Don't you hate line-cutting? What's the weirdest thing you can find at the bathroom of the BER airport toilet? Plus nostalgic moments of youth, unusual sights from Amsterdam, and MORE. so much more. listen. like. love. hug a tree. or a person. or both.
Here's what the AI thought I talk about
00:00 Welcome and Introduction00:30 Pet Peeve: Line Cutters03:09 Nostalgia and Life Changes07:52 Berlin News and Updates13:19 Amsterdam Observations21:34 Baby First Aid Course Highlights29:03 Final Thoughts and Farewell
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Hello and welcome to yet anotherXbox.
This is episode 68 recording live from my room in Berlin.
I am Hermes, how are you doing? Thank you for stopping by.
Sorry took a week to record. But life has been life.
Sometimes life is life and thereis no time.
(00:28):
This was one of them. But I have prepared a few things
for you from the past weeks. Starting with this is something
that really annoys me. People who cut in line.
OK, we can already agree that this is an annoying category,
but specifically when people cutin line by asking one person for
(00:50):
permission to enter in front of them, how is that a thing?
What is that? Have you ever had that happen to
you? What is that?
How does one person get to decide for all of us in the
back? I never understood this.
I always find it so bizarre. A woman did this at the airport.
We were waiting for the securitycheck in and apparently it was
(01:13):
very slow because the police gotsomeone.
I don't know why but she came out of nowhere.
Asked the person in front of me.We were in the middle of the
line already waiting for like 20minutes.
She said, can I please come herebecause yeah, I'm in a rush.
Everyone was in a rush. The person says OK, she sits
(01:34):
there. I don't get it.
When did we decide that any person who is in line can just
decide to screw everyone behind him?
Someone could stay in line and just keep adding people in front
of them. I could have a fee €3 and I put
you in front of me in line. This is such a flawed system.
(01:54):
I could do it indefinitely. And OK, I understand if the
woman was losing her flight, I mean it makes sense, but she
didn't ask any of us. I would have said yes if she
looked behind at the rest of thequeue and said, hey everyone,
sorry I really need to go. That would have been OK because
(02:14):
it's not that I wouldn't let herin, I just would have liked to
be considered and I don't like that someone in front of me can
just decide something against mybest interest without me having
a say. So Anyway, my opinion is if
you're holding a spot in line, you don't have the right to put
anyone in front of you or behindyou.
(02:36):
If there is a bigger line, what you can do is to pretend someone
is your friend and you have an appointment there and then they
get to join you in the line wherever you are.
But that's as far as it can go. Now, taking a step back, thanks
(02:57):
for listening to this podcast. Some of you listen to it because
you like the personal stories orthe random thoughts.
You might like the news from Berlin or some news from Greece.
You might like me. It might be a mix.
So I was putting up my notes andmy notes don't always make sense
and this is a very big part of improv on top of my notes.
(03:18):
But I have this note that I'm now 33.
I feel life changing so much. I became also a father now and
we have a baby and all of that. But I had this thought in my
bed. I started missing things in a
(03:38):
very violent way like this, hanging out with my friends
because we used to hang out all the time.
Being, you know, 17/18/20, not having a care in the world, just
sitting in a couch in a house for your day, thinking if, if
(03:59):
you should do something, anything or nothing.
And somehow this feeling of freedom and I don't need to
really do anything or I can justchoose what I want to do or not.
With my friends, that's gone. That life is behind me and now
I'm seeing my friends, especially not living in Greece
(04:22):
anymore. I see them once or twice a year.
So time is never enough now. Like when you see people you see
them with joy and with sadness because the intervals are so
big. It's never the full on casual
vibing of nothingness. And in a way it's lonely.
(04:45):
This is what I was thinking. Life after 30s can be lonely
this way that it's work, it's builds, it's stress, existential
angst and health problems and the world is going to shit.
And I just was nostalgic about this time in my life that I
could just hang out as a studentand that would be it.
(05:08):
Just hanging out, ordering something or watching a movie
and just killing time, not a care in the world.
So yes, I found myself very strongly missing that time and
realizing that it's gone in a way forever.
Now, when I have available time,I need to choose where I
(05:30):
invested in. It's much more conscious, it's
more targeted. And many times you invest your
time to yourself, right? So you go for a walk, you go buy
something, you do some admin, whatever gives you joy.
And it's nice to invest time in yourself, but it's not the same.
There's careless chilling that has been a joyful part of my
(05:52):
life before. Hopefully in the future, maybe
this podcast makes me a millionaire.
Maybe other things happened, I don't know.
But for now, we need to grind and hustle and do self-care, but
also work and pay the bills and all of that.
And sometimes, you know, I went to to a comedy show from Victor
(06:14):
Patras Khan, the one that does the stuff in broken English and
he does a lot of crowd work. He talks to the people in the
audience and there was 1. I think she was a therapist.
So she asked her what is your advice?
There is so much happening in the world.
We are surrounded by so much tragedy.
(06:34):
We're surrounded by all the to do's.
It can feel daunting. What can we do?
And it was interesting. She said that what you need to
try to do is to try to find joy.It was interesting that she
chose something so specific. So she said you need to try to
find joy in the little moments, in the breaks in between, in
(06:57):
whatever it is, but try to bringjoy in your life because joy is
resistance. And I like that line.
That line stuck with me. I do think that joy is
resistance. And of course, it, you know, you
can find situations where this line will not apply.
(07:19):
If you talk to someone who has been through insane tragedies,
the country being at war and allof that, maybe they say God damn
you. It's not joy.
That is resistance. It's speaking up.
It's going to demonstrations. It's saying what's right.
And of course that would be right.
But in a less strict way, I do think that joy is resistance.
(07:41):
So this is one thing I'm trying to keep with me.
And yeah, perhaps you want to keep it with you in your busy
lives. Looking a little bit on the
Berlin's last German side of things.
Here's a few things going on. I'm sorry to laugh.
Mahatma Gandhi's bronze glasses were stolen.
(08:05):
So there is the face of Mahatma Gandhi in the Mahur Museum near
Checkpoint Charlie and someone managed to remove the bronze
glasses from the statue. I don't know how they did it,
but now Gandhi has no glasses. I don't know who would do it.
I condemn the action OK, but I also find it ridiculous that the
(08:27):
glasses are a big part of Gandhi's visual identity.
Now he just looks like some old guy.
And who would steal the glasses?Maybe it was a drunk bet, but
this happened beginning of August and the police is
treating this as a particularly serious theft, requesting
information for anyone who may have seen such items offered for
(08:48):
sale, used as collateral, or otherwise exchanged.
Used as collateral. That's great.
Oh, you know what? I don't have cash on me.
But how about I give you Gandhi's glasses?
So if you spot it on Klein and Sagan or anywhere, know that A
is the real thing and B you should report it.
(09:11):
Now this is not the only thing that's happening in Berlin.
In case you missed it, there will be some new fines for
Environmental Protection. As someone living in the South
part of Neukun, I feel that these fines will be everywhere
around me. But listen to this.
Hundred and plus EUR. If you leave a mattress on the
(09:32):
streets, €250, for cigarette butts, disposable cups, drink
cartoons or packaging materials €250.
That's a lot of money. Then if you have a dog and you
don't pick up the shit of your dog, first of all you're a shit
(09:54):
person. You make people hate people with
dogs and dogs themselves just because you are lazy.
And with this new law, you will pay up to €350 as a fine for dog
waste or abandoned dog waste. Sadly, a huge part of Berlin's
(10:16):
identity. These boxes, cardboard boxes
that say there's Sanken with allthe things you can just get for
free inside there. They are also now forbidden.
There will be fines from €300 to€1500 now that's a lot of EUR
and there's so many random cardboard boxes left with shit
(10:41):
stuff inside around where I livethat I'm wondering how it will
be. It's also funny that if you see
a cardboard box to fencing and in other districts, quality of
the items tends to be much better.
Not that I'm complaining but I always thought if I want to get
rid of my sheet I can put it in a carbon box say 2 for a second.
(11:02):
So this is things for free to take and leave it down but now
it's illegal €300 up to 1.5 K. The rules are there for them to
come into effect the council of mayors needs to do some final
decisions. So it might be that the
enforcement is still unclear. But the fines are voted so this
(11:23):
is 1 update. The second update in here.
Please feel free to correct me or help me out.
The A 100 is this big highway that goes around Berlin.
I complained about it some time ago and a lot of people complain
about it because it sucks. It's not fast, they are doing
construction all the time, thereis traffic jams all the time.
(11:48):
But apparently after 12 years ofconstruction, they gave a part
that is 3.2 kilometers. Do you know how much is 3.2
kilometers? You could, you could walk 3.2
kilometers, but it took them 12 years to build these 3.2
kilometers. And how much money, How much
(12:10):
money do you think it takes to build 3.2 kilometers of road
721,000,721 millions, which means that for every 10 meters
of this road, the price was two and a half million.
Let that sink in. But The thing is, OK, they made
(12:33):
this part of the road, they released it, but for some reason
it's not helping at all. It's creating a huge traffic jam
because even though they released it where that part of
the highway ends up, the part ofthe city it feeds into is not
ready for that. So things get blocked
everywhere. So everyone is complaining,
(12:54):
memes are being born, people take videos of the cars, all of
them stuck. So this is kind of like a
burning laughing joke. 12 years,720 millions for three
kilometers of Rd. that still brings traffic jams everywhere.
If someone knows more, feel freeto inform the rest of us.
(13:17):
This is a little bit about Berlin.
As I said, I also had to fly. I went to Amsterdam.
That's why I was at the airport when the person in front of me
thought they can get to let other people cut in line without
consulting the rest of us. But I have to say two things. 1
is about Amsterdam. I saw one thing I want to
(13:37):
mention. They had three sunscreen
stations on the street. I've never heard of this
concept. I understand that people can
probably get burned very easily.I also know Denmark had made a
very fun commercial 1 summer that was saying to the Greeks,
if you see a Dane, please put some sunscreen on them because
(13:58):
they forget. They don't know how dangerous
the sun is. But there were three sunshine
stations. They look like this.
I don't know public fountains orpublic disinfection things where
you just go and put your hands and then it would give you
sunscreen. How cool is that?
What a simple thing to do of such high value and so
(14:19):
appreciate it. If I'm outside and the sun is
burning and I can just get a splash of sunscreen and put it
on my face, put it on my baldinghead as I forgot to wear a cap,
that would be divine. If someone gave me this in the
city I would vote for them again.
I don't care about anything else.
You gave me a free splash of sunscreen.
It looked like putting, you know, soap from a dispenser.
(14:41):
That's it. How much does it take?
You can just buy a few gallons of sunscreen.
Lovely initiative. Sounds very altruistic, Humani.
Humanitarian Nini. I don't know, like, nice.
At the end of the day, though, it is within their interest.
If you give sunscreen to your population, you reduce the risk
(15:03):
of cancer. And then your public healthcare
system doesn't have to have a lot of patience.
It's a smart technique to keep people protected and be
proactive so you don't get the cost of that in the future.
This is what Japan did as well. Crazy aging population.
You don't want all these people being sick.
(15:23):
So they really did this huge campaign to stop smoking because
Japan was smoking so much. And it's just a good thing to
not have an aging population that's also in much need of the
healthcare system. Speaking of that, if you live in
Europe, one account you should consider following on Instagram
that's what I use is the Eurostat account.
(15:46):
The Eurostat is the agency of the EU that does statistics and
they basically the only posts they do are graphs about things
with all the European countries ranked.
So it's good to see where thingsare ranking now.
As a Greek I'm used to seeing Greece always at the bottom.
I always need to Scroll down somewhere there between Bulgaria
(16:08):
and Romania to see how low we are ranking, but give your
static go, it's going to be unexpectedly interesting now.
I saw a graph that showed the different countries over time
and the number of people they have smoking, and I was proud
that for the first time Greece had a first position somewhere.
(16:31):
So since 2006 Greece has been number one in smoking, 2007
Greece 2008, two thousand and nine, 2010.
All the way until 2022 Greece has been the number one in
smoking in the EU. And then in 2023 Bulgaria stole
(16:52):
the lead for a tiny bit. OK, so I want to say my fellow
Greek brothers and sisters, we are the last in every statistic.
Let us get a gold medal for once.
You know how much we love smoking.
We love it more than the Bulgarians.
We love our smoking inside the bars, we love our smoking inside
(17:12):
the restaurants, we love our smoking in summer theaters.
So don't let us lose for a few points to Bulgaria now.
I gave up smoking a few years ago, so I know I'm not helping.
And I'm so sure that the Greek healthcare system is so ready to
(17:32):
take the biggest smoking population in account when they
become ageing, especially now that Greece has the biggest drop
of population in new births thathas been recorded in some time.
It's a scary drop. Schools are closing, population
is shrinking. Whoever didn't leave, like me,
(17:53):
is struggling to have even one child because of the economic
disparity. So maybe we can let Bulgaria be
first. You know what, if everyone is
smoking, then when everyone getsold, there will be so many
health problems that our healthcare system that is
already attacked in so many waysby the government that tried to
shrink it and privatize it and make it more expensive and make
(18:16):
it less inclusive and make it less people friendly.
That everyone will have a reallybad time getting some proper
help. So maybe letting Bulgaria get
the 1st place and starting to walk a little bit more and
putting sunscreen on her face like the Amsterdam people is the
way to go. But what do I know, I don't know
(18:38):
anything. Now.
At this point you're probably bored of hearing me talk about
airport stories. And you will say, why don't you
put all the airport stories up your ass, or at least in one
place so you don't need to skip back and forth?
And to that I say, come help me edit because I don't have time.
(19:02):
But here's this one thing I willsay about the airports.
I arrived back to Berlin. I needed to pee.
I was still at the place. You collect the suitcases.
I wasn't yet out of the restricted part.
I go in the toilet. I go to wash my hands, right?
And then I see that the big device on the wall that they
(19:26):
have sometime in public bathrooms that is selling
toothbrushes. And that makes sense.
Maybe you arrived, maybe someoneis waiting for you outside of
that door with a bouquet of flowers and you don't know where
your toothbrush is and you need a tiny toothbrush and all of
that. And I kept looking at that big
machine to see what else it's selling.
(19:46):
And it was selling also condoms.Nothing too weird here.
A lot of these big machines at toilets also have condoms in
there. But then I swear to you, if you
are at the conveyor belt in the Berlin, go to that bathroom
right next to a small children place that basically have a TV
(20:07):
on the wall and nothing else buta great children place.
Go in the toilets and you will see that that machine is selling
bullet. Anal butt plugs.
OK, and this is where this episode gets fully demonetized
and shadow banned, but this is what it's selling.
I need to say it. An anal butt plug is being on
(20:30):
sale on the airport toilet. Like who?
Who is this purchased? Who is this person that arrives
in a new country or back to their country and their first
thought after a flight is why did I put something in my ass?
Why? I think there's something.
(20:52):
I think there's something missing.
This toilet is not even outside.You're still before customs.
Someone could still body search you.
You're waiting for your suitcases.
Can't you just wait? Can't you just wait to get your
suitcases before putting a bullet anal butt plug in your
(21:13):
butt? This is what this the first
toilet you see, the first toiletthat you arrive.
This is what they're selling in their toothbrush, condoms and
anal butt plugs. Welcome to Berlin.
Now, I will end today's podcast with the recent visit I had just
(21:36):
before I recorded. I went and did a baby first aid
course. This is something we wanted to
do for a long time. Hello Nidas.
Our lovely baby is now seven months old, so he has started a
little bit with puree things in his mouth and that makes it very
scary for choking and all of that.
So we're both doing a first aid course now.
(21:58):
I will just give you the weird highlights.
I looked for an English speakingbaby first aid course and the
one that pops up, the most famous one.
First of all, it's done in a church.
Interesting place, I would say teaching science and medicine in
a church, the times we live in. And then I did the class and
(22:21):
here's a highlight. There is this weird thing called
water immersion and babies have it and it's almost like a death
wish. Water immersion is a reflex of
babies that when they if for anyreason their head falls in
water, they just stay there. They don't try to move, they
don't try to turn around. They just stay in the water
(22:43):
without breathing. And you can guess what happens
after. And this is not just for babies
because you would think, OK, a baby maybe thinks they're still
in the womb or whatever. This happens to kids up until
the age of 6. And This is why they say when
you're on the beach, you need tonot leave your sight, not leave
the kid from your sight because they can drown in shallow water.
(23:05):
And the reason why they can drown in shallow water is also
because of this weird water immersion like response.
So it could be that a six year old child for whatever reason
goes face in the water and they just open their hands and they
stay there. We don't know why this happens.
I don't know why nature is keeping that in for so long.
(23:30):
Maybe it made sense when a very young baby comes out of the womb
because everything there is water, so maybe they feel nice
in there. But this is one of the biggest
reasons why kids get drowned in shallow water.
Water emerging beautiful like a baby's death wish.
When they see water, they can't even drown in a puddle.
If they put their face in, they just keep their face in.
(23:52):
So weird. Other weird things.
If you're doing CPR to a baby, you need to blow so little that
I was surprised if you you cannot just blow.
It's too much pressure for them and then you need to use your
fingers to do CPR. Not your hands, not your palms.
You just push with two fingers there.
(24:14):
Babies are fun. Babies are tiny.
And what else? They told us a lot of things,
but I'm just saying my personal highlights.
If the baby is vomiting and you think it might be poisoned, ate
something, drunk something, you are highly advised to keep the
vomit with you. So pack up your vomit and take
(24:34):
it with you to the hospital as well.
Now I'm just throwing this out there.
The most dangerous things for babies to eat, first of all is
medicine. If kids find medicine in the
house, they just take it. The second thing is tobacco.
Tobacco is very dangerous and toxic.
So if they find tobacco or even a cigarette or a cigarette butt
(24:55):
on the street, whatever it is, tobacco is number 2 and #3 is
cleaning products. And apparently one of the things
that really make them interesting for kids is that
they often have the cleaning product has a print in the front
that shows fruit. You know, it shows flowers.
It can show a lemon, can show anorange.
(25:16):
And then kids or babies think that, hey, I eat oranges, come
here. And lastly, on things that you
eat, most things will come out. But if the baby is eating
batteries, you need to rush to the hospital.
You have about two hours before things get very nasty and
magnets, which is apparently very common.
(25:39):
Now listen to this. If your kid swallows one magnet,
you're good. It's fine.
They will eventually poop it out.
If for whatever reason your kid swallows 2 magnets, then it's
completely different. You need to rush to the hospital
because two magnets, as you might guess, can attract each
other. So maybe they block part of the
(26:01):
stomach, maybe they block part of the intestines that you don't
know if they're interacting or not.
And if you go to the hospital with two magnets, the doctors
will literally check every few hours as the magnets get passed
through to see if the magnets interact at any point.
Because if they do, then maybe they need to operate.
Very fun stuff. Of course, calling all the
(26:24):
services, which is a very important part of first aid.
You need to call, you need to report the poison center, the
emergency services. I just realized that they
probably all speak German. So that's an extra barrier
because when you call, you need to say this is the situation,
this is where we are and all of that.
(26:44):
But lastly, FYI, if you didn't know, now you know many plants
are toxic to babies and kids. So if you're entering the
beautiful journey of parental life and all the things you have
to know that you didn't think you have to know, you will find
yourself Googling all your plansto understand if they're toxic
(27:07):
or not. And how toxic?
Is it just bad stomach or does it get, yeah, even more
dangerous? So this is life.
I did try to find joy, because joy is resistance.
The woman giving the first aid course was not a joker.
She wasn't sweating around, her hands were on her waist, and
(27:32):
despite our joke attempts as a group of parents, she was very
serious. Which is fine.
Here's my last advice to all of you.
If you want to make a lot of money, find one thing that is
about parents. It could be a baby preparation
course, it could be a baby massage.
(27:52):
It could be a baby first aid. It could be just find your own
baby class. And then here's the twist.
Instead of teaching the class itself, just make the parents
interact. Parents are so socially deprived
they are longing so much to justtalk with someone.
(28:14):
This is what I've seen from every single type of class I
have attended. The best part is when they say,
OK, let's do intros, who are you?
You go on a break to have our coffee and you talk with each
other. And this is the gap.
The longing for connection is there.
It's masked through the class. Of course you have useful
(28:36):
information that you learn, especially in the baby first
aid, but you could have something more hipster ish.
And the real need of the parentsthere is to connect.
You can still teach them a few things.
Give them a flyer so they remember.
Give them a certificate of attendance, but they will be
completely happy to just interact in between.
(28:58):
So do long breaks and you will be good.
They will be satisfied. But OK, I'll wrap it up here.
Thank you so much for sticking around.
The number one way to get a podcast out there is by word of
mouth. So please use your mouth and the
word and put it out there. Share it with your friends if
(29:21):
you like it, share it to your enemies if you don't like it,
write a comment on Spotify, ratethe show if you haven't, and
have a wonderful, wonderful week.
Thank you very much. I have been me, you have been
you, and I'll see you next time.Until then, Ciao.
Hello and welcome to yet anotherXbox.
This is episode 68 recording live from my room in Berlin.
I am Hermes, how are you doing? Thank you for stopping by.
Sorry took a week to record. But life has been life.
Sometimes life is life and thereis no time.
(00:28):
This was one of them. But I have prepared a few things
for you from the past weeks. Starting with this is something
that really annoys me. People who cut in line.
OK, we can already agree that this is an annoying category,
but specifically when people cutin line by asking one person for
(00:50):
permission to enter in front of them, how is that a thing?
What is that? Have you ever had that happen to
you? What is that?
How does one person get to decide for all of us in the
back? I never understood this.
I always find it so bizarre. A woman did this at the airport.
We were waiting for the securitycheck in and apparently it was
(01:13):
very slow because the police gotsomeone.
I don't know why but she came out of nowhere.
Asked the person in front of me.We were in the middle of the
line already waiting for like 20minutes.
She said, can I please come herebecause yeah, I'm in a rush.
Everyone was in a rush. The person says OK, she sits
(01:34):
there. I don't get it.
When did we decide that any person who is in line can just
decide to screw everyone behind him?
Someone could stay in line and just keep adding people in front
of them. I could have a fee €3 and I put
you in front of me in line. This is such a flawed system.
(01:54):
I could do it indefinitely. And OK, I understand if the
woman was losing her flight, I mean it makes sense, but she
didn't ask any of us. I would have said yes if she
looked behind at the rest of thequeue and said, hey everyone,
sorry I really need to go. That would have been OK because
(02:14):
it's not that I wouldn't let herin, I just would have liked to
be considered and I don't like that someone in front of me can
just decide something against mybest interest without me having
a say. So Anyway, my opinion is if
you're holding a spot in line, you don't have the right to put
anyone in front of you or behindyou.
(02:36):
If there is a bigger line, what you can do is to pretend someone
is your friend and you have an appointment there and then they
get to join you in the line wherever you are.
But that's as far as it can go. Now, taking a step back, thanks
(02:57):
for listening to this podcast. Some of you listen to it because
you like the personal stories orthe random thoughts.
You might like the news from Berlin or some news from Greece.
You might like me. It might be a mix.
So I was putting up my notes andmy notes don't always make sense
and this is a very big part of improv on top of my notes.
(03:18):
But I have this note that I'm now 33.
I feel life changing so much. I became also a father now and
we have a baby and all of that. But I had this thought in my
bed. I started missing things in a
(03:38):
very violent way like this, hanging out with my friends
because we used to hang out all the time.
Being, you know, 17/18/20, not having a care in the world, just
sitting in a couch in a house for your day, thinking if, if
(03:59):
you should do something, anything or nothing.
And somehow this feeling of freedom and I don't need to
really do anything or I can justchoose what I want to do or not.
With my friends, that's gone. That life is behind me and now
I'm seeing my friends, especially not living in Greece
(04:22):
anymore. I see them once or twice a year.
So time is never enough now. Like when you see people you see
them with joy and with sadness because the intervals are so
big. It's never the full on casual
vibing of nothingness. And in a way it's lonely.
(04:45):
This is what I was thinking. Life after 30s can be lonely
this way that it's work, it's builds, it's stress, existential
angst and health problems and the world is going to shit.
And I just was nostalgic about this time in my life that I
could just hang out as a studentand that would be it.
(05:08):
Just hanging out, ordering something or watching a movie
and just killing time, not a care in the world.
So yes, I found myself very strongly missing that time and
realizing that it's gone in a way forever.
Now, when I have available time,I need to choose where I
(05:30):
invested in. It's much more conscious, it's
more targeted. And many times you invest your
time to yourself, right? So you go for a walk, you go buy
something, you do some admin, whatever gives you joy.
And it's nice to invest time in yourself, but it's not the same.
There's careless chilling that has been a joyful part of my
(05:52):
life before. Hopefully in the future, maybe
this podcast makes me a millionaire.
Maybe other things happened, I don't know.
But for now, we need to grind and hustle and do self-care, but
also work and pay the bills and all of that.
And sometimes, you know, I went to to a comedy show from Victor
(06:14):
Patras Khan, the one that does the stuff in broken English and
he does a lot of crowd work. He talks to the people in the
audience and there was 1. I think she was a therapist.
So she asked her what is your advice?
There is so much happening in the world.
We are surrounded by so much tragedy.
(06:34):
We're surrounded by all the to do's.
It can feel daunting. What can we do?
And it was interesting. She said that what you need to
try to do is to try to find joy.It was interesting that she
chose something so specific. So she said you need to try to
find joy in the little moments, in the breaks in between, in
(06:57):
whatever it is, but try to bringjoy in your life because joy is
resistance. And I like that line.
That line stuck with me. I do think that joy is
resistance. And of course, it, you know, you
can find situations where this line will not apply.
(07:19):
If you talk to someone who has been through insane tragedies,
the country being at war and allof that, maybe they say God damn
you. It's not joy.
That is resistance. It's speaking up.
It's going to demonstrations. It's saying what's right.
And of course that would be right.
But in a less strict way, I do think that joy is resistance.
(07:41):
So this is one thing I'm trying to keep with me.
And yeah, perhaps you want to keep it with you in your busy
lives. Looking a little bit on the
Berlin's last German side of things.
Here's a few things going on. I'm sorry to laugh.
Mahatma Gandhi's bronze glasses were stolen.
(08:05):
So there is the face of Mahatma Gandhi in the Mahur Museum near
Checkpoint Charlie and someone managed to remove the bronze
glasses from the statue. I don't know how they did it,
but now Gandhi has no glasses. I don't know who would do it.
I condemn the action OK, but I also find it ridiculous that the
(08:27):
glasses are a big part of Gandhi's visual identity.
Now he just looks like some old guy.
And who would steal the glasses?Maybe it was a drunk bet, but
this happened beginning of August and the police is
treating this as a particularly serious theft, requesting
information for anyone who may have seen such items offered for
(08:48):
sale, used as collateral, or otherwise exchanged.
Used as collateral. That's great.
Oh, you know what? I don't have cash on me.
But how about I give you Gandhi's glasses?
So if you spot it on Klein and Sagan or anywhere, know that A
is the real thing and B you should report it.
(09:11):
Now this is not the only thing that's happening in Berlin.
In case you missed it, there will be some new fines for
Environmental Protection. As someone living in the South
part of Neukun, I feel that these fines will be everywhere
around me. But listen to this.
Hundred and plus EUR. If you leave a mattress on the
(09:32):
streets, €250, for cigarette butts, disposable cups, drink
cartoons or packaging materials €250.
That's a lot of money. Then if you have a dog and you
don't pick up the shit of your dog, first of all you're a shit
(09:54):
person. You make people hate people with
dogs and dogs themselves just because you are lazy.
And with this new law, you will pay up to €350 as a fine for dog
waste or abandoned dog waste. Sadly, a huge part of Berlin's
(10:16):
identity. These boxes, cardboard boxes
that say there's Sanken with allthe things you can just get for
free inside there. They are also now forbidden.
There will be fines from €300 to€1500 now that's a lot of EUR
and there's so many random cardboard boxes left with shit
(10:41):
stuff inside around where I livethat I'm wondering how it will
be. It's also funny that if you see
a cardboard box to fencing and in other districts, quality of
the items tends to be much better.
Not that I'm complaining but I always thought if I want to get
rid of my sheet I can put it in a carbon box say 2 for a second.
(11:02):
So this is things for free to take and leave it down but now
it's illegal €300 up to 1.5 K. The rules are there for them to
come into effect the council of mayors needs to do some final
decisions. So it might be that the
enforcement is still unclear. But the fines are voted so this
(11:23):
is 1 update. The second update in here.
Please feel free to correct me or help me out.
The A 100 is this big highway that goes around Berlin.
I complained about it some time ago and a lot of people complain
about it because it sucks. It's not fast, they are doing
construction all the time, thereis traffic jams all the time.
(11:48):
But apparently after 12 years ofconstruction, they gave a part
that is 3.2 kilometers. Do you know how much is 3.2
kilometers? You could, you could walk 3.2
kilometers, but it took them 12 years to build these 3.2
kilometers. And how much money, How much
(12:10):
money do you think it takes to build 3.2 kilometers of road
721,000,721 millions, which means that for every 10 meters
of this road, the price was two and a half million.
Let that sink in. But The thing is, OK, they made
(12:33):
this part of the road, they released it, but for some reason
it's not helping at all. It's creating a huge traffic jam
because even though they released it where that part of
the highway ends up, the part ofthe city it feeds into is not
ready for that. So things get blocked
everywhere. So everyone is complaining,
(12:54):
memes are being born, people take videos of the cars, all of
them stuck. So this is kind of like a
burning laughing joke. 12 years,720 millions for three
kilometers of Rd. that still brings traffic jams everywhere.
If someone knows more, feel freeto inform the rest of us.
(13:17):
This is a little bit about Berlin.
As I said, I also had to fly. I went to Amsterdam.
That's why I was at the airport when the person in front of me
thought they can get to let other people cut in line without
consulting the rest of us. But I have to say two things. 1
is about Amsterdam. I saw one thing I want to
(13:37):
mention. They had three sunscreen
stations on the street. I've never heard of this
concept. I understand that people can
probably get burned very easily.I also know Denmark had made a
very fun commercial 1 summer that was saying to the Greeks,
if you see a Dane, please put some sunscreen on them because
(13:58):
they forget. They don't know how dangerous
the sun is. But there were three sunshine
stations. They look like this.
I don't know public fountains orpublic disinfection things where
you just go and put your hands and then it would give you
sunscreen. How cool is that?
What a simple thing to do of such high value and so
(14:19):
appreciate it. If I'm outside and the sun is
burning and I can just get a splash of sunscreen and put it
on my face, put it on my baldinghead as I forgot to wear a cap,
that would be divine. If someone gave me this in the
city I would vote for them again.
I don't care about anything else.
You gave me a free splash of sunscreen.
It looked like putting, you know, soap from a dispenser.
(14:41):
That's it. How much does it take?
You can just buy a few gallons of sunscreen.
Lovely initiative. Sounds very altruistic, Humani.
Humanitarian Nini. I don't know, like, nice.
At the end of the day, though, it is within their interest.
If you give sunscreen to your population, you reduce the risk
(15:03):
of cancer. And then your public healthcare
system doesn't have to have a lot of patience.
It's a smart technique to keep people protected and be
proactive so you don't get the cost of that in the future.
This is what Japan did as well. Crazy aging population.
You don't want all these people being sick.
(15:23):
So they really did this huge campaign to stop smoking because
Japan was smoking so much. And it's just a good thing to
not have an aging population that's also in much need of the
healthcare system. Speaking of that, if you live in
Europe, one account you should consider following on Instagram
that's what I use is the Eurostat account.
(15:46):
The Eurostat is the agency of the EU that does statistics and
they basically the only posts they do are graphs about things
with all the European countries ranked.
So it's good to see where thingsare ranking now.
As a Greek I'm used to seeing Greece always at the bottom.
I always need to Scroll down somewhere there between Bulgaria
(16:08):
and Romania to see how low we are ranking, but give your
static go, it's going to be unexpectedly interesting now.
I saw a graph that showed the different countries over time
and the number of people they have smoking, and I was proud
that for the first time Greece had a first position somewhere.
(16:31):
So since 2006 Greece has been number one in smoking, 2007
Greece 2008, two thousand and nine, 2010.
All the way until 2022 Greece has been the number one in
smoking in the EU. And then in 2023 Bulgaria stole
(16:52):
the lead for a tiny bit. OK, so I want to say my fellow
Greek brothers and sisters, we are the last in every statistic.
Let us get a gold medal for once.
You know how much we love smoking.
We love it more than the Bulgarians.
We love our smoking inside the bars, we love our smoking inside
(17:12):
the restaurants, we love our smoking in summer theaters.
So don't let us lose for a few points to Bulgaria now.
I gave up smoking a few years ago, so I know I'm not helping.
And I'm so sure that the Greek healthcare system is so ready to
(17:32):
take the biggest smoking population in account when they
become ageing, especially now that Greece has the biggest drop
of population in new births thathas been recorded in some time.
It's a scary drop. Schools are closing, population
is shrinking. Whoever didn't leave, like me,
(17:53):
is struggling to have even one child because of the economic
disparity. So maybe we can let Bulgaria be
first. You know what, if everyone is
smoking, then when everyone getsold, there will be so many
health problems that our healthcare system that is
already attacked in so many waysby the government that tried to
shrink it and privatize it and make it more expensive and make
(18:16):
it less inclusive and make it less people friendly.
That everyone will have a reallybad time getting some proper
help. So maybe letting Bulgaria get
the 1st place and starting to walk a little bit more and
putting sunscreen on her face like the Amsterdam people is the
way to go. But what do I know, I don't know
(18:38):
anything. Now.
At this point you're probably bored of hearing me talk about
airport stories. And you will say, why don't you
put all the airport stories up your ass, or at least in one
place so you don't need to skip back and forth?
And to that I say, come help me edit because I don't have time.
(19:02):
But here's this one thing I willsay about the airports.
I arrived back to Berlin. I needed to pee.
I was still at the place. You collect the suitcases.
I wasn't yet out of the restricted part.
I go in the toilet. I go to wash my hands, right?
And then I see that the big device on the wall that they
(19:26):
have sometime in public bathrooms that is selling
toothbrushes. And that makes sense.
Maybe you arrived, maybe someoneis waiting for you outside of
that door with a bouquet of flowers and you don't know where
your toothbrush is and you need a tiny toothbrush and all of
that. And I kept looking at that big
machine to see what else it's selling.
(19:46):
And it was selling also condoms.Nothing too weird here.
A lot of these big machines at toilets also have condoms in
there. But then I swear to you, if you
are at the conveyor belt in the Berlin, go to that bathroom
right next to a small children place that basically have a TV
(20:07):
on the wall and nothing else buta great children place.
Go in the toilets and you will see that that machine is selling
bullet. Anal butt plugs.
OK, and this is where this episode gets fully demonetized
and shadow banned, but this is what it's selling.
I need to say it. An anal butt plug is being on
(20:30):
sale on the airport toilet. Like who?
Who is this purchased? Who is this person that arrives
in a new country or back to their country and their first
thought after a flight is why did I put something in my ass?
Why? I think there's something.
(20:52):
I think there's something missing.
This toilet is not even outside.You're still before customs.
Someone could still body search you.
You're waiting for your suitcases.
Can't you just wait? Can't you just wait to get your
suitcases before putting a bullet anal butt plug in your
(21:13):
butt? This is what this the first
toilet you see, the first toiletthat you arrive.
This is what they're selling in their toothbrush, condoms and
anal butt plugs. Welcome to Berlin.
Now, I will end today's podcast with the recent visit I had just
(21:36):
before I recorded. I went and did a baby first aid
course. This is something we wanted to
do for a long time. Hello Nidas.
Our lovely baby is now seven months old, so he has started a
little bit with puree things in his mouth and that makes it very
scary for choking and all of that.
So we're both doing a first aid course now.
(21:58):
I will just give you the weird highlights.
I looked for an English speakingbaby first aid course and the
one that pops up, the most famous one.
First of all, it's done in a church.
Interesting place, I would say teaching science and medicine in
a church, the times we live in. And then I did the class and
(22:21):
here's a highlight. There is this weird thing called
water immersion and babies have it and it's almost like a death
wish. Water immersion is a reflex of
babies that when they if for anyreason their head falls in
water, they just stay there. They don't try to move, they
don't try to turn around. They just stay in the water
(22:43):
without breathing. And you can guess what happens
after. And this is not just for babies
because you would think, OK, a baby maybe thinks they're still
in the womb or whatever. This happens to kids up until
the age of 6. And This is why they say when
you're on the beach, you need tonot leave your sight, not leave
the kid from your sight because they can drown in shallow water.
(23:05):
And the reason why they can drown in shallow water is also
because of this weird water immersion like response.
So it could be that a six year old child for whatever reason
goes face in the water and they just open their hands and they
stay there. We don't know why this happens.
I don't know why nature is keeping that in for so long.
(23:30):
Maybe it made sense when a very young baby comes out of the womb
because everything there is water, so maybe they feel nice
in there. But this is one of the biggest
reasons why kids get drowned in shallow water.
Water emerging beautiful like a baby's death wish.
When they see water, they can't even drown in a puddle.
If they put their face in, they just keep their face in.
(23:52):
So weird. Other weird things.
If you're doing CPR to a baby, you need to blow so little that
I was surprised if you you cannot just blow.
It's too much pressure for them and then you need to use your
fingers to do CPR. Not your hands, not your palms.
You just push with two fingers there.
(24:14):
Babies are fun. Babies are tiny.
And what else? They told us a lot of things,
but I'm just saying my personal highlights.
If the baby is vomiting and you think it might be poisoned, ate
something, drunk something, you are highly advised to keep the
vomit with you. So pack up your vomit and take
(24:34):
it with you to the hospital as well.
Now I'm just throwing this out there.
The most dangerous things for babies to eat, first of all is
medicine. If kids find medicine in the
house, they just take it. The second thing is tobacco.
Tobacco is very dangerous and toxic.
So if they find tobacco or even a cigarette or a cigarette butt
(24:55):
on the street, whatever it is, tobacco is number 2 and #3 is
cleaning products. And apparently one of the things
that really make them interesting for kids is that
they often have the cleaning product has a print in the front
that shows fruit. You know, it shows flowers.
It can show a lemon, can show anorange.
(25:16):
And then kids or babies think that, hey, I eat oranges, come
here. And lastly, on things that you
eat, most things will come out. But if the baby is eating
batteries, you need to rush to the hospital.
You have about two hours before things get very nasty and
magnets, which is apparently very common.
(25:39):
Now listen to this. If your kid swallows one magnet,
you're good. It's fine.
They will eventually poop it out.
If for whatever reason your kid swallows 2 magnets, then it's
completely different. You need to rush to the hospital
because two magnets, as you might guess, can attract each
other. So maybe they block part of the
(26:01):
stomach, maybe they block part of the intestines that you don't
know if they're interacting or not.
And if you go to the hospital with two magnets, the doctors
will literally check every few hours as the magnets get passed
through to see if the magnets interact at any point.
Because if they do, then maybe they need to operate.
Very fun stuff. Of course, calling all the
(26:24):
services, which is a very important part of first aid.
You need to call, you need to report the poison center, the
emergency services. I just realized that they
probably all speak German. So that's an extra barrier
because when you call, you need to say this is the situation,
this is where we are and all of that.
(26:44):
But lastly, FYI, if you didn't know, now you know many plants
are toxic to babies and kids. So if you're entering the
beautiful journey of parental life and all the things you have
to know that you didn't think you have to know, you will find
yourself Googling all your plansto understand if they're toxic
(27:07):
or not. And how toxic?
Is it just bad stomach or does it get, yeah, even more
dangerous? So this is life.
I did try to find joy, because joy is resistance.
The woman giving the first aid course was not a joker.
She wasn't sweating around, her hands were on her waist, and
(27:32):
despite our joke attempts as a group of parents, she was very
serious. Which is fine.
Here's my last advice to all of you.
If you want to make a lot of money, find one thing that is
about parents. It could be a baby preparation
course, it could be a baby massage.
(27:52):
It could be a baby first aid. It could be just find your own
baby class. And then here's the twist.
Instead of teaching the class itself, just make the parents
interact. Parents are so socially deprived
they are longing so much to justtalk with someone.
(28:14):
This is what I've seen from every single type of class I
have attended. The best part is when they say,
OK, let's do intros, who are you?
You go on a break to have our coffee and you talk with each
other. And this is the gap.
The longing for connection is there.
It's masked through the class. Of course you have useful
(28:36):
information that you learn, especially in the baby first
aid, but you could have something more hipster ish.
And the real need of the parentsthere is to connect.
You can still teach them a few things.
Give them a flyer so they remember.
Give them a certificate of attendance, but they will be
completely happy to just interact in between.
(28:58):
So do long breaks and you will be good.
They will be satisfied. But OK, I'll wrap it up here.
Thank you so much for sticking around.
The number one way to get a podcast out there is by word of
mouth. So please use your mouth and the
word and put it out there. Share it with your friends if
(29:21):
you like it, share it to your enemies if you don't like it,
write a comment on Spotify, ratethe show if you haven't, and
have a wonderful, wonderful week.
Thank you very much. I have been me, you have been
you, and I'll see you next time.Until then, Ciao.
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