. And the sports stuff isn't even important enough as compared to the other stuff that'll happen where you'll see a video and you think, is that real? Is it picking it up late?

Is there something that happened before? What's the motivation behind this video? It's unfortunate. I just think information is actually traveling so fast now that we don't really process the accuracy or we don't care or maybe it moves so fast. The good thing is because it moves so fast, it's replaced by something else, the inaccuracies don't matter as much anymore. The reason I'm even bringing any of this stuff up is that if you go back to say the 1500s, 1600s where a lot of these works are from. And you think about the subjects that they had

and the way information traveled, there was a very limited range of things to paint. Like you're going to do another shed by the meadow, right? And they weren't doing that back then. They're like, okay, saints, who did what? Who was there? Kill them. And the same stories that are told in these works, they're repeated over hundreds of years. And you can see how the talent of the painter, the evolution of his interpretation of this moment, but this is the stuff that becomes mythology at times. And the only way the information is even shared is through some of these works. And obviously stuff moved. You can't even compare the pace of it in comparison today.

So they didn't have a lot of topics. Jesus obviously was in like half of the paintings. Makes sense. Big deal. Less questions perhaps about it. But then obviously a lot of questions there at the end for him. He was a carpenter.

What's great though is I wanna run through some of my favorite pieces. Yeah, I'm doing it, I don't care. Whatever, you just skip this part. Miracles of the Dr. Saints Cosmos and Damien 1505, 1515. I'm gonna go with the museum's carbon dating. So we'll just defer to them on some of these. That was an interesting one.

Some guy was sick and they chopped off the leg of an Ethiopian and then put the leg on his body, which seems pretty ruthless. But the painting itself was like at that time period just very different than everything else. The devil obviously a big topic. Some of the paintings are horrifying. I cannot imagine looking at some of these paintings going back six, 700 years and seeing somebody,

there's one, The Devil's Thousands of Disguises. There's also The Gentleman with a Gold Chain, 1550 to 1560 by Tintoretto. And the reason this is interesting is that Rembrandt does Old Man with a Gold Chain in 1631. So Rembrandt stocked down. Have to ask. Velasquez, probably my second favorite artist, the triumph of Bacchus 1626-28, also learned about the death of Hercules, which I didn't know about. I guess he died from a poison shirt, which sort of sucks

because you think of Hercules and you're like, oh, you know, six dragons take him out. You're like, nope, bad laundry. And the peak, the guy who I just, I couldn't get enough of was Francisco Jose de Goya. Holy shit. I'm serious. Like you guys can laugh. This stuff, and I'm gonna encourage a few of you

to Google some of these paintings if you're actually interested in. It's hard to describe, and now we're moving into a later time period, but it's hard to describe because I guess you could look at the faces that he paints. You could say, well, this isn't as precise as other artists of his time, but it's not the precision of the actual technique of the painting. it's the fact that the faces are more revealing than anything you're going to see. If a kid is angry, you'll see it in the way he paints the face better than anybody else. There's this one painting where it's, the descriptions are hilarious because they're

so efficient, but it's a bunch of laborers outside and they're getting a kid drunk. So the kid is both kind of too young to be drunk and sheepishly happy, but knowing that he's kind of guilty and all of it is in his face. And the people around him realize they're doing something wrong, but they're laughing about it. And then there's like weather off to the side where somebody else is concerned about the weather or weather.

So all of these different things are playing out just in this one, just amazing work of art. He also has this series called The Black Paintings from 1819 to 1823. Apparently he was losing his mind. He had come close to dying, I guess, from a couple of life-threatening illnesses. If you read about it, and I did after the fact,

but I don't know if I'm making a book on the guy, he just started hating people. And he did these 14 black paintings which were originally murals on the walls of his house which were then hacked off and attached to canvas by the guy that owned the house after him. A couple of those two old men, exactly like it sounds, the dog, guess what? A painting of a dog. The one of Saturn devouring his son is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in person. And then men reading. Again, a very efficient

titler. If he did podcasts, I imagine it would be basketball from last night or maybe simply just man with words. So, all right, I'm going to stop naming paintings. Some of you guys are wondering who this dude is, a buddy's telling us, but you hear Rosillo Prado? He fucking broke it down. He's pretty locked in right now to the arts. Do you know he's read every turnout book? I'm going to say how many kids. There was also the horse head, which is, I think,

around the sixth century. So it was just right there. Like that's really old. I think around the sixth century. So it was just right there. Like that's really old. So I'll close with this. I did enjoy the museum. Was I moved? I don't know.

I just know that the black paintings, one of the coolest series of anything. And once you started reading about it after the fact, look, you could get educated today, I think is the lesson. I've attended a bullfight and to try to capture what this was like, I decided that I would just write a few thousand words on a train. So here we go. It was hot, 100 degrees and I was in a suit and I felt like death, but I know I'm not going to die. The bull doesn't know anything.

I seem to have had this idea that it'd be this glamorous thing so I wanted to be dressed up like the Royal Ascot. The suit had cost me a few grand and when I walked past it multiple times in the lobby of a hotel casino in Las Vegas that I was staying at, the suit was just hazing me, kept looking at me. I was like, you know what, I'm going to do something big for San Sebastian. I'm buying that fucking thing.

So I went up to my room, grabbed my credit card, came back down to the hotel lobby. I ran into Chris Paul. We chopped it up for 20 minutes, gave me a cell phone number, hugged it out. So I thought, you know what, this is all a sign. I have to buy this suit. I bought it.

I love it. Blue, sort of a linen mix. I can't pronounce the designer, so I either get ripped off or I'm gonna be ahead of everybody on this one. So I get to La Plaza de Toros de las Ventas in Madrid, maybe 15 minute ride from my hotel around 6.30 at night. I wanted to have time to find my tickets and get to my seat early so I could watch all the preparation like batting practice.

I don't know much about bullfighting except what I'd read. I don't know much about bullfighting except what I'd read. to find my tickets and get to my seat early so I could watch all the preparation like batting practice. I don't know much about bullfighting except what I'd read from Hemingway who described a sport that he was very passionate about in his book Death in the Afternoon. Knowing Hemingway loves bullfighting is probably one of the least surprising Hemingway facts you could ever find. I'd used a ticket broker online where I looked and I thought, or at least I believed when I used this ticket broker that it was within walking distance of the ring, I was at the ring, I asked their ticket office, Hey, where is this broker located?

She sent me in the wrong direction. So I went there. The guys checked me in, laughed, said, Hey, we don't have your tickets. Then I tried to explain where I'd bought them from and they started laughing again and said, it's on the other have your tickets. Then I tried to explain where I'd bought them from and they started laughing again and said, it's on the other side of town, but it was friendly laughter. I didn't feel like I was the object of ridicule,

just not being organized, which can happen when you're buying tickets to a bullfight in a foreign country where really not many people speak English. So I walked to the other side of town, which is fine. Cause I had time, which I didn't realize as I'm walking around the ring and through this part of town that's essentially there for this night, I expected a bigger crowd and it was dead. I think I was, I don't know if I was expecting SEC Saturday or a Red Sox Yankees matchup,

walking around Yockey Way or the Bronx, but the streets were oddly quiet. And then when I found the right ticket brokers office, it was down a side street and the office had the lights turned off. So I was like, maybe I just got scammed, but I walked in, it was open. The old man behind the counter said

they had physically mailed the tickets to an address on file, which didn't make any sense. So maybe they'll be waiting for me in California. He said he could get a ticket I was like, maybe I just got scammed, but I walked in, it was open. The old man behind the counter said they had physically mailed the tickets to an address on file, which didn't make any sense. So maybe they'll be waiting for me in California. He said he could print them out again though, just the one for me. When he looked at my seat, he did get excited

and told me that I was sitting in the King of Spain seats. But I guess the King was either in Mallorca or Nantucket this week. I obviously did not believe him when he said this to me. So I walked back to the stadium, surrounded by the retired janitors of Idaho, and started to sweat as I stood for an hour and tried to make sense of the men

and their female companions. Either these guys were really smooth or didn't care about what they weren't going to leave their kids. No one was dressed up. I asked the guy behind the gate, I'm like, when does this actually open? And he said, another hour. All my info was bad at this point. So I figured a beer would be better than looking

like James Bond on the set of Yellowstone. I walked across the street, grabbed a beer, $3. And it tasted so fucking good. I remember my first beer. I was farmed out by my dad to work for a bricklayer when I was 14. The guy had worked for my dad, so it wasn't that weird. I just hauled stuff like bricks and trap rock dust. Sand causes problems for brick walks. No one trusted me to actually place a brick. We got done for the day and the homeowner came out

with a few beers and you would have thought he was walking around with bottles of tits the way the guys ran to him. The homeowner handed me one and I held it and stood there. And then him realizing I wasn't even close to 21, the guy says to the foreman, wait, he's not 21. And the foreman smiled and said, he's okay. I took a sip and everything about my perception of grown men changed immediately.

How do you guys like this shit so much? 34 years later, the beer in Madrid went down much better. The bar inside of where I was hanging out had bullfights on all the TVs and the 34 years later, the beer in Madrid went down much better. The bar inside of where I was hanging out had bullfights on all the TVs and the crowd started to pick up and people were cheering the highlights as they ate their pinchos

and watched historic bullfights, maybe this week in bullfighting, their version of, I don't know, bullfight tonight. It was eight when they opened the gates. It wasn't that crowded. I saw everyone as they were heading to their seats, renting seat cushions as they scanned the tickets. And I figured at $1.50, it's probably worth the investment if everybody else is doing it. It's going to be an old seat in there. and it was, it was cement. Even though the guy who charged me just kept the extra 50 cents and just stared me down and said tip and I lost that alpha encounter. I didn't notice him demanding that of anyone else around me. I grabbed another

beer. The bartender asked small, medium, or large. I said, fuck it, give me the large. Especially after that first one across the street. A huge cup of beer, sat down front row right behind the guys that prepare the capes and sharpen the swords. They are the mozos de espada, which translates to sword boys, which is in itself incredible. They wear white shirts and red armbands. The younger ones have whiter shirts. They smoke cigarettes and look for women in the stands. Whether a bullpen or a bullfight, men always look for women. They're like the corner men of a fight, but they prep everything, wiping the capes and folding them a certain way, puncturing water bottles with scissors

with the cap still on so they could make the bottles easier to drink from or maybe clean blood faster. They sharpen the swords and make tourniquets. The fights start at nine, a small band plays and somewhat of importance in the seating area above everyone else, waves to start the night's festivities. Three teams, six bulls.

Each fight is four acts. It's generally everywhere else described as three. I don't quite understand that. So maybe that's maybe to make it sound more dramatic. So I really feel like there are four elements which I'll share with you now. The bull enters the ring completely confused that this is gonna start with torment and end in death. The bull, from what I'm told, does not interact with people at all.

So that just being in this atmosphere is going to set them off. A few guys that are all dressed like matadors, but they're in black, they're not wearing the fancy matador outfits, they run out with pink capes with some yellow highlights on them. And they try to get the bull riled up, but then they'll run to him in the ring and then they'll pass them off maybe to someone else. But if the bull charges straight at someone, remember this bull is fresh. It's right out of where it's been held to enter this ring in front of this crowd. And the first series of guys with capes will run behind the burlodero, which

is essentially this extended wall inside of the ring itself, but it's narrow enough where a man can get behind it quickly and the bull just has no chance. So the bull will slam into this wall or try to get at the angle where they think there's an opening, but there's just no way to actually get to them. If the bull slams into the burlodero, that's a sign of a good bull. A good bull is an angry bull. Hostility is preferred because the bull is more predictable. A hesitant bull is dangerous. The first group of guys have to position themselves in a way that they can get the bull's attention, but then sprint back to the burlodero to avoid being gored. Falling down during a treat means getting gored.

The second part, but for the sake of history accuracy, let's just call it the first act, he is the picador. They enter a ring on a horse, all right? And the horse is covered in leather and canvas, and the picador carries a pike pole and waits for the bull to charge at the horse, then spears the bull around the back of the shoulders. Imagine if a bull stood upright on its back legs and did shoulder shrugs and you could

stab the area of the shoulder shrug. That's where the Picador is aiming. The horse hates this, but at least he's not the bull. It's the first sign of blood. This is an even more important part in judging the bull because the matador can wave the second lancing if the bull doesn't seem to charge at the horse enough. If the second lancing is given to a less ferocious bull, the crowd will whistle in disapproval. I saw pissed off bulls getting stabbed and horses going, where was this in the training guide?

Cause this part sucks. The Picador leaves after the two strikes, then the Matador enters the ring more so to get his bearings before he has the ring to himself. He's joined by the Bandarilleros. Now I argue this part is the most entertaining of the entire bullfight. Um, these guys hold what are called two darts, but these are really these treble hooks that are extremely sharp at the end of these three foot long sticks. And this guy waits for the bull.

He doesn't have a cape. He just has these two sticks with the hooks at the end of them. And he waits to try to get an angle at the bull where the bull charged directly at him while the guy will attempt to stick the hooks into the same area that's already been lanced and stab the bull above the shoulders in a way that is so incredibly athletic and also scary as shit because you really have the one shot at it.

It's one thing to have the cape as the distraction. It's one thing to be on top of a horse, but these guys just go out there with just the sticks and have to figure out a way to time the charge perfectly and then get the sticks to stick in and by the way, stay in the back of the bull. If they miss or perhaps one of them falls out, a sword page behind the wall will then hand the banderillero another pair and they'll take another pass. After that's done three times, it's now the matador and the bull. The blood is visible in a way that most of us will never see blood.

Dark and almost looks thick on the back of a black bull. You don't notice it right away until it hits the light and it just feels like a faucet that hasn't been turned off. The matador, the outfits. I can't imagine a matador at last call. If I ever see a matador talking to a girl that I'm interested in, I'm just going to leave. They wear these tight, bright outfits, pink, yellow, greens, and gold with this vest that covers up a hard plastic protective brace essentially that covers up the torso. The matador uses a red cape, red so that the bloodstains can't be seen

with a piece of wood behind it to keep it straight at the top called muletta. And then that, by keeping it straight at the top, hides the sword behind the cape. And this is all done with one hand. If an F1 driver failed his driver's exam, I imagine they'd become matadors. It's easy to forget how dangerous this is

because of the ease of movement. I kept trying to figure it out out thinking, are they just making sure they're never behind the cape? Yes, but probably a little more complicated than that. They will try to get the bull to charge down at the ground or remove the cape to avoid it getting trampled. And they can run through this move three or four successive turns that all happen within seconds.

Once the matador is in control, the bull still pissed off, but noticeably tired. You look for the tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth. They can't close their mouths anymore. They're that exhausted. They've been stabbed eight times and like the hands on the knees of a basketball player at the free throw line, likely not bleeding. Um, you can tell the bull is struggling. The matador, once he notices this, that he's in now control. likely not bleeding, you can tell the bull is struggling.

The Matador, once he notices this, that he's in now control and perhaps no longer in danger, which seems like there's never a zero level of danger when you're in a bull ring, he'll walk away, he'll turn us back to the bull, he'll whip his sword into the dirt before bringing it up over his head and then waits for the crowd to acknowledge him. There is nothing more confident, flamboyant than the movement of a matador. They wait for approval.

And this ego adrenaline-fueled dance is a massive part of how a matador will be judged. It's not footwork in the way we think about footwork most athletes. They lock out their front leg and preen over the passing bowl, trying to stay as close to it as possible, their arms and hips. Every movement is both rigid and fluid at the same time. It's elegant and arrogant. You can sit there and watch after a few aguilas and think, is it this hard? But that's the art. The art is making this extremely dangerous exchange seem so simple. And I think part of it is also the matador knows the animal as well as he knows any subject. It's a 1500 pound bull, and they can't figure out why they can't hit the guy. It's like asking a linebacker what happened after a Barry Sanders run. And after 20 minutes, it's enough. 20 minutes of torture, the matador steps away. He'll actually sometimes, depending on the level of arrogance of the matador or how in control he feels he is or

how fearless he is, but I imagine he's always fearless. He'll step away to the wall, turning his back completely away from the bull as the bull just stands there, bleeding. In this bull ring, the sand now starting to become blood stained. One matador even grabbed a drink and looked up at the crowd, which seems a little disrespectful. At this moment, he'll change out his sword for a curved one, and it's Spada de Marta Toros. You'll have to forgive me on some of these translations. I think one means crutch in another language. The crowd knows it's over at this point. And once you know it's over, you're not supposed to talk. Out of respect for the upcoming death. Everyone gets quiet. And if you do talk, they're gonna get pissed at you. Matador re-engages the bull,

invites it in for one last charge, and will hopefully time his move so that as he's dodged the bull, he can strike his blade into the top of the bull through the heart and kill him instantly. Here's the thing, on the first bull that I watched, that's exactly what happened. It's just over, and now the bull is on his side, dead.

A direct shot through the back. However, a later bull, it took eight fucking tries. And on one of the tries, the Matador actually got bumped pretty good on one pass and he had a change to another sword called the Descabeo, which is a heavier blade with a small cross at the end to cause more damage. Because at that point, it's like, hey, enough. I guess this is probably pretty embarrassing when you have to go to that sword for the Matador. The strike kills the bull instantly, but it's not, I guess, is honorable. And you can tell the crowd just enjoys it less because it's awful. At this point, you're rooting for the bull after a few passes. But as we all know, the bull never wins. Once it's

dead, it's on its side. Three horses come out and a guy where the horses are hooked up to each other kind of walks him out. He hooks up chains to the bull, hooks it back up to this towing device that the horses are hooked up to, and the horse drags the bull across the bull ring as blood stains the sand, and the groundskeepers rake the blood for the next fight,

like in between innings of a baseball game. It wasn't like I felt like I learned anything or felt some connection to a time when observers maybe wouldn't question it. I'm glad I went. It was an experience. I'd probably never go again. And later on when I would tell guys in my travels that I went to the bullfight, there

were some that defended the culture and there was a lot that were like, nobody goes to that. So I did some research. the culture and there was a lot that were like, nobody goes to that. So I did some research. The area that I was in, the arena holds 23,000 people. I'd be shocked if there were 5,000 people in there. And it's once a week on Thursdays during the season. I read somewhere that only 2% of locals go to bullfights in the eight countries where it's still legal. When I was in Barcelona last year and asked about it and they said,

well, look, it's been banned here. The last fight was in 2011. So it's an incredibly unpopular sport amongst locals. I felt a lot of different things after it. I felt the excitement. I felt the tradition. I felt envious of different things after it. I felt the excitement. I felt the tradition. I felt envious of the Matador the same way. I'm incredibly envious of watching college football players come out of the tunnel. The thing I'm most envious of are UFC fighters,

taking that walk to the octagon, walk out music, all the attention is on them to test themselves against someone else. But I also felt repulsed and I don't know that I'm surprised about any of those feelings after seeing it. Okay, we have left Madrid and we're in Pamplona and spent the night here. This was a train decision, mapping out the trains. I knew I wanted to go back to San Sebastian when I left. I was not done with that place and that was the goal to get back to the water eventually. Anyway, I debated going to Toledo for a day. It is kind of funny how I'll do some of these trips. I'll be like, ah, I'll just do that next time. Like I'm just going to go all of these places next time.

I'd imagine at some point I'm in Spain again, although this is back to back summers for your boy in Spain. Um, probably not on the radar for next year, but, uh, yeah, it was a train decision. Any train to San Sebastian was either the first thing in the morning that was the direct or then there was the maze of other options, which weren't great. Or there was like the last one at night, which means I blow the entire day and you know, then

I'm getting, I'm getting to Pamplona in the middle of the night and I don't want to do that. So a couple of quick facts here. Actually, I have a couple more things on the train. So did another first-class ticket because I think it was $9 more. It doesn't make any, I can't figure out what the pricing model is on any of this stuff.

The trains are immaculate. They're great service. There's people there waiting on you. You could pump yourself full of drinks the entire time. The air conditioning works, bathrooms are super clean. The bar area is like fun. You can kind of go up there and hang out. Although I didn't want to do that, but they're very strict on the assigned seats on your ticket.

So it's not just like, hey, you're in economy or you're in first class or you're in, when I was in Switzerland, they were really strict about the first class thing. Some other countries aren't, especially if it's not busy. And so the car that I was in, maybe it seats 20, 30 people and there was less than 10 people leaving in there. So I looked at my assigned seat and it was 1A, but it was one of those weird deals where it was a single seat table facing 1B facing back at you. And there was a woman already in there, her shit was all over the table, her feet were up on the chair in the seat that I was supposed to sit in. And I'm looking around like this thing's empty anyway, who cares? So I sit in, I don't know, six a huge mistake.

They don't like that. So the guy comes over and he like looks at my ticket. It's like, Oh, I think I heard an unacceptable in there at some point. But again, barely anyone speaks English here. I just try to power just bulldoze through like I'm clearing the top icy layer and gold dust. Gold dust, gay wrestler or gold rush, gold show. That was weird. So yeah, I was like, I don't, I don't know her. I don't want to sit there. All her shit's there. And he was like, oh, he's freaking out. He gave in.

He let me sit there. I don't think it was a crazy request. If it were packed, if I were in someone's seat, you know me, I get up, I adapt, start talking to her. Who knows? Do you think the Nuggets' previous financial decisions have led to today's lack of depth issues? Sangria? Who knows? decisions have led to today's lack of depth issues.

Sangria, who knows? Could have been my fucking wife, Butterfly Fleck. In fact, do you ever see that? Ashton Kutcher, he's an investor. So yeah, so that's why I went to Pamplona because I just felt like, okay, a few hours here, got delayed again. 200,000 people here. You know, running the bulls, I missed it by two weeks. I'll get to that.

Human history. Well, the reason I wrote this down, history tells us, is the better way to phrase this, that there are human parts that date back to 75 years ago. They had a war that lasted over a hundred years. The Civil War, wars lasted a long time back in the day. Imagine, like, do you want to do this? I don't know.

What year is it? 1283. This might go to like 1412. Although I start to wonder too, like, there had to be some days off in there, right? Months, years? Could the war be described as just two areas that didn't like each other a ton? And maybe somebody gets pushed in front of the town's well. I don't know. That's just a long time, you know, diplomacy. So there was an entire borough of Pamplona that was wiped out and they have these

walls everywhere. So you can actually just walk to these walls that date back, I think to like the 1500s when they started building them up and you're walking through like what was a moat at some point. So if you're a moat enthusiast, I would suggest access to moats in Pamplona unrivaled. There was also a bike race going on, which was weird because it was like official and there was bikers everywhere. It looked like a bitch of an ending because it was through the castle, past the moat and then like a care pin switchback deal right back up to the finishing area where of course there was drinks, food and festive attitudes.

I was walking the streets. All right. San Sebastian is very impressive, but it's kind of a village vibe to it. I will put, nothing will ever, ever top the night in Cairns where I couldn't believe how hot the women were in the section that I was walking past. All right. I know I'm not a fucking nerd, but it was like, this is ridiculous. And I laughed out loud. That's how ridiculous it was. There was, I don't know how mere mortals would have been able to do it. And I consider myself immortal. And you also don't speak the

language and you're there for like a day going, you guys hitting up the farmer's market tomorrow? Farmer's market in Kansas. Terrific by the way. Um, Madrid is just like, you know how video games back in the day, the levels just get impossible. Like let's use Tetris where you think you have a

plan and you're kind of like, Oh, I'm going to move this over here. Now I'm going to slide this over here. And now I'm over there. Yeah, I'll speed this up and bring you down there. Oh, what's coming up? What's on the docket? Straight guy, square. I need a straight guy. I need a long straight guy. Boom. Got it. Madrid just starts you on the most ridiculous level where your head, you're like, what's going on? And it's just, I think the women care about the way they look that I've only seen matched in parts of Quebec. So there you go. That's something that interests you. We want to give you the full scope of all this stuff. So the reason I even bring that up as a reference point is that Pamplona was very different. I think this is like the Portland of Spain, aggressive. A lot of decorations,

not unattractive, but a different vibe. I think if you bring a woman from Madrid back to Chatham for a weekend, your family's like, oh my God, things must be going really well. If you brought a woman from Pemblona to Nosset, you know, your dad may pull you aside in the garage and go, what the fuck are we doing here? And again, that's just my observation. I don't know. I was there a day. I'm not an anthropologist. So the other thing that happens, you know, these small little streets, Pemblona had these different parts to it. Not really, but let me explain. When I went to the castle after the bike race and

like looped it around, I'm like, this town's just dead tonight, you know, it's, it should be a pretty busy night. This touristy spot, although not peak tourism with the bull running already in the distance, but it was like dead over on one side. And I don't know if it's cause it's younger because there's colleges there, but there just wasn't a ton of activity. And then once I hit like the old oldest part of the town. The bars were busy, not out of control. Restaurants are fine, but people just grab

drinks and they sit in the streets. They just sit and they chat and obviously they smoke and everybody's got tattoos and they're just chilling and it's like a younger, um, like really vibrant thing, but it's, it's rough around the edges, but in a good way. It's, it's not, it's not like, Oh, but in a good way, it's, it's not, it's not like, Oh, you know, I don't want to hang out here.

I mean, it's, it's totally safe. So I was in the older part through my first few laps around the town. And then as soon as you cross the street by their bull ring, which is where all the bulls run into, uh, after the running of the bulls. There's this very defined line of now it's the newer part of town and there's the fancy restaurants and there's office buildings. It's just very, very distinct, you know, the saying of like the other side of the tracks. But it wasn't bad. It was just extremely different from say medieval age streets. So we've got the race. We've got the observations. Would I do the running of the bulls? Now, probably not. I'm sure there's a time where I definitely do it.

I mean, look, I know myself, I definitely would have done it at some point, or I would have said the night before, I'm fucking doing it, man, yeah. And then slept in. But I think the problem with doing it is because I've broken down film. I have, I've studied the film, I've put in the hours, I've watched the tape. I'm pretty sure you could do the running of the bulls,

but kind of not really run with the bulls. That's what I've seen. But then, like, you don want to be that guy, right? Hey, I ran with the Bulls, you know, check out my bandana. It was awesome. And then, you know, your buddy's like, dude, they ran, you ran like after them slow and never came close to them the entire time. Like get out in front and then slow down and hit them with a roll of newspaper. And let's see, let's see what you're made of. Cause I think that's my problem is that if I was going to do it, I'd be like, all right, well, I

at least have to touch a bull, you know, like the black feet. Where sometimes they wouldn't even shoot an arrow. They would touch the enemy. And then that was that raised their standing as a warrior. Also seems pretty stupid, but look, I didn't make the rules, but I know that I would be that guy because I wouldn't want to be somebody that like say, wins a gold medal on a basketball team and doesn't play the Tatum of the Bulls, right? Like, do you brag about it that night?

I mean, I'm sure there's plenty, there's thousands of guys over the years that have been like, yeah, I ran, you know, pretty sideways there at one point, dodged it, gored the guy next to me, Steve. But I just wouldn't wanna be somebody that did it and then didn't really do it and then tells like his kids, you know, your family reunions going, Hey, Ryan, tell them

when you ran with the bulls. I couldn't do that. I couldn't lie to the cousins, especially the young ones. So like a lot of the cities, two different parts already covered that. I researched this restaurant, Michelin star restaurant went solo, wasn't dressed great. That's on me. Hand up, mesh shorts, not a mesh shirt. I wish I had a measure, a hat, t-shirt, and they didn't let me in.

All they did, they just act, their defense was they act in place was plenty of room, sit at the bar and eat, researched it, trying to do right for the foodies. They get pissed at me for not making these food expeditions every summer. Um, but I actually, I thought it was brilliant. Instead of just saying, no fuck off.

You can't eat here. I guess they didn't see the watch. Um, they were just like, they just acted really confused, like I was asking for my laundry or something and all of it, not in English, just super good. They just basically, they just acted really confused. Like I was asking for my laundry or something and all of it, not in English, just super. They just basically acted confused to the point where eventually he'll give up.

And I did give up. So then I walked down the street to an Italian place called La Mafia, which was an Italian mafia themed restaurant. Uh, I knew it wouldn't be great and it did not disappoint after dinner. I knew it wouldn't be great and it did not disappoint. After dinner, I heard some live music at this outdoor festival that was right next to the bullring

and it was good. Like, you know how when you run, I miss fairs, man. I do. I drove by something the other day and I was like, is there a fair going on? Can I get that on the schedule? I just wanna go to a fucking fair and get ripped off and maybe hear about a potential fight that's

going down later that night. I don't know. But I saw this thing and I went, okay, live music looks like they have kind of a island bar set up temporary. I go, all right, the dinner thing's a disaster. You basically were told you're dressed like Nick Lachey 20 years ago, so you're not allowed in. And so I just went into the festival, you know, I was like, let me, let me see what's going on here. So 10 piece band.

The other thing was happening is women of the same age, not like a grandmother with the, with her daughter and the whole family's there, like two 45 year old women, just arm in arm. Like if Fred Astaire were cloned, I'm not saying they were at that level of dancing. Come on, Fred, F-A, no way. But I find that different.

Like if my mom, when I was younger, let's say if she were 40 and I'm a teenager, And I'm a teenager, is her dancing with her 40 year old friend like arm and arm weird in America? Potentially, but not there. So why should I be weirded out? And here's where I kind of save the night at least from a culinary standpoint. They had these fresh oysters and they had this incredibly like sweet seasoned sausage, which I normally wouldn't eat. And they had this awesome just light beer on tap. And I was like, look, you just went to a place called La Mafia, grab a few oysters, a few bites of this sausage, and of course, so much bread, so much fucking bread.

I'm surprised Spain isn't called pain. Dude, I've been to both places. I think Spain eats more bread than France. Don't quote me on that. I don't know what the numbers are. There's probably something that says it's not even close, but if bring the pain was the national anthem, I wouldn't be surprised. So anyway, 10 piece band, they're banging it out.

Guys are a little confused solo dude, just sitting off to the side, taking it all in. Uh, a few older guys, one guy bumped into me, but like in a playful way. And he was old and he was hammered, but I'm pretty peaceful actually. And so I was like, what is this guy doing? And then he put his arms on my shoulders and he called me ombre three times. And then we hugged, we kissed a little, but you know, so, but, you know.

So, let's see. Oh, the night ended, the band broke into Achey Breaky Heart, but in Spanish. I was excited about the chorus. Cause as soon as you hear the first notes of Achey Breaky Heart, you're like, okay, this is Achey Breaky Heart. There's no confusion. Right? It's

you know, you want to talk about songs that you can identify as quick as possible. There's probably a couple rush songs. I say overture pretty quickly. I'm like, okay, I know what this is. Um, but when you're a good breaky heart, you're like this, but they were singing in Spanish, so I couldn't wait. And I'm, I've just like syllables be damned.

They found a way to pull it off. I went back to the hotel. I did take a peek down the medieval streets. It was picking up, but I got to go back to the beach, man. So I got a ride book tomorrow, back to San Sebastian. We're gonna get some Ryan time in. Okay. Let's put a bow on this thing. Um, I headed back to San Sebastian.

I took a taxi from Pamplona. It was, um, it wasn't great. I spent a lot of money on taxis once I finally go back to, uh, the airport. Um, but I'm in Bilbao now, which is where I'm leaving the airport, and I'm going to be in San Sebastian for a while. I'm going to be in San Sebastian for a while. I'm going to be in San Sebastian for a while. I'm going to be in San Sebastian for a while. I'm going to be in San Sebastian for a while. I'm going Bilbao now, which is where I'm leaving tomorrow. And I can do a little on Bilbao if you want.

But I, I feel like I'm just going to kind of wrap the whole thing up here. I want to go back to San Sebastian and just chill out. I wanted to go and then not thinking about the next part. Like I was like, I'm just going to stay here until I'm actually leaving. I don't want to stay in Bilbao. I did kind of want to go back to Bioread. chill out. I wanted to go and then not thinking about the next part. Like I was like, I'm just going to stay here until I'm actually leaving. I don't want to stay in Bilbao. I did kind of want to go back to Bioreets, but I was like, you know, you're just going to have to rent another fucking car or pay for a taxi to go stay in some other

place that's right in the water when you can just stay here, go back to the same hotel, told the guys about my adventures. The luggage guys love me. Pool boys, bartenders and luggage guys, highest approval rating for me anywhere, but I think it's just because I tip. Um, I don't know. I don't know what it is.

Uh, let's see here. What are we talking about? I have some thoughts on the nude beach, which I think I'm going to wait on. Um, but it was great once I got back to San Sebastian, it was kind of funny. It was like going home after a vacation. beach, which I think I'm going to wait on. Um, but it was great once I got back to San Sebastian, it was kind of funny. It was like going home after a vacation where

you're like, oh, I'm settled. I kind of know how everything works because even if you're just so fired up, when you get off the plane and you get to your hotel and you check in and there's a sensory overload or the guilt of feeling like you constantly have to be like doing something or making the most of the experience because for a lot of these things,

the once in a lifetime experience. But it was, it was cool to just be able to kind of go back and then go, I'm just staying here. I'm going to be a member of the community here. So a lot of basketball, uh, which I loved. I got in the water a bunch of times, still suck at surfing. Uh, there was a music festival continuing, the Jazz Fest. And one night after Hoops, I brought

my bag and some water, luggage, not weed, not a weed guy. And I bought my Civil War book, Eric Larsen's new one. And I'm like, I'm just going to post Hoops, jump back into the water, because it was literally like my favorite thing ever. Get shots up, walk across the street, jump in the ocean, read a civil war book and watch the sunset and the sun, like there's still a little bit of light north of 10 PM. So the music starts on the beach, maybe seven or eight. And I'm in one of those modes where I go, I don't care what I do. I don't care if I do anything. I don't care if I do something,

I'm just so happy and content right now in this moment, Sanctupe memories of just be present, just fucking sit here and enjoy where you are and stop thinking about what the next thing has to be for the clever observation, right? So as I'm sitting there, the North Mississippi All-Stars take the stage and I can see them off to the side. I'm not in a beach chair where I'm right in front of them, but you can hear it, sound, the way it travels. Bang, right there. And the sun is setting. I'm reading the Civil War book and then they go into an Allman Brothers cover. And I was like, this is so much too, but this is like too much

Rosillo. I can't, I'm, I'm Rosillo and it's too much even for me. So it was, it was a lot. It was like back to the future when Marty runs into himself in the second one. Luckily they just pass out and the world doesn't explode, but it was awesome. It was one of those cool moments where you're like, this is a good life. So had some beers, whatever the festival beer was, was not good. It was fucking terrible.

Checked it around there for a couple more days. Did have one great food experience, but I'm telling you on the San Sebastian food thing, you have to be like willing to leave the town. Cause a lot of these restaurants that you're reading about, I even saw this Instagram post about someplace where they made you like fill out what your vibe was. And then there was no menu and they just brought it.

That doesn't work for me. My vibe is hungry. My vibe is I'd like a lot of food. My vibe is I'd like some protein. And I'd also like it to be fresh and texturally appealing. But I don't have to fucking fill that out with a pencil. Apparently, I guess there was

this one restaurant and then in the video that I saw on Instagram, which again, Instagram just knew I was there, so it was like, give me a heads up on this. Some guy, the meal was so bad, he was refusing to pay his bill and the police showed up for it. And whoever the influencer was, this woman that did the video, she did an awesome job. Cause like, I think we'd all agree that 90% of that stuff is fucking garbage content. Her whole thing of explaining how absurd this restaurant was and this drama at the dinner service was really well done.

So, um, get to Bill Bowel. That was another expensive taxi. Um, got a quick workout in, found a restaurant right behind my hotel. It was packed. I thought this is great, right in this pedestrian street. I can see the spots a little nicer bill bows. Terrific. By the way, the way it's kind of cut in alongside this beautiful river that just wraps itself around

the city in the Guggenheim. So I'm like, I nailed this. This place is packed. Terrific. So I ordered two meals, don't care. And I did not nail it. There is a difference and I've said this before, there's a difference between cooked hot and microwave hot. And I ordered a chicken lasagna. And then I also ordered this other dish and I went over two on both of them. I got the bill. The bill was half of what I expected to be

because the time I was eating was the early bird version of this. I guess they have it here in Bilbao, not just phase six and the bill was two for one. So I was like, wait, look around. It's all old people. It's packed because it's two for one right now. So fucked up another reading experience. I'm sorry. And I know some of you guys get really upset about this. I don't want to read what is it? Cotting Nast? And I don't want to go like, okay, and then Thursday, we're going to Amadeus Grill and Bar.

I don't, you know, win some, you lose some. And because I'm down the street from the Guggenheim, I figure, okay, I'm gonna do this. Let me check it out. And this is where the museum conversation comes back up. I went to the Guggenheim, they had like five or six different things. There's a Japanese guy, cool little cartoons,

a lot of pictures where it's just like a little kid and they're kind of cool, they're well done. Obviously the guy's great. After seven or eight where it was just like no bombs and I'm not pro bomb, I'm just telling you. It was like, okay, I got it. There's these steel structures that are just balanced to hold themselves in place.

The guy's really famous and he has works all over the world outside of big corporate buildings. This guy's hired to figure out how to do this stuff. And so his display was there. I forgot to write down the name. I think all pop art stuff, which this Guggenheim has is garbage. If you like it, that's great.

Um, does nothing for me. I've never liked it. And it's not, you can't just label it as modern art, this sort of retro pop art shit that I see that's super popular. It's not for me. Although the dead Pinocchio exhibit did get a reaction out of me.

It was set up perfectly, walking up kind of this ramp, maybe the second floor, I forget. And I knew it was some of the poppier stuff. And I was like, oh, just peek your head in. You don't have to read every single description of this place. This isn't your boy, Dekoya. So I turn the corner and there's this little pool at your feet of pool water. And there's a Pinocchio doll,

say three to four feet long though, face down, presumably dead. I liked it. I took a picture of it. They let you take pictures in there by the way. And I don't know, I think maybe it was the lead up and not expecting it. And then of course there was this explanation of it after which made it worse, knowing less about it and just getting a reaction

in sort of a natural moment of dead Pinocchio face down in the water. You're going, okay, didn't expect that. And then after there was some really, you know, trying to make the simple things more complicated where it was like the artist here is expressing in the moment how he feels like Pinocchio is not a real boy, that he's not a real artist. I was like, okay, fuck off. This is stupid. Walked through Bilbao, you know, at this point,

I'll just, I'll tell you, I'm spoiled. I've seen so many of these cities now. Like, all right, this is really nice, it's cool. There's a guy doing some Nirvana cover that wasn't great, just hanging out on the street, getting the hours in, Malcolm Gladwell style. There was a Stradivarius set up. So I go, you know what?

I love some cello. Let me just go in there and see what, what it's like. It was a makeup store. So that was a little disappointing. So let's, let's gamins, let's diamond notes this motherfucker and close it out. gamins, let's diamond notes this motherfucker and close it out. Um, gamins, of course, one time when Derek Barton

was traded from Mark Mulder, call them a more patient Albert Pujols. Nude beaches. So San Sebastian's real naked. And for any American, I think it always kind of throws you off a little bit as traveled as you may be. Um, I've explained my origin story with nude beaches, going back to Martha's Vineyard where I don't

know what the deal is now. I don't hang out there a ton, but back when I was visiting and then moved there, I'd say around college years, there were certain sections that were nude. As a kid, you were kind of freaked out. Like as a younger kid, you're just like, oh, honestly, I don't even think anybody should have brought us there.

But that's another debate in itself. And we were in the hot area. Or we were in the hot zone. It was more like here's safe. Go 500 yards that way. You're gonna see some dicks. Yeah. So I didn't know and I just started wandering. I was like, oh the surf's a little better over there. And then it was like, okay. So then whenever I would go there was it was a non supervised visit. Um, and it, it would just, let's just put it this way.

It's a bit like cheesecake. By the way, the best cheesecake research. Um, like you can think you're going to want a ton of it and you're not. So even if you're the horniest, weirdest fucking guy, right? Cause they do have the internet. If you have to see boobs that bad, um, it's not, it's not really like, you know, guys are like, oh, you go to the nude beaches in Mykonos. It's not really like, you know, guys are like, oh, you go to the nude beaches in Mykonos?

Like, yeah. Like I saw mom and the grandma playing with their kids. Like, you know, and I read my dream team book, you know, that's exactly what happened. So I go away from, I try to find any spot that's quiet away from all the riff raff, just sort of on my own little deal. And I sit down and I don't know what happened. And it wasn't me. All right. I'm not a kid anymore. spot that's quiet away from all the riff raff, just sort of on my own little deal.

And I sit down and I don't know what happened. And it wasn't me. All right. I'm not egoing out on you guys. I would say like between eight to 10 women aged like 25 to 35, all took their clothes off and then just posted up. And I was surrounded by it. I went from having no one near me to just then surrounded. And they're not even thinking about it.

I, as an observer of our times, I can't help but like, okay, you know, lock in, lock into Eric Larson here. And I did. I also have PACS, my Roman Empire book that I'm working on. So I'm just banging out the pages. And the only thing I would have thought was really funny would have been if I had a friend who came back, like was in the water for a couple of hours

surfing and then he had left and no one was around me. And then he came back and was like, what the fuck just happened? Now granted, like every surfer, every cool surfer, and there were some really great surfers here that came out of the water, like immediately darted up to all of the girls that were camped out around me. I talked to zero of them.

There's no way to even start the conversation, whatever. Um, however, there was this one guy who just said fuck it and set his chair up right next to the shower, the outdoor shower, where if you want the salty brine off of you, some prefer to have it linger a bit, but you don't want to sleep in that stuff. Fuck up your sheets, where you just have like salt residue in the sheets and eventually, you know, despite the medicinal benefits of the salt water, which I thoroughly believe in, you're going to shower at some point.

So most people like to shower, um, right away, right? Hose off a little bit, wet suits, whole deal. But this guy, the older Spanish guy, he just grabbed his fucking beach chair, plopped it right down about 10 feet from the showers. And he just sat there and watched women shower the entire time. And you're like, okay, that's what this guy does. There's a potential defense that the angle of the sun,

he was trying to optimize it by turning his chair perpendicular away from where everybody else was turned. But I don't know, I don't know if it would hold up in court. So 0 for 3, let's do some stats here to close it out. Over three on Michelin star restaurants. One of my friends sent me an article saying that San Sebastian is now considered the number one food destination in the world. Boy, are people gonna be disappointed

when they listen to this one. A question on museums. You don't have to go to all of them. You don't. Although I am researching to go at prices right now. Not likely, not going to happen. Um, let's see. Final thought.

If I had a travel show, maybe I'd name it, Could I Live Here? Remember when I pitched that other one about like, you get divorced and they immediately send you to like the south of France, just see what happens. Like four strangers who've all been kicked out of the house in their 40s, a little bit of coin that they still control until a court ruling. We drop them off as chanter pay. They're emotionally shattered. out of the house in their forties, a little bit of coin that they still control until a court ruling. We drop them off as chanterpay. They're emotionally shattered or emotionally released. Don't steal that

or just hit me up. We can figure it out if you can make it happen. I think could I live here is the new idea I have. And we'd end every episode on from a scale of Hartford to Manhattan beach. Could you live here? We do graphics, we go to commercial, we come back and be like, well, because I wrote it down. Let's see, I'm gonna forget some here, but rapid fire. I've been to Lucerne, Bern, Basel, Zurich, Stuttgart, Vanglingdon, Heidelberg, Amsterdam. Amsterdam, I was really young. I thought about actually just staying in Amsterdam for a few days in the flight back, but, um, I don't want to end in Amsterdam. Uh, Positano that standard Capri, which doesn't even really count.

Naples, Sorrento, Athens, Mekanos roads, Nice, Saint-Tropez, Keynes. Now look, Tarantino called it Khan again. All the movie guys call it Khan. When I was there, they were like, it's Keynes. I'm like, okay. Axon Provence, I made it up to Du Verdon, Monte Carlo sucks. I go with a serious girlfriend that I liked. I'd have to like the person and then you do a fancy

dinner and walk around, but I'd be like, we're going to San Tropez and we're taking a helicopter. And then I'd probably get dumped. Barcelona, Sitch's true story. Abisa or Ibiza, both work, if you listen to last year's. Formentera, which was terrific. Mallorca, which I love. Dublin, Auckland, Wellington, Queenstown, Waiheke, which doesn't count because, I mean,

it's just part of Auckland. Where else? Queens town, Waiheke, which doesn't count because I mean, it's just part of Auckland. Where else? The grill 25 years ago, a bunch of the islands, Cabo, Mexico city. And then I've been, I think it's a 44 of the 50 United States. And I'm not even counting Montreal or a planned trip to British Columbia. I've been to a lot of places is my point. And I would say at top of the list, even though I had

the best, like I missed what Negril was about, right? But I was also a different person then. It's like the fucking guy who goes to Vegas when he's 40 saying it's not the same. I've said this before, but it's, you're not the same. I think the hit list is Lucerne, Queenstown, San Trepe. And I don't even know if I could live in San Trepe. I could live there for a summer. I could not live in Rhodes. It was a terrible, terrible fucking couple of days.

I think San Sebastian is in the top four with Queenstown, Majorca, San Trepe, Lucerne. So let's put it top five, but I'd still rather stay in San Trepe than maybe Queenstown. Cause it's just so far away from everybody else. And once you're in Queenstown, that's just kind of it, you're just going to be there.

All right. I hope you enjoyed it. Um, highly recommend it. And this will be the last one this year. Must be 21 and older, 18 plus in DC and present in select states. Fandual is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fandual.com forward slash RG

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