We went to PARIS! 🇫🇷 Officially Unofficially #32

The RLCS went to Paris, and so did we! So we decided to RANK each RLCS host city we've been to :) 

We also discuss gun ranges, holiday hoodies and eating snails. 

Rate 5* and post a comment - we really do read them all.

Transcript

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Hello everyone. I've just asked Alvin what episode this is. I knew a response dumpy was. Don't know, don't care. Oh, dog's barking. He doesn't know, nor does he care. Yeah, he doesn't care either, but he is barking. So this is episode woof woof woof of officially. Unofficially. We'll set up the uh little jingle layer. So we can't do it that early. Yes, that's cringe. That is very, very cringe. Especially if we're off the back of not being cringe at all. I know. Away in a manger. Oh my god, we've been away in a manger, and it has been delightful. I love a holiday. I'll have been on like an actual holiday for I think a good while. Like normally after the events that we work, you know, um uh a soccer-based car football game, free on the Epic store right now. It's an incredible game. So it's basically like imagine football, but instead of pressing a button to pass the ball, you literally control Messi's boots. It's called Rocket League, and you are physics-based. Like Akin Fenoir's head is what you're controlling. Big old man booze of strength. And yeah, so we went to uh to Paris. It was very good. Uh we've just come off the back of a holiday. Uh we actually saw each other on holiday. I was genuinely honoured because yeah, Stampie is uh it's it's interesting with me and you because you are probably the most hard line between business and pleasure, business and not business, yes, I've ever met. I hate it. I'll say that. Cool, I'll help me admit I fucking would change I would change that about you. Yeah. I barely, and I loved it. I barely looked at anything business-y. I did I I don't think I opened Discord for a week. Really? That's so cool, bro. I'm not saying it's cool. I hate it. I hate that you have this separation. I'm I'm happy to admit that, you know, because we know each other well enough. But I could say I would change that about you. Would you? See, I'd make it so you didn't need to as online. Because what I did like though, so when we were out and about, um about in Paris, every now and then we'd sit down at a restaurant, myself and my fiance, and we would uh just go on our phones for like five minutes. I'd just go on Twitter for a bit, I'd have a little scroll, just do whatever, oh Twitter shit, because it's for the fascists, over to Reddit, and then it's just loads of like porn or whatever on Reddit. I didn't really look at Reddit that much nowadays. Um and porn. Um so yeah, and uh I'd look at that, and that was a nice little recharge, a little fast charge. You plug in the USB C, you go little fast charge, and then I'm good to go again. I don't don't need to look at my phone. My phone is then only for for photos and pictures and maps and whatever. But I love that. But you're not you're a lot of people. I mean, yeah, I mean that's that's that's that's an oldest. You can listen to that in episode 16, episode 19, episode 22, if you wish to hear my thoughts on online versus offline and some piece in comparison. Uh, but you know, France in general. Uh so we were there for um in our in our Rocket League world, our RLCS world. Uh the major, the latest major. So good. And what did you think? I want to talk about the city. What about the city itself? Uh, because people listening to Officially Unofficially, they they might not even know what competitive Rocket League is, mate. They don't want to hear about your thoughts on Monkey Moon's flip reset. And that is a real player, by the way, what a night. Yeah. Um so I had a lot of people telling me when uh when I was about to go to Paris, um, and I was saying, oh yeah, we're gonna extend our stay after, um, uh, we're gonna hang out there for a little bit. I shit you not. I'd say half the people that I told said you should go somewhere else. Like you you should like fly to Barcelona, you should go to Italy or whatever, you should do that. Fucking idiot. Idiot, crazy. So good. I honestly I was walking around the whole time and in person I was like just looking at stuff and being like, I don't know why people say this is shit. I don't understand how a huge amount of people that I spoke to said you just shouldn't do it. Not like, oh, I wasn't a big fan, but I can see why you're doing it. I have no idea why it was hated so much at all. I'm completely the same as you. Like, everywhere you look in Paris, if anyone's not been to Paris, right? I've heard rumours there are bin bags everywhere and garbage is spilling out and you can't drink for mosquitoes and crack needles falling in your drink. It's beautiful. It was stinking. It was utterly stunning. Oh, give it the direction. Did you think did you I haven't got a strong sense of smell, so maybe I'll actively every now and then I'd walk just to an area and I'd say, oh, that stinks of human feces. Every now and then, yeah, randomly. I don't know why. It was in like a really nice place. I'd like, oh, that's stinks of shit. And then ten feet later, it's fine again. It was really weird. And I was going to other pockets. I'd look around for like any like sewer grates that are open or any like decomposing bodies. Very rarely did I find any. So rats. I saw a rat outside the Eiffel Tower. That's that's culture! That's what they do. It was cooking! It was having a cook. It was there, it was putting herbs in a pot. No, no, no, but I just saw a little rat and I pointed it out to uh Lenaya. She fucking hates. I was like, Oh, look! He's like, no, I'm not looking at look, a little cute rat. Look, it's coming towards you. Like, here it is. I thought it was good. Um, where my only issue, and it's an issue that I would have with any big city, because I've had this issue with London, is big homeless population. That was bad. Big homeless population. Lots of issues with that. Um, I think, but then I've also had that in Manchester, Liverpool, I've had that in whatever city, Copenhagen, even. Like, it's it's a thing. And it's not their fault, but it's a thing, and it's something you kind of have to avoid and kind of be like, ooh, sorry, I know you're a human, but I'm not really in the market for that right now. Um I'm not in the mood, I'm on holiday. I'm not in the mood, I'm on holiday. I appreciate you live here, sort of, but I am on holiday. Yeah, you go, wait, do you know the notch and dumb's over there? Why are you here? Why are you in the center of this? Why are you here? This is cheap. You know it's nice in 1910. Brieve over there, it's really good. Um uh, and there was one moment where on the metro, which oh my god, you oh let me can I permission to splurge about uh the metro. You have got and I'll time it. You've got what's a fair time? 32 seconds? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me 32 seconds. I'll try and squeeze it in. One minute, let me set. One minute. Uh no. Let me set the stopwatch. Ready? Three, two, one. You may now talk. So the Paris Metro I found so interesting because the way in which it differs from the London tube was just better in a lot of ways. The first thing is the fact you've got two big lines that are going through the RER and the Metro. The RER being more of like an artery, then you've got the veins going off like the Metro system. I also loved that they had a numbering system for the metros, one through, I think, 12 or 14. You then just pick a number, go on that, and then pick the direction. They also tell you the exit to go to, and it doesn't just say the street name, but it also says the number on the sign. So it says take exit one to get to your location, rather than this particular street, and it was brilliant, better than the- Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! Shut up. Whoa! Break something. No, I just pung a fork into my bin. I thought you smashed a glass. No. I plug a fork into my bin and then it tinged off the kickoff RLCS bottle. It all just happened off camera. I'm so sorry, everyone. You'll never see this. But that was incredible. Almost as good as your recounting. That was very good. Well done. Do you feel post-splurged, that sort of sense of satisfaction and embarrassment that everyone always feels? I've got more to Let me tell my doctor shut up real quick. Yep. Alright, we're good. Um audio listeners. I very calmly told him to be quiet. Yeah, that was super chill. Uh I enjoyed uh so much about the Metro. But there was one issue that I did have at one point where there was a there was a lout. There was a loutish man. And if you want to hear about Stumpy's French lout or le tout in French, you can find out more unofficially. The best podcast on the internet. Good jingle. Uh, yeah, so there was a man that was uh drunkenly sort of stumbling around like on the carriage, like holding the middle pole thing, like talking kind of at people drunkenly, and it was a little bit scary. And I'm just a little bit there, just like, oh my god, I just don't want the attention. Because I'm a man that stands out. So I'm thinking if he's you and Anna. Me and Anna, yeah. If if he like sees me, I'm an easy one to be like, fucking hell, look at that. I'm gonna get involved there. And then you start speaking, you go, bonjour, and he goes, uh, long lay. Yeah, but then that then becomes its own thing. Yeah, exactly. So um, we then moved away from him, just like a bit down the carriage, and then he was like sort of leaning over towards this like woman who was like with a group of people and was like talking at her, and she was like uncomfortable, kind of moving away. And I then made eye contact with like three other blokes on the train, and it was I think it was one of those silent things of if it goes like far, then if one of this four blokes or whatever kind of says something, there are several other men that will then also get involved. Myself being one of the you need you need the first, you need to do you need to be the first. Yeah, exactly. Or one needs to be the first and not have the bystander effects. Yeah, precisely, yeah. So he's uh he's he's calmly beating his dog, it's all good now. Nice and calm. Um so uh I ended up um uh like looking at this bloke that was across from me, and I kind of looked at him and like gave him like a smile and like a one of them. Like a little bit of an eye roll. Yeah, God, here we go. And then he kinda gave me a nod and I was like I gave him a little nod back. And he I was just like, look, this is just like a little agreement of if just something, God forbid, very god forbid, because I don't want to be in a fucking anything, I don't want to be a hero. You don't have to be the hero. Yeah, yep. Um I was like, God forbid, this man here, we we're doing something together. Whether we're getting the shit kicked out of us together, or genuinely, isn't it? Isn't it isn't it amazing that across cultures and language, and I think there are some cultures where a head shake is a head nod, and there are some sort of uh discrepancies like that, but just a few movements of these incredible skin flesh things we have, you both across languages got the understanding of if this thing over there changes, we are both going to do something about it if necessary. Just for a few eyebrow lifts. It was very good. Isn't that incredible? I saw him then also making eye contact with other blokes on the train, like nearby. So he he I think he was our like our de facto leader in this. He yeah, he he was there swiping right on Defender. He was just being like, Well, you defend. I made it, I made it on the defender. Yes, you got the swipe right. Yeah, but then I also got off at the next stop. Because I gave him a smile and a nod, and he went like that. So I was like I had your back. I was just like, yeah, I mean, I'm happy it doesn't kick off. But if I'm leaving and it kicks off, I'm I'm gone. I've I've I've cashed out. What a heroic ending to to our protagonist, Stumpy Goblin. Bye. Bye. I think Iron Man does that in the Avengers, doesn't he? So yes, this is my stop. This isn't that's my bad guy. Yeah, Paris overall, brilliant. I loved it. I really, really liked it. I think it goes high on my like tier list of cities. Okay, well, we should we should do that. We should do that for RLCS Cities, RCS Rebellion Championship series. That is that is great organic content. Is there a tier list maker for this? Does it exist? There's this one that I found uh made 20 minutes ago by username Stumpy Goblin. Okay, that's incredibly. Uh I've just finished my recording on that. And here it is, wa wa wewa. Let me share this bad boy with you so you can see it. Uh it is a tier list of uh cities that we have been to for our work, lol. I've got an issue. I fucked up a word. No, no words. I have to remember what picture is what city. And a lot of European cities look quite similar. There's a lot of similarity there. I mean, okay, so for audio listeners, we're looking at uh a tier list. Uh there's a bunch of pictures. Uh one of them says Las Vegas on a sign. So I imagine out of gimme. Okay, yeah, that's that's a freebie. That's another one. Okay, okay. Um, and then there's also a tip. I can guess where that will be. Don't spoil my joke. Sorry, mate. I'm just gonna come through some of that. Okay, I wonder where that will be. Okay, all right. So uh we'll start off with the first one. Uh which one of these is Amsterdam? For fuck's sake. Um This one, that's a canal. That's Amsterdam. That's gotta be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amsterdam. Okay, so is this sorry, are we judging these about each other, or are we judging them in comparison of what's the best RLCS? Do you know what I mean? Like, is it oh, this is an S, or is it there's only one S of the RLCS? No, just cities that we've been to, like, because most of my travelling has been through this job. Yeah, okay. So I'd say just cities that we have been to and visited, um, which some of them then will also be worse because we will have seen worse parts of it. Um, if we've been there multiple times, like on here we have like London um and we've got Fort Worth. We've been there a couple of times, we're rating it on all of the experiences that we have had in these places, just as a place to go. Okay. So Amsterdam kick us off. I think it was great. I really I've been there a couple of times, like three times, I think. Um I thought it was really good. I think it's good vibes. Um drugs are cool and good. Yes, yes, yes. I did my first drug legally there. Nice. Uh legally, I did my first drug there. Is what I mean, obviously, Your Honor. Nice. Oh, well. Because I'm cool, I guess. Arrested. I'm gonna um what's the thing? I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna What's the word where you get cuts on me and spank me? The the police officer is gonna come in. SWAT. I'm gonna SWAT you. Oh. I'm gonna SWAT you. You know my Okay. Okay. Horrible. That's really horrible of you. Also, if they send SWAT officers to me, because I smoked weed in a field ten years ago or whatever, that's harsh. That's a Northampton massive. Uh so Amsterdam. What do we think? I think it's like a it's like an A plus at what it does. Do you know what I mean? You don't go there for subtlety, you don't really go there to look at the buildings. Yeah, but I think you can. I think you can. You can do that because it's got really good culture, very good museums there, great outdoor pubbery and barbery, um, really good uh museums. Did I say museums early? Oh, to be fair, I do remember when I went to Appsanus one time, uh I was I was um going on a European West Ham tour, and we were up against FC 20, and we went down there, right? And it was so cool because in the canals, there's all these bikes, and you can pick them up and you can throw them in the canal. Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but this is where it gets better. Okay, okay, okay. There there was there was there was this Dutch guy, yeah, and he said something nonsense, like, oh, don't throw my bike in the canal, and then I punched him. Is this referencing a thing that you've seen on Twitter? Something British football fans have done. Chuck. They just seem like the type. That's fair. Back in like 2014 or something. Uh so I would say Amsterdam, I'd give it like an A. A. A is good. Yeah. It's it's got two sides to the city, sorted and not, and I think both are good. So, yes, and it's it's it's it's very good at sorted, and it's all got its like ducks in order as far as I know, of the law in that regard. And you can see boobs in a box. You can see boobs in a box, and you can see like sex in a building, and you can see all sorts. So, yeah, I think I think look at it. Next morning you can go and see where Anne Frank was cutting about. That's a bit of a, you know. That's like a that's like a switch in your brain, isn't it? That's a mix-up. That is a mix-up. Yeah, that's like that's that's whiplash. Yeah. Going from cultural whiplash. Going from Fanny to Frank. I will go A from Amsterdam, which makes sense. That does make perfect sense. Uh we'll go in order of then where we have been. Uh sorry, in in the order of places where we've been. So the next one is landing. I am a big proponent of London. I like it a lot, I think. But when mostly when I was younger, now that I'm older, the last time I went to London, I found it sad to be in. And I I covered this on the podcast. I found it. So you have talked about this before. Yeah, and I I think that's I think you're northern pilled a bit too much. I don't think it's sad. But then you've northerned more than me. I think I think it's just B. I think London's fine, but then it's it's on our back. But then it's also that's what I mean. It's ultimately. We're not like, wow, Big Ben, I've seen that in the movies. We're like, well, yeah. I will walk past Big Ben. I'm like, that's mass in my hand. Yeah. So it's tough to sort of judge it fairly, really. I'm not particularly fussed about London, but it's the fatigue of going to London. I went there a lot as a teenager. So when I was like, I think, I don't know, 15 to 17. Um in sort of like, what's that? Like year 10 to 12, something like that. Um, I went to London with my mates, where this is like back before the days of trainline app and whatever, back before the days of apps. Is that pre-apps? No, I guess that's like 2010. They were they were they were just starting proto-like. They were a bit janky. And everyone had their own store. There wasn't like an Android and Apple store just yet. Yeah, we had like the uh the beer drinking app on the iPod Touch. Oh, that was so good. I got so drunk on that when I was watching FC20 versus West Ham in 2004. That's why you punched a touchy. Yeah. Um, and I remember uh that my parents would buy like a train ticket for me to go to London and they'd give me one of their uh cards to collect it in the ticket machine because they had to put a debit card in the machine, put in the code, and then collect the card, and then I'd have to give the card back to them because they were waiting in the car park, have my tickets. I used to then go to London with my mates when I was like 15 or 16 with like a phone, sort of. I think a few of us had phones, and we just went to London for the day with no contact with our parents. From Northampton? From Northampton, which is like an hour away. So it's not crazy, but it's like an hour, hour and twenty. And then just went to London for like six hours, seven hours, and then came home, and they just trusted us not to get kidnapped. Were they trying to kidnap? Isn't that odd? Was that the is anyone called Fagin? You know the guys at the um the front like the airport that holds your name up? Was there ever anyone called Fagan who ran a gang and it just said stumpy? And you were like, is this pre-stumpy? This is pre-stumpy. Wow. Sort of. Not really. I was my my game attack was still stumpy. But like I wasn't called that at all. Um at the goblin that we know in London. But yeah, they just shipped you off to London, like with money? Like 50 quid in your pocket or anything? Not really. What did you do? Just walked around. That's what I mean. I don't know why we did it. I think we just like went to London. I remember one of my mates went to London, but she didn't have socks. And so we had to. One of our stops went to a Primark and she had to buy socks. And we were all so annoyed. So we're like, we're in London, you've gone to a Primark. What the fuck are we doing? Just go somewhere to waste a little bit of time. Yeah, and then um, Okay, a lot of people. Oh, yeah, one more. A load of people, I think on this same trip we went to um uh like Camden Market. No, we went to like it's called Food Market, not Camden. It was a bit pretentious though and a bit expensive, and there was stuff there that like half. That was back then. That was gentrified as fuck. There was um a load of food that a lot of us didn't really want to eat, or like it was, you know, even it was like four quid for a sausage roll or whatever. Um, and uh I remember we were like, we then thought, I'm gonna go to a Mackey's. We then ran around, found a Mackey's, I needed a Wii, and I remember I rounded a corner and I was laughing so much at the concept of us running away from this cool food market to run to a Mackey's with my mates that I actively pissed myself. Sorry, so you were sent to London with no money, and you urinated because you couldn't find a toilet. Yeah. I think you were abused. No, no, no, no, no. And then that's then I remember that my thighs were chafing from piss. This is all genuinely true. That my thighs and then chafing with piss on the jeans. How old were you? 16. And then did were you fed when you got home by any charge? I don't remember. I'm gonna assume not. I'm gonna assume not. I'm gonna I'm gonna assume not. I thought that was a funny Charlie's story, but maybe it is abuse. That's quite sad, really, that you you wet yourself. Yeah, I wet myself. From laughter, which is a good part of the story. That's not a thing. Is it? I think you've you no actually pissing yourself with the floor. No, I know pumicile is a thing. Everyone says pumicle. I just don't think it's literally a thing. Do you know what I mean? I don't think it is. I don't think you actually can wet yourself with laughter. I'm the case study, motherfucker. No, because you were being abused. I'm like the Anne Frank of pissing myself. I'm the case study of the of that thing. First they came for the piss mellows and I did not speak up for I was not them. I'd pissed chafed thighs in Camden Town. And you didn't hear me complaining about it. No, I guess not. I guess not. Um yeah, I'm I'm definitely curious if anybody else has got stories of urinating genuine genuinely urinating yourself through love. It wasn't lots, it was but it was enough. Did everyone know? Yeah, I told them instantly. Why did you tell them instantly? Obviously funny! What do you mean why did I tell them? Obviously funny. Why have you told us this? And they all laughed as well. Really? You can ask it was a lot of guys in the world. What allege? Do you remember Michael from the Stagdo? Remember Don, the guy who was the worm? I'll say yes. The petting zoo? Oh, I remember the worm, yes, I remember the worm. Those two were running with me, they will corroborate the fact that I pissed myself in London. Were they like, oh, let's do it too? That looks fun. No, they just laughed. They were like, that's weird. I think that latter result uh uh response is probably the more. After my wedding, remember this. After my wedding, do you remember when Alex pissed himself in London? Did he piss himself? And was it after or before he got beaten when he got home? I didn't get beaten that much. But London is a B, would we say? London's a B. What we've established is that London is a B. There's lots of there's lots of good places to London, lots of bad places. I guess the closer you are to somewhere, the more you go there, the more you know there's some good and some bad. Oh, don't go there. Oh, dodge here after 11, oh, this place shuts at 7, whatever, right? Because ultimately ultimately, London is S tier. Like, it is S tier. The amount of stuff you can do there, all the food, all the attractions, it is S tier. But we've been there. Piss legs called it B. Yeah, pity B legs. Uh last Vegas. Oh, you're you're skipping ahead. I thought we're doing it in order. Changing the rules around me. That is in order. Oh, order of going that order of going pictures. I see, I see, I see, I see. Okay. Las Vegas. Now, Las Vegas is, you know, I said that maybe Amsterdam is fairly untle. Las Vegas is built upon um sand foundations of unsubtlety. And that's the point. It doesn't care though. It doesn't mind, it doesn't shy away from that. It's like, oh, well, front of guard twice as big as anywhere else. Good for you. Yeah, good for you for you. I love that they lean into it. Um, there'll also be some people, I'm sure, that listen to this podcast who are in the uh like suburbs of Vegas. At which point I'm thinking, Fucking why? I don't know why you'd live there. It's like living in Blackpool. Obviously, well, so we we've we've been through the suburbs of Vegas. Um the first time we were there, yeah. The first time we well, sort of, we we went, we did it, we took a we took a walk, didn't we? Oh we did a little stroll. Yeah, first time we were in Las Vegas, Stumpy for whatever reason, this is back in 2018. Yeah. So before they had public Wi-Fi everywhere, and before we knew about eSIMs and all that. So we had no signal throughout the day. Very clever from us. Very good and clever from us. We knew what we were doing. Yeah. Uh and Stumpy was like, oh, do you know what? I really want iHOP. Why did you get any weather with an iHop in America? American, innit? I think that's just a cool thing to do. It was like an iHOP or like a waffle house, or just like, I want an American diner breakfast, which I suppose is like an American saying, I want English food, and like they go to weather spoons. Spoons. Like I imagine it's similar, but in my English brain, I fancied an iHOP. So yeah, we um we had a little look at the map, Google Maps, uh, our first big trip out together, and they had an iHOP and it was but two blocks away. That's not that's not too far. We can we can walk that. That's and we we said I remember we said to a few Americans, oh, we'll probably just walk there. And they were like, y'all do what? They were shocked. They were they were horrified at the concept of us walking to an IHOP. They were right. Sort of. I enjoyed it, but basically, yeah, we we walked in the sweltering sun. The biggest issue is that one block is like seven different traffic things, yeah. Um, buttons, and they're so slow. Lots of mini blocks in amongst in between, I guess, the big arteries, which is what I saw as blocks, there's actually loads of crossings within that to make up these mini blocks. And you can't cross those without because you'll just die because cars are constant. Yeah. Uh yeah. So we walked for two hours in the sun. Um had our eye hop. I gave her a tip of a one pound coin and she couldn't believe her love. Remember. She was like, oh my god, like not even like, not even sort of pretending to be not to be insulted. She said, Oh, do y'all have any British money? And a pound. She was like, Oh my god, I love it. I'm gonna show my son he loves Britain and all that. So that was like the best tip I've ever given. Uh then. She was lovely. I remember her being great. Yeah, very good server. Very American, the most American experience. We got like pancakes and sausages and maple syrup and eggs and everything like that. I think we did tip also, you know, five bucks or whatever, but the pound coin is what she'll remember. Um, and then on the way back, we did order a taxi. Didn't come. Well, we tried to. We had to go to a mall that was nearby to dinosaurs. Because we thought we're we're fucked it. We're too far out. It was it was getting I think we also left, by the way, our hotel at like 7am. Because like we had to leave early. Um so yeah, we left like 7am. So we're getting to like midday at this point. Uh, really hot. Tried to order an Uber uh uh back and it just the public Wi-Fi situation was awful. Uh we asked at yeah, like a dinosaur experience at a mall from dinner to dinosaur. Uh mall in uh Vegas. Can we use your Wi-Fi? And they said no. No. I was like, That's like okay. Well, like clearly in distress. What do you mean, no? They said no, you can't. We're like, what the fuck? You can look at what I'm doing on my phone if you really want. They just said no. Well, it's America, he probably would have been fired and shot if he broke company policy. So it's very weird. Um, and then we ended up uh yeah, getting back and then thought that is we we should we shan't do that again. And I'll put it in. Uh I actually found recently it was in my like, you know, this day eight years ago on my phone, a little clip of us walking along, um, which I think is quite funny. So I'll put that in now. F68 in the desert. Stumpy swears he's seen an iHop somewhere, but I'm getting more and more convinced it was only a mirage. Let me show you the map. So we've been walking for four days now. Alright, there's the map though, how well it can be seen. Uh grey dot, that's iHop. So we've been walking, I think. We start this journey about three miles away from IHOP. So we you were saying, should we go IHOP? Because you had your heart on it, I did. And you were you're about to give up. And I was like, no, go on, mate, because when we're home, you won't say, Oh, thank God we saved five minutes there. You'll say, I wish we'd gone to a real authentic American IHOP. What I didn't realise was that I'd lose both my legs on the journey and have to crawl the rest of the way. Like how so the last bit of this vlog would have been us in civilization. Yeah. And now we're quite far away. It's a far cry from that. Do you remember that time where you convinced me not to get a muffin? Does that ring a bell? Yeah, then we got these thick shades. I can't eat them, I've tried. What a laugh we had. We did. I actually didn't watch that clip when you posted. You posted it a little while ago, didn't you? Yeah, a few weeks ago on our Discord. Discord.gged. So I think ultimately. Oh sorry, I spoke over that. Sorry, no, go again, go again. Uh Discord, whatever. Get on it. Yeah, that's fair. Um I think for me, Vegas it it insists upon itself. Um and I remember the most Vegas thing happening when I arrived the first or second time. I've been there like two times, I think. Twice. Yes, the second time for Grass Valley. Yeah, we were like a convention thing. Um it I remember going to the Vegas strip, it being very cool and exciting, and then seeing a man that is the fattest human I've ever seen in my life on a mobility scooter, covered in American flags, dressed as Elvis, drinking one of those really long alcoholic slushies. Oh, holy fucking shit, good for you. I want to give Vegas a C. I think I think I think Vegas is a C, and I think it's fine with that. It's it's like we are the biggest C here, and it's overjoyed. I think it's tacky. I would never go back. If I was offered to go back, I would. But there is no one God where I would ever suggest that anybody should go there. The thought of paying someone else to go to Vegas, like Vegas is where I earn money. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I go there too work. I I'm not there for pledge. Uh Madrid is our next one. Okay, which one of these pictures that all look the same as Madrid? Uh this one, I remember. This one's Madrid. So it's like a little it's sort of like a sunny uh little um like road, little cobblestone, loads of old buildings. That's not how I remember Madrid. Because we went in December in 2019. Yeah. Um I remember Madrid being sort of very graffiti-ish. There was there was lots of graffiti everywhere. Our little Airbnb was down in the alleyway, you guessed it more graffiti. It was. I remember there was I I barely remember Madrid at all. So it was really cut off some spaniers, wherever I put it. Yeah, it's not an issue with the city, because I imagine also if we went to Paris and it was shit weather and awful, then we would also dislike it. Yeah. I think to me, Madrid was it wasn't good. I would not rush to go back. No, not at all. I remember um uh I was taken to an Atletico Madrid game, which was pretty cool against like CSK Moscow, if anyone can look at that in 2019, or one of the Moscows, a Russian team. Uh so that was fun. Uh, and then afterwards I got a giant pizza and it was like too giant for me, and I can always eat the giant pizza. Yeah, it was big or like crazy, like three people. I think we accidentally ordered like, you know, Supremo Primo Primo or something. Uh but yeah, I I I it didn't it didn't really resonate with me. But what it did do oh it had a cool market. It had a cool market, did Madrid. The food market where we had empañadas. Yes, because that is where Yeah, exactly. That is where we saw the exit poll to the 2019 UK general election, and we thought, oh, it's happening. The Tories got in. The Tories got in. And then COVID happened, and then they gave loads of money to their mates, and then loads of people died, which was cool. That's a good part. Yeah, good times, good times. Uh but I do remember us outside chanting getting Brexit done as a sort of way of Britishly, Britishly like, I don't know, dealing with the pain. Uh but that market that food market was good, it was fun. There was lots of like, you know, lobsters staring there, look at you in giant pawns and all sorts of cool food. And what I remember most, as I say it's coming back to me, Stumpy Goblin, in the arena, we were there as fans rather than uh casters, uh Gen and Tonic. Oh, see. Glug glug glug glug glug glug glug-glug glug glug. It was like a half-half. Yeah, they were generous with their drinks. And man elevates. Then do you remember the Nachos, where it was like eight Doritos with a piece of American cheese on it? Oh, they were really bad. They were like soup, they were orange soup. Yeah. I think Madrid to me, it's not a D tier, because I wouldn't like to give it that low because I think the weather impacted the city. It it's got it's it's a C though. I think it's C, and I had less fun there than in Vegas. Agreed. Agreed, yep, that's very fair. I'd I'd happily go with that. Uh COVID happened after these four trips, which is cool. Um Sweden. We went to Stockholm. That's this one here. This little picture. This is what I mean. It's gonna get a really bad rap here in Stockholm because we were quarantined up to the fucking guild. Yeah, we were. They they put us into the hotel. We had to stay, we couldn't even swap rooms and sort of hang out in the hotel until the final night. We were in our own rooms, as were the players. Delivered breakfast to our rooms that was like a dry saltine cracker, a piece of cheese, a grape, and an egg. Yeah, so no one was allowed to socialise, there was no fun. Um, everyone was just stuck in their hotel rooms the whole thing. I loved it. Did you really? I I mate, I was fully recharged, I was ready to go. But afterwards, yeah, exactly. It's great. Like, oh I really we should go out tonight, guys. Shame as you're there in your pants watching it switch lose. Yes. Uh so well, yeah. This was uh 2020, one 2021. Early 2021. Yes, what I would say about Stockholm is that I had really bad sciatica. Oh. So that's that's that already tumbles it down the tier list because like I couldn't stand. Like we'd had stand-up meetings about right, guys, we're gonna do this on this show. And I'd be like, sorry, can I get a chair? I remember after about 30 seconds. Yeah, I remember you, yeah. It's really bad. There's a f is there a funny picture of you like sitting on a chair casting somewhere. I'm sure there is. In my head, I can picture it. It's a picture of you sitting down casting looking sad. Okay, well, fair enough. If you if you can find that, send it to me, and I'll pop it in the episode. But yeah, I did look very sad during all that. I think poor Stockholm, it's gotta be a D. It has gotta be a D. We did come very close to Swedish culture. Do you remember the final shuttle? I don't remember the shuttle. I remember the pizza that was fucking disgusting. Ooh, whose story first, yours or mine? You go first, you go first, you go. Mine's very short. This is the time where I was also a vegan of myself, and I um was asking our talent managers, can I just make sure I get like vegan food, whatever, blah blah blah blah. Every morning I got an egg. Okay, that's a hate crime, but fair enough. Um, and then I remember bless them, they tried so hard. I admire the talent managers for doing what they fucking could deep in COVID. When also it was like snowstorms. That was cool, actually, going out with everybody in like a snowstorm. Oh, the walk, the snow was beautiful, bump. Bump it up to sea, bump it up to sea, because the s the the snow walk was wow, it was magical. The snow walk was really nice. Um, everyone was like super wrapped up. That was actually lovely. Um, and then I remember, yeah, having this like vegan pizza that was like vegan cheese is fucking shit anyway, and it had uh not even pickles, it had cucumber slices on it, which then inwettened the pizza. Um and uh it had like soupy cheese, and I had like four bites of it, and I was just like, I cannot physically eat this. Uh so then I think I just had like two protein bars instead. I was like, I can't eat this. It was so bad. And I said to them, I was like, there's a lot left. The pizza was shit, but thank you so much for trying. I really appreciate it. They're very, very good talent managers, but they were they were very much up against it for that event. Yeah, they were. And they're the the pizza, I've just googled uh Sweden pepperoni pizza, and apparently the real hallmark of Swedish pizza culture is the wild fusion of toppings, including signature items like kebab meat. I remember someone accidentally ended up with. That sounds good. Uh bananas, a banana code pizza and a side of pizza salad, which is a tangy white cabbage slore. Fucking hell. Because there's like I can't remember what specifically it is, but it's like um pepperoni pizza is something else. It's like banana peppers instead. Is that what it is? So people kept accidentally ordering the banana pepper. No, banana peppers, sorry. So like they're like just peppers, basically. So instead of getting pepperoni, no, as in a pepper, a bell pepper. Oh. But like it's not a bell pepper, but you know, have you seen like long sweet peppers? Uh yeah, yeah, yeah. I can I can I'm sure I'd recognize them if I saw them. Basically, it's like a pepper, essentially, but they kept ordering pepperoni, but that because they saw the word pepperoni, that actually means a pepper pizza, and the players were annoyed. Which is fair. Now, yeah, yeah, very I have very fair. Now, I'm not the sort of Englishman to encourage other cultures to change themselves, but you're Sweden, right? You speak English more than Swedish, let's be honest, yeah. If everyone's ordering pepperoni pizza and it's the wrong thing and complaining, just just change the meaning. Yeah. You know, is that is that? Well, make sure you whack a picture on there. Put a picture next to it, saying, or at least I think they translate it. A big arrow saying, like, but be careful. Just a heads up. This is we call pepperoni a fucking ketter instead. You won't. And then score of the needing, Peter. And then it's your bad if not. Um but yeah, my my story of uh Stockholm Culture was on the final day after the final event, we're all sort of going back, we're all tired, going back to the hotel. But we could at that point mingle and we had like a few drinks there, which was nice. Um the shuttle, everyone was sort of half asleep. I was half asleep, like drifting because it was a little bit of a journey between the arena and the hotel. Um, and then there was a red light, and I sort of blink, you know, blink into existence sleepily. I look to my right, and to my right, because we're quarantining, but the world is happening at this point. Different parts of the world are doing different things. I look to my right, and there's this old pub, right, and steamy windows, and in there, there's like someone playing music, and there's drinks, and they're all going, show, and I can literally, and I'm like, I I said to our shuttle, I say, guys, guys, look to the right, look. And everyone looked, and then we just saw this beautiful, it looked warm, welcoming. There's a fire, there's snow falling, humanity, and then the shuttle starts driving. We're like, no. And then you you you re-enter grey snow, and we then get put back in our rooms with eight eggs in our beds. Yeah. Yeah. I I think I'd love to redo Sweden. I'd love to redo Stockholm. Me too. I think it would be brilliant, but we have to rate it off what we've uh experienced. We do, we do, as I'm sure everybody will agree, it's definitely a C. And also, so far, um uh if you've been enjoying this episode, and you've been joining us rating uh cities completely off the bloody cuff as well, by the way. I know, what a crazy idea, comment. Crazy. Uh la la, please make sure that you follow. You subscribe, you give it a like, you drop a comment. You ever pissed yourself? You ever pissed yourself? That's my question for everyone. Probably. Yeah, if you ever pissed yourself, let us know. Uh but yeah, we do a load of short form content too. Uh we have got like 240 odd subscribers now on YouTube, which is brilliant. We're trying to pump that bad boy up to the big thal so we can monetize this bit. So hopefully we can get that going. So thank you, everybody. Make sure you recommend it to a pal. Recommend it to a Swedish mate that we're gonna piss off. Yes, exactly. Uh, who are we pissing off next? Uh now, this is one because there's been a couple of events that I've gone to that you've not, and there's a couple that you've gone to that I've not. Um the next one is one that I've been to that you did not go to. I don't know if you have been there before. Have you ever been to Los Angeles? Los Angeles. Uh LA. Yeah, we went there together. Yeah, we did go together. We went there together, and we loved it because we went to Universal Studios. So it was a similar part of LA because LA is quite a big thing, right? And America would be like, oh, you only sort of this part. Where I'm the best. We do the best burgers in South, West, Eastern, Los Angeles and State, or whatever. Do you know what I mean? Cool. That sounds impressive. That's one road. Um so I've been there a couple of times. Um, this is for uh the LA uh major. My big issue with it was our hotel was next to the airport, basically. It was like essentially an airport hotel. It was surrounded by concrete, and there was nothing to do. Uh, you can use anywhere. Absolutely. You had to get an Uber somewhere, right? Um, but I had good memories. I went to the beach with Dazrin and Wave Punk, and me and Dazrin bought matching hoodies. It was very nice. That was nice. Yeah, we bought matching tie-dye hoodies from a man, and it was very sweet. I bet that man couldn't believe his luck. Yeah, it was a we actually got some fire photos. Let me find a photo. Uh oh, can you see that tab? You can. Uh I can see that tab, yeah. You had to see a picture of my gaping anus. Oh. Los Angeles. Let's see if I can find this picture. But yeah, so what was your memory of um of LA? Uh so we went to LA actually in 2018 after we went to Las Vegas. We were we um we stayed at the the aforementioned wave punk's home, which was a lovely thing of him to do because uh that's before we were part of the team, but he was sort of aware of us in the community, and he is being the southern hospitality American man. He was like, Oh, y'all can stay with me for a few days. So we stayed on his sofa. Um, I was so tired when I arrived there because he was just at the back of Vegas and flying and stuff like that. I was so ready for bed. And he was like, Oh, this is where y'all be sleeping on the sofa. Anyway, we're about to watch Formula One. I was like, I was exhausted. That's that's good. I live that's cool. Uh so we sat there and we watched Formula One, which lasts about five hours. And I didn't, it was before Drive to Yeah, yeah, what would have been our bedroom in the at the lounge, and it was before it was before I'd seen Drive to Survive. Likewise. So anyone who's seen Formula One with no context, it's not a good no context story. Very bad, very bad. Uh so then I'm there like my eyes burning, and afterwards I'm like, please go to bed, please go to bed. And then I go, let's go to bed. And I'm like, Thank God. Yeah, yeah, we we shared a sofa for like four nights. It was massive, it was great, it was very good. It was a big old sofa. Found a fire matching picture of myself and Dazirin. There you go. Oh how good is that? Oh, they are nice. I have no idea what a hoodie is. That's apparently I think on Venice Beach because it says Venice. Oh, then we also got ice creams. So me, Wave Punk, and Dazarin got ice creams, and then we bought matching hoodies. It was funny. That's a nice memory. You are in shape there as well. Look at that, but look at those legs. I know, I know, I am in shape. There's pictures of me like getting selfies with people. I'm looking I'm looking good. I'm looking mean, bro. I know, yeah, I'm in good shape. Um, so yeah, that was very fun. I enjoyed that. I think for me, LA was much more about the people rather than the city itself. Because the city itself is essentially just a big Milton Kings. It's just it's just concrete. It's it's completely concrete. It is if it was a Harry Potter character, it would be Aggrid. Very good. Uh I think it's fine. I was honestly going to rate it low, but I've actually got some quite nice memories of going there. Universal Studios was lovely. I love that. Dan is a brilliant guy that we went there with. Yeah. So so Wave Punk's flatmate, a guy called Dan, um, who was like he was in between businesses, like he just sold one and was about to make his next one. So he basically took it again, hospitality thing of Americans. He took it upon himself to show these two British idiots everything he knew. Drove us around everywhere. Drove us around everywhere in his uh Ford Mustang, yeah, in his Ford Mustang. Amazing car. Uh we went and did donies in the Hollywood Hills. Um that was good. Oh no, but it was in the mountains of LA, not the Hollywood Hills. Uh yeah, it was um way through Hollywood with his um uh Mustangs. We drove up through mountain roads, went up to this big car park and did donuts. Amazing, so fucking incredible. And he we found out one morning, he was like, Oh, by the way, I bought y'all tickets with me to go to Universal Studios. We didn't ask for that. I think we just bought them for us. We mentioned the other night before. Well, we said we were gonna do it and get an Uber. And then it was like, Oh, I paid for it. I just spent three hundred bucks on tickets for all of us. Done shooting? Pew Pew Pew. We went and shot like AR-15s and a massive sniper rifle, like a 50 caliber rifle. I'm gonna be so I won't mention it every time, uh, but I'll be searching for these pictures. So if you're on Spotify, have a little glance at the video, and if like there are pictures, I'll put them in. Yeah, I'll also send some and like we'll put videos and stuff into. Because this basically, yeah, holiday snaps. This is great. Yeah, you know what? LA. You can do whatever you want. It's good. It's sort of it's what Vegas wants to be. LA is like Vegas is like um, you know, you can do anything here, you can be anyone you want to be, but it put so much effort into it. You know, it's like somebody tries really hard, you know somebody tries really hard to be cool or really hard to be funny, you know, and then along comes Cool Cole and says a couple of quips like effortlessly, and it's like, damn it, man, that guy's got it. That's the guy I was gonna name. Uh I think that LA, after talking about it, fair fucks. Fair fucks, LA. Actually. Thinking B. I'm thinking B. Just think, just just think. Oh, you think higher than B. Okay, okay, okay. Thinking about it. As we played a bit just think when you shot that AR-15 after the prick nailed in the gun with the fucking red dot. Did not, you little bitch! I was the only one who nailed it. Right, you said AR-15, you stupid prick. You're on about 50 cal. Okay, yeah, no, 30 cal. Yeah. No, my bad, my bad. But I think it's easier for us to say 50, because it sounds fine. Fair enough. Okay, but no, you are. AR-15 with the red dot was basically a point-and-click adventure game. Because it was scarily curved. It was and then I remember afterwards, after we literally had a red dot on it, you just go bing, bing, bing, bing, it hit all the targets. The guy who went with us, Dan, said, because we said at the start of it, we don't like guns. Or is it like we're scared of guns, it's a scary concept. Yeah, like they are a scary thing. They are built to kill things ultimately. Um he then said, Oh, so that must have, because he's a big gun guy, he said, Oh, so that must have made you less scared of them. I was like, no. No, way more scared. That was so easy. It's so easy to if I was a bad person, point and click on a human and just kill them. But the gun range people were super safe. They were brilliant. They were actually very, very, very good. Ex-Army guys, shock. And they, if anybody was fucking around, thankfully nobody was, but they were so locked in on everyone. If anybody even like went turn, they go, No, keep facing forwards, and you had to put your gun down. It's gonna happen. You've been there for two hours, you're a bit tired, you start to go, oh, and then you know, you gotta stay locked in. Very impressed, extremely impressed with the gun culture that we went to in LA. I like that a lot. That was good. I I agree that as well. So we started with I'm remembering now as we speak. We started with the handguns. The first thing we had was a pistol. They were tough. And that's tough. I was like, but it would go. It was proper, like kick mode, yeah. They were hard. Force it down. That was you can see the skill there. You're right. Then we used Dan's AR-15, that was his personal one, wasn't it, that he brought along. And then just as we're like, whoa, we shot some guns, you know, a bit of adrenaline, that's crazy. We heard some teens, some good shots, some bad shots. He comes back to us with a big smile on his face, and he has brought, he's bought, sorry, three uh barra 45 bullets. Yeah. $10 each for one bullet, and he's just gone and got them to us. And as he's walking, the locals that have got their own handguns, they've got their own AR 15s, they're they go there every weekend, whatever, it's their hobby. They're turning, they're turning to look at these three bullets like holy shit, someone's gonna fire the barrack. I found a picture of us with them. No way. Uh there you go. Oh, this is cool. Oh, guns are good now. I think about it. Guns are so Look at the side. It's like a hot dog. It's like one shooting a fucking hot dog downrange. Even dad with his own gun is like, fucking hell. Yeah. Again, there's a load of pictures of us uh shooting these guns as well. And then that night I've then got a picture of me having a Heineken watching the hockey. What a fucking time. It's so fun. I've got antlers in that picture. You do have antlers in that picture. Oh yeah, there you go. There's a there's a selfie of us with the with the uh antler deer wearing sunglasses. Oh, okay. So we were aware of it. We hadn't not noticed the antler. But just back to the Barrett thing really quickly. When do you remember when you fired it? Yeah. The I remember like standing behind you when you shot this rifle, and I was wearing like a vest and shorts. Every part of the front of my body, any exposed skin, was stinging because of the air that had slapped me. It was terrifying. Crazy powerful. Absolutely crazy powerful. Yeah, I had no idea that a big old sniper rifle would actually have that much of a solid boom around it. But yeah, Dan and Stumpy, they missed the target. Cool call. He nails it ping. Yeah, it's like 10 bucks per bullet per round. Uh LA. Give it A. L A. Where's it going? L A. Where is she? This one. Well, W A. W A. Oh, because it's not an L. Yeah, yeah. Um, next one. Fort Worth. Fort Worth. We should probably rapid fire these a little bit more, by the way. We're almost an hour in. Oh goodness, madly. Bloody hell. I know. I I could do this for another two hours, but unfortunately, we probably should. Okay, Fort Worth. We love it. I think it's a brilliant city. We're going back there. Now it's been announced. We're going back there in September, I think it is. Um I think it's a brilliant city. Walkable, uh, really nice weather because it's in Texas. Great food. Tell me about Jake's cool call. Oh, the deep-fried pickles, stumpy goblin. It's just this little um this little diner uh that does like really good, fresh, like crispy food. Not like, not like gooey and soggy and um oily. Fresh fries. Literally, yeah. It tastes like they replace the oil every day and do everything right. Incredible. If you're in Fort Worth, go to Jake's one million percent. Yeah. Um deep-fried pickles and deep fried jalapenos, have that with ranch. I when we go back, I because I always think chicken-fried chicken. Chicken-fried chicken, man. I'm there. I always think, am I overreacting at how good it is? We've been back there twice now. I went back there and we had food again the last time we went out two years ago. And as soon as I ate it, I thought, no, I'm not overreacting. I'm I'm completely we're completely correct in that this is the best thing. It's in my like top foods I've ever had, which is insane. Because I love food. I'm I'm I'm I'm a critic of food in a very, very extremely amateur way, but like I can explain why I like food and like how it's and whatever. Deep fried pickles and jalapenos with ranch and a margarita at Jake's in the middle of Fort Worth, near Sundance Square, is the one. You have to have it if you're anywhere near Fort Worth. I adore that. One of my favourite memories from RCS history is um we all got into frozen margaritas. Yeah. And at Jake's, we all ordered our own individual frozen margaritas. They're kind of big bowl anyway. They come in like a big old balloon glass, but a fat balloon glass, right? And then we we thought it'd be fun. Oh, but oh no, before then, we got a giant cocktail and it comes out and we're all slurping it down, and it's like 80% ice, not that great. That's not that's a bit of a dud at Jake's. And then we thought, what if we filled our frozen margaritas, ordered like one more than all of us, and then put all of our frozen margaritas into a giant, into like a giant cocktail glass. So we asked them to, we ordered like there were four of us, we ordered five and asked them to put them all in the same glass. They were like, Y'all, sure. And we went, yeah. Yeah. And out came Rita. Mega Rita. She, what a bitch. What a goddamn bitch. She was such a bitch. We basically ended up for some reason waterfalling it, where we had to, if it's there's like five of us drinking from this chalice that was completely frozen in the middle of it. Also, the staff was so good. They lent into this and they'd like put limes inside. Yeah, they made it all the bread, and there was literally frozen chunks of entire lime segments inside it. Um when one person stopped drinking, the next person had to take over, and then you had to pray that your brain freeze has ended by the time it then came back around to you. God, it was so aggressive. Because I guess normally the scale was all off. Normally, when you have a frozen margarita, there was a logic that we had to why it was so aggressive compared to just drinking it from a smaller thing. I can't remember what that logic was. Something to do with like the the ice to liquid ratio or something, and the ratio was all off. Yeah. But it was aggressive, and Rita was was a was an unwieldsome fiend. But we got through her stumpy. We were took turns, you know, we had cat jeans helping us out as well. We did. And we got there in the end, and oh my god, what a what a success story. Fort Worth, brilliant place. That to me. Well, so as well, after I'm thinking it's a bit Sy as well. Um I'm thinking it's a bit Sy. Because also, uh I stayed for an extra week or with Linnea, and I I really like my pool, right? Uh, we were playing a lot of pool when we were there at like the local The Winchester, the Winchester bar. One bar later. But the rest of the ball. Exactly, exactly. Um and then yeah, Linnea and I, we basically took an Uber out about 25 minutes, slightly out of town, to like this pool bar, and it had about 12 tables. And as we were arriving, I was thinking, oh my god, we're starting to enter like the back street. Do you know what I mean? And I'm thinking, should we just turn around? And the nayer was like, no, no, come on, let's let's give it a go. We can always get an Uber back. Go in there, and I'm expecting like, you know, uh Silence of the Lambs sort of thing. People looking up at me, like, who are these foreigners? They were the most lovely people, they were all so welcoming. Thanks, we had friends with all of them, games of pool, the the the the the women there, they were they were sort of playing with the nair as well, because it's such a blokey thing in the UK, you know. But there's a huge like female pool playing population in Fort Worth as well. And they let let they let me use like, oh, this is my granddad's queue, it's 80 years old or whatever, like the beautiful pool cue. And they're like, have a because I could see I could I'm not an idiot, you know. I mean, I'm not gonna scrape the pool table and stuff. And like I was playing some good players. I one of my favourite ever pool wins, like, was against a really good play. He's like one of the best players there, and I was like a couple of balls ahead, and I thought, there's a pot on here. If I go, if I want to beat this person, I should go for it. Went for it, potted it, ended up clearing up, and they're like, oh, good game. And I was like, yes. He was like, Do you want a rematch? No, I'm done. See you later, I retire. But yeah, I stepped my game up to your full story, like you gave me with my metro story. Sorry, mate, sorry if I bored you. How days? I was just excited. Sorry. How days? Was that 33 seconds? Too many seconds. Sorry. No, no, no, that was good, sorry, that was a good story. I think though they're S tier for Fort Worth. Yes, I think that's fair. I think it's brilliant. Brilliant. I loved it. Great food, great weather. I'm excited to go back. I really like it. And people who complain about being like, oh, we're going back to Fort Worth. Unless you're going, it literally doesn't matter. Like, an arena's an arena, it doesn't matter. So S tier, Fort Worth. Well done, you nailed it. Very, very, very good. Uh, the one after Fort Worth was Rotterdam. Which I have very sort of been to, but you went to this event and I didn't. I I couldn't tell you the first thing about it. I don't remember Rotterdam at all. Give it C. Like I've got no lasting image from Rotterdam. That's fair. The arena was tiny. Um, our green room was just like cloth square in the arena itself. We didn't really have a green room. There are about 15 people there. Uh Moist came second. Oh, that's Gen G. The Rocket League was good, but you know, people watching this don't care about the Rocket League. Yeah, I don't remember it at all. I don't know which one of these pictures, unfortunately, is Rotterdam. I think it's this one, maybe. The one with the river. I'm just gonna say that's Rotterdam. Okay, D. That was quite nice. I went to the zoo in Rotterdam, and the zoo was very, very good. But that's all I've been to. You might be able to see if you want if the zoo was in there. No, we need a D. Okay. Yeah, we need a D. We need to balance it out. Yeah. That's fine. Uh San Diego. Well, I think. This is all you, baby. This is all you. I got nothing. In amongst the old uh Visa Problemos, and this is one of the winter majors that I went to, as was Los Angeles earlier, and I'm a bit of a winter major merchant. Somehow managed to go to San Diego. It was me and CJCJ for this one. Oh no Johnny. No Johnny, no, that was LA. Hotel, gorgeous. Unbelievable location. I was on like the 18th floor and it overlooked like the marina and like then the and the c and the uh convention center, which is where the uh event was, and the city. Gorgeous. I could not fault that. The area we were in, great. Tacos, stunning. Subi took us, uh rest in peace, Subi. Subi took us to a um uh taco place, fantastic, loved it. He ordered for me, and I was like, thank you, love that. Um uh the event was fine. We played catch on the lawn, that was really good. I thought San Diego was brilliant. Uh I also didn't experience much of it though. There was like a couple of bars that we went to that felt very vacuous, and it felt like they were very it's gonna sound really stupid, very full of Americans, which obviously they are. But it felt was it like loud and whooping? Yeah, I guess so. It just kind of felt like we were in a bit of a warehouse type vibe rather than in a cool place. I'm sure there are lots of cool places, but I didn't go to them, I don't think. Um I'd give it like an A or a B for that. I thought this the location. I thought the view was stunning, I thought it was gorgeous. Um I'll give it a B for that because I can't really remember too much more about it. I think we like America. I think we just like America, honestly. All the American ones tend to be higher up. Yeah, we we tend to be very generous to our American friends. It was the same in the food tier list, which uh you will I guess we'll link at the end of this one because it's a bit of a tier list episode. Um and it was also the same in the EU versus or UK versus NA slang episode as well. Who would have thought? Who would have thunk? I think the zoo for me bumps it up to A. Wow. I thought it was very good. I really liked it. If I'm giving LA a fucking A, San Diego, which off the rib I would say I definitely preferred, I'd give that an A. But then also memories in LA, so. Is it very walking-y in San Diego? Is that yeah, okay, then yeah, I've I've heard, I know the La Maya, there's a city that she loves, and I think it is San Diego. That's the one that she's like thinks, you know, she's mad for. So I'm not surprised to hear that you liked it so much. Speaking of walkable cities, cool cole. Boston. Boston. What we think of Boston. Uh Boston was uh the the British are a thing in Boston for sure. We flew in on July 4th. Did we? We did. I don't remember that. Why the fuck would I remember that? Boston Vice. Boston! Oh, I was going for a photo. No, mate, I'm taking up a video because you're by yourself then. Look at all that film. You know, because did there was like all the fireworks and then there was all the parades outside, and people all went out and met by the river. All the fireworks going on. I don't remember fireworks. Was I there for that bit? Don't I? I arrived quite late. So I assume you were. Maybe I was already in the hotel and you arrived when it was all sort of fireworky. Maybe. Uh I don't remember being there on July 4th, but that's cool. That's cool. Yeah, no, that's nice. That's a nice little thing. Um, but yeah, the Boston's good fun. Uh again, Lenaire and I stayed over after and we went on like a Boston Duck Tour. Okay. You know what that is? Uh it's like um it's a boat, but it's also a drivey thing. Oh, and I'm speaking as video. You tootle about and then you go zr down into the river and you're rivering about. And it was like a sort of, I presume, failed comedian telling jokes about the history of No, it was alright, but like he's not on Saturday Night Live if he's there doing the Boston Duck tour, do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's fair. Um and he was there telling us a story of how the British, you know, invaded. I was like, oh, sorry. I thought it was very pretty. Um I thought the weather was really good when we were there. It was alright. Um, the the the location that we were in, we were right by fucking was it Red Sox? We went to the baseball game, that was Boston. Oh, I liked baseball. I liked baseball a lot. And I liked the fact that on the walk, I've said that before on the podcast, on the walk down to um the baseball stadium, uh there's generations of families, the whole generation there was grandfathers and children running about and mums and stuff like that. It was all walking there. Importantly, people were walking there because the uh the stadium is in the middle of the city, so like you're not gonna drive in. People obviously will, as with anything, but then it's not I'm surrounded by a car park. That elevates it a lot for me immediately. Everyone's walking in and hanging out. Yeah, no, that's that's totally fair. I've really liked Boston. The more I think about it, the more I enjoyed it. Oh, and they drink cider there as well, they have a cider culture, which for a non-beer drinker like me is helpful, not everywhere does. And there was also the there was a really cool like uh hot dog place that you what you step down into, into like the little not basement, but it was like one floor down. Yeah, along the wet black. Yeah, I can't remember what it's called. Yeah, but that was nice as well for food. Food and cider during the day. Wasn't it called like London something? Maybe that's why we went there. Maybe. Yeah, I thought it was good. I think it's hay. Hey. I've really enjoyed Boston. I liked how water bull it was. I guess yeah, yeah, we did the we did the baseball stuff, which was really cool. There was the arcade bar. The arcade bar. Hey. I love the arcade bar, I thought it was brilliant. Which one of these is nice? Boston. It did have it have again, I might be able to find a picture. It did have the world's worst nachos. You mentioned earlier the Madrid nachos. These ones were worse. We were at the arcade bar, and I thought, oh, I'll get some nachos, as one might think to think. And it came back, it literally looked like the barman had cummed on them. Really like wet cum. Like go to the doctor because that's water, bro. Oh no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was very, it was very cummy. I'll see if I can find it. But yeah, I'll let you uh have a final say, but I'd I'd happily go with. I'm back to NA mostly because of the cun nachos. Uh Dusseldorf. We were there for two weeks in Dusseldorf. Uh again, brilliant memories. Uh, scootering around. We scooted our little hearts off. Uh we did, we did. With with the electric scooters, with all the players on the cobblestones right in the centre. We like absolutely whizzed our way up the river uh from our hotel straight up into the centre. I thought like the food and the bars were pretty good, not like world class, but they were pretty good. Um I don't I didn't do much culture when I was there. I did go did you come with us to Cologne? Um I don't think so, maybe not then, because like it doesn't ring a bell, but that doesn't mean that. I saw the big Cologne Cathedral, but I can't rate Dusseldorf based off the Cologne Cathedral. No, the only time I remember seeing a cathedral was when we were in Poland in Katowica. That's when we saw lots of cathedrals and stuff like that. I remember that one. I don't remember the same in Germany. That was great. We were we were there for Katowica, yeah. Uh so I don't know, I guess I wasn't there for that one, but it was it was sort of okay in Dusseldorf. Yeah, I thought it was really good. Um Would I give it much more than like uh I wouldn't say I have as good memories of it as I have like LA and stuff. It's the first one that I went to with Anna. That's the first land that she went to was Dusseldorf World, which was a fucking amazing world. Very, very good land. I enjoyed that a lot. Um overall, I'm thinking like A or B. B or C for me. Uh, me in the middle of it. Yeah, I'd go like Low B. There we go. Wow, it's in the same tier as London. Fucking hell, Dusseldorf. You've done pretty well to be in the same tier as London. Good for you. Um Copenhagen. Copenhagen. I have strong feelings about Copenhagen, so I'd like for you to go first. Again, it was alright. There was a nice sort of like bay, a nice bay walk round the round the around the promenade. Um I don't remember too much about it. I wasn't like, wow, I'm in Denmark. We did go to see the little mermaid, and there was like a wannabe TikTok influencer that had hopped on the little island of the little mermaid, and she was like holding it and taking pictures. And everyone's like, what the hell? Everyone else was gathered round, you know, like getting really close and taking pictures, so that pissed me off. Um and there's oh, there was also like the fort, right? There was like a grassy fort. Like a star-shaped fort. That was really cool. That was cool. I liked that, but I don't remember it too much apart from that, to be honest. I love Copenhagen. I think this is an A to an S tier place. Why? I it the vibe was outstanding. The public transport was absolutely brilliant. If you want a bus or a tram or a little train, it was great. Really, really good connections. I think our hotel that we stayed in was also gorgeous. I think very good. I think the location for that was a little bit outside the city. Um, but it was still fantastic. And also there's golf next to the hotel, which does raise it up a little bit. So that was really fun. Being able to hang out and play golf in the mornings. Oh, it's the one that's got oh, it's the hotel we've been at twice, isn't it? Once the major once a little kick, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't remember. Um there was uh all of the uh beautiful like coloured houses and stuff right on the uh water, which is what the picture I've chosen for. It is the harbour. The square was really pretty, uh, where it then had um all like the shops and everything. We had I remember we had mold wine and we were listening to music when we were um in the square all together. That was really lovely. I just think the vibe overall of Copenhagen and Denmark is really stunning, and I would I've recommended it to multiple people as a city break to go to. It's my it's my most recommended place to go to as a three to four day. Get in there, explore the city, do all these bits, and then go home. It's really glad it resonated with you. I'm glad it resonated with you so much. It didn't resonate with me in the same way, but it was fine to me. I wouldn't drag it back down. For me, it was like a low B, but it sounds to you as like an S. So like it's like mid A, maybe? I give yeah, mid A. Is it better than San Diego? Yes, it is better than San Diego. Is it as good as LA? No. Not for memories. Cool. Yeah. That's that's the answer to that one then. Next one is. Birmingham. D yeah, so Birmingham was fucking awful. It's just next. Shid. It's shit. D. Next. Why were we in Birmingham? Why did we go to Birmingham? Next. D. The first question I got asked on the desk, uh, because I did the pre-show on day one, and Wave Punk, who we mentioned earlier, um, he's he's Texan. Uh he's he's got this amazing draw, amazing voice. Uh, and the very first question I'm asked is the show opens up. Goal! How excited are you to be in Birmingham? In front of 10,000 people there and however many hundreds of thousands watching. Like, really excited to be here. The Rocket League's gonna be the best we've ever seen. Please ask me about the city. Please ask me about the city. It's like there's the the centre in the middle, which is it the bull ring? Is that Birmingham? Yeah, but I think the bull ring is Birmingham, and Blue Water is Kent. That's why I was getting mixed up. Oh, Blue Water, right. Uh the shopping centre in which we weren't even at, what is good, still not great, good. And then the place we were at was just it's like a it was called Resorts World, and it's just Bunch of restaurants, really. It really is wank. It's and it does have it does have the world's worst TGI Fridays, which we didn't go to at the RLCS, but we did go to years earlier at an insomnia where we were so hungry, we travelled, we just wanted some chips, literally just some chip food. Oh, and chip and burger, yeah. It took about an hour and they came out and it was like microwave slop that had been pulled out of a bag. Yeah. It was disgusting. It was terrible, it was awful. We were easily pleased. That yeah, we really are. Uh that is why the picture of Birmingham is a skip. Give it D. Yeah, it is a horrible little city. Leon! Leon. Uh, I thought it was pretty good. I thought it wasn't didn't blow me away. Uh nice weather. Ubers were shit. Ubers would just cancel on you all the time. Yeah, they cancel, and I think it's Leon where they're like, oh, you can't sit in the front or whatever. So you'd have to order plus one than the people you have, like just stupid little rules, stupid little efficiency. It's a bit jobs worthy in that sense. Things like that really get to me. Just like if that is the mantra, if that is the culture, then like what's the point? Do you know what I mean? Like, even if you get to the next place, you're already put in a bad mood. Oh, we had to get two Ubers when we could have just got one up. It was amazing when you were there, yeah. But I've started my day now in a bad mood. Just pointless bureaucracy angers me deeply. And it felt a little bit like that for me and Leon. Yeah, I th I think Leon was like I spent like the next day there. Um, and it was, I honestly think I had done Leon in that day. I think it was alright. Um there was like apparently it's some of the best food in France. I think it was alright. I thought it was good. We had Escargo. We tried snails, we did. But we didn't try them with a little hook and getting them out. We they were sort of in a salad, so it felt like cheating a little bit. But we did it. We did it. Yeah, yeah, it was alright. I'd give it like a C. Yeah. I think like a like a mid-C. Is it better than it was not as good? Sorry, it was better than Madrid. And it was better than Vegas. Yes. No, put it below Vegas, I think. I'd rather go to Vegas than Leon. Yeah, Vegas is cheap, fun. Leon is just sort of expensive, but it was fine. Exactly. Alright. Yeah, I think that. I think they're honestly you can you can s you can do what you want in Vegas, and it is fun, and it is tacky. If you go in there with a smile on your face, then you're everyone's best mate. So, final one. My first time going to Paris as well was like this week just gone. Yep. And uh as we said at the top of the episode, fucking loved it. I thought it was brilliant. I thought the there was uh loads of uh the little cafes and the restaurants. I love that culture of sitting outside. Again, the weather helped a lot. It was gorgeous weather, it's like 33 degrees every day. Sometimes they do it. It keeps its heat, keeps its heat in the evening as well. Like it's not like England where it's 33 in the day, but then by the time you get to like 9 pm, you need a jumper or a jacket. This thing you could stay out till 1am and still be warm. Yeah, it just stays in its stone buildings. The uh Art of the architecture, unbelievable, incredible. The like basilica that I went to, Sandacur, was so gorgeous. The view over Paris. Went to the Eiffel Tower, we got some fire photos at the Eiffel Tower. We um went to the Eiffel Tower as well. We got there at like 1am because we knew there was an hourly like light show, and we'd read that they stop at 1am. Uh or they said they go until 1am online. What they meant was come 1am, they won't happen anymore. So the last one's at midnight. So yeah, we we sort of uh we were at a cafe at like quarter past 12. I'm I'm I fight I'm fighting through tiredness. And I was like, no, I can do this. We get there, we're sat in the grass. I've never seen the Eiffel Tower before. I was impressed at how like 3D it is. It's fucking huge. The depth to it. I because I imagine it in 2D, a picture, right? But actually, when you're there, you can see how deep it goes. Yeah, I was incredibly impressed by the Eiffel Tower. We went there around sunset, so we could like see the transition from being in the day with sunset to then being at night, and then we saw the light show as well. Um we also we were sat like on the grass, uh like leading up to it, but I found a little spot, we laid down, and I thought, I think people will get annoyed by it, but I quite like the ingenuity. There were blokes walking around with buckets of like beer and everything, and had like two bottles of wine, and they walk around going, beer, beer, wine, wine, champagne, wine, water. Party, party, party, party. And then they just look at people and go, yes, and they go, no, and they go, okay, and then they move on. I people were getting annoyed. I thought it's genius. They I don't think they would, I don't I didn't find them annoying, and I'm easily annoyed by stuff like that. I thought that they um uh every now and then they try and upsell, but I thought part of it, part of the game, you kind of enjoy it. You're also you're at the Eiffel Tower, so there's gonna be upselling and tourists and stuff and whatever. Um yeah, I j I really enjoyed. Did you go for it? No, I didn't. I thought I was gonna buy two bottles of beer, but then I heard one of the guys say cash only. And I thought I don't possess cash. Really? Plus, if it's like, would you trust their card machine? Oh yeah, it's only 10 euro wink, yeah. So yeah, overall I didn't get it. Um but I think the the whole I think laying at the Eiffel Tower, it was maybe we explored this more in like another episode. Um, but it is what I would call a dog's last day. Should we explore that in another episode? Well, I want to know what that means. So it's like I've I've explained this concept to Anna. Well, you know, is this is this your concept? Is this your own invention? I quite like it. So you know when like a dog's being put down the next day, so the day before you give it like a cheeseburger, and you like it. You give it all the things that it couldn't normally have, and you do all the best things that it could do. So like you're giving it chocolate and you're taking it like a walk on the beach, and you're letting it, you know, sleep in the bed if you don't normally do that. And you're not beating it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and like you're doing all the nicest things to it because you're putting it down the next day. My concept is every now and then I say to Anna, at the end of like a really good day, I say, that was my dog's last day. Like that is that is a that is the perfect day where if you put me down tomorrow, I'd think fair play. Like that's that's this was ideal. I could have wanted for nothing. That is quite beautiful. I love that. And maybe this is the dog's last episode, everybody, because that is a is a gorgeous concept to end us on. This will be the last officially unofficially. I don't think it will be. We also seriously for in Paris. Yeah, that's until we I mean not yet. And it also, yeah, chuck it in this. It also won't be the last officially unofficially. It's with memory news on the network. Come on. But yeah, okay, yeah, we'll explore the condition of the dog's last day uh in another episode. We'll go through our dog's last days. That's a good idea. That's a good idea. So read through our list in total. Okay, our list of RLCS locations based on the city rather than the Rocket League. And our experiences. So starting in D tier, uh, we have got fuck, was that Rotterdam? Yeah, Rotterdam and Birmingham. Okay. And you just oh you're okay. Uh I mean uh you just do it because I'm not one of these places. Okay. See, he starts in Las Vegas and then there's some other ones. Uh Madrid's in there, and so is Stockholm. I don't know what that picture is. Right, next time we do this, text. But we've learned that. We've learned, we've learned. I don't know which one that is. I don't know what that is. Okay, B is London and Dusseldorf. Well done, Dusseldorf. Okay, yeah, that's generous. A Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Copenhagen, San Diego, and Boston. Lots of American places. Yeah, lots of American places. And then at the top, our S tier, the best locations that we have gone to for work for the RLCS, but it's rated entirely off the place, not the actual event itself. Fort Worth, Texas, and Paris. Which is funny because there's also a Paris in Texas. We should go to Paris, Texas. Maybe it's the perfect place. We actually should, the combination of our S's. Oh, that's nice. Well, thanks everybody for listening to episode number 32. Is it? Yeah, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it remembered. I entered the Mind Palace. Yeah, well, we're well. I was making jokes and entering the Mind Palace at the same time. I have a sendered. You are incredible. Oh, hopefully your memory keeps improving because episode number 32 was a dream. We're gonna continue uh with officially. Unofficially. Best podcast on the internet. Make sure they drop a follow, drop a subscribe, uh, and also that you look at all the pictures that you post, our holiday snaps that are gonna be on the Spotify and YouTube video. Thanks everyone for watching. See you bloody next time.