September 6, 2025 • 35 mins
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Dark sky at night, Adam's delight! Adam celebrates his birthday at the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, the largest Dark Sky Reserve in the Southern Hemisphere. With stars in his eyes, the stargazing is cut short, when he flies down a rabbit hole!
Rice for Breakfast takes on a British theme this week, with the iconic Fish & Chips taking centre stage. Tune in to find out the true origins of Britain's most famous dish. Something smells fishy!
Tales of a Trip welcomes a romantic story of love and commitment. Navigating countries, continents, and a few naked strangers, nothing was going to stop this couple from travelling the world in the name of love!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hello and welcome to this episode of Tripology.
It's the only backpacking show where the hosts pack all their
belongings into a tiny little bag and head off around the
world. I'm Alan and I'm here with my
best friend and one of the greatest travellers on the whole
Internet. It's the ever starstruck.
Adam and am I glad to be here, mate.
(00:22):
Really looking forward to this show.
Going to give you a little update as to what I've been
doing the last week. As you all know, I turned 36.
Can you bloody believe it? And then we're going to do a
little rice for breakfast, the food section that's back.
And then of course, at the end of the show, it's Tales of a
Trip where we hear from one of you lovely listeners.
Right man. Well, very little in the way of
further ado. I would like to be the first to
(00:44):
wish you ever such an happy birthday.
I'd like to wish you stall at near rear rear Nam.
I want you to have the most excellent birthday of your
dreams. How was it?
It was absolutely brilliant mate.
It was one of my most favorite, most enjoyable birthdays in
recent memory, apart from the last one that we had together.
(01:04):
Do you remember where we were onmy birthday last?
Year, Oman. Yeah, Muscat.
Wasn't it in Muscat having a bloody?
Probably having six coffees? Have you been in a different
location for all of your birthdays in the last five
years? Different locations, not
different countries though, if that's what you're asking.
I did mean countries. Yeah, I've done New Zealand this
(01:25):
year. I've done it.
I've done New Zealand this year and then last year I'd done Oman
and then the year before that I'd done Canada, but the year
before that and the year before that I was also in Canada.
What about you? I've had a good long streak of
being in different countries. I was in the UK two years ago
but that was the first time I was in the UK for about 5 years
proceeding so I've had a pretty good run.
(01:45):
Yeah, we've got good birthdays. We've got only June and August.
I mean, they're like slap bang in the middle of summer.
So normally fair weather, fair to say.
Yeah, have you ever heard of thebirthday dilemma?
The birthday paradox? I think it's.
Called. No, never.
How many people do you think have to be in a room in order
for it to be more than 50%? Likely that two of them share a
(02:05):
birthday. Oh, isn't it ridiculously small?
Like 25 people or something. It's actually only 23 people.
Adam I. Said 25.
It's not a bad guess, is it? 23 people.
If there's 23 people in a room, the chances 50% or more that the
two of them will share the exactsame birthday.
(02:26):
And that's the case because everyone thinks, oh, but that
what? No, in my year there was no one
with my birthday at school and all that stuff.
But you can't remember. It compounds with every
additional person because there's that many more
opportunities for someone in thegroup to have the same birthday.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do know what you're
saying. I have met two people recently
that have got the same birthday as me and I've never had sort of
(02:48):
a shared birthday bash. Have you?
Have you got anyone close to youthat's got the same birthday as
you? I know a few people close to me
have the same birthday as me, and also a lot of my best
friends have their birthdays in the same week, which is the only
thing that makes me think that star signs are actually
irrefutably true. And what I would like to ask you
(03:08):
is, did you like the people thatyou met that shared your
birthday? Because I think that they're
probably similar to you. So if you didn't like them, it
says a lot about your capacity for self love.
Yeah, well, I mean you have got you have got 25 friends as well,
so that does check out that theywould all have birthdays at a
similar time to you. Have I got anything in common
(03:33):
with them? Yeah, we got on like a house on
fire. To be fair, they are both women.
They're both a lot younger than I am, but they are both
wonderful people who also work in the wine industry and are far
more intelligent than I am. But yeah, we got on like a house
on fire. It's great.
I need more friends. I'm a Virgo.
Like a house on fire, like it was quick, it was bright, it was
ferocious, and then it required other people to step in to put
(03:57):
out immediately and ensure that no further harm was done.
So lovely. I'm glad they had that
experience. Yeah, yeah, a couple of fire
engines worth of hunky Ferman. Easy.
So what did I do is what you're going to ask me.
I, I mean, what an amazing trip.It's always a good occasion,
isn't it? To go away for your birthday.
So my, my girlfriend, would you believe this?
(04:18):
My girlfriend organised a surprise trip that I had
absolutely no idea about, apart from the fact I was getting a
bus from outside where we live at 9:18 in the morning.
And, you know, I mean, people that listen to this show, they
know that I like to plan or I like to know what I'm doing and
have some more a degree of control over what I'm doing,
especially for my birthday. How do you think I fared in that
(04:39):
situation where I knew I was going away for three days?
I had absolutely no idea what wewere doing.
I imagine you were vaguely insufferable, 918.
Insufferable. That's the age though.
That's just, that's not just my personality.
No, no, I mean, I completely surrendered and I just said, all
(05:01):
right, let's let's go for it. Did you surrender in a way that
she knew you were unhappy about it?
Fine. I surrender 918.
I'll be ready. I'll be there on my birthday.
Which I mean, what you want. Are we a bus at 918?
Great. No, no, no.
You know, every 5 minutes you can imagine, we go just to make
(05:23):
sure. This is definitely something
that you think I would want to do, not something you, you know,
just to make sure that the, the months that we've known together
or spending time together, just to make sure, just to make sure
this is absolutely something you're sure that I would want to
do on my birthday in New Zealand.
Let's not go. Shopping or something that girls
like. It's my birthday.
(05:44):
That was amazing. I I absolutely love the audacity
as well because we got off the bus to then collect a car and I
found out that I was driving forfour hours.
Wow, what a beautiful birthday treat.
Because she knows that you're tropology is best driver.
She knows that you love driving.Yeah, and she much like you, she
can drive, but she won't. But hold on, you got a bus
tonight at 9:18 and then you hadto drive.
(06:06):
Yeah, because we were collectinga car from one of her friends
who very kindly lent us his vehicle for the three days.
OK, right. Nice.
I like it. And then we drove 4 hours to the
centre of the South Island to a place called Lake Tekapo and
also Mount Cook, which is the highest point in the whole of
New Zealand I think. Yeah, OK, nice.
How resentful are you while thisis happening on a scale of one
(06:27):
to five? Well.
I've been given a coffee on the way, so I was, you know, in in
good spirits. And I mean, driving around New
Zealand is like you just look out the window and it fills you
with joy. It is one of the most beautiful
countries, I think, on Earth. So I was in good spirits.
We made it all the way down to Lake Tacopo.
Beautiful, beautiful lake. It is also a dark sky region.
(06:49):
It's like a dedicated dark sky reserve and talking about star
signs and all this sort of stuff.
You know quite a bit about constellations, don't you?
Certainly more than I do. Oh yes, I know, awful lot of
constellations, right? Ask me anything.
Well, no, I'm just going to tellyou the sort of stuff that we
saw. But there was a, quite a funny
twist being the opposite word. So we had a, we had a lovely,
(07:12):
lovely day. We walked around the lake.
It's quite barren, actually, the, the landscape quite barren
and a little bit rough. There's not really much going
on, but the mountains are beautiful covered in snow as
well because it's freezing down here.
It's winter, by the way. And that night we got a couple
of beers. We climbed up to the top of the
hill on the edge of the town, sothere was even less light
(07:33):
pollution right on the edge of the forest.
We were just sitting there. You know, it was like kids, like
kids in an American film, you know, we were, it was amazing.
I, I just felt like a little child again.
It's so it's so nice. Why American?
You were like, hey, you want some candy?
No, because I don't know. I just, those are the films that
I've seen. I remember.
(07:53):
I'm sure it feels somewhat nostalgic where there's like
kids in a field looking up at the stars.
Maybe there's less light pollution in the USI don't know.
Hey girlfriend, you want to go to a baseball game?
Why are all your characters fromChicago?
I've only got 1 American accent.It's like, hey, we're there on
the mountain watching the sky, what's wrong with you?
(08:14):
Keep it down over there. I'm driving for four hours on
the freeway. But it was lovely.
So we we were sitting there justwatching, watching the stars.
And we were there for about two hours.
We had a couple of beers, saw a shooting star.
That's my favorite consolation. The shooting star, there's one,
the scorpion, which I imagine isScorpio, Yes.
(08:35):
I don't know if we get, we get different stars down here.
Maybe there's also a Centaur. I didn't see Orion's Belt for
love nor money. A Centaur.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know the one, the
horse with the Archer and the the thing.
There'll be people listening to this that know what I'm talking
about. I think he's the Centaur that
trained Achilles maybe. Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, it was, you know what it's like in dark sky regions.
There's almost too many stars. The only other time I've seen a
(08:58):
sky like this, I guess actually maybe in kind of roughly where
we were in BC, but definitely inthe Outback when you look up and
it looks ridiculous, quite honestly.
I feel that way about the universe writ large.
It's ridiculous. Too many stars.
I think if when The Big Bang hadhappened, if it had implode into
more manageable chunks, just maybe 5-6 or seven stars, the
(09:21):
world as we know would be in a better state now.
And I struggle not to be resembled when I look up the
night scar and go, well, you spread yourself too thin.
The the the planet to star ratio, it's they got it all
wrong, didn't. They somewhat too many stars.
What an infant. Infinitesimal stars.
Great. And now Donald Trump's
president. So thank you very much.
(09:42):
Happy birthday me. No, no.
So we, we were just as we were leaving my my partner, bless
her, she remembered everything. There we were like getting the
little picnic blanket, folding that up, putting it in the bag,
making sure we were taking our litter and this sort of stuff.
But I didn't have anything with me.
I left even left my phone at home.
She had a head torch. So as she was scanning to make
(10:05):
sure we had left the area completely free, no trace, no
trace, you know, only leave footprints, all that bollocks.
We, we were walking down the hill and just at the moment she
turned her head, obviously it was pitch black.
I felt straight down a rabbit hole and twisted my ankle.
In a literal sense, or in an Alice in Wonderland style, like
(10:27):
you went Oh my God, what does itall mean?
Who am I? Where is my place in the
universe? That kind of a rabbit.
Hole No, no, no, no, no. The beers we were drinking
weren't that strong. It was a literal rabbit hole and
my foot went straight down. I sprained it immediately.
That's my least favorite type ofrabbit hole.
And, and the walk home was pretty painful, but the rest of
the weekend, I didn't want it toto go out the window.
(10:50):
But she had to tell me at that moment.
We did actually have two enormous hikes planned for the
next two days. Oh great, so she didn't think to
come out there and make sure there weren't any rabbit holes
prior to your birthday? No, though, unfortunately not.
It's selfish. Imagine if I.
It's selfish. All the, all the work that had
gone into the entire weekend, she'd planned it down to the
(11:10):
minute. We went to, we went to Hot
Springs, we went out for lovely dinners, we went on these lovely
walks. Even the cafe that she, you
know, it was all, it was all planned down to the tea.
A lot of research and a lot of things went into it.
But I wasn't about to let that. He's like, oh, on day one you're
going to fall down a rabbit hole.
So on Day 2, we'll get to the Hot Springs to reduce some of
the inflammation. Oh, would you look at that on
(11:34):
your birthday card? I've popped a couple of
ibuprofen. But no, the next morning, mate,
it blew up like a like a balloon.
It was awful. I had a really bad night's sleep
and then woke up in the morning and she was like, how's your
foot doing? Is it all right?
Do you think you're going to be able to walk today?
I looked down. It was like the size of a
balloon. I said that's fine.
I can float. No, it was, I'm still suffering
(12:01):
basically, mate, is what I'm saying.
But it was amazing, amazing time.
We did so many, so many things. And like I said, it's, it's
just, it seems like it's a shamenow that I didn't do this sort
of thing for all of my previous birthdays.
Well, I'm very, very sorry that at a somewhat uncomfortable
time, but I'm very, very happy that there's someone there who
cares for you enough that they would give you the kind of
(12:21):
wonderful birthday that I gave you the last year in Muscat
because I was just such a great partner to you then and she's a
great partner to you now. That's OK.
We have different partners at different stages of our lives.
I'm very, very happy for you. Hear from our sponsors.
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(12:44):
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(13:46):
of therapy. There are many components that
go to making an absolutely fantastic effervescent sort of a
birthday, and just one of those components is what you insert
into your mouth whilst having it.
I'm talking of course, of the birthday meal.
Oh, let's go and hear what I'd have had in an IME likes to
call. Rice for breakfast, Rice for
(14:08):
breakfast. You come and have rice for
breakfast, rice for breakfast, mate, it's back.
It's been a few weeks. It is my birthday and like I was
saying, my partner, she's curated this whole weekend for
me. I didn't know that I was going
to have this on my birthday, butit was so bloody delicious.
I've decided to talk about it onthe podcast.
So the meal that I had, it kind of defines British food.
(14:31):
Think about the most iconic British food you could
potentially have on your birthday.
Birthday cake. Is that British?
A birthday cake. Well, they sometimes have them
in the supermarket, that one. There's a Caterpillar on a big
chocolate log. I reckon he's British.
No, she knows me pretty well. Do you think that would have
been something that she organised for my birthday at
bloody Tesco's Caterpillar? What's it even called, Charlie?
(14:52):
Or something. Don't look down on that
Caterpillar mate. He's an iconic part of British
culture. No, it's not that good.
I'll give you one more gift. Iconic British food.
Think about it. Like a sort of brown carvery
with the Yorkshire pudding and gravy on it and beef.
Everything that's brown on a. Plate even more British than
that. This fish and chips mate.
Oh, that's difficult to pronounce in New Zealand.
(15:14):
Is oh, because they say go on, you're the one who can do
accents well, they. Famously allied the I sounds and
say something akin to fish and chips.
But that also sounds a bit Scottish.
Yeah, well, they're. Efficient chips.
Similar accents. There is actually a place in the
South Island called Dunedin, which I've been told is the
Gaelic word for Edinburgh. No way.
Way. So the fish and chips, mate,
(15:37):
that's what we had. And in Lake Tacopo, there's this
little car park. There's not much there, but
around the the side of the lake there's this food truck that's
called The Better Batter and it does traditional fish and chips,
traditional British fish and chips served by an Indonesian
man and his Korean wife. Well, I like that because they
know what they're doing. But it is honestly absolutely
(16:01):
delicious and I was so so happy that this is going to be my
birthday meal. Love a food truck at the best of
times, but we we got the chips, the fries and also the of the
fish and then some crispy squid and we walked it back under the
stars and then ate it in a backpacker hostel.
So you completely, I was totallyfucking made-up, mate, because I
was there with my bottle of Chardonnay, bottle of that for a
(16:23):
wide Chardonnay that I bought from work and I have my fish and
chips and it was just Stella, Stella just so on point, exactly
as if I had designed it myself. And they just fighting against
their Asian etymology. The people making that vision
chips, they're like, no, we're just going to do fish and chips.
It's going to be British cuisine.
Oh, well, should we not add something else to it?
No. No fish and chips.
That's all we're going to do is just fish and chips.
(16:45):
Are you sure? We don't want to add anything
else. Crispy squid fine.
We try to appeal to the ever increasing Asian market.
Whatever, fish and chips and squid and we'll do a few prong
crackers, but that's it. Multicultural.
The new cultural. But mate, I'll tell you what,
(17:11):
I've been researching fish and chips.
It ain't half interesting. All this stuff I'm learning.
Do you want to hear? Do you want to hear some facts
and figures about fish and chips?
Because do you like fish and chips?
I know we do. We have this tendency to be a
bit anti British and you know, slag off the cuisine and stuff.
But when it's good, it is bloodygood, isn't it?
So I famously so dislike fish and chips that it's caused
(17:34):
tension in my life. Go on.
It's caused full on arguments. What is it you don't like about
it? Well.
It stems back to wanting mushy peas at Harry Ramsden's when I
was a kid and I was too. I was rude to my parents and so
I was denied the mushy peas and that caused such a visceral scar
(17:54):
in my mind that I feel sick at the thought of fish and chips.
And then later in life I've justified that by saying that
they're slightly too greasy for me.
But it's, I mean, it's difficultbecause when what I've found is
when people want you to have fish and chips and you say I'm
not, I'm OK. I don't actually want to have
the fish and chips. That causes such a terrible
(18:18):
reaction to the people. People really want you to have
fish and chips when they want tohave fish and chips, I've
noticed. Yeah, I could imagine that being
true. Do you think that's because deep
down, and it's not even that deep, we all know that it is so
unhealthy, but they feel some somewhat challenged.
Might be, yeah, yeah. I think it's to do with the
unhealthiness. I think it's to do with the
Harry Ramsey's mushy peas incident.
(18:38):
I think there's a lot of baggagearound fish and chips.
Yeah. I mean, like most British Foods
and probably foods in this ilk, which are your fast food kind of
category. It's, it's fried, it's fatty,
it's carbohydrates on carbs. But when it's gourmet and when
(19:00):
it's expensive and when it's made by an Indonesian man and
his Korean wife in a food truck next to a lake, it is, it can be
great. It can be really, really good.
But the fish and chip research that I've been doing, right,
like all good things, like all good things that we've got in
Britain, it isn't British at all.
It actually stems from what was brought in originally by
(19:24):
immigrants, Jewish immigrants. Ashkenazi Jews apparently
brought it in fish and chips was.
Yeah, well, apparently the, the,the marrying of the fish with
the chips is probably of or by this Jewish immigrant called
Joseph Malin. And he's credited with having
the first fish and chip shop in London in the 1860s, of course,
(19:48):
fish that had been sort of curedin vinegar or sort of, you know,
a bit of flour around it and then fried that already existed.
Right and he thought you 2 are not going on the plate together
without an official marriage. It's disgusting muscles of.
So yeah, something along those lines.
I'm sure that's pretty much how it happened.
We'll ask Baggabot 3000 if he can do some fact checking.
(20:10):
But so dates, dates been a very,very long time.
There was actually a mention of a shop in Manchester in 1863,
but I left that out because I didn't want, you know, the whole
London versus Manchester thing. It was less romantic for it to
be something from Manchester. Yeah, my ego would start
inflating to such a huge degree that I would gobble up the fish
and chips right here on the show.
This must fall. Every now and again my dad will
(20:32):
be able to tell you exactly how often, but we can't.
The 1st Friday of every June, which is sometimes probably your
birthday in the UK, is National Fish and Chips Day.
Yeah. Do you know exactly that's the
whole problem? How do you think this story
started? Fish and chip shops were at
their peak apparently, so started off in the 1860s.
(20:54):
Obviously it caught on. Then there were more and more
fish and chip shops. At their peak in the 1920s there
were 35,000 fish and chip shops.That has reduced, and now
there's only about 10 1/2 thousand.
But guess what? It's still more than McDonald's,
KFC, Burger King and Subway combined.
If only they were banded together under 1 franchise.
We'll try and take on fish and chips.
(21:16):
We'll try and take on those other franchises like
McDonald's, you know? Oh, you mean like Harry Ramsden
did? What even happened to that?
Ever since the mushy pee incident.
But another interesting thing, throughout World War One and
World War 2, fish and chips was one of the only foods that
wasn't rationed. Famously referred to by Winston
Churchill as the Good Companions.
(21:38):
Wow, that's cute, isn't? It I mean, the actual good
companion for Winston Churchill was cocaine, so it seems
unfortunately he saw more fit toration that than the old fish
and chips. Dear Oh dear, that was staying
but today Brits, this is mind blowing if this is true, which I
(21:59):
hope it is because I did look ata couple of different sources
and I'm not talking about Tartartoday.
You could resist as soon as you use that word, I knew.
Well, what do you have? What do you have when you do?
Imagine if you were someone who liked fish and chips.
What would you have? Which sauce would you have?
A sauce? Curry sauce.
I'd have, I'd probably have tartare.
I certainly wouldn't fucking do Curry or brown or gravy or
(22:21):
anything that I've seen other people doing a fish and chip
shop. Oh, ketchup.
And did you put vinegar and salton chips?
You don't have to be next to a fish.
Don't. I'm cut a tonic in the corner of
the shop, do I just let them do whatever they want?
You're there, you're there just beside yourself thinking in.
I was in chaga a couple of months back having some yellow
fin tuna, you know, just out of the water.
(22:43):
And now I'm here in this fuckingfish and chip shop do.
You want, do you want salt and vinegar on that?
Just just do it. So Brits eat an estimated
382,000,000 portions of fish andchips every year.
That's six servings per person per year.
Can that even be true? Oh yeah, no, that's that's once
every two months. But some people aren't having
(23:05):
any, I reckon the people that are having, I reckon the way the
Britain works usually is there are people that have fish and
chips every Friday as they wouldand then some people just never
have them and and that's probably 382,000,000.
Portions. And do they care about the
stats? Someone's like, I've had chips
every Friday, so that means you can't have any now for the whole
(23:26):
year, right? Because we don't want to mess
the fucking stats up. Jim and Wendy the over Rd.
They haven't added fish and chips in weeks.
I haven't been intercepting their over eats.
But yeah, I think what you like about fish and chips, maybe you
like it, maybe you hate it, but I do think that that seems to be
from travelling the world and speaking to people.
(23:47):
Fish and chips seems to be the one dish that everyone thinks of
when they think of British food.So if you are going to have one,
just make sure it's a bloody good one and get mushy pieces.
Well, how was the fish and chipsthat you had on your birthday?
Just to round off, you know, rate it for me.
I might go as far as saying it'sthe best fish and chips I've
(24:08):
ever had. Why?
The quality of the batter, it was very light.
It was super crispy. I think it was probably a
combination of beer batter and panko crumbs.
The fish was really tender. Sorry Alice, laughing here.
Is that because I'm starting to sound a little bit like a
wanker? It's my birthday, let me be a
wanker. It's just you fishing for the
(24:29):
fourth time in an episode for a panko sponsorship.
My favorite brand still hasn't called us after all my emails.
God, if the listeners knew the amount of emails you send to
Panko, you know, guys, we do this hit travel podcast.
People love it. It's really cool.
And Vari Allen's in the Philippines.
(24:50):
I'm in New Zealand. Send us some bread crumbs.
Yeah, what else was good about it?
Like I said, the portion was small and it was reasonably
priced. Very fresh.
And the crispy squid, it was delicious.
I mean my partner didn't eat it because it was.
It just looks too much like an animal.
Good well, I mean it speaks to the quality of the dish as a
whole that the two best things about it were the fact that it
(25:13):
was a so small that it was virtually non existent and B
there was another thing added toit that's not what the dish is
that you also like so a review comprehensively there for fish
and chips thank you for the ricefor breakfast.
Do you know what I want to hear now Adam?
It's what you know my favorite item on the show is, and I'm
sure it's yours as well. It's when a listener goes to
(25:36):
tripologypodcast.com/tales of a trip and sends in their greatest
travel story. 3 minutes of compelling, heartstring pulling,
blood pumping stories. Baby, let's go.
Let's say right now this is whata business said.
Hi Alan and Adam, Liam here, long time listener to the show
(25:59):
and I'm loving all the things you guys are doing.
So for my Tales of a Trip, I would like to share the time
when I met my partner Emmy. So back in 2023 I set myself a
little bit of a challenge to visit 12 European cities in 12
months. So I was heading off to Finland
(26:20):
to see Helsinki before jumping on the ferry heading across to
Tallinn in Estonia. So whilst I was in Helsinki I
met this beautiful Finnish girl called Emmy.
We went on a date. We headed off to a Speakeasy
bar, one of those little secretive bars.
We've got a ring, a telephone toget in.
(26:42):
We had plenty of cocktails, there's a really good time in
there. And then we headed to this kind
of like crazy Finnish bingo night.
I had no idea what was going on.Emmy had to translate everything
for me. It was a lot of fun, but I had
no idea what's going on. Then Emmy says, grab your towel.
(27:06):
So we head off, walking down thestreet, towel in hand, and we go
through these. It's like an in an abandoned
industrial park. We're going through these
warehouses and I'm thinking, where is this girl taking me?
Am I going to be murdered? But eventually we get through
these warehouses and there's these cute little fairy lights
(27:26):
dangling in the distance. And this place is actually
called Sompa Sauna. And it's these saunas that were
built back in 2011. They were actually built
illegally on this abandoned, abandoned like waste ground.
And then the government would come knock down the sauna and
then the volunteers and the locals would build 2 saunas and
(27:48):
then the government would come knock those saunas down and then
they'd build 3 saunas. Though it turned into a bit of a
movement and it's actually a recognised thing by the local
government now it's free to go and run by volunteers.
It's incredible. So we're there, we're jumping in
the frozen Baltic Sea and then going jumping straight into
(28:11):
these saunas. It was pretty incredible
experience. There's naked people everywhere.
Complete eye opener for me. But then at the end of the night
it was a bit bittersweet becauseI thought that's the last time
I'm going to see you because I'mgoing to Australia though.
I head off to Australia and after being there six months I
(28:32):
come back to Europe and we message and say it would be a
shame not to see each other again whilst I'm still in
Europe. So we booked this random
spontaneous trip to Montenegro to see Kotor and Budva.
Just before the trip Emmy actually got really sick.
She was in hospital and she missed the flight to Montenegro,
(28:56):
so I thought that was that. However, the next day she jumps
on a flight to Croatia and then gets the bus down to Montenegro.
We had the best time in Montenegro together and again,
very bitter sweet because I was heading back off to Australia,
though I head back off to Australia and Emmy says I'm
(29:20):
coming to Australia with you. So two months later she gets on
a plane, flies over to Australiaand now we're just about to move
into our first apartment together.
I've got a 240 days streak, I'm Duolingo learning Finnish and
the rest is history. So that is my story of How I Met
(29:40):
my partner. Hope you guys enjoyed it and
keep up the good work. Cheers.
I absolutely love it. Congratulations, Liam, to you
and Emmy. My goodness, that's an awesome
story. I love it.
I love it. I love it.
I love it. Travel, bringing people together
through the accessibility of moving between countries and
(30:04):
meeting people and doing all sorts of crazy amazing things to
people who wanted it to work, actually made the chess pieces
move in order to make it work. It's beautiful.
And Adam? It is.
I love that I was like along forthe ride.
I just that kind of excitement that you feel when you're in
this kind of relationship and you're not quite sure where it's
going to go and everything's novel and new and there's travel
(30:27):
involved as well that heightens the senses and this Speakeasy
bars and naked people everywhere.
I mean, God, what a trip. That's awesome.
It's also the uncertain nature of it gives you this like
resigned feeling of like, oh, maybe they're not going to make
it to Montenegro. Oh, I guess it's not going to
quite work, but it can. It can work.
Yeah, they definitely can. I mean, both, both of them
(30:48):
needed to put everything on the line, I suppose.
Because it's not just about Emmysaying, do you know what, I
really want to be with you and I'm going to pull the trigger
here on a flight and I'm going to come to Australia.
It's also about Liam accepting that as something and then and
then sort of going, I mean, it'slike jumping in at the deep end,
isn't it? But yeah, I just love the story
(31:08):
from start to finish. Thanks so much mate for sending
it in. We do of course talk to Liam
quite often. He's sort of AI feel like he's a
good mate now and I just. Bloody hope he's a Patreon
subscriber, isn't he? Liam's one of the people that
went over to Tripology podcast on Patreon and he's, you know, a
good friend of us as a result ofthat.
Yeah, one of the Ogs supports us, quite literally.
And now we're hearing his story and it's, it's bloody inspiring.
(31:30):
I love him. Well, he's in a relationship,
sorry. And he's learning Finnish and
you don't speak Finnish. Well, I'll learn.
And that owl, that arrogant owl on Duolingo, I really profoundly
dislike that owl always popping up.
And you're like, oh, you've it seems to me you've not tried
learning Spanish this week. Are you OK?
(31:51):
Yes, Duo, I've had a lot on because unlike you, some of us
have multiple jobs. Duo, OK.
Folly. Hats off to you, Liam, mate,
this is a message to you. Just Finnish of all the
languages, I think is bloody difficult, especially when
you've got a little Ouch chirping in your ear.
But it just goes to show that, yeah, like you said, Alan, you
can make it work even against all the odds.
(32:12):
You didn't let us know whether you made it to all 12 cities in
in the all 12 countries in 12 months.
What else did you do? Send another voice note in, We'd
love to hear. It what I found really
interesting is the idea of the Finnish government sort of
going, Oh my God, but this is amazing things happening.
Whenever we knock down one of these saunas, they're
replicating and no one knows howor why.
(32:33):
So we can just, we can have infinitesimal saunas if we just
keep on destroying them. They keep on from reforming.
You think it was all part of theplan trying to save money, kept
the council budget on construction.
Yeah, we actually want 10 saunas, so we'll have to destroy
5, OK. That is so up my street going to
a sauna. On the first date.
(32:54):
I think so. I think so.
Ironically, he went to a speakeris he when he can't speak
Finnish and he was complaining about not knowing what was going
on, but. What's the greatest date that
you've been on whilst travellingthe?
Greatest date that I've been on.It's a good, it's an interesting
question. I was thinking during that story
actually, you know, when, when she didn't show up, when she
they were supposed to meet. I think he was in Montenegro and
then she missed her flight because she was sick.
(33:15):
I don't know if you if you remember, I lined up a date with
a girl in Mumbai and she told meabout 45 minutes before we were
supposed to meet that she was really sick.
She said I'm still, she was still prepared to meet you, but
she was like, I'm ill. No, no, no, she said.
I'm sorry, I can't come to the day.
I'm really sick. I thought, yeah, I hope you're
not, but if you're not, just tell me you're not interested.
(33:36):
It'll just be much better if we're all honest because it
sounds like complete bullshit. I prefer that because once I was
sat next to someone for an hour,I was working they they were a
sort of DJ and I sat next and I was helping them with some
stuff. And after a good hour of like
being sat next to them and I wastalking about I've got some
really important things on this week.
It turns me when I've got to be honest with you, Alan, I'm sick
(33:58):
as a fucking pig. And I would have been grateful
if he told me that prior. Yeah, so you could have scooted
over a little. Bit and not kissed him.
Yeah, yeah. Well, talking about that.
So I did. I think she listens to the show
actually, but it was, it was in Macedonia, Macedonia and Greece.
(34:19):
And that we didn't do episodes on those actually.
But it was a, it was sort of a maybe a, a meeting way back in
Tokyo. Well, perhaps we can hear the
story of that meeting on Patreon. 0patreon.com/tripology
podcast and in the Lost and Found section maybe, maybe I'll
divulge. I'd be willing to hear you dive
old right now. Shall we Pierce through the back
(34:41):
of the show and go straight to Patreon?
Let's do it Liam, mate, thanks ever so much.
We we love you to bits. We really appreciate it was a
wicked story and we wish you andEmmy all the best.
Let us know how you're going with the finish, won't you?
And we'll see you on the other side.
Bye bye.
Hello and welcome to this episode of Tripology.
It's the only backpacking show where the hosts pack all their
belongings into a tiny little bag and head off around the
world. I'm Alan and I'm here with my
best friend and one of the greatest travellers on the whole
Internet. It's the ever starstruck.
Adam and am I glad to be here, mate.
(00:22):
Really looking forward to this show.
Going to give you a little update as to what I've been
doing the last week. As you all know, I turned 36.
Can you bloody believe it? And then we're going to do a
little rice for breakfast, the food section that's back.
And then of course, at the end of the show, it's Tales of a
Trip where we hear from one of you lovely listeners.
Right man. Well, very little in the way of
further ado. I would like to be the first to
(00:44):
wish you ever such an happy birthday.
I'd like to wish you stall at near rear rear Nam.
I want you to have the most excellent birthday of your
dreams. How was it?
It was absolutely brilliant mate.
It was one of my most favorite, most enjoyable birthdays in
recent memory, apart from the last one that we had together.
(01:04):
Do you remember where we were onmy birthday last?
Year, Oman. Yeah, Muscat.
Wasn't it in Muscat having a bloody?
Probably having six coffees? Have you been in a different
location for all of your birthdays in the last five
years? Different locations, not
different countries though, if that's what you're asking.
I did mean countries. Yeah, I've done New Zealand this
(01:25):
year. I've done it.
I've done New Zealand this year and then last year I'd done Oman
and then the year before that I'd done Canada, but the year
before that and the year before that I was also in Canada.
What about you? I've had a good long streak of
being in different countries. I was in the UK two years ago
but that was the first time I was in the UK for about 5 years
proceeding so I've had a pretty good run.
(01:45):
Yeah, we've got good birthdays. We've got only June and August.
I mean, they're like slap bang in the middle of summer.
So normally fair weather, fair to say.
Yeah, have you ever heard of thebirthday dilemma?
The birthday paradox? I think it's.
Called. No, never.
How many people do you think have to be in a room in order
for it to be more than 50%? Likely that two of them share a
(02:05):
birthday. Oh, isn't it ridiculously small?
Like 25 people or something. It's actually only 23 people.
Adam I. Said 25.
It's not a bad guess, is it? 23 people.
If there's 23 people in a room, the chances 50% or more that the
two of them will share the exactsame birthday.
(02:26):
And that's the case because everyone thinks, oh, but that
what? No, in my year there was no one
with my birthday at school and all that stuff.
But you can't remember. It compounds with every
additional person because there's that many more
opportunities for someone in thegroup to have the same birthday.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do know what you're
saying. I have met two people recently
that have got the same birthday as me and I've never had sort of
(02:48):
a shared birthday bash. Have you?
Have you got anyone close to youthat's got the same birthday as
you? I know a few people close to me
have the same birthday as me, and also a lot of my best
friends have their birthdays in the same week, which is the only
thing that makes me think that star signs are actually
irrefutably true. And what I would like to ask you
(03:08):
is, did you like the people thatyou met that shared your
birthday? Because I think that they're
probably similar to you. So if you didn't like them, it
says a lot about your capacity for self love.
Yeah, well, I mean you have got you have got 25 friends as well,
so that does check out that theywould all have birthdays at a
similar time to you. Have I got anything in common
(03:33):
with them? Yeah, we got on like a house on
fire. To be fair, they are both women.
They're both a lot younger than I am, but they are both
wonderful people who also work in the wine industry and are far
more intelligent than I am. But yeah, we got on like a house
on fire. It's great.
I need more friends. I'm a Virgo.
Like a house on fire, like it was quick, it was bright, it was
ferocious, and then it required other people to step in to put
(03:57):
out immediately and ensure that no further harm was done.
So lovely. I'm glad they had that
experience. Yeah, yeah, a couple of fire
engines worth of hunky Ferman. Easy.
So what did I do is what you're going to ask me.
I, I mean, what an amazing trip.It's always a good occasion,
isn't it? To go away for your birthday.
So my, my girlfriend, would you believe this?
(04:18):
My girlfriend organised a surprise trip that I had
absolutely no idea about, apart from the fact I was getting a
bus from outside where we live at 9:18 in the morning.
And, you know, I mean, people that listen to this show, they
know that I like to plan or I like to know what I'm doing and
have some more a degree of control over what I'm doing,
especially for my birthday. How do you think I fared in that
(04:39):
situation where I knew I was going away for three days?
I had absolutely no idea what wewere doing.
I imagine you were vaguely insufferable, 918.
Insufferable. That's the age though.
That's just, that's not just my personality.
No, no, I mean, I completely surrendered and I just said, all
(05:01):
right, let's let's go for it. Did you surrender in a way that
she knew you were unhappy about it?
Fine. I surrender 918.
I'll be ready. I'll be there on my birthday.
Which I mean, what you want. Are we a bus at 918?
Great. No, no, no.
You know, every 5 minutes you can imagine, we go just to make
(05:23):
sure. This is definitely something
that you think I would want to do, not something you, you know,
just to make sure that the, the months that we've known together
or spending time together, just to make sure, just to make sure
this is absolutely something you're sure that I would want to
do on my birthday in New Zealand.
Let's not go. Shopping or something that girls
like. It's my birthday.
(05:44):
That was amazing. I I absolutely love the audacity
as well because we got off the bus to then collect a car and I
found out that I was driving forfour hours.
Wow, what a beautiful birthday treat.
Because she knows that you're tropology is best driver.
She knows that you love driving.Yeah, and she much like you, she
can drive, but she won't. But hold on, you got a bus
tonight at 9:18 and then you hadto drive.
(06:06):
Yeah, because we were collectinga car from one of her friends
who very kindly lent us his vehicle for the three days.
OK, right. Nice.
I like it. And then we drove 4 hours to the
centre of the South Island to a place called Lake Tekapo and
also Mount Cook, which is the highest point in the whole of
New Zealand I think. Yeah, OK, nice.
How resentful are you while thisis happening on a scale of one
(06:27):
to five? Well.
I've been given a coffee on the way, so I was, you know, in in
good spirits. And I mean, driving around New
Zealand is like you just look out the window and it fills you
with joy. It is one of the most beautiful
countries, I think, on Earth. So I was in good spirits.
We made it all the way down to Lake Tacopo.
Beautiful, beautiful lake. It is also a dark sky region.
(06:49):
It's like a dedicated dark sky reserve and talking about star
signs and all this sort of stuff.
You know quite a bit about constellations, don't you?
Certainly more than I do. Oh yes, I know, awful lot of
constellations, right? Ask me anything.
Well, no, I'm just going to tellyou the sort of stuff that we
saw. But there was a, quite a funny
twist being the opposite word. So we had a, we had a lovely,
(07:12):
lovely day. We walked around the lake.
It's quite barren, actually, the, the landscape quite barren
and a little bit rough. There's not really much going
on, but the mountains are beautiful covered in snow as
well because it's freezing down here.
It's winter, by the way. And that night we got a couple
of beers. We climbed up to the top of the
hill on the edge of the town, sothere was even less light
(07:33):
pollution right on the edge of the forest.
We were just sitting there. You know, it was like kids, like
kids in an American film, you know, we were, it was amazing.
I, I just felt like a little child again.
It's so it's so nice. Why American?
You were like, hey, you want some candy?
No, because I don't know. I just, those are the films that
I've seen. I remember.
(07:53):
I'm sure it feels somewhat nostalgic where there's like
kids in a field looking up at the stars.
Maybe there's less light pollution in the USI don't know.
Hey girlfriend, you want to go to a baseball game?
Why are all your characters fromChicago?
I've only got 1 American accent.It's like, hey, we're there on
the mountain watching the sky, what's wrong with you?
(08:14):
Keep it down over there. I'm driving for four hours on
the freeway. But it was lovely.
So we we were sitting there justwatching, watching the stars.
And we were there for about two hours.
We had a couple of beers, saw a shooting star.
That's my favorite consolation. The shooting star, there's one,
the scorpion, which I imagine isScorpio, Yes.
(08:35):
I don't know if we get, we get different stars down here.
Maybe there's also a Centaur. I didn't see Orion's Belt for
love nor money. A Centaur.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know the one, the
horse with the Archer and the the thing.
There'll be people listening to this that know what I'm talking
about. I think he's the Centaur that
trained Achilles maybe. Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, it was, you know what it's like in dark sky regions.
There's almost too many stars. The only other time I've seen a
(08:58):
sky like this, I guess actually maybe in kind of roughly where
we were in BC, but definitely inthe Outback when you look up and
it looks ridiculous, quite honestly.
I feel that way about the universe writ large.
It's ridiculous. Too many stars.
I think if when The Big Bang hadhappened, if it had implode into
more manageable chunks, just maybe 5-6 or seven stars, the
(09:21):
world as we know would be in a better state now.
And I struggle not to be resembled when I look up the
night scar and go, well, you spread yourself too thin.
The the the planet to star ratio, it's they got it all
wrong, didn't. They somewhat too many stars.
What an infant. Infinitesimal stars.
Great. And now Donald Trump's
president. So thank you very much.
(09:42):
Happy birthday me. No, no.
So we, we were just as we were leaving my my partner, bless
her, she remembered everything. There we were like getting the
little picnic blanket, folding that up, putting it in the bag,
making sure we were taking our litter and this sort of stuff.
But I didn't have anything with me.
I left even left my phone at home.
She had a head torch. So as she was scanning to make
(10:05):
sure we had left the area completely free, no trace, no
trace, you know, only leave footprints, all that bollocks.
We, we were walking down the hill and just at the moment she
turned her head, obviously it was pitch black.
I felt straight down a rabbit hole and twisted my ankle.
In a literal sense, or in an Alice in Wonderland style, like
(10:27):
you went Oh my God, what does itall mean?
Who am I? Where is my place in the
universe? That kind of a rabbit.
Hole No, no, no, no, no. The beers we were drinking
weren't that strong. It was a literal rabbit hole and
my foot went straight down. I sprained it immediately.
That's my least favorite type ofrabbit hole.
And, and the walk home was pretty painful, but the rest of
the weekend, I didn't want it toto go out the window.
(10:50):
But she had to tell me at that moment.
We did actually have two enormous hikes planned for the
next two days. Oh great, so she didn't think to
come out there and make sure there weren't any rabbit holes
prior to your birthday? No, though, unfortunately not.
It's selfish. Imagine if I.
It's selfish. All the, all the work that had
gone into the entire weekend, she'd planned it down to the
(11:10):
minute. We went to, we went to Hot
Springs, we went out for lovely dinners, we went on these lovely
walks. Even the cafe that she, you
know, it was all, it was all planned down to the tea.
A lot of research and a lot of things went into it.
But I wasn't about to let that. He's like, oh, on day one you're
going to fall down a rabbit hole.
So on Day 2, we'll get to the Hot Springs to reduce some of
the inflammation. Oh, would you look at that on
(11:34):
your birthday card? I've popped a couple of
ibuprofen. But no, the next morning, mate,
it blew up like a like a balloon.
It was awful. I had a really bad night's sleep
and then woke up in the morning and she was like, how's your
foot doing? Is it all right?
Do you think you're going to be able to walk today?
I looked down. It was like the size of a
balloon. I said that's fine.
I can float. No, it was, I'm still suffering
(12:01):
basically, mate, is what I'm saying.
But it was amazing, amazing time.
We did so many, so many things. And like I said, it's, it's
just, it seems like it's a shamenow that I didn't do this sort
of thing for all of my previous birthdays.
Well, I'm very, very sorry that at a somewhat uncomfortable
time, but I'm very, very happy that there's someone there who
cares for you enough that they would give you the kind of
(12:21):
wonderful birthday that I gave you the last year in Muscat
because I was just such a great partner to you then and she's a
great partner to you now. That's OK.
We have different partners at different stages of our lives.
I'm very, very happy for you. Hear from our sponsors.
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(12:44):
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(13:46):
of therapy. There are many components that
go to making an absolutely fantastic effervescent sort of a
birthday, and just one of those components is what you insert
into your mouth whilst having it.
I'm talking of course, of the birthday meal.
Oh, let's go and hear what I'd have had in an IME likes to
call. Rice for breakfast, Rice for
(14:08):
breakfast. You come and have rice for
breakfast, rice for breakfast, mate, it's back.
It's been a few weeks. It is my birthday and like I was
saying, my partner, she's curated this whole weekend for
me. I didn't know that I was going
to have this on my birthday, butit was so bloody delicious.
I've decided to talk about it onthe podcast.
So the meal that I had, it kind of defines British food.
(14:31):
Think about the most iconic British food you could
potentially have on your birthday.
Birthday cake. Is that British?
A birthday cake. Well, they sometimes have them
in the supermarket, that one. There's a Caterpillar on a big
chocolate log. I reckon he's British.
No, she knows me pretty well. Do you think that would have
been something that she organised for my birthday at
bloody Tesco's Caterpillar? What's it even called, Charlie?
(14:52):
Or something. Don't look down on that
Caterpillar mate. He's an iconic part of British
culture. No, it's not that good.
I'll give you one more gift. Iconic British food.
Think about it. Like a sort of brown carvery
with the Yorkshire pudding and gravy on it and beef.
Everything that's brown on a. Plate even more British than
that. This fish and chips mate.
Oh, that's difficult to pronounce in New Zealand.
(15:14):
Is oh, because they say go on, you're the one who can do
accents well, they. Famously allied the I sounds and
say something akin to fish and chips.
But that also sounds a bit Scottish.
Yeah, well, they're. Efficient chips.
Similar accents. There is actually a place in the
South Island called Dunedin, which I've been told is the
Gaelic word for Edinburgh. No way.
Way. So the fish and chips, mate,
(15:37):
that's what we had. And in Lake Tacopo, there's this
little car park. There's not much there, but
around the the side of the lake there's this food truck that's
called The Better Batter and it does traditional fish and chips,
traditional British fish and chips served by an Indonesian
man and his Korean wife. Well, I like that because they
know what they're doing. But it is honestly absolutely
(16:01):
delicious and I was so so happy that this is going to be my
birthday meal. Love a food truck at the best of
times, but we we got the chips, the fries and also the of the
fish and then some crispy squid and we walked it back under the
stars and then ate it in a backpacker hostel.
So you completely, I was totallyfucking made-up, mate, because I
was there with my bottle of Chardonnay, bottle of that for a
(16:23):
wide Chardonnay that I bought from work and I have my fish and
chips and it was just Stella, Stella just so on point, exactly
as if I had designed it myself. And they just fighting against
their Asian etymology. The people making that vision
chips, they're like, no, we're just going to do fish and chips.
It's going to be British cuisine.
Oh, well, should we not add something else to it?
No. No fish and chips.
That's all we're going to do is just fish and chips.
(16:45):
Are you sure? We don't want to add anything
else. Crispy squid fine.
We try to appeal to the ever increasing Asian market.
Whatever, fish and chips and squid and we'll do a few prong
crackers, but that's it. Multicultural.
The new cultural. But mate, I'll tell you what,
(17:11):
I've been researching fish and chips.
It ain't half interesting. All this stuff I'm learning.
Do you want to hear? Do you want to hear some facts
and figures about fish and chips?
Because do you like fish and chips?
I know we do. We have this tendency to be a
bit anti British and you know, slag off the cuisine and stuff.
But when it's good, it is bloodygood, isn't it?
So I famously so dislike fish and chips that it's caused
(17:34):
tension in my life. Go on.
It's caused full on arguments. What is it you don't like about
it? Well.
It stems back to wanting mushy peas at Harry Ramsden's when I
was a kid and I was too. I was rude to my parents and so
I was denied the mushy peas and that caused such a visceral scar
(17:54):
in my mind that I feel sick at the thought of fish and chips.
And then later in life I've justified that by saying that
they're slightly too greasy for me.
But it's, I mean, it's difficultbecause when what I've found is
when people want you to have fish and chips and you say I'm
not, I'm OK. I don't actually want to have
the fish and chips. That causes such a terrible
(18:18):
reaction to the people. People really want you to have
fish and chips when they want tohave fish and chips, I've
noticed. Yeah, I could imagine that being
true. Do you think that's because deep
down, and it's not even that deep, we all know that it is so
unhealthy, but they feel some somewhat challenged.
Might be, yeah, yeah. I think it's to do with the
unhealthiness. I think it's to do with the
Harry Ramsey's mushy peas incident.
(18:38):
I think there's a lot of baggagearound fish and chips.
Yeah. I mean, like most British Foods
and probably foods in this ilk, which are your fast food kind of
category. It's, it's fried, it's fatty,
it's carbohydrates on carbs. But when it's gourmet and when
(19:00):
it's expensive and when it's made by an Indonesian man and
his Korean wife in a food truck next to a lake, it is, it can be
great. It can be really, really good.
But the fish and chip research that I've been doing, right,
like all good things, like all good things that we've got in
Britain, it isn't British at all.
It actually stems from what was brought in originally by
(19:24):
immigrants, Jewish immigrants. Ashkenazi Jews apparently
brought it in fish and chips was.
Yeah, well, apparently the, the,the marrying of the fish with
the chips is probably of or by this Jewish immigrant called
Joseph Malin. And he's credited with having
the first fish and chip shop in London in the 1860s, of course,
(19:48):
fish that had been sort of curedin vinegar or sort of, you know,
a bit of flour around it and then fried that already existed.
Right and he thought you 2 are not going on the plate together
without an official marriage. It's disgusting muscles of.
So yeah, something along those lines.
I'm sure that's pretty much how it happened.
We'll ask Baggabot 3000 if he can do some fact checking.
(20:10):
But so dates, dates been a very,very long time.
There was actually a mention of a shop in Manchester in 1863,
but I left that out because I didn't want, you know, the whole
London versus Manchester thing. It was less romantic for it to
be something from Manchester. Yeah, my ego would start
inflating to such a huge degree that I would gobble up the fish
and chips right here on the show.
This must fall. Every now and again my dad will
(20:32):
be able to tell you exactly how often, but we can't.
The 1st Friday of every June, which is sometimes probably your
birthday in the UK, is National Fish and Chips Day.
Yeah. Do you know exactly that's the
whole problem? How do you think this story
started? Fish and chip shops were at
their peak apparently, so started off in the 1860s.
(20:54):
Obviously it caught on. Then there were more and more
fish and chip shops. At their peak in the 1920s there
were 35,000 fish and chip shops.That has reduced, and now
there's only about 10 1/2 thousand.
But guess what? It's still more than McDonald's,
KFC, Burger King and Subway combined.
If only they were banded together under 1 franchise.
We'll try and take on fish and chips.
(21:16):
We'll try and take on those other franchises like
McDonald's, you know? Oh, you mean like Harry Ramsden
did? What even happened to that?
Ever since the mushy pee incident.
But another interesting thing, throughout World War One and
World War 2, fish and chips was one of the only foods that
wasn't rationed. Famously referred to by Winston
Churchill as the Good Companions.
(21:38):
Wow, that's cute, isn't? It I mean, the actual good
companion for Winston Churchill was cocaine, so it seems
unfortunately he saw more fit toration that than the old fish
and chips. Dear Oh dear, that was staying
but today Brits, this is mind blowing if this is true, which I
(21:59):
hope it is because I did look ata couple of different sources
and I'm not talking about Tartartoday.
You could resist as soon as you use that word, I knew.
Well, what do you have? What do you have when you do?
Imagine if you were someone who liked fish and chips.
What would you have? Which sauce would you have?
A sauce? Curry sauce.
I'd have, I'd probably have tartare.
I certainly wouldn't fucking do Curry or brown or gravy or
(22:21):
anything that I've seen other people doing a fish and chip
shop. Oh, ketchup.
And did you put vinegar and salton chips?
You don't have to be next to a fish.
Don't. I'm cut a tonic in the corner of
the shop, do I just let them do whatever they want?
You're there, you're there just beside yourself thinking in.
I was in chaga a couple of months back having some yellow
fin tuna, you know, just out of the water.
(22:43):
And now I'm here in this fuckingfish and chip shop do.
You want, do you want salt and vinegar on that?
Just just do it. So Brits eat an estimated
382,000,000 portions of fish andchips every year.
That's six servings per person per year.
Can that even be true? Oh yeah, no, that's that's once
every two months. But some people aren't having
(23:05):
any, I reckon the people that are having, I reckon the way the
Britain works usually is there are people that have fish and
chips every Friday as they wouldand then some people just never
have them and and that's probably 382,000,000.
Portions. And do they care about the
stats? Someone's like, I've had chips
every Friday, so that means you can't have any now for the whole
(23:26):
year, right? Because we don't want to mess
the fucking stats up. Jim and Wendy the over Rd.
They haven't added fish and chips in weeks.
I haven't been intercepting their over eats.
But yeah, I think what you like about fish and chips, maybe you
like it, maybe you hate it, but I do think that that seems to be
from travelling the world and speaking to people.
(23:47):
Fish and chips seems to be the one dish that everyone thinks of
when they think of British food.So if you are going to have one,
just make sure it's a bloody good one and get mushy pieces.
Well, how was the fish and chipsthat you had on your birthday?
Just to round off, you know, rate it for me.
I might go as far as saying it'sthe best fish and chips I've
(24:08):
ever had. Why?
The quality of the batter, it was very light.
It was super crispy. I think it was probably a
combination of beer batter and panko crumbs.
The fish was really tender. Sorry Alice, laughing here.
Is that because I'm starting to sound a little bit like a
wanker? It's my birthday, let me be a
wanker. It's just you fishing for the
(24:29):
fourth time in an episode for a panko sponsorship.
My favorite brand still hasn't called us after all my emails.
God, if the listeners knew the amount of emails you send to
Panko, you know, guys, we do this hit travel podcast.
People love it. It's really cool.
And Vari Allen's in the Philippines.
(24:50):
I'm in New Zealand. Send us some bread crumbs.
Yeah, what else was good about it?
Like I said, the portion was small and it was reasonably
priced. Very fresh.
And the crispy squid, it was delicious.
I mean my partner didn't eat it because it was.
It just looks too much like an animal.
Good well, I mean it speaks to the quality of the dish as a
whole that the two best things about it were the fact that it
(25:13):
was a so small that it was virtually non existent and B
there was another thing added toit that's not what the dish is
that you also like so a review comprehensively there for fish
and chips thank you for the ricefor breakfast.
Do you know what I want to hear now Adam?
It's what you know my favorite item on the show is, and I'm
sure it's yours as well. It's when a listener goes to
(25:36):
tripologypodcast.com/tales of a trip and sends in their greatest
travel story. 3 minutes of compelling, heartstring pulling,
blood pumping stories. Baby, let's go.
Let's say right now this is whata business said.
Hi Alan and Adam, Liam here, long time listener to the show
(25:59):
and I'm loving all the things you guys are doing.
So for my Tales of a Trip, I would like to share the time
when I met my partner Emmy. So back in 2023 I set myself a
little bit of a challenge to visit 12 European cities in 12
months. So I was heading off to Finland
(26:20):
to see Helsinki before jumping on the ferry heading across to
Tallinn in Estonia. So whilst I was in Helsinki I
met this beautiful Finnish girl called Emmy.
We went on a date. We headed off to a Speakeasy
bar, one of those little secretive bars.
We've got a ring, a telephone toget in.
(26:42):
We had plenty of cocktails, there's a really good time in
there. And then we headed to this kind
of like crazy Finnish bingo night.
I had no idea what was going on.Emmy had to translate everything
for me. It was a lot of fun, but I had
no idea what's going on. Then Emmy says, grab your towel.
(27:06):
So we head off, walking down thestreet, towel in hand, and we go
through these. It's like an in an abandoned
industrial park. We're going through these
warehouses and I'm thinking, where is this girl taking me?
Am I going to be murdered? But eventually we get through
these warehouses and there's these cute little fairy lights
(27:26):
dangling in the distance. And this place is actually
called Sompa Sauna. And it's these saunas that were
built back in 2011. They were actually built
illegally on this abandoned, abandoned like waste ground.
And then the government would come knock down the sauna and
then the volunteers and the locals would build 2 saunas and
(27:48):
then the government would come knock those saunas down and then
they'd build 3 saunas. Though it turned into a bit of a
movement and it's actually a recognised thing by the local
government now it's free to go and run by volunteers.
It's incredible. So we're there, we're jumping in
the frozen Baltic Sea and then going jumping straight into
(28:11):
these saunas. It was pretty incredible
experience. There's naked people everywhere.
Complete eye opener for me. But then at the end of the night
it was a bit bittersweet becauseI thought that's the last time
I'm going to see you because I'mgoing to Australia though.
I head off to Australia and after being there six months I
(28:32):
come back to Europe and we message and say it would be a
shame not to see each other again whilst I'm still in
Europe. So we booked this random
spontaneous trip to Montenegro to see Kotor and Budva.
Just before the trip Emmy actually got really sick.
She was in hospital and she missed the flight to Montenegro,
(28:56):
so I thought that was that. However, the next day she jumps
on a flight to Croatia and then gets the bus down to Montenegro.
We had the best time in Montenegro together and again,
very bitter sweet because I was heading back off to Australia,
though I head back off to Australia and Emmy says I'm
(29:20):
coming to Australia with you. So two months later she gets on
a plane, flies over to Australiaand now we're just about to move
into our first apartment together.
I've got a 240 days streak, I'm Duolingo learning Finnish and
the rest is history. So that is my story of How I Met
(29:40):
my partner. Hope you guys enjoyed it and
keep up the good work. Cheers.
I absolutely love it. Congratulations, Liam, to you
and Emmy. My goodness, that's an awesome
story. I love it.
I love it. I love it.
I love it. Travel, bringing people together
through the accessibility of moving between countries and
(30:04):
meeting people and doing all sorts of crazy amazing things to
people who wanted it to work, actually made the chess pieces
move in order to make it work. It's beautiful.
And Adam? It is.
I love that I was like along forthe ride.
I just that kind of excitement that you feel when you're in
this kind of relationship and you're not quite sure where it's
going to go and everything's novel and new and there's travel
(30:27):
involved as well that heightens the senses and this Speakeasy
bars and naked people everywhere.
I mean, God, what a trip. That's awesome.
It's also the uncertain nature of it gives you this like
resigned feeling of like, oh, maybe they're not going to make
it to Montenegro. Oh, I guess it's not going to
quite work, but it can. It can work.
Yeah, they definitely can. I mean, both, both of them
(30:48):
needed to put everything on the line, I suppose.
Because it's not just about Emmysaying, do you know what, I
really want to be with you and I'm going to pull the trigger
here on a flight and I'm going to come to Australia.
It's also about Liam accepting that as something and then and
then sort of going, I mean, it'slike jumping in at the deep end,
isn't it? But yeah, I just love the story
(31:08):
from start to finish. Thanks so much mate for sending
it in. We do of course talk to Liam
quite often. He's sort of AI feel like he's a
good mate now and I just. Bloody hope he's a Patreon
subscriber, isn't he? Liam's one of the people that
went over to Tripology podcast on Patreon and he's, you know, a
good friend of us as a result ofthat.
Yeah, one of the Ogs supports us, quite literally.
And now we're hearing his story and it's, it's bloody inspiring.
(31:30):
I love him. Well, he's in a relationship,
sorry. And he's learning Finnish and
you don't speak Finnish. Well, I'll learn.
And that owl, that arrogant owl on Duolingo, I really profoundly
dislike that owl always popping up.
And you're like, oh, you've it seems to me you've not tried
learning Spanish this week. Are you OK?
(31:51):
Yes, Duo, I've had a lot on because unlike you, some of us
have multiple jobs. Duo, OK.
Folly. Hats off to you, Liam, mate,
this is a message to you. Just Finnish of all the
languages, I think is bloody difficult, especially when
you've got a little Ouch chirping in your ear.
But it just goes to show that, yeah, like you said, Alan, you
can make it work even against all the odds.
(32:12):
You didn't let us know whether you made it to all 12 cities in
in the all 12 countries in 12 months.
What else did you do? Send another voice note in, We'd
love to hear. It what I found really
interesting is the idea of the Finnish government sort of
going, Oh my God, but this is amazing things happening.
Whenever we knock down one of these saunas, they're
replicating and no one knows howor why.
(32:33):
So we can just, we can have infinitesimal saunas if we just
keep on destroying them. They keep on from reforming.
You think it was all part of theplan trying to save money, kept
the council budget on construction.
Yeah, we actually want 10 saunas, so we'll have to destroy
5, OK. That is so up my street going to
a sauna. On the first date.
(32:54):
I think so. I think so.
Ironically, he went to a speakeris he when he can't speak
Finnish and he was complaining about not knowing what was going
on, but. What's the greatest date that
you've been on whilst travellingthe?
Greatest date that I've been on.It's a good, it's an interesting
question. I was thinking during that story
actually, you know, when, when she didn't show up, when she
they were supposed to meet. I think he was in Montenegro and
then she missed her flight because she was sick.
(33:15):
I don't know if you if you remember, I lined up a date with
a girl in Mumbai and she told meabout 45 minutes before we were
supposed to meet that she was really sick.
She said I'm still, she was still prepared to meet you, but
she was like, I'm ill. No, no, no, she said.
I'm sorry, I can't come to the day.
I'm really sick. I thought, yeah, I hope you're
not, but if you're not, just tell me you're not interested.
(33:36):
It'll just be much better if we're all honest because it
sounds like complete bullshit. I prefer that because once I was
sat next to someone for an hour,I was working they they were a
sort of DJ and I sat next and I was helping them with some
stuff. And after a good hour of like
being sat next to them and I wastalking about I've got some
really important things on this week.
It turns me when I've got to be honest with you, Alan, I'm sick
(33:58):
as a fucking pig. And I would have been grateful
if he told me that prior. Yeah, so you could have scooted
over a little. Bit and not kissed him.
Yeah, yeah. Well, talking about that.
So I did. I think she listens to the show
actually, but it was, it was in Macedonia, Macedonia and Greece.
(34:19):
And that we didn't do episodes on those actually.
But it was a, it was sort of a maybe a, a meeting way back in
Tokyo. Well, perhaps we can hear the
story of that meeting on Patreon. 0patreon.com/tripology
podcast and in the Lost and Found section maybe, maybe I'll
divulge. I'd be willing to hear you dive
old right now. Shall we Pierce through the back
(34:41):
of the show and go straight to Patreon?
Let's do it Liam, mate, thanks ever so much.
We we love you to bits. We really appreciate it was a
wicked story and we wish you andEmmy all the best.
Let us know how you're going with the finish, won't you?
And we'll see you on the other side.
Bye bye.
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