Anders

Mm-hmm. So before I forget, I start the recording here. All right. How are you?

Mark

Hot, bothered, everyone’s stressed, running around, trying to pack, pack the house up, lock the house up, make sure the house is clean, make sure the suitcases are packed, make sure everyone’s got everything. And then because it’s been hot we’re a little bit tempered in attitude as well. And Marley’s gone to some school presentation night because she’s in the school band where she’s playing the flute and she didn’t want to go to that because it was in a hole and it was going to be really hot and yes a little bit a little bit hectic today.

Mark

Oh man,

Anders

sorry yeah well you’re going to colder areas tomorrow.

Mark

Very colder but I think it’s I think top temperatures 3 tomorrow. I think when we’re on Wednesday when we land so that should be a Nice and refreshing yeah Compared to today anyway, so they’re average and I think those places in Victoria today where it was 43, I think, in the United States. So it was mighty warm.

Anders

Yeah. Let’s jump right into it then, shall we? So well, here we go. Hi there and welcome to Southern summers and Northern winters. Hi Mark, how are you doing this week?

Mark

Hi Anders, I’m yeah pretty good got a little bit going on with going to China on Wednesday so Especially when me and my wife work and we’re working all the way up until tomorrow afternoon when we live in there and a half After that to go to Melbourne, so so yeah, so it’s been a bit hectic But it’s always the way you know you’re always thinking of what have I forgot? Have I got enough of this did I bring that am I gonna bring that am I gonna forget this yeah yeah you know no matter how many times you travel we still go through that pre travel routine all the time where we think we can’t or don’t have it but you know as everyone knows you can buy anything anywhere these days but

Anders

even in China

Mark

yeah especially in China because it probably all comes from China in the first place.

Anders

Yes, exactly. But I remember, because my wife, my wife is always saying, you know, I will start packing, you know, with proper time and I will do it, you know, so that I will have no stress. Yet she always ends up doing it last minute anyway. For some reason, I don’t have all these procrastinations up until, you know, well obviously she hates packing. But it’s just for me it’s I know in my mind what I need to go through to have like a week’s worth of t-shirts and underwear and all these things. Even when I was a business traveler back in the day when I would be traveling a lot for work, usually I would pack in the morning, literally almost on my way to the airport, because I always knew I need to grab the, on my toilet bag was always the pouch there, it was always more or less ready to just go, just grab it and a couple of t-shirts, a couple of iron shirts and stuff like that, a suit, all these things.

Anders

It was just like really just wrapping things in the closet and just quickly wrap it up in the back and on my way I was. But leisure travel or just new vacation, family travel is just different. I mean,

Mark

it’s- It’s sort of become a bit lackadaisical, I guess. As I’ve got older, like at 1 stage, I would have been packed like a week beforehand and things like that and had everything laid out and ready to go and the older I get the more I seem to take longer to do it

Anders

all. Yeah, yeah.

Mark

Or leave it to more of the last moment, which is okay because I’m fairly organized But my wife and my daughter they get a little bit of anxiety and stress that they’ve got everything and this and that and yeah This trip is a little bit Harder too because like I said, we’re going to a cold weather environment to start off with and then we’re going to a hot weather environment straight afterwards. So the suitcases are a little bit fuller and because Willow’s living in China, she’s got a lot of stuff that she wants us to bring over.

Mark

So we’ve got extra bags and things like that going on so it’s yeah it’s a little bit more so you are thought going into it

Anders

you are actually going with a very full suitcase but then as of China onwards you it’s it’s got to be easier with room

Mark

yeah get rid of more than half of it in China so luckily the the airline that we’re flying with Beijing capital they allow each person to have 2 bags up to 23 kilos each so a lot of that’s a lot of luggage but

Anders

wow

Mark

that only works that only works if you’re flying the same airline back coming back we’re flying a little bit cheaper airline so yeah really need to have You know like the normal allowance by the time we get back which we which we certainly will because yeah I’ve got a whole sports bag Full of stuff that willow wanted and because it’s Christmas and we’re not sure what they do at Christmas Rebecca’s got some bonbons and Christmas wrappers and some extra food that she wants to make Christmas day over there and things like that so yeah so we really are really chock-a-block the suitcases are at the moment but it’ll all once we get there the day after we get there we’ll unpack it all and give it all to Willow and tell her to take it home to her house

Anders

yeah exactly

Mark

and it’ll be much better

Anders

what is that I mean what is the normal luggage allowance these days is that like the 23 kilo or 20? I think yeah,

Mark

it’s normally 20 or 20 or 23 depending on which airline you’re you with yeah these days but I find that if you’re flying like a full-fare carrier, generally they’re not that strict some of the time, especially for hand luggage. Like they all say 7 kilos, but I couldn’t remember the last time that someone weighed My hand luggage unless it was on you know a budget airline like Jetstar which is an Australian airline or Air Asia or you know if you’re on a really really cheap airline well then they will weigh it because that’s obviously how they make their money is is by extras but yeah.

Anders

Even the European main airlines, I was booking a business, not a business ticket, but I’m going on a work trip in January. We booked the flight last week and it was as if, even if I wanted to go on an airplane with wings, I kind of had the feeling that would cost me extra.

Mark

Definitely. It’s like 1 big sales funnel, isn’t it? Do you want

Anders

to see? It really was.

Mark

Do you want a meal?

Anders

If you want to, If you want a fixed seat, definitely that costs you like 10 euros or 20 euros. If you want an email confirmation or an email reminder or

Mark

a text

Anders

reminder, all these things that really it’s just a technological wing you need to just wing off on your booking yeah they will charge you for that and and and for the company it’s literally at no extra cost for them. It’s a no extra admin. Nothing. Nothing. It’s just a rip off. Honestly.

Mark

Yes. It’s the magic add-on.

Anders

Yes.

Mark

Yes. That we get with all things these days.

Anders

And I’m flying only with carry on. So yeah. But it remind because what you said reminded me that that they Usually we’ll see how it goes now in January, but usually they are Sort of large or tolerant in terms of, yeah, well, we may be, we can see that this is only, this is not only 7 kilo, but maybe 10 kilos, but they don’t really care. I mean, also, because I guess it will take too much time for, for the onboard personnel to, to, to make sure that nobody carries extra weight. I mean, so they have this span, this where, you know, they can probably carry an extra tonne in total.

Anders

That’s it. With no problem.

Mark

Well, the issue is, they don’t need to tell you to take it out of your bag and put in your pocket or or put it on anyway So you still carrying it so I don’t really know what the What the deal with it is like I mean I could my bags overweight tomorrow in my carry on I carry all the camera equipment stuff like

Anders

yes of course

Mark

yeah drones and cameras and in reality a lot of it I could just take out and put in me pocket anyway if it was if it was overweight and they seem to be happy with that it’s not in the bag yeah but you know who’s to blame for all this, don’t you? No McDonald’s McDonald’s. Do you want fries with that? Well, do you want a seat with that? Yeah, you want a meal with that?

Anders

Yeah, exactly.

Mark

Yeah, it’s all moved on from when McDonald’s first started saying I have you want fries with that?

Anders

Yeah Yeah, but but it’s really it’s it’s really me and my boss. We both got annoyed because he was in charge of booking the airfare and we found what appeared to be good priced time slots. That seemed to be in order, but then before we had closed the booking, it was like an extra almost 100 euros extra. You couldn’t avoid at least a couple of the fees were just you know they were absolutely mandatory and

Mark

What I don’t like is the ones like you find this with hotels too and some air fires you look at the price okay so you load it in then you go to pay for it and all of a sudden they’ve dumped like 10 or 20 percent tax on top of it yes that wasn’t in the original price but when you go to pay for it all of a sudden you’re like where’s all this other cost come from? Yeah exactly. Well this display the full price upfront including the tax so everyone knows what it is like I’ve been caught with that a few times with airfares There’s a Vietnamese airline called Vietjet and they are famous for that.

Mark

I booked a flight from Bali to Ho Chi Minh City once and it was like $80. I was like yeah this is really really good and then when I went to check out there was like $120 tax on it. Tax was dearer than what the actual yeah what the actual flight was

Anders

and what they also do sometimes is that you know some technical error happens so so we’re sorry to tell you but but the but the time and the ticket that you’ve just been trying to book is no longer available.

Mark

And then

Anders

I try once again, and then the dynamic pricing has somehow, I don’t know, done something so that obviously now this price is absolutely no longer available my price has doubled in price or my ticket has doubled in price so so yeah it it’s just it’s a scam

Mark

like Good like booking.com when you book a hotel and they’re like you need to be quick. There’s only 2 rooms left like yeah No, there’s not

Anders

yeah It’s

Mark

a 20 rooms left really like

Anders

yeah,

Mark

it’s just a just another sales ploy to make it all happen really isn’t it?

Anders

Yeah, exactly exactly So have you ever? Have you ever been? Traveling where you just because now you’re in the packing phase, have you ever had a situation where you literally say to yourself, well, I could have, I could have flown away with, with about half of what I, what I pack packed.

Mark

Always, always. Whenever I used to bring a big suitcase, that was always the case. Now I only bring a small carry on suitcase, but I ended up having to check it anyway, because I’ve got to take my backpack on board.

Anders

Oh, yeah

Mark

Yeah, but what I find is that if you take a big suitcase and a lot of clothes After you wear the first few pairs and then you get them washed and they just come back and they sit back on top of you So yeah, exactly into this then you tended is where the same ones are over and over again because they’re on top of your suitcase. Now, this is a question I’m interested in asking. Like, I don’t know if I’ve talked about this before, but do you ever like go some, I assume if you stay a long term, like I don’t generally stay anywhere for maybe more than a week at a time and I never actually unpack my suitcase into the cupboards that are in in hotels are you are you an unpacker

Anders

Mark

yes we are because we have the cells yeah so so I will have a cell with t-shirts and underwear and socks, for instance. I just dump that entire cell into the cupboard. I don’t unpack the cell, but it’s just to get rid of the suitcases. So if there’s like by the entrance, by the wardrobe, there’s usually like a big closet. So we just dump all the suitcases there. And then we have ourselves in our respective cupboards. I think that’s how we do it. And if we have stuff like my wife, she will have some stuff that needs to hang, you know, as they tend to do.

But yeah, I’ve never actually unpacked. I just wear it out of me suitcase so this yeah suitcase up on the floor and open the lid up put it against the wall and I generally just pick out of there. But it’s 1 of my further goals 1 day to actually stay somewhere where I think he’s long enough to justify me unpacking it into a wardrobe or something like that and taking it out of there. So yeah, the thing like I often read, I don’t know if this is an American thing, but read about people getting bumped off flights and overbooking flights.

Mark

Have you ever come across that?

Anders

Yeah, it was once on a business trip as well where they had overbooked the plane. It was out of the United States.

Mark

Oh well,

Anders

there you

Mark

go, yeah.

Anders

And then I go back to Europe. I think it was like a Chicago, Amsterdam flight or something. And yeah, they said, you know, we’re overbooked. If someone can take the next plane, we will reimburse you or you can get a voucher for something in the terminal, a good restaurant or something. Yeah, so I did actually, I volunteered because I had no plane to catch in Amsterdam. I had a day extra for my Amsterdam stopover. So yeah, it was fine for me. But it hasn’t happened in a while. I don’t know if they’ve gotten better. I don’t know, but they used to overbook flights

Mark

Say people talking about it like on Maybe Twitter or Instagram threads things. Yeah, but I’ve never never experienced it Anywhere in you know, maybe 50 or 60 plus flights. I’ve ever taken I’ve never never been asked to To or not even actually remember anyone ever being well asked up Well, I guess I can ask on the plane you probably get asked the boarding don’t you beforehand so yeah But I’ve never come across it I don’t know whether it’s because we travel possibly as a group of maybe 4. So it’s probably

Anders

Probably yeah

Mark

the bumper family. I guess but yeah, but I’ve never Never ever come across it. So

Anders

They did they used to do this because Apparently there were a lot of no shows usually so so they but I don’t know I don’t know why you would pay for a ticket and not show up. It’s just There’s no reason for me to It doesn’t make sense

Mark

like you can often read about like people who, there’s a name for it and I can’t think of it, but where say you book a ticket from for instance in America you might go from New York to Los Angeles but it has a stop in Las Vegas. You know, and you actually, it’s actually cheaper to book the flight to Los Angeles than it is to book the flight to Las Vegas. And then you actually

Anders

get off,

Mark

then you actually get off in Las Vegas and don’t get back on the plane. Now this is a thing that people do but apparently if you get caught or the airline can ban you from flying again with them if you actually get caught doing this because it’s for them just obviously fill the plane they don’t want you to have the cheaper option but I guess it only then works if you take carry on and nothing else because you can’t obviously you wouldn’t be able to uncheck your luggage because it would get passed through yeah pass through but yeah but I’ve read a bit about this too.

Mark

This is the thing that people often do in Australia Not here not there because there’s not enough places, you know that you fly to but But but yeah, so I don’t know but I’ve never done it but I’ve actually read people who do do it and sometimes it’s yeah it’s

Anders

cheaper with that. Cheaper to do it that way. That’s just an example of the customer being smarter than the supplier because United Airline or whatever airline does this they should you know have a different pricing metrics. I think this

Mark

doesn’t make any sense

Anders

to fly to Los Angeles than it is to fly to Las Vegas.

Mark

Las Vegas, yeah. And if it stops in Las Vegas, you jump off there.

Anders

Yeah, exactly.

Mark

But yeah, that’s the way it goes, I guess, For some people to do it that way I mean I’m all for saving a buck, you know airlines like we said I just mentioned airlines are happy to ring every every possible cent out of you to start off with and you know as a airport so that’s just the way it goes you save a dollar wherever you can save a dollar is don’t you?

Anders

Yeah you do and yeah we’ve often talked about this in the podcast you know the hassle of flying the stress it has become I don’t know how old were you the first time you ever flew, Mark?

Mark

I was in high school, I think, and we went on a school camp where we flew to Tasmania. So it was only an hour, an hour away, domestic. First time I flew international, I would have been maybe I was in my mid twenties. So I was a, I was a late starter and I flew to London from Melbourne and it was like the cheapest. And in order for that, it went from Melbourne to Adelaide, to Bali, to Bangkok, to Frankfurt, and then to London.

Anders

Wow. It was like 5 stops. Wow.

Mark

5 stops it was. And yeah, it was certainly a long flight, but when you’ve never flown before, it was all a little bit exciting and I don’t mind if sometimes if there’s a long stop like from my memory we stopped in Bali for about 7 hours and I’d bet some people on a plan on the plane and they knew some people who were staying there So we actually went out of the airport and went to some hotel and had a few drinks with these other people Yeah, and then and then came back and got got back on the plane to Bangkok But Bangkok and Frankfurt were any like 2 hour stops but that was actually that long ago that you’re allowed to smoke on a plane back then and I was a smoker so you’re allowed to sit down the back of the plane but it was quite funny it wasn’t all sectors.

Mark

I don’t know if Australia had banned it at that stage where you couldn’t smoke between Australia and Bali but between Bali and Bangkok you could smoke and between Bangkok and Frankfurt you could smoke but between Frankfurt and London you could not smoke. So yeah, so it was quite strange because now obviously you can’t smoke anywhere like you know persona non grata you know in Australia to even smoke on the beach I don’t even think you’re allowed to smoke legally anymore on the beach or even on out the front of a restaurant you’ve got to be you know 5 or 10 meters away or something like that up the road or All these sort of things like that.

Mark

So needless to say even if you didn’t sit in the smoking section which was probably the last maybe from memory the last 4 or 5 rows people would come from the front and they’d come out the back and stand up the back and have a ciggy and then you know and they go back up to their seat in the front and things like that so that’s showing my ages back in Maybe 1999 I think that was so yeah 25 years ago now when when smoking was still allowed but even back then I remember because as a smoker I went to England and Well, even as a whole I think there’s probably more smokers in Europe and Asia than there is in Australia these days and yeah and and back then you know you could smoke on a train in England in a shopping centre you know there was all these things where in Australia you couldn’t do even back then you couldn’t do you couldn’t do any of any of that was quite well I’d say an eye opener but yeah just something quite different, which is what you travel for, but not necessarily what I travel for.

Mark

No. But yeah, it was just a different setting, I guess, so yeah, quite strange.

Anders

Yeah. In the end. Now, so you have been flying like before 9-11, because before 9-11 it was a little more relaxed, particularly in terms of check-ins and security. But I started probably My first flight was in the early 90s, I think. And that was even more relaxed. And there would be like a proper service on board, you know, proper meals on plates and real utensils. But I’ve seen pictures, you know, the early commercials for Lufthansa. They would have a kitchen with a gas stove and everything. You think today that’s just highly, highly, highly prohibited.

Mark

But was there any more crashes back then you know like I tend to think that we’re over governed by rules these days I mean obviously that’s a safety the safety matter, but you know I don’t It’s like all things. I think before the internet I don’t know whether a lot of things happened as much it but you never heard of them because you know the information Wasn’t out there and freely as freely available as it is these days you know yeah yeah so you never really you never really knew if it was hat you know if there was crashes or a lot of crashes because yeah unless you watch the news or read the paper and if it was happening on the other side of the world you know it’s probably not being reported in your in your local paper

Anders

exactly

Mark

yeah but now you know if there’s a plane crash or something happens you know it’s all over all over the web and everyone knows about it so yeah I often think that with a lot of things you know you hear So many more things these days because you know the information is readily available all the time compared to when it wasn’t Now I’m gonna talk about I

Anders

Can sort of understand why you cannot have like an open fire gas stove on board a gas filled cylinder flying in the sky. That makes sense, but I have never heard of an airplane exploding because people were cooking in the kitchen there.

Mark

In the

Anders

kitchen there. It’s just to say that in the early days of airflying, there was like, it had a proper standard, you know, luxury. Yeah, definitely. Obviously you paid a lot more compared to what you’re paying today but still I mean it’s

Mark

yeah this is the issue isn’t it we all want to pay as cheap as possible for yes so you know in the end we get we get what we pay for, I guess, in the end, don’t we? So yeah. And what was I going to say? What was I going to talk about? And you’ve traveled a fair bit. What are some of the most overrated tourist attractions?

Anders

I will have to say, yeah, I have a few.

Mark

I’ve got 1 that comes from your country. So

Anders

yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, save that a bit. I would say the biggest, the biggest or most overrated attraction is probably in Copenhagen the Little Mermaid. Is that the same you’re thinking about?

Mark

This was the 1 I was going to say. Whenever people talk about this, this pops into my mind straight away. This statue of the Little Mermaid. You know, you read about it, you know, it’s a fairy tale about it. You know, you get on the hop on hop off bus in Copenhagen even stops there for like 20 minutes. I think you can get off and get back on so you can take a photo of this midget statue, you know, in the water.

Anders

It’s just I don’t understand it for some reason. Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, they they they they’re popular, well famous. And I think that’s the reason why that statue is so popular. But yeah, I’ve even seen the Asian tourists, they stand there, they smile, they’re always polite but you can sort of see the the. Expecting more. Yeah, they were probably expecting more. So so they’re not they’re not entirely dissatisfied. But but it’s just, you know, OK, we travel all the way for this sort of that expression you know

Mark

I’ve got another 1 and I’m told I’m probably the only person who’s ever disappointed by this but 1 of the biggest disappointments I ever had was when I went to Pompeii. Like I found it really, really not what I was hoping. I don’t know why, because I had wanted to go there for so long that I had some sort of expectation that was over the top when I went there but when I went there I found it a lot of it was closed off it was dirty a lot of the pictures that you see in books which had nice bright colors when you seen them there they were all dull like I know whether they were photoshopped and things like this.

Mark

So yeah that was probably another 1 of the really big disappointments. Now I’ve always said that I’ll go back 1 day because you know I like to give things a

Anders

second chance.

Mark

But yeah but I was quite disappointed by by Pompeii when I went there But when I tell that to people people go, why are you crazy? Like I loved it I went there and it was You know, I guess that’s why we’re all different. I certainly did not love it.

Anders

Yeah. Well while we’re in Italy I Had as I’ve been there several times, the leaning tower of Pisa. I’ve even been up in the tower and looked out and everything. It’s nice, but it’s not that nice. It’s not something I would travel from the other side of the world to see. I mean, it’s…

Mark

If it wasn’t leaning, it wouldn’t be famous, would it? Literally.

Anders

No. And the whole sort of compound, lots of buildings and there’s a church and there are so many tourists, So many tourists and it’s just, that’s really also a thing that can sort of help to, to, to the disappointment, to add to the disappointment is if it’s overrun.

Mark

Definitely, definitely. Like, Probably 1 of the memories I cherish the most from traveling was going to the Great Wall of China and we went there at 6 o’clock in the morning and there was no 1 on the wall for a lot of the time we were actually there. I was only tempered by the fact that the weather wasn’t very good and it was a little bit foggy but the fact that we got to spend a good couple of hours sort of wandering this section which was about maybe 3 or 4 kilometers long with really next to no 1 on it is a really good memory that I always think of.

Mark

So what about any spots that exceeded your expectation or you think that people should go there or maybe don’t know about?

Anders

Yeah, that could be a little bit dangerous for me to answer because I don’t know, I haven’t been to, the first time I went to Paris, I was actually very pleasantly surprised And it was a really good experience because I was traveling with my company at the time and we had a couple of extra days off to just, you know, it was sort of an award trip, you know, for best sales people. And so it was really nice and we were able to bring our partners and we really had a good experience and quickly we got around to use the metro system and saw a lot.

Mark

Metro is fantastic.

Anders

Yeah, it is. So Paris was really a good experience, but I haven’t been there for 20 years. So I don’t know if people will

Mark

say no. I like Paris and my wife likes Paris. We’ve been there 6 times, I think. Yeah. So it’s probably 1 of the places. I’ve been to

Anders

The most

Mark

most a lot of trips. We always go to Paris Yeah, I quite like Paris a lot of pay. I think that’s very polarizing people either love it or they hate it. Yes.

Anders

Yeah. Are you going to see the Notre Dame? It’s reopening or has it?

Mark

I did see that. I watched a couple of YouTube clips on it. I’ve only ever been in it once Rebecca went in a couple of times every time we went also stood at the front but It looks to me from my memory which was a long time ago It looks a lot different inside it looks a lot brighter than what than what I what I actually remember it. Yeah, yeah which is good. I mean, I guess if you’re rebuilding something you need to make it a little bit more Modern I guess as long as they keep keep the sense of of what it was like I guess and which they seem to say they they have Yeah, so I would I would definitely go there and have a look.

Mark

There’s a little plaque, or there was a plaque in the ground out the front of Notre Dame. And the very first time I went to Paris I was on a tour and I don’t know whether this is true, the tour guide said if you stand on this plaque there’s a myth. If you stand on this plaque there’s a myth if you stand on this plaque it means you’ll come back to Paris so every time we went there we go and stand on this little plaque at the front of Notre Dame.

Anders

In terms of it being more brighter and lighter in the colors. I guess it has to do with the centuries old domes

Mark

and churches in Europe.

Anders

The stone walls, they get dark from years of candle lights. You know, they usually in the old days. Smoking

Mark

stuff that burns on it. Yeah. So, yes.

Anders

Yeah. So, so what? Obviously they’ve they’ve used new stone and everything for for rebuilding Notre Dame so so I guess if you come back in about a hundred years I don’t think they use candles that as much anymore but but that’s the reason yeah I

Mark

can I can vividly remember the day it caught on fire? That was really sad actually. Because I mean there’s so much history involved in it. It dates back to the 12th century or further or something like that. I had a lot of history and you don’t want to lose buildings of that caliber anywhere in the world like especially

Anders

we lost the old Copenhagen Stock Exchange last year. Yes. It was from It was built by Christian IV, King Christian IV in 1600 something. So it’s about 500 years old. They are rebuilding it and there’s like a dragon’s tower, symbol of Copenhagen, and they’re rebuilding that as well. The problem with it is that you know you can’t get that those craftsmen that used to do it you don’t

Mark

have not around

Anders

they’re not around anymore you don’t build like that anymore

Mark

this was the problem I think with Sagrada la Familia in Barcelona is the why it’s taken so long because they just didn’t have the craftsman they were around when Gaudi first designed it to continue to continue building it I’ve got to say I’ve been in there once and I would measure all churches against what Sagrada La Familia is like on the inside. Like it’s mind blowing the intricacies

Anders

that it’s on my bucket list.

Mark

Yeah. It is. It’s an amazing church on the inside and on the outside for that matter. So I think it’s due to be finished in the next

Anders

couple of years. I think they’re saying 26 or 27. I think

Mark

it should be done. So after like 150 years or something like that. So that would be good but it’s cost them. So well I think it’s all privately funded. That’s what half the ticket prices are and donation. Yeah, and I don’t think the government fund all of it because it’s been being built for 120 130.

Anders

Well, the Spanish state, they don’t have much money anyway, so they can’t probably can’t fund it.

Mark

No, well, they don’t. And Catalonia is the most well off part of it.

Anders

And yeah,

Mark

I guess every now and again, they they strike up a vote for independence and the central government then strike it down because they’re going to

Anders

lose all their money. Exactly. That’s a funny thing because there are regions in Europe where you think, you know, you have Germany, you have Spain, but Spain is 1 country, Germany is 1 country, but it’s not. We have these states within the country lines, the country borders. And it’s the same thing in here in Germany, in Bavaria. Bavaria is a well-off state in Germany. And there are, it’s not a very active independence movement, but there are, particularly amongst the elder population, the older population, there are some nostalgic people thinking, you know, it would be nice if Bavaria would be independent.

Anders

Obviously, in a modern society, it’s not really possible. No.

Mark

You often hear that in Italy too don’t you? With Venice, I think Venice has like an independence movement at times where the Venetians want to break away as well and always seems to be these are the most Prosperous areas of these countries are the ones other parts that want to never hear a poor part wanting to break away No from the central government do you it’s any of the places that are that are making making a lot of money So getting back to what we’re talking about I went to a place just out of Krakow and it was called, I’m going to try and pronounce this, it was called Vislichka salt mines and it’s 1 of I think the most underrated attractions that I’ve ever been to and it was at the UNESCO site and it was a salt mine that goes back like 600 years or so and there’s a like a hundred kilometers of tunnels underground built out of Sultan.

Mark

While the miners were down there, they carved statues and there’s like a ballroom under there and a place for weddings and little chapels and things like that. And It was stunning. I’ve been there twice. Every time I’ve been to Krakow I’ve only been there twice and I’ve gone back to this salt

Anders

mine to

Mark

see it again and again. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s only about 10km out of the centre of Krakow. There’s always a lot of people there, but I don’t know whether it’s well-known outside of Poland, but yeah, stunning. You got to go down and get in there and you got to walk down something like 200 meters down in these steps to start off with. But yeah, but you get lost there. You have to go with a guide because you get lost. There’s so many little chambers and tunnels from from where they Where they built actually I think I’ve still got some salt from there Yeah, yeah, yeah, the salt grinder that I bought 5 years ago when I was last there but needless to say if I go back to crack out again I would go back out there again because it had definitely changed in between when I went there and I think it was like 2015 and 2019 that opened up new tunnels and a new sections of it so it was really it’s probably 1 of my top underrated sites that I’ve been to in Europe.

Anders

I remember that I love I love caves we have throughout Europe there are several even here in southern Germany we have salt mines and silver mines and caves. And I always like to go to these places because there’s some aura of ancient times, when you enter such a mine or cave, it’s just, you know, obviously it can be, it must have been a difficult workplace for people through the times, you know, a minor is dangerous work. So, so sometimes it’s also connected to deaths and all of that. But, but still it’s, it’s, it’s, there’s something about it when you enter such a place in the ground that it sort of calms me down.

Anders

Also the temperature and the sounds are just different. It’s always a great experience. I can only recommend it.

Mark

And that’s basically where our ancestors lived, you know, years and years ago, wasn’t it? They all lived in caves and quite often a lot of these caves are where they, you know, find the skulls and skeletons from Magnin Man and you know, and all these other homo moos and you know, and Whatever they are, all our long, long lost ancestors that walked out of Africa billions of years ago and spread around the world. So I find it interesting too.

Anders

Yeah, it’s fascinating because even Speaking of Paris again, I mean, in Paris you have the catacombs. They are man-made, but still you have like an underground world that’s just completely separate from above ground, you know? And same with the caves. It’s just you enter a completely different ecosystem. And I think that’s what fascinates me have you been to the catacombs in Paris

Mark

I have been to the catacombs in Paris and I quite enjoyed that I went there 4 times ago probably 1 of the first times I went to Paris. But in saying that, too, in southern Portugal, there’s a lot of what they call bone churches as well, where you can go to a church in the walls and the ceilings aligned with skulls. I’ve been to a couple of them as well, which was quite challenging because our kids were little when we went there.

Anders

It was a little scary for them.

Mark

Yeah, it was. We obviously talked about it before we went and so I think Willow was a little bit older than Marley but Marley was maybe I think when we went there maybe 02:15 so Marley would have been about maybe 7 So at that stage I remember her having a sort of look in the door and then she slowly backed out of the door and sat outside for a minute and sort of thought about it and came back in, had another bit of a look around and then backed out again. So we actually went to 2 of these churches there’s a famous 1 in a place called Evora in Portugal and there’s another 1 down on the Elgarve what town it was in Faro I think it is yeah so they were quite interesting to go and have a look at as well.

Anders

Yeah, yeah I can only recommend people to do this because this is where you can really get some ancient history. At the surface everything has been touched or is constantly touched and remodeled and rebuilt and changed but down there underground you know things are like they’ve always been you know so and in Paris you have the catacombs you have you have you have places where people haven’t been for hundreds of years I

Mark

think I went to 1 in Rome to a catacombs but it wasn’t it was not as good as the ones in in Paris for sure there wasn’t as many wasn’t as many bones and stuff there. Okay, yeah. From what I remember, yeah, we definitely went to 1 in Rome and it was, yeah, nowhere near as good, but hey, there’s…

Anders

Have you been to all the mandatory sites in Rome, speaking of pleasant surprises or disappointments have because you’ve been to Rome and I’ve heard I’ve heard different opinions about the main attractions I

Mark

love the Colosseum and yeah back to the Colosseum in a flash. I thought that was stunning just to stand in the middle of it. It’s fairly inspiring I think to imagine that they built a stadium you know this size so so long ago and and that it’s still mostly standing, obviously, 1 side more than the other. So, yeah, that’s definitely a site that I would highly recommend anyone to go to because it’s a must say like we got a Rome Well, yeah, you know you associate Rome with Coliseum you go to Paris you say shadow the Eiffel Tower.

Mark

Yes It’s 1 of them sites up in Rome Obviously adjacent to the Coliseum. There’s a lot of old ruins that like I think it’s Circus Maximus and the Palatine Hill I think it is. It’s got a lot of old ruins about it. I really liked going to see all that stuff in Rome and quite enjoyed it. I went to quite a few churches while I was there as well. Like I said, I’ve got to think about churches. I’m not religious, like I said, but I like the history behind. Actually, 1 of the best tours I ever did was in Rome.

Mark

I went on this thing called Ghosts, Myths and Legends. And I mean, Willow, she was only about 11. And we chaps around Rome 1 night with a guide who was telling us about people were murdered here and Locked up in a wall here until they died and all this stuff like this It was like a it was yeah like called the dark side of Rome it was and it was really really entertaining and and quite good. I’ve been on a few of these sort of tours over the time now where they tell you about you know the darker the darker past of places and I actually quite enjoy I quite enjoy learning about that sort of that sort of side of many.

Anders

We have to some sometimes we have to be reminded that we humans we have a violent past.

Mark

Oh, most definitely, you know, especially back in them days when you know if you’re if you are rich or wealthy or in power, you know, you could get away with doing most of any of this stuff. And, you know, there was no, I mean, I’m not saying that rich people probably still get away with it today, but that’s a whole different story. But yeah,

Anders

there’s a different sense of justice. There was a different sense of justice back then.

Mark

There was a sense of justice back then. But Yeah, I quite enjoyed Rome for sure.

Anders

Yeah, me too. I’ve been there several times and it’s always a pleasant surprise because again you have so much history and the Romans they sort of live side by side with with their past somehow they just built new houses on top of the

Mark

old ones. This is around it, I find it fascinating like I said that’s something as an Australian that we don’t have because our history only stretches back to like 1788, you know, officially when the English arrived and so, you know, there’s not much in Australia that’s greatly old. I was watching a show the other day on the oldest building in Melbourne and I think like the oldest building in Melbourne still stands was only built in like 1888 or something like that. Yeah. It’s only necessarily 140 years old or something, the oldest building that’s still standing.

Anders

I think we have a house here in our street that’s older than that.

Mark

Yeah, that would be older than that. I definitely. Another weird attraction that I’ve been to in Wales is called the world’s smallest house. This is in a quaint little seaside town called Conway and, is a little attraction called the world’s smallest house and it’s probably I would think no more than 2 meters wide and it’s probably it’s double story has a ladder in it which is quite quirky but there’s probably a few there’s a lot of small buildings these days in cities but yeah this is quite a quite a quirky little little place and I’ve been to this city this town in Wales a lot called Conwy.

Mark

The very first castle I ever went to was in Conwy and it’s called Conwy Castle funnily enough it was built by Edward III in the 12th century and he built a ring of castles in northern Wales which was to keep the English, keep the Welsh in line because he was an English king and that’s where they used to always crown the Prince of Wales which is 1 of the English monarchs. So there’s quite a few really nice, well when I say nice, they’re not nice because they’re brutalist castles from back in the end days. They’re big walls and things like that.

Mark

They are not intricate or anything like Neuschwanstein or something like that. They were a purely defensive sort of

Anders

castle. They were built to impress and build fear.

Mark

Yeah, built fear. They were built to intimidate the Welsh basically back in the day. So I think there’s about 5 there you know the Tomlwy Caernarfon is another 1 and we’re all built in this like 50 year period when this King was trying to subdue the Welsh. Yeah. Wales is a beautiful area to go to. Wales is often talked down by the English, like they reckon it’s dreary and stuff like that and the weather’s bad. But I’ve been to Wales, I’ve spent a lot of time in Wales surprisingly I had a cousin who well sort of cousin cousins cousin really but but he he had a caravan on the north coast of Wales and we stayed in it a few times I probably spent about 8 weeks in total in North Wales in my time and really really enjoyed staying in North Wales.

Anders

It is a nice area. Yeah it is a nice area really.

Mark

Not many international tourists go there. A lot of Brits go there for the weekend because it’s not far from Liverpool and Manchester and places like that.

Anders

Yeah but international tourists they usually go to London and then they go to Scotland.

Mark

Yeah so quite quite nice North Wales I think it’s underrated as an attraction or a place to go.

Anders

I agree. I agree. And I’m thinking about what you said, you know, the world’s smallest house, because in general, in Europe, houses tend to be smaller than they are in say Australia or, or, or, yeah. Well, the United States, I mean, we can live here. My family live on about 70 square meters you have a larger house in Australia I know but but 70 square meters is like I don’t know a kids room in the United States, isn’t it?

Mark

Yeah, definitely. It’s definitely, I’m just trying to see how big this house is. Where are we? You’ve got Wikipedia opened here. What’s it say in its size?

Anders

But I’ve heard it on a couple of occasions that international tourists, they say, can people live in such small rooms? But it’s really about just getting used to it. You’ve never seen anything else. 1 of my dreams is to have like a, an old stone house in Tuscany or an old flat in 1 of the Tuscan, small towns, hill towns. And, and there would be like probably 50 square meters or something like that.

Mark

So when you were younger, like in Denmark, did you live in a city or were you out in a city in like,

Anders

I lived in a suburb,

Mark

not in, in Copenhagen. I mean,

Anders

yeah, yeah.

Mark

You know what I mean?

Anders

I’ve lived in Copenhagen. I have had a house in, in, in, in, or flat in Copenhagen. And it was about a hundred square meters, 2 or 3 bedrooms and a kitchen and living room and all of that. And what tends to make the big difference is that when you live As a European, when I see houses, for instance, in the United States, there’s a lot of what we call wasted square meters. Because the rooms are very big, but in the middle there are just vast floors. We like things to be more intimate because we, we, we think it’s cozy to, to, to not have too much space.

Anders

It’s, it’s, and it cost a fortune to heat it, by the way as well. So yeah,

Mark

What I was getting at was have you ever lived in like a detached house like or have you always lived in an apartment or you know both apartments?

Anders

Yeah. So I grew up in a in a suburb in the suburb of Copenhagen in a detached house. My room at my parents was, I don’t know, 10, 11 square meters. That was it.

Mark

And you had a backyard and a front yard? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anders

Huge garden. My parents were spent a lot in the garden. They were garden people. And yeah, so, so, and I had a sister or have a sister and we have, we each had a room and my parents had a bedroom and then we had my dad had an office there, big living room, big kitchen, back entrance with washing machines and all of that. So I think my childhood home is about 120 square meters

Mark

Yeah, and that was interested because in Australia like well, especially where I live because I don’t live in the city I live in a in a country town and back in the days when a lot of these areas were being built like your standard block where I live on my house is a quarter of an acre so every every house is is on a semi-quarter of an acre block yeah which I’m not quite sure how big that is in square meters but you know like I I would say my my block would maybe be 100 meters long 50 70 meters long half that wide so

Anders

yeah

Mark

my house sits right at the front and you know and then I’ve got a lot of green area in between and a big shed at the back and so was the neighbor and things like that so yeah so yeah so it’s definitely a lot of space out in the country but

Anders

it sounds relatively similar to European or least Danish yeah Yeah, it sounds similar in size. Yeah. Yeah. Your house, how many square meters is that?

Mark

I think it’s only about, I think it’s like 15 squares or something. I don’t know, they might measure it differently. That sounds small compared to what you were saying. It’s a 3 bedroom house, but it’s not a big house by any imagination. It was what they call an old commission house. So the government when the government built housing back in the day for For people I guess I was called government housing back then and Our house was was 1 of them and then after a while the government tend to keep them for maybe 15 or 20 years and they sell them off yeah privately for people to buy so it’s a three-bedroom house but I wouldn’t say by any stretch of the imagination that it’s that it’s big like our smallest bedroom is probably only you know 3 by 3 meters by 3 meters yeah you know and

Anders

so that’s 9 9 or 9 or 10 meters

Mark

yeah something like that and mine and mine and Rebecca’s room might be a little bit bigger it might be 4 by 4 and you know And the kitchens they’re all they’re all similar size kitchens probably the same maybe 3 by 3 and you know The lounge might be 5 by 5 so yes, so they’re not it’s not overly

Anders

No, but sounds it sounds rather similar to to what I’m used to from

Mark

it’s big enough for me

Anders

Yeah, it’s that’s the thing. I mean you you don’t need to have all these. I mean, when you have a big room, you have extra tables, extra chairs, or maybe even a lot of

Mark

extra cleaning,

Anders

extra cleaning. Exactly. So, and we tend to, Europeans are pragmatic. We just tend to get rid of all that just you know Yeah give us give us the the The needed the the needed stuff all the nice stuff is just usually as you say it costs extra

Mark

I find in Australia. There’s a lot of keeping up with the Joneses as they say like you know everyone wants a big big brick house with a cinema room in it and this and that and you know yeah and in the end you really You know yeah all that all that sort of stuff like and that’s fine and I’m I won’t begrudge anyone who wants to put themselves half a million dollars in debt to To build that and pay each to his own That’s what they want to do and then they you know borrow another 50 grand and drive the best car around and things like that but that’s that’s never been me I remember having some friends who said to me once when you sell this house and update it

Anders

well why would

Mark

I probably never sell it like this So this was the size house my parents had when I grew up So I never I never knew a bigger house or a bigger style of living I guess then Then what I had and what I’ve still got here So I always said that once my kids move out there’ll be plenty of

Anders

room in that’s exactly yeah yeah exactly

Mark

might be here forever so

Anders

so probably you and Beck will probably sit back in 10 years time say this house is huge we should sell

Mark

yeah oh we could very well The problem with selling it is that you know you still got to pay more to get a better house. Yeah that’s the thing. I was pretty lucky when I bought our house here like it was at the bottom the bottom end of a housing in Australia and it cost me about 30 000 euros for me house. So now I could sell the house for you know probably 200, 000 euros but I don’t get I don’t get the same quality house you know to buy another 1 for yeah so I’d then have to spend you know 3 or 400000 euros So you’re not actually actually getting any anywhere further on because you still got to spend that extra.

Anders

Exactly. That’s the thing. You know, the, the, the it’s people think, yeah, well you have a lot of money because you have like, like free value in your house. Yeah. But, but still it’s, it’s unless you sell and don’t buy something else, but you have to live somewhere else anyway.

Mark

That’s dead right. So, you know, it just goes around in a, in a circle, but, But yes, I always find it interesting. Like I’ve stayed in England a few times with this cousin I was telling you about in Wales and he had a house on a block in England like but it was just like a apartment blocks all the way along to story. They were but you know they were probably you know I would say maybe 5 5 meters wide, 6 meters wide, maybe 10 or 15 meters deep and double story and there would be like 20 of these on 1 block all you know jammed in next to each other and the backyard might have been like you know 3 meters by 3 meters You wouldn’t have a garage or anything like that for your car.

Mark

You’re going to be parked on the street and things like that. So yeah, yeah. Housing, housing sort of always interests me. What other people have lived in and things like that in different countries?

Anders

They it’s probably what you’re talking about. There’s probably the Victorian architecture style. There’s a red brick houses. They look very classic, very Peter Pan, very good because they would build hundreds of thousands of these Like 150 years ago and they still stand. Yeah.

Mark

Yeah, definitely. Yeah

Anders

But you are right they are small they are small

Mark

definitely You hear what the neighbors are doing.

Anders

Exactly. And in such a house, you can even have 1 living in the basement, 1 on the first floor and 1 family on the second floor. I mean, you can have 3 apartments in there.

Mark

That’s another thing that interests me with houses. Like Australian houses don’t have a basement. We don’t have an attic like it’s you know, when I say these things on TV, I go, I love 1 of them. I could put stuff down there, but you know, we have a shed in the backyard instead to put stuff in. Yeah. I mean a lot of the houses. I’d say where I live I think that a lot of them are referred to as like a Californian bungalow or yes similar to yeah To that is I think is the design that they’re called so Yes, so we have no no addict I mean there’s no reason why because I have a pointy angled roof.

Mark

Like I could, you know, you could probably pay someone to get up there and floor it if you really wanted to. But yeah, it’s just not something that is Australian, I guess.

Anders

It’s just for the big huntsmen up there. They live there.

Mark

Most definitely. And hopefully that’s all that lives up there.

Anders

You never know. But here in Germany, particularly here in, in, in the big cities in Munich, I can see that all new houses that are built, they have a basement and they have a room in the basement for you to park at least 1 or 2 cars. Because on the streets, you know, it’s getting so cramped. So they kind, I don’t know if it’s a law or they just kindly somehow motivate new builders To make sure that they can have their car on their on their in on their Lot so so that it’s not parked on the street

Mark

Speaking of our places to stay in things like that. Let’s wheel it back around Then Is there anywhere unique that you’ve ever stayed? I remember you telling me about your villa in Tuscany that you go and stay in. Have you ever stayed anywhere else that’s quite unique I guess in the sense of the imagination?

Anders

No, yeah well I would have to think about that. Nothing comes to mind right now, but I could tell you that there are a couple of places where I would like to stay. Unique places we have in Denmark. We have a couple of lighthouses by the coast.

Mark

That would be brilliant. That’s something

Anders

in Australia too. Yeah. Yeah. So that would be a thing that I would love to do. And in Norway, there is a company called Vip. They actually make waste buckets and lamps and stuff, but they have designed a couple of sort of 1 room overnight shelters. Very fancy, very modern.

Mark

The bubble thing?

Anders

Yes, sort of.

Mark

You can see through?

Anders

Yeah. Yeah, but these are, I wouldn’t, they’re more elegant than a ship. They’re rectangular. But and They’re filled with glass windows and they’re in the middle of nowhere, in the mountains with great views. And you can rent these for I think the middle of nowhere.

Mark

Norway is a small fortune.

Anders

Yeah, Norway is a small fortune. But 1 of our, a couple of our friends went there last year and they said, you know, this was absolutely unique. It cost a bloody fortune, but, but, you know, the, The experience was so wonderful. It was in the middle of nature and they would then, the hosts, they would come with food in golf car or whatever. It was a big plot of land. And they said, you know, this was a really unique experience and they were staying on a starry night, on a couple of starry nights. And it was just amazing.

Anders

So an experience like that would be something on my bucket list but I can’t really say I have stayed somewhere unique where it’s just wow always nice but but not not something’s very yeah how about you

Mark

I stayed on a houseboat in Prague that was quite nice

Anders

oh yeah

Mark

yeah something different was a little bit wasn’t right in the middle of the city but it was out was probably 4 or 5 stops out on the train somewhere but it was in a Nice was like in a cutting off the off the main river and it was it was quite nice It was a new and upcoming area So there was a brewery over the other side of the water from us and things like that So that was quite interesting in what else in? Poland I stayed in a castle for a night. That was yeah, that was interesting as well called Shonja think this castle was called it had a fairly long history so that was quite nice But what I’ve seen the other day which really interests me in the middle of Melbourne someone has taken a crane at some stage and lifted 4 airstream caravans on top of a building right in the middle of the city so you can stay on a roof of a building right in the middle of the city in 1 of them you know old silver airstream

Anders

caravans

Mark

and there’s 4 of them up there so that’s pretty expensive I think it’s about 400 dollars Australian a night so what’s

Anders

that? Of course it is.

Mark

250 euros or something a night to stay there but I think it might be something I might put on my bucket list at some stage. I think it’d be quite a cool experience to stay on a caravan in the middle of the city on a roof.

Anders

That would be right off my alley. That would be quite cool.

Mark

Yeah. There’s a deluxe version. There’s 3 what they call standard and the deluxe 1 has a bit of a fence around it and it has a hot tub outside where you can see you know all over the all over the city from this hot tub out in front of the Caribbean.

Anders

Well, I do like accommodation with character, I have to say. I mean, it’s something I am willing to actually pay a little extra for something that’s a bit out of the ordinary. And when you just said, yeah, castle, I have stayed in castles here in Europe. And it’s just funny because I didn’t, I don’t really think of them. I know they’re special. Yeah. But it’s just because we have so many castles.

Mark

Yeah, let’s see it, isn’t it?

Anders

They are often turned into hotels because it costs a fortune to run these big places. So yeah, so I’ve stayed in castles. So yeah, that’s something special, obviously.

Mark

Other than that, I don’t think I’ve stayed anywhere really I’m trying to think of Anywhere that was quite unique other than than the riverboat and and the castle and all the places of I’ve been

Anders

Have you got so special? For China now that that that you’re looking something unique apart from yeah but in Christmas in China’s

Mark

actually it’s really hard to I find this too sometimes when we go in visit friends in Europe not you but our other friends in in Freiburg when because we generally go and hang out with them for a couple of weeks and it’s sort of I don’t like to plan anything because when you go there they always have a plan of what

Anders

to do.

Mark

Oh yeah. It’s similar with going to China I think like we have a WeChat group with Willow and the people she lives with and they’re like oh when you get here you know we might go and do this and so I always find that sometimes depending who you’re going to say it’s better not to plan anything because you don’t actually know what they might have planned so I always have a couple of things in the back of my mind that hey I might go and I might go and do but yeah I really haven’t got too much planned for the for the 7 days or 8 days that we’re in China at this stage

Anders

okay

Mark

See what there’s a couple hot springs around this town which might be nice in winter to go and to go and see some hot springs in the mountains that are around there so that’s that’s 1 thing I will certainly be doing. I’m quite interested to to go into the old like I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but this city was settled by the Germans back in the start of the 19th century. So they’ve got a nice old town, fake semi-fake old town area that’s meant to look like Europe so I’m going to actually have a look and see if it’s if it’s done up Christmasy like yeah like you would in in Europe yes but we went there in summer there was a few wooden booths in this square so I assume that could be Christmas market anything possibly going on there so we’ll definitely go and go and have a look at that.

Mark

There’s actually there’s 2 aquariums in this town we went to 1 last time so if I’m if I’m short of things to do I might go and have a have a look at that.

Anders

The other 1.

Mark

I’m a sometimes fan of aquariums and some time, sometimes not. Yeah. It depends. If there’s something else to do, I’ll probably go and do that instead. Yeah. But you know, sometimes you just got to, you’ve got to fill in the day. Actually the other aquarium that we went to in China, in Qingdao, the city where Willow lives, was called Polar Ocean World. And it was really good, actually. I quite enjoyed it because it was all polar. It was all about the Arctic. So they had Beluga whales in

Anders

there. Wow.

Mark

Yeah, and I’d never seen a beluga whale before like they had a 2 or 3 of them floating around and they had Arctic walruses there. Yeah polar bears and things like that. So so it was quite it was quite unique It was on a grand scale. I would say it was similar to like what I would suppose SeaWorld is like in America and they had shows and things on during the day. But what I actually found quite refreshing about the shows is The shows were more about the other performers like they had acrobats and like dancers who would swing on the trapeze and and Like maybe the dolphins would come up and maybe the whale but it would only be for I would say 20% of the show was dedicated possibly only towards the animals and the rest was towards the act that was going on so I Look I’m not I’m not a big why am I I don’t like to see animals treated badly because that’s that’s not nice and you know a lot of people that say well don’t go to an aquarium and don’t go to a zoo and don’t do this but but you know that we went and as far as I could say they looked like they were all treated well I

Anders

mean yeah

Mark

someone possibly could have had a bigger pool or something but that’s that’s always the case

Anders

with a whale it’s different it’s difficult to have whales I mean yeah

Mark

I mean the beluga is quite small though literally it’s like a big bigger dolphin probably twice the length of a dolphin but probably only about the same girth as a dolphin. So yeah, but that was really interesting to see a beluga whale. Because you know, like you only ever see them on videos from the Arctic and places like that, you know. Yeah. And I see polar bears trying to eat them on documentaries and we we

Anders

went to a an aquarium in Vancouver Canada and and that was a really great experience as well so I really agree with you it’s it’s it’s always a balance but there are aquariums with a higher degree of research than others. So the ones where you have researchers and science people around, Maybe I’m naive, but I think they they treat their animals. Well, it

Mark

makes you feel better about the whole experience doesn’t it?

Anders

Maybe it’s just that yeah. Yeah

Mark

I like to go I like to go to once it and not necessarily SeaLife like see life is everywhere and say life is the same no matter where you go. Like they’ve always got the same sort of set-up and you know, things like that. And you know, I’ve been to a dozen sea life, and I’m gonna go to sea life in Bangkok because I’m Just looking for something to do in Bangkok as well. Yeah, so I will go there again I’ve been to Sealife in Munich and Melbourne. Yeah London and Berlin and all these different places and they’re all you know they all follow the same tried and trusted you know method that you find at all of them so they’re not overly exciting so when you can go to 1 that’s maybe a little bit different I went to an aquarium in Lisbon in Portugal and I’ll still say to this day is probably the best aquarium.

Mark

I’ve ever been to it’s not not run by sea life it’s Private 1 I guess but it was lots of really really big tanks and big massive glass encounters you know where you can see everything and but I’m always more comfortable going to aquariums and zoos in in the West as I would call it than in Asia because I Find that in Asia they can be a real real hit and miss especially zoos maybe not so much aquariums but I’ve been to some terrible zoos in Asia that I’ve actually left you know I’ve walked out and gone yeah nah that’s no good at all and I did that actually did that in Chindow when we went to China last time with we went to the zoo in Chindow mainly just to see a panda because I always like to see a panda yeah they’re that sort of unique

Anders

kind of the Chinese thing yeah

Mark

they’re like unique animals So we went to the zoo because I took my sister with me and she’d never seen a panda before because there’s only 1 Set of pandas in Australia and that’s in Adelaide So it’s

Anders

okay

Mark

stayed away and 10 hours away by car Or you know things yeah, you don’t often that’s not somewhere you would you go naturally so we went to see this panda in in Chindal Zoo and Even it wasn’t in a really great enclosure and a lot of the animals They didn’t look to be much food and much water and yeah closures were small and in the end I said, nah, I said I’ve got to get out of here. I said this is no good and I actually thought it would probably be like that because I’d experienced other zoos.

Mark

Once again I chased a panda down in Chiang Mai in Thailand and it was really good. The pandering closure there was fantastic but everything else was terrible. You know you could feed a tiger but the tiger looked like it was drugged up to the eyelids you know and things like that. So yeah it’s the real, yeah I have a real quandary about going to zoos.

Anders

Yeah, there’s a lot of ethics about keeping animals and we just, as you say, in the West, we probably look at things differently than they do.

Mark

Most definitely.

Anders

Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve seen those Seuss as well. And, and I avoid them. And also because going to the zoo, well, if it’s a zoo again with research and scientists that work for the better, I would say. Yeah. I mean,

Mark

we shouldn’t, we can’t paint all zoos bad because there is some really

Anders

good zoos.

Mark

I’ve never been to Munich Zoo but by all accounts it’s a

Anders

it’s a good zoo.

Mark

It’s a top class zoo. Melbourne is a top class zoo. I’ve been to a few good ones. I’ve been to Berlin. Berlin was a really good zoo as well. So there’s certainly some really good zoos out there. There’s no doubt about that. And some are doing some really great work with conservation while others are not. And that’s

Anders

as simple as it

Mark

gets really, isn’t it?

Anders

And It’s not like every person living in the city, they can’t just leave and go to go out in nature and see like a polar bear. And so think for educational purposes it’s they’re doing important work absolutely so but yeah there are certain ways of education and keeping the animals and stuff that you know treat them nicely that’s all I’m saying.

Mark

Well that’s it, you know, you’re dead right. Like you know I hate seeing animals treated this badly. I’ve always had animals and I’ve always looked after him. Like 1 of the big stresses when we go on holidays like I’ve got a really old rabbit And he’s 9 years old and he’s probably well past these used by date and I don’t like going away in summer and leaving him with friends because No 1 looks after your animals as good as we do. We bring them inside. It’s hot. He’s inside at the moment because you know things like that.

Mark

So pets can be real, can be really stressful if you’ve got pets and you have to and you travel because for some people they mean a they mean a lot to them and some people don’t travel because they’ve actually got animals. Yeah, I know my parents Always had a couple of dogs and you know, and they would always find it hard to go anywhere without taking the dogs because yeah

Anders

And dogs are not allowed in in many places. I mean you have to really, as you say, you have to plan your travels accordingly. Yeah, that’s a whole another can of worms there. Yeah. Traveling with pets. We should probably discuss that at some point because there are lots of opinions about it as well.

Mark

Definitely. These rabbits and the rabbit I’ve got, it’s only left over because Willow had it so I’ve had it for that long and she’s left. So I’m left with this rabbit which I love this rabbit. He’s oh well it cost me 400 Australian dollars at the vet about a month ago. So that’s how much I love him. Because he was he was sick and I thought he was dying. And now we’re talking about euthanizing him. And I was like, I would just prefer him to die naturally than I have to make the decision to actually put him down like I find that Find that really hard, but he pulled through anyway, and he’s he’s back into into good health But But yeah, but he’s at that age where he’s lived probably 3 years longer than most rabbits.

Mark

Yeah, so

Anders

So is that going to be the last the last animal?

Mark

Yeah, I’ll never have another pet after that Until I’m well into my old age And if I would decide I’m not going to travel much anymore, then I would I like cats. I’m a cat person More than dogs because cats tend to look after himself, but you can’t cats are a bit hard in Australia I don’t know about in Germany. You can’t let a cat outside anymore They meant to stay inside all the time because they killed too many native birds and things like that so in our Shire yeah you’ve actually got to keep your cat inside or have it leashed outside like a dog rope or something like that so you can’t have them wandering freely been to many cities I where cats and dogs wander freely down the streets.

Anders

Absolutely. Well, here you can have cats and they’re allowed to go out. Because I think a cat really should be allowed to go outside. It’s in its nature. I’ve seen indoor cats that are strictly indoor cats and they tend to be weird.

Mark

Yeah, you’re right. So there’ll be no more animals in my future once the rabbit goes. We had a guinea pig early on in the year but he passed away. So yeah, so it’s always sad. I’m not too proud to say that I shed a tear when our guinea pig died and I’ll no doubt shed a tear when our rabbit dies. Yeah well, Part of your family. Of course. Yeah. They’re part of your life. I’ve had dogs and jenny picks

Anders

and rabbits and all. Yeah, it’s sad. It’s sad particularly a dog I mean I know what dog what a dog man’s

Mark

best friend yeah that’s it isn’t it

Anders

it really but

Mark

that’s often

Anders

yeah well Mark you have to finish your packing

Mark

I’ve got some

Anders

packing to

Mark

do still yeah before I go to Melbourne tomorrow night

Anders

and yes 11 o’clock on Wednesday mornings yes wonderful and we’ll see how it goes in terms of yeah recording the next the next segment here in the podcast but I assume we will will be in contact and you can just let me know.

Mark

We’ll try and get in contact definitely and if we can’t get 1 happening from China we’ll definitely get 1 happening from Bangkok the week later because I’ll be in the apartment of our own when

Anders

we’re alright

Mark

dependent on what others want us to do when we’re in Bangkok will have our own time frames so so we can definitely but like I said we’ll try and we’ll touch base next Monday at some stage and see if we work out a time to jump on. Absolutely. And see how it sounds.

Anders

Yeah, exactly. Let’s do that. We will. You’ve been listening to Southern Summers and Northern Winters. Mark Wilde and Anders Jensen here. This is this was episode number 8 I think Mark time flies

Mark

yeah

Anders

and we’re gonna have to look mark at the analytics I think slowly we can start seeing if anybody’s even listening but I think

Mark

well that would be nice I

Anders

think we have listeners so

Mark

I’m sorry I look forward to hearing that yes so waiting for that first question come on people someone yeah the question or come on

Anders

talk about don’t be shy don’t be shy

Mark

no not at all we don’t bite

Anders

Well mark you have saved travels days and Looking forward to see updates on on your Facebook pages.

Mark

You will you’ll say them everywhere.

Anders

Yeah Say hello to the family.

Mark

I will you say hello to

Anders

yours. I will. Okay. Take care.

Mark

Bye. Talk

Anders

to you all later. Bye