The Marathon des Sables is the world's toughest foot race spanning 250km through the Sahara desert. In this episode the TFTDL flight crew catch up with Unifrog co-founder Alex Kelly about completing this grueling ultramarathon and just what is possible if you put your mind to it.
Alex is a free spirit and it's impossible not to be inspired by his passion for life. From building a home on a nudist beach in Mexico to helping thousands of kids find equal access to education, tune in for more feel good adventures. Sky above, sand below... trust us, it'll all be alright.
Final boarding call: Oaxaca, Mexico
This is episode is sponsored by The PIE Live - interactive, two day events that build knowledge and networks in international education - check out dates and venues at www.thepielive.com
Tales from the Departure Lounge is a Type Nine production for The PIE www.thepienews.com
The Marathon des Sables is the world's toughest foot race spanning 250km through the Sahara desert. In this episode the TFTDL flight crew catch up with Unifrog co-founder Alex Kelly about completing this grueling ultramarathon and just what is possible if you put your mind to it.
Alex is a free spirit and it's impossible not to be inspired by his passion for life. From building a home on a nudist beach in Mexico to helping thousands of kids find equal access to education, tune in for more feel good adventures. Sky above, sand below... trust us, it'll all be alright.
Final boarding call: Oaxaca, Mexico
This is episode is sponsored by The PIE Live - interactive, two day events that build knowledge and networks in international education - check out dates and venues at www.thepielive.com
Tales from the Departure Lounge is a Type Nine production for The PIE www.thepienews.com
Slightly too early to drink maybe
Nick:I mean, nothing is off limits
Andy:Are we nearly there yet?
Nick:Welcome to Tales from the Departure Lounge. This is a podcast about travel for business, for pleasure, or for study. My name's Nick and I'm joined by my co-pilot, Andy. And together we're gonna be talking to some amazing guests about how travel has transformed their. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the journey. Welcome to the podcast.
Andy:Today we talked to Alex Kelly, who's the founder of Uni Frogg, and he also set up the Access project, a charity to help disadvantage students access higher education.
Nick:And we invited him on because we heard that he had completed the Marathon Desar, which is the world's toughest foot race in the Sahara Desert.
Andy:which he called a little bit tricky.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. And also he's this incredible digital nomad and he's building a home in Mexico,
Andy:I really liked his approach to life generally, where he said, I'm just gonna try things and they'll go wrong, but if I don't try them, I won't know and
Nick:It will all work out.
Andy:it'll all work out if exactly,
Nick:very much a free spirit, and maybe not what people think of a founder of a big tech company, we talk about tequila, mushrooms, and more nudism.
Andy:he's the surf boarding skating marathon, running motorbike riding tech entrepreneur. Let's get some tales from the Departure Lounge from Alex Kelly.
Alex:It really wound me up before that some kids would have the resources to, to know about this stuff and then the means to get there and other kids didn't. That's so unfair. My bunk was above my sister's, so it went straight, onto my sister's, head Anyone can do it, absolutely anyone. And if you have the desire, if you want to, you can do it. It's open to you. By the end of the double marathon, I was sprinting absolutely sprinted the last bit as if I was running a four inch meter race. And the feeling at the finish was just euphoria.
Nick:so before we get into the episode, I wanna quickly tell you about the pie live events that are happening around the world after a sold out European conference in London. The next dates will be the 24th and the 25th of July on the Gold Coast Australia, followed by the 13th to the 14th of November in Boston in the United States. These are short, sharp, two-day in-person events where we bring together the best of the sector to discuss global trends in international education, but crucially through a regional. The feedback we always get is about the value in networking and public private connections that are made. So if you are an aspiring leader looking for professional development, or a CEO or director looking to expand your network, check out the pi live.com. Come with us, come and meet us. We're so excited to be taking these events on tour, and I look forward to meeting you all soon. We've also left some links in the episode notes, so let's get on with the podcast.
Andy:Alex, welcome to the podcast.
Alex:thanks for having me.
Andy:Our pleasure. Um, the first question that we always ask our guests is final boarding call, and it's where in the world you would like to take our listeners
Alex:Okay, we're going to Mexico, in particular the Oaxaca coast, so that's on the west side of Mexico. The southernmost point,
Andy:Lovely. Why? Why Oaxaca?
Alex:I'm gonna start with mezcal, which is very, very type of te te. Actually, it's the other way around. Tequila is actually a type of mezcal. which is something that I learned after my fifth year of going there, and as well as being a very, sunny and beautiful place. The people are awesome and we're gonna have a lot of distance from our normal lives and I think that is such a cool thing to have in order to start thinking about bigger projects and have, new ideas about existing projects.
Andy:So lots of your ideas have come from drinking shots of mescal.
Alex:yeah, I think, I think it doesn't have to be mecal powered, but,, giving ideas. not kind of sitting down in an office and being like, I need to come up with an idea now is really a good idea. And, it's normally, when you've got a problem or a kind of inkling of an idea and then, you think about other things. You go for a walk or we're in Mexico, maybe will go surfing. That, a great idea will come to us.
Andy:And what first took you to Oaxaca?
Alex:My wife, Corly, she was the one who, who said we're going, we were living in New York at the time and it was I think February which is really,, very cold And so we decided to go directly south and directly south is Oaxaca, so that's where we landed. There is a village called Zip on the Coast there, which was, becoming something that our friends would talk about. it's famously, a historically nudist place, and it's become also a bit of a gay, hotspot. So my wife and I were there, before remote working was a, a covid, enabled thing. surrounded by, lots of naked people., doing, our work meetings on Zoom. Just making sure that we blurred the background appropriately.
Andy:This is becoming quite a theme, uh, for us Nudism. When you got there, is that the most surprising thing or were there other things that, you weren't expecting from your first visit?
Alex:Being able, to just not put shoes on for three months because you are not going anywhere and there isn't really any roads or anything like this tho those sorts of little things, would surprise me and became quite addictive. So now that's one of the things I look for, when we're off to Mexico, that I, I won't be needing to pack many shoes.
Nick:And do you go back each year? You said Alex to the same
Alex:yeah. So we go back to the same place and, we just bought a little strip of land there, which we're gonna try and,, build a little house on. Actually starting in a couple of weeks. that's gonna be a fun challenge. Not least because my Spanish and also I had a terrible experience using architects in London, so decided I'm not gonna use any architects. Just gonna use my friend Roddo, who's a builder, and the two of us are gonna, put this house together, he also can't read or write, so it is, it's a, it is gonna be a challenge. But I still think we're gonna do a good job
Andy:What could go wrong? I think. I can't wait to see the results of this project. You're gonna have a swimming pool in the roof.
Alex:If there is a roof. Well we don't need to have a swimming pool really, because we're right on the beach, so that's very cool., and also one of the things that's quite handy is that cuz it's warm all year round, it doesn't matter so much having walls, so you just make it so you have some shade and you also accept that there's very bad hurricanes either every year or every couple of years. So you are probably not gonna have the roof that you finish with, in a years time. So it's just a, it's a different mindset.
Nick:And, and how does Rado feel about Nudism?
Alex:Is very, he's a very funny guy who has seen it all., I really don't think he, um, I don't think he's too fast about Nudism.
Andy:so talk us through your average day in Oaxaca. How do you feel your time
Alex:When we get up, what I would love to do is go straight away and go surfing. But I'm a really terrible person for doing exercise first thing in the morning. And so what I'll normally do is, make a coffee. I can't do anything before I've made my coffee. And I'll generally, work on replying to the messages that have come in because the rest of the team is mostly on Europe time. So that's cool because for three hours you do a day's work of replying to staff and, dealing with what's come up, and then you have the rest of the day, which is really free for you to do as you wish. And so I'll then work normally with Correlly, my uni frog, co-founder and wife on whatever bigger project we've got going on. And then surfing will definitely happen by, I would say 4:30 PM So probably try and do two hours of that as until the sun comes down.
Nick:We're just shaking our heads. We're in
Alex:It's pretty good.
Nick:You literally are a digital nomad, aren't you? That's the term, isn't it? You are working from wherever you wanna work from your earning Western wages, but living in paradise
Alex:yeah, for, for three months of a year And then we're back to Europe very happily as well. Absolutely. Superhero. Um, and yeah, it's something that currently really pushed us to do. a couple of years before Covid, I think we've been doing this for five years now, and it to an, in a smaller extent for six or seven years. I think now I've really struggled to go back to not being like that. I actually find working in the office surrounded by my colleagues. It's so fun and very, invigorating, but I just can't work in the same way, and because a lot of my job is around developing the tools that we have on the platform, thinking of new things we're gonna add and how we're gonna improve existing things. I just find it difficult to have those sorts of thoughts when you're surrounded by like day-to-day to-dos. So it's actually pretty essential for me. I'd say it should be in my job description that I need to be in Mexico for three months a year.
Andy:I think it should be in mine.
Alex:We'll come and stay in the house when it's finished.
Nick:Measuring your insurance risk here,, you've already talked about hurricanes what about, the cartels and the things we hear about Have you seen any of that? Do you worry about, having property there and organized crime?
Alex:Well, we're lucky and I hope it continues that we don't have cartels in our area of Mexico. Um, but it's definitely not funny in areas where the cartels are operating. And one of our best friends is from Sinaloa, which is a real hotspot for cartel staff. And, basically it's ruined life there. So that's very sad and I really hope it doesn't continue down to where we are. what I have seen from,, Mexicans, and I've been there a lot now, is. Well, it's just so hard to believe that sort of thing goes on in the same country that where we are hanging out because people are so honest to almost to a fault. So just as an example, when we were buying our land, we, we came in and someone had already agreed a price, but the guy who own owned the land, just decided that he liked us. And so he just, said, this is how much I'm selling the land for him. We said, fuck done. And he is like, oh, but for you actually, I said it to you for less. So he reduced, he reduced the price after I agreed the higher price.
Andy:You really paid too much, Alex.
Nick:Alex, we invited you on as a guest because we'd heard that you'd completed the Marathon Desar, which is the world's toughest foot race, in the Sahara Desert.
Alex:Yes, that's right. Yeah. That was a year ago today And, it was pretty tricky. It was pretty tough, you have to carry your own food for the week and at any time the water that you're gonna have over the next couple of hours, which is quite a lot of water because it's really hot, you'd imagine. and you have to carry your own sleeping materials, although you doubt carry a tent, so that means that you start off the race with probably about nine kilograms of weight on your back. and then you are running through the desert, which isn't always deep sand, but there's a decent chunk of deep sand. and you are running between 40 kilometers a day., then there's one full marathon, which is a little bit more, and then a great day, which is a double marathon. So yeah, it was pretty tricky, but it one of the best things I ever did for sure.
Andy:Understatement of the year. It was pretty tricky.
Nick:Followed by, it was pretty hot. I've done a bit of research on this. It's like six marathons in six days. It's sand June, so it's undulating. The sand is shredding your feet like sandpaper.
Alex:Yeah,
Nick:they've had three fatalities, and in 2021, less than half the contenders completed the race. And what position did you end up?
Alex:I came 21st this time round. and that's probably me done, but it's just a little bit frustrating that I was in the top 20, so I might have to go back one more time.
Nick:a true competitive attitude there.
Andy:Were you a competitive runner before this,
Alex:I'm just a happy amateur. I love doing all sorts of different sports and I'm not very good at any of them, but I'm like to push myself for all of them. I would never want to do just running for more than, let's say six months. After six months, I'd be like, oh, now I want to get into skateboarding, or Now I'm gonna do swimming. I don't think I would be a good, serious competitor, but I'm a very, happy and, enthusiastic amateur one.
Andy:And what made you enter.
Alex:my Dutch friend Balker,, he just basically signed us up. I have to really try and, control him because. He has a condition where he just likes to really, put himself in a lot of pain and then make me feel bad if I don't also say yes. the one that he wants to do next it's a triathlon where you start in London, you run to the channel, you swim the channel, and then you cycle to Paris.
Nick:We have quite a few runners who listen to the show so, they'll all be saying, ask about your training, ask about the miles you're putting in, how are you acclimatizing to go and run in the desert
Alex:well actually I was really lucky because I was in Mexico up to the event, so that was great. Cause I could run in very hot conditions and I could also run on sand. So I think that was a big part of, why I, I didn't do too bad in the event., I'll tell you my schedule. So essentially you get one day off a week. Let's start with that bit. And then there was three shorter runs, which would each be actually an hour long. And then there were three longer runs, which gradually scaled up. So you start off doing about, something like six miles each day. And by the end it's like, 26 miles each day. So it's pretty horrific.
Andy:Do you remember the feeling when you finished? Was it a sense of relief? Was it elation? Was it disappointment that you weren't in the top 20?
Alex:uh, the, the, the moment that hit me, was when we finished the double marathon, which was just, which is one of the stages, I think it was the second last day. And, that was really fun. you started at 11:00 AM which is completely mad, who would start running in the Sahara Desert at 11:00 AM and you run through the whole day. And then I finished probably about 11 at night, something like that., I mean, it was. It was like living a whole lifetime through the event. So by that point I had quite bad blisters on both my feet and I lost my friends because I, my head torch wasn't working properly and, lost sight of them. And so at one moment I remember it was dark. I still had about 12 miles to go and I was in a lot of pain and I sat down on the ground and I was like, I just dunno if I can carry on with this anymore. I'm cold, I'm hungry. why am I doing this is so stupid. Also, I wasn't really sure the direction I was going cuz of the head torch. And then a friend I'd made over the course of the race came up and said, Hey Alex, what are you up to? Let's go. So I started running with him. Well, I should say Hobb. Um, hobbling next to him. And it was so funny how the body can change over a period of time, and I, I went from that moment where every pace was painful to make and I really felt like just quitting. And then after maybe an hour, I was the one who was helping my friend along. he was then struggling and I felt great, couldn't feel my blisses anymore, was really just like in a good zone. And, by the end of the double marathon, I was sprinting absolutely sprinted the last bit as if I was running a four inch meter race. And the feeling at the finish was just euphoria. And it was the same for everyone., it was like you were in a nightclub and everyone has, the best moment. we're all hugging, people were tearing up., and we were all also completely destroyed. And, had been in a lot of pain previously, but at that moment we were, you know, it was, we're the top of the world.
Nick:did you come up with the idea of uni frogg whilst traveling?
Alex:Yes, we did. We came up with it on our honeymoon. The background is I was teaching a hybrid grove, which is a London comprehensive, and out of that span, the access project, which is a charity which helps disadvantaged kids get into prestigious universities. And the main thing that we did, and we still do with the project, is one-to-one tuition to try and help kids get better grades and also have someone who can mentor them through the application process. And one of the sticking points that we found was students working out which courses to put on their UCAST forms. Anyway, there were a bunch of issues and Corey and I went on our honeymoon and as we were motorbiking from London to Rome over a month. And as we were zooming up and down little Hills, we were like, Hey, I reckon we can figure out a technological way to help kids make better decisions on their UCAS forms. And that's the first thing we did with uh, uni.
Nick:A lot of people see travel as the best value education. It's a place where you can see the world in a different way. Get new ideas, take things from different cultures and reapply it somewhere else. So entrepreneur, it's a great value experience
Alex:for sure. Yeah. I, I actually feel like the biggest learning I ever had when I was traveling is when you see the similarities, when you think, oh, this person who I would only have read about in the news before, normally for some negative reason actually is just like me. We have exactly the same, aims and desires and we are good and bad in the same way. And the only thing that's different between us is our context. And for me, that is education. Education is how do you help people do the best they can regardless of their context. So traveling was the thing that really I think switched me onto education. But because of seeing similarities,
Andy:The next section is called any laptops, liquids, or sharp objects, and this is where you can tell us about any travel hacks you have or things you have to take with you, on your
Alex:Well,, I wish I was a light traveler, but I'm the exact opposite of that. I look like a kind of 19th century explorer. when I go on one of these trips, I'll have a monitor, in a big, Pelican case. Normally one or two surfboards, probably now one or two skateboards. And then I need to have absolutely vital full coffee making equipment. Not too bo not too positive, but I bring clothes. Obviously, I've carefully chosen my villages in Mexico to not need much clothing.
Nick:You now need a vehicle to fit your oversized luggage you've gotta check that in at a different place, an additional cost. I'm worrying that someone's just gonna chuck your very expensive surfboard
Alex:yeah.
Nick:and it's gonna get damaged.
Alex:My approach is it'll work out. So, what I'll normally is pack all of my gear onto one of those rental bicycles to get from the office to the,, airport via train station. so that cuts down car travel. And then I'll just wrestle my way onto the plane.
Andy:This is like some sort of circus act. I wanna see you on a bike with a surfboard and a suitcase going onto a train.
Nick:We need to take a moment to talk about your wife here. She already sounds like the coolest person ever, encouraging you to have this lifestyle, creating an amazing business together. but I'm now starting to get this impression that she's dragging several of your surfboards behind you. What role has she got, in this traveling
Alex:I think it's very smart of you to, to, to discuss this cuz it's a critical part of the story. So, with Corley, she will help me the first time, but it will be quite a painful process of getting the help. And then we'll normally agree that it can never happen again. And so what we've kind of, agreed that we'll do is just travel separately, and that way we just don't have any arguments. And I'm left to my own devices, Coral is the ideal light packer. She knows what, almost what she'll be wearing every day for three months. I'm the kind of guy who will bring four different pairs of trainers, but then no sandals to a really, really hot country.
Nick:If we said to you, what's the funniest story you've got from
Alex:Yeah.
Nick:What would come to mind?
Alex:So I have one sister who is absolutely obsessed with being hydrated. she's the only non-American I know who carries one of those, massive water floss around, anyway. That's all fine. It is all fine string loads of water until you get into a very, very small plane for quite a long plane ride, because very small planes don't have toilets they just have one space where everyone gets to hang out the whole time, including the pilot. And of course, what happened when we were in this small plane, she just really needed the toilets. She was at the level of like, do you think we can just make a stop type, uh, desperation. Um, and so what the pilot did was he said, okay, actually I have this special contraption, which, is for taking a pee mid-flight. And it's very sexist., it's basically a cone that is clearly better designed for some humans than others. and what is, you pee into it and it's got these gel balls, which then, when the water hits them, they expand into something that isn't gonna just like slosh around everywhere So the first thing is that we all had to very awkwardly, uh, of our eyes. So she clambered around the plane to get in the right position to take the pee and you know, bashing the pilot with her elbow and over the skies she was peeing, but then because it's my sister and because of the quantity of water that she drinks, she overflowed, she overflowed over outside of the cone. The pilot really didn't want to her to pee on the plane, and so she grabbed. In desperation, the pilot's, very natty bag and used that as a, thing to pilot, which I think the pilot wasn't necessarily backing on either, but it was too long it started.
Nick:I mean, she's gonna love you telling that story
Andy:any nicknames after that
Alex:My surname is Kelly, so of course smelly Kelly. I have one actually also evolving my poor sister, this time we're in Zanzibar just when they start having a coup. So we're trying to have a holiday go to this tiny island where there's guys running around with machine guns all over the place and there are no roads and there are no houses. You have to sleep in a tree house and immediately what happens is I get cerebral malaria. Which is really not a funny one to have. I was so nervous about getting malaria that I'd made my, mosquito net really intensely, tucked under my, mattress. And so when I started feeling ill, I just couldn't get out of the bed. Cause I couldn't, unt I couldn't untangle my mosquito. So I'm, I'm apologies for this listener, but I started vomiting and I was vomiting so much, and the mosquito net was basically streaming my vomit so that it was, what was coming out was just very liquid and my bunk was above my sister's, so it went straight, onto my sister's, head and body, which is pretty great. When my dad arrived a bit later he went to check on my sister and he thought that the, vomit juice was kerosene from the kerosene lamps that they had. And so, he thought that the whole thing was just about to go up in flames. She picked my sister up and carried her very dangerously out of a treehouse. so yeah, we nearly, we nearly had quite a serious, family issue on our hands with my dad falling out of a treehouse while carrying my sister because he thought that my vomit was kerosene.
Nick:You nearly had a situation. I think that malaria, vomit being strained onto sibling, amid civil Andres, that qualifies.
Andy:Any other bodily fluid stories you wanna
Alex:not this time of day.
Andy:The next section is called, what's the purpose of your visit? Why do you do what you do, Alex?
Alex:The best work thing that ever happened to me was when I was teaching and I was teaching English and we were working on a Carol and Duffy poem called Stealing. And over the course of 45 minutes, me and the kids unpicked what this poem was about. And at the end there was a Eureka moment that everyone in the class felt they got the poem so that we, they cracked the code. And that was so magical. And since I've carried on working, I've always been thinking about that moment and trying to, not necessarily recreate it, but just trying to make that sort of thing happen more. so with doing the access project, which was about access to prestigious universities and Uni frog, which is all about helping kids get into the best place for them after school, it's always trying to help kids have those eureka moments more where they just get this joy of learning.
Andy:And what was that journey from that eureka moment through to what you're doing now?
Alex:It was super organic. We, started the access project because we, there was a particular group of, 12 year olds who I was like, wow, these kids are so smart. And I just graduated from Oxford and I was like, these kids are so much smarter than some of my friends from uni. It's nuts that at this school, no kid goes to RO group universities. No one had gone to Ross Group Uni and I was standing in front of a bunch of year eights and I was like, there should be 30 people just from this class who co. Uh, prestigious universities. so the access project was all about trying to make sure that people who wanted to and had the, interest and ability wouldn't be stopped by their context from getting into wherever they wanted to go. And with Uni Rockets, it was about trying to give kids the information so that they made smart choices. We want kids to explore, what that thing that most excites them might be, but especially just so they don't have any questions they know. They, they know if I wanted to be a doctor, what does that mean? What does it look like? And also, how would I get there? if they want to go to university in the us they should know what that would look like and how would they should get there.
Nick:That's a really good point to iterate the content on. Uni Frogg isn't just a bunch of courses and a bunch of universities. It's designed so that if a student has a passion for a subject, it then opens their eyes to where they can progress with that passion. Or in reverse. So they could say, I really wanna be this, so how do I get there? How do I choose the right subjects to take me down that pathway?. So it not only helps with their university guidance, but it's kind of like the full career guidance. That's
Alex:Yeah, that's right. and it's really not, it's really not only UK unis, it's unis around the world. So if you wanted study business, you know, you can definitely do that in the uk and, you'd find awesome courses. But actually maybe the best course view is in the Netherlands. Maybe the approach they have to teaching is better for you. And so we want to show you that opportunity, but also show you how you can get there., it really wound me up before that some kids would have the resources to, to know about this stuff and then the means to get there and other kids didn't. That's so unfair. so, you know, that, that really motivates us at uni fro to try and make it so that everyone's on a level playing field.
Nick:Alex, how would you describe yourself as a leader and a person? and how do you think the company reflects that image? Is it built in your image?
Alex:That is such an awesome question. So I, I really feel like starting a company is such a cool thing because you don't have to be any particular sort of person. Anyone can do it, absolutely anyone. And if you have the desire, if you want to, you can do it. It's open to you. You may not have all the skills that you need, and that's fine because you can team up with people who have the skills. You dont. Or have interesting things that you don't like doing. And that has definitely been the case at Uni Frock, where there are some things that I really like doing and that I'm good at, but a ton of things that I'm absolutely awful at. And it's okay because we've got, we're very lucky that we've got a fantastic team. When I was younger and I was thinking,, if I found the company it is gonna need to be me, that's the ceo. But that's not even true. So what Corey and I did, we started Uni ffo together, is that we appointed one of our colleagues, as the c e O. So he's the person who day-to-day makes all the decisions, He's, the overall line manager for everyone, and he's the one who makes decisions about what stuff is done each day. those are things that me and COR are just not good at. We're not good line managers. We're not good at day-to-day stuff. but we're really good at, thinking of h how to design a platform that helps kids. And so that's what we focus on and we do talk to Dan every day. he's the c and we, uh, work together on general strategy, but it's completely fine to be not strong at something that you think is gonna be really integral to running a company and still run a company.
Nick:So there'd be some people who are saying, you are the founder, you can do what you want. You can live in Mexico, you can live in Paris, but how does that apply to, the rest of the company? do you encourage people to live in the same way?
Alex:yes. I think it was, it is either just before covid hit or during Covid, we said to everyone, if you want to live anywhere in the world and you can still do your job, That's fine by us. That's actually great. And it was funny how few people, um, wanted to do it, and I think the real reason was that they had, families, which makes things just much, much trickier. but even people who didn't have families, we d we don't have many people who, who have moved. I would say that it's trickier to just make the move than just being told your boss says it's. Having kids and, um, having pets. Obviously strong reasons for, for not traveling so much.
Andy:The last section of the show is called Anything to Declare,
Alex:One of the things that we've worked on recently, which is I, my favorite thing, on Uni Rock at the moment is a tool that helps kids do work experience. And the particular thing it does is try and deal with all the boring stuff to do with work experience. So all of the health and safety. Risk assessments, insurance permissions, consents, agreements, and it basically uses technology in what I think is the best way that, uh, technology can be used, which is just tick a load of boxes and make sure that all the important things are done and let humans get on with the fun stuff of, you know, actually interacting with each other. So that is the idea of this work experience part of Uni Frog. It deals with all of the forms that need to be,, filled in and sent off in a really easy way
Andy:my work experience was actually a Beacon Radio in Wolverhampton. When I was 16 and now look, I'm co-hosting the world's leading higher education travel podcast 25 years later. So there you go. It's, uh, it's paid off What was your work experience? Alex?
Alex:I did work experience with a, criminal negligence barrister, and at the time he was working on a case where a motorcyclist had fallen off his bike and he'd had his arm ripped off. I decided I didn't want to be a, a barrister, but I knew I wanted to do something that really mattered,, a job where you were really helping people and I think, that for me that's quite a good lesson about work experience it's just getting them to not be a student for a little while. To be in the real world and to interact with adults and see what the world of work can be. Like
Nick:What I love about that story is that you decided you didn't want to be a barrister, but you did want to ride a motorcycle, reading about a man having his arm ripped
Alex:I knew who I was gonna call if I had a.
Andy:I've been distracted. This whole interview, Alex, by the tapestry behind you, is it,, it looks like mushrooms growing out of your head? It makes you look like a fun guy. sorry. I
Alex:distracted. You've wanting to say that
Andy:I've been wanted to say that for a
Alex:looks like a crown,.
Andy:A meial crown growing out of your
Alex:It's a Mexican friends, piece..
Andy:I'm a bit of an amateur mycologist makes dog walks more exciting when you can identify fungi and eat.
Nick:And eat them.
Andy:Yeah. It's the only thrill I get now whether I'm gonna die or not from eating,
Alex:Don't you have to say something like, please, listeners, do not eat any fungus,
Andy:probably. That would be the responsible thing to do, wouldn't it? You said it for me. Thank you, Alex.
Alex:Actually, in between Oaxaca City and Oaxaca on the beach, there is a village in the mountains called, San Jose del Pacifico, which is famous for hallucinogenic mushrooms. but Corey and I always seem to be going through at the wrong time, so they're always like, I'm sorry, we're out. I've not been able to, even if I wanted to.
Andy:We've eaten them all.
Nick:Yeah.
Andy:Alex, thanks ever so much for coming on. It's been great having you.
Nick:I've really enjoyed chatting to
Alex:Yeah, likewise.
Nick:a kindred spirit I think
Alex:Thanks so much. It's been awesome.
Nick:Hello everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you wanna listen to more episodes, you can find them at Tales from the departure lounge.com.
If you want to sponsor an episode, that's now possible as well. We're also having lots of fun with the frequent flyers club. Where we hear your stories, that you can send into sick bag@talesfromthedeparturelounge.com.
Nick:Tales from the Departure Lounge is a type nine production for the pie.