Speaker 1: Bonjour and bien venitos. Hashtag story Time the podcast where
Speaker 1: I bring you everyday stories from everyday people, brought to
Speaker 1: you by I Heart Radio and Curativity. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Will Duo, Lingo McFadden and you guys. I was looking
Speaker 1: at some of the back end analytics of the podcast
Speaker 1: and guess what. We have a worldwide presence. We have
Speaker 1: fable babies all around the globe. I mean, did you
Speaker 1: know we have thirty seven listeners in Canada. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: whom I would like to say, Hey, they are all
Speaker 1: you hosers sitting on your chester fields and your get
Speaker 1: drinking your labat. How's it? Welcome to the show, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the pod. We also have we got ten people
Speaker 1: listening to us in Australia. That's cool. Good eye to
Speaker 1: all you Bowgains sitting on you, Donny with your budgie
Speaker 1: smugglers around your ankles. Thanks for listening. We even have
Speaker 1: I think we have three people listening in South Korea,
Speaker 1: to whom I would say, God yae. I'm sure I
Speaker 1: pronounced that perfectly. And you know, for our listeners around
Speaker 1: the world, if you're planning on visiting the United States
Speaker 1: and you don't speak a lot of English. Ay, I'm
Speaker 1: surprised that you're listening to this podcast, um and be,
Speaker 1: here's an important phrase for you to know. Just practice
Speaker 1: this one. Please don't shoot me with your big guns.
Speaker 1: I have ranch dressing for you. This is especially useful
Speaker 1: in the Midwest. You know, there's so much lost in translation.
Speaker 1: Which is a nice segue into our guests on today's show,
Speaker 1: Ben Bolan. And Ben is the executive producer of How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works, and he's the host of About. But you
Speaker 1: probably know him from Stuff they Don't want you to
Speaker 1: Know and Ridiculous History. And Ben told me a story
Speaker 1: that involves a honeymoon, Germans and a misunderstanding. So this
Speaker 1: is this is something that still haunts me to this day.
Speaker 1: I've traveled to many places under many different circumstances. Um.
Speaker 1: I was living homeless in Paris and in the Charles
Speaker 1: de Gaul airport for a while. I was in Central
Speaker 1: America for a while. I'm just saying things didn't always
Speaker 1: work out, and out of out of all those things
Speaker 1: that I can say on air, one of my favorite
Speaker 1: learning experiences in the world of travel was my first
Speaker 1: time in Germany. Have you ever been to Germany, I
Speaker 1: have not is it's on my list, um just under
Speaker 1: Japan and probably Thailand, but it's up there. But I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, you living homeless at the Charles de
Speaker 1: gaul Airports is like a Tom Hanks movie where he
Speaker 1: is terminal based off but in a oh well, it
Speaker 1: was a shout out to Tom Hanks. It was before terminal,
Speaker 1: or it was before I was aware of terminals, so
Speaker 1: I very much didn't feel cool about it. I was like, look,
Speaker 1: I'm a hipster, but this is too much and uh
Speaker 1: that that story. I did not intend to be on
Speaker 1: the streets of Paris, and it wasn't for a long time,
Speaker 1: but I had I had saved up for a return ticket,
Speaker 1: and I in desperation when things fell through. I used
Speaker 1: some change because payphones were thinking that time, and called
Speaker 1: my called my parents and asked them if there was
Speaker 1: any way they could help me out with an earlier ticket,
Speaker 1: and my dad just laughed his ass off and said, no,
Speaker 1: good luck. This is a learning experience. But I did
Speaker 1: make it back. Did you have to like bust your
Speaker 1: way home? Were you doing like chalk art or miming?
Speaker 1: Or there was one busking situation. There was one busking
Speaker 1: situation on the train and it was just um, it
Speaker 1: was some very nice musicians who were like there was
Speaker 1: one day where I was like, you can just kind
Speaker 1: of ride the train forever, right and always loitering. I'm
Speaker 1: just kind of technically I'm going somewhere, and uh, the
Speaker 1: this this group of musicians came in, you know, like
Speaker 1: a accordion, I think a guitar or something like that,
Speaker 1: and they were singing, and they were singing songs in French.
Speaker 1: I also didn't speak French. It was not I was
Speaker 1: not a clever man, and so I uh so they
Speaker 1: started singing, um, what a wonderful world, the Louis Armstrong version,
Speaker 1: and I joined in and well I joined in and
Speaker 1: saying but I was singing in English and they still
Speaker 1: you know, they threw me a little bit of change.
Speaker 1: Was very nice. But with with that experience, you know,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, you have to be a more
Speaker 1: responsible traveler. If you're going to go to these places,
Speaker 1: you need to be safe. And as cool as it
Speaker 1: is to just drop everything and say I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and as much ben as much as
Speaker 1: you dig improv there are some situations where planning is key.
Speaker 1: And so I I thought about this and it's like,
Speaker 1: things are I'm gonna be I'm gonna be classy. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna know what I'm doing. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be a dumb American tourist, etcetera, etcetera. I'm going to
Speaker 1: break that stereotype. And I was okay with it. I
Speaker 1: ended up after Central America marrying my high school sweetheart
Speaker 1: and it was it was so it was a beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful moment and it's a beautiful time. Uh. We scrimpt
Speaker 1: and we saved to go on a honeymoon, and this
Speaker 1: was a big expense for us. We wanted to travel
Speaker 1: internationally and my partner at the time, she really really
Speaker 1: wanted to go to Germany. And so this is before
Speaker 1: to date myself further, this is before you know, I
Speaker 1: had a smart phone. This is before I could I
Speaker 1: could pull up a bunch of easily easy to find information.
Speaker 1: So I did. I did serious research Man as someone
Speaker 1: who doesn't speak German. This is after the wall had
Speaker 1: fallen though, right, yes, yes, this yeah not that fun.
Speaker 1: No no, no, So this was um, let's see, this
Speaker 1: is probably early two thousand and and so I so
Speaker 1: I was like a level of planning I had never
Speaker 1: before thought myself capable of, you know, like I knew
Speaker 1: when the plane was gonna land, good job me. I
Speaker 1: knew that there was a hotel we were going to
Speaker 1: go to bonus points there. And I had some mind,
Speaker 1: like I had a rough itinerary. I was like, here's
Speaker 1: some historic sites we can see, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'll even like I'll figure out a romantic dinner situation. Right,
Speaker 1: I feel like this sometime map west to write like
Speaker 1: where you printed quest? I printed directions, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? I printed out directions. I had a little folder.
Speaker 1: It was adorable. So so the day cups and we travel.
Speaker 1: I think, first we land in London, and we're in
Speaker 1: London for a few days, and there's something just um,
Speaker 1: no one's cliche to say, but there's something like romantic
Speaker 1: about not having a ton of money but being with
Speaker 1: a person you love and like you. You hear you
Speaker 1: hear that situation, and some parts of our heads just
Speaker 1: kind of say romance and italicized fonts and we don't
Speaker 1: need we just have each other and that's all we need.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly that was anyway, So London, it turns out,
Speaker 1: is kind of pricing us. So we we left. We
Speaker 1: we had already been planning to go to Germany, but
Speaker 1: we had a few days in London, and then we
Speaker 1: left London. We're landing in Berlin, and this is the moment.
Speaker 1: Will I have spent months sort of trying to learn
Speaker 1: all this sort of stuff. I didn't want my partner
Speaker 1: to have to worry about everything. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I did, despite not uh not not knowing a
Speaker 1: leak of German, as I have memorized German phrases, and
Speaker 1: you know, I was well aware and this is a
Speaker 1: true thing for people who haven't been to Europe. I
Speaker 1: was well aware that many residents of Western Europe, regardless
Speaker 1: of the country the official language, they probably speak a
Speaker 1: better version of English than a lot of US Americans.
Speaker 1: A lot of them speak for languages, no problem um.
Speaker 1: And the extent of my German, just so you know,
Speaker 1: is from the time I played the m C in
Speaker 1: Cabaret in in two thousands. Oh Man, I wish you
Speaker 1: had been there with me in Germany. I could have
Speaker 1: used a hand and you know, beyond my way through
Speaker 1: this exactly, so I quickly learned, like I knew most
Speaker 1: people would probably speak English on some level, especially you know,
Speaker 1: the capital of German it's an international city, Berld. So
Speaker 1: I immediately was locked and loaded with my thank yous
Speaker 1: and my excuse me and where where is the bathroom?
Speaker 1: Etcetera's uh, but I got a lot of I got
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff wrong. We were walking widely and
Speaker 1: we're using the training system, and my first encounter with
Speaker 1: a German authority, like after getting out of customs was
Speaker 1: a guy. A guy came up and said something to
Speaker 1: me in German, and I didn't understand what he was saying,
Speaker 1: so I just kind of like shrugged and what I
Speaker 1: hoped was an endearing and innocent way. And then something
Speaker 1: like he knew immediately that we were from the US,
Speaker 1: because he just sort of took a breath, tried not
Speaker 1: to roll his eyes, and he said tickets in English,
Speaker 1: and in English, I replied, oh, I'm sorry, man, I
Speaker 1: don't have any money. I don't have any two and
Speaker 1: he goes, I'm asking to check your tickets and oh
Speaker 1: you work here, Oh ship, my bad dude. And then
Speaker 1: he wasn't amused, but he was he was nice enough,
Speaker 1: so we continue on, and I'm thinking, and I'm talking
Speaker 1: to my wife at the time, and I say, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll call her Kate for the purposes of this story,
Speaker 1: So you know, O, Kate. I feel like, I know
Speaker 1: every country has a stereotype, and I know stereotypes are
Speaker 1: the source of terrible, terrible things. But did these German
Speaker 1: folks seem a little bit kind of like cold, do you, well,
Speaker 1: a little brusque and it's so warm and fuzzy, not
Speaker 1: so not so warm and fuzzy. Yeah. Not one stranger
Speaker 1: hugged me. But but uh, but she pointed out we're
Speaker 1: from the southeastern United States, which is a place that
Speaker 1: is known for being a little more outgoing, being a
Speaker 1: little more casual with whomever. Um, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: bust these stereotypes, even though I thought she had a point.
Speaker 1: So my phrase that I was very proud of that
Speaker 1: I had worked on and like, I had like fifteen phrases,
Speaker 1: ten of which were useful, four of which were pretty
Speaker 1: good max it was terrible, but four of which like
Speaker 1: would be intelligible. And one of the ones I was
Speaker 1: most proud of is that if people came up to
Speaker 1: us and we're speaking to us in German. I would
Speaker 1: try my best. That was my rule. I try my
Speaker 1: best to speak some German if they happened to ask
Speaker 1: a question that could be answered one of these fifteen ways.
Speaker 1: But my emergency, man, my escape hatch was if if
Speaker 1: their German is too faster, if I'm clearly over my head,
Speaker 1: I'll say I'm sorry, my German is not good enough
Speaker 1: to continue this conversation. Can we continue in English? And
Speaker 1: I deployed this strategy advanced sentence right there to say
Speaker 1: all I know is which is I love you? Which
Speaker 1: I feel like I would also, you know, get you
Speaker 1: out of a situation. I should have learned that way.
Speaker 1: Where was that anyway? So so I so we're like
Speaker 1: walking on the street, and we're here for a period
Speaker 1: of weeks walking on the street, and sometimes people will
Speaker 1: just come up and ask us stuff. You know, this
Speaker 1: is around this around winter, So they're the Christmas markets
Speaker 1: are in full swing, people are in a generally good mood.
Speaker 1: Vikings are in the street, yes, yes, uh and and everybody.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know that either. Every You can drink
Speaker 1: anywhere in Germany, and you could buy beer everywhere. It's weird.
Speaker 1: It sounds you know about right, It's like it's like
Speaker 1: the Las Vegas of h I love that. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that's the quotable. So this so I would have this
Speaker 1: experience that became increasingly common for some reason or another.
Speaker 1: We'd be talking to someone alright, you know, like go
Speaker 1: to a restaurant, try to order something, and I would
Speaker 1: butcher the German and they would still respond to German.
Speaker 1: And I would say, I'm sorry, my German is not
Speaker 1: good enough to continue this conversation. Can we continue in English?
Speaker 1: And then they would pause and I could feel the
Speaker 1: temperature ticked down, and then they would say yes, and
Speaker 1: we would have this very chilling, cold, perfunctory kind of
Speaker 1: conversation in English, and we we stayed at a hostile again,
Speaker 1: financial concerns being a thing. And after about two weeks,
Speaker 1: I was convinced that some stereotypes are true. And I
Speaker 1: was like, maybe I'm maybe I'm too warm and fuzzy,
Speaker 1: but I feel like this city, if not this country
Speaker 1: is not not hostile, but not they're not sweethearts, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. And it had me had me thinking all
Speaker 1: these horrible things. I was like man World War two though,
Speaker 1: like m and so I just what happened during I
Speaker 1: know I didn't we should have gone to Prague. We
Speaker 1: should have gone Yeah, we should have gone to Prague.
Speaker 1: And uh I would say stuff like this to my
Speaker 1: to my wife, and she would go, well, you know,
Speaker 1: assumptions are bad, blah blah, and she kind of cut
Speaker 1: the conversation off. So fast forward end of our trip.
Speaker 1: This is also this is also a and I don't
Speaker 1: mean to bring us down here, but this is also
Speaker 1: right after during our honeymoon, we had decided it wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna work out and we were going to be friends.
Speaker 1: But we were like, well, we're gonna have to break up.
Speaker 1: And there was no huge dramatic fight or anything like that.
Speaker 1: These are too to emotionally aware people making a mutual decision.
Speaker 1: But did did Germany and the did did the honeymoon
Speaker 1: location have anything to do if you maybe in Hawaii
Speaker 1: when things have been different? You know, That's that's a
Speaker 1: question I've asked myself sometimes. But but here's what happened.
Speaker 1: So it's fast forward. It's like the very last day,
Speaker 1: it's the penultimate days, second last day before we leave,
Speaker 1: and I'm in the lobby of the hostel and someone
Speaker 1: who was also staying at the hostel. It comes up
Speaker 1: there talking to me in German about something. So I say,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, my German is not good enough to continue
Speaker 1: the conversation. Could we continue in English? And this lady stops,
Speaker 1: she pauses, and then in a flawless American accent, she says,
Speaker 1: you're a dick and leaves. And the person at the
Speaker 1: counter of the hostel who's working there cracks up. It's
Speaker 1: like she is laughing. She's actually laughing. I turned around, like, go,
Speaker 1: what happened? You know, I'm worried that I did something.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I could have done. What I know?
Speaker 1: She says, you know, do you know? Do you know
Speaker 1: what you're saying? I said, yeah, I'm saying blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. And she said, no, you're saying, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: your German is not good enough to continue. Can we
Speaker 1: continue this conversation in English? And she told me the
Speaker 1: right like the German way, and and I said, oh shit,
Speaker 1: I've been saying that like everybody. And she goes, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I've seen it. And then and then I
Speaker 1: go and I run up stairs, I get I get
Speaker 1: my wife. I'm like Kate, I fucked something up and
Speaker 1: and I was wrong. It's not a stereotype, it's us
Speaker 1: and she goes, oh yeah, oh yeah, the yeah I know.
Speaker 1: And it's like you knew this whole time and she's
Speaker 1: like yeah, She's like it's hilarious, right, Like, no, it's
Speaker 1: not hilarious. And so I I was trying to apologize
Speaker 1: to people in the hostel. I went back to this restaurant,
Speaker 1: was like, hey, I know, things MA bad and uh it.
Speaker 1: Maybe I made it a bigger issue than it actually was.
Speaker 1: But if you are a German speaker, if you live
Speaker 1: in Germany, I would like to officially apologize. Welcome back.
Speaker 1: It's time for everybody's favorite segment, Robo Read It Reads Now.
Speaker 1: In Ben's story, our robot interns detective the word wedding,
Speaker 1: then scanned read it and found a thread where user
Speaker 1: Olya ru asked what wedding moment made you think they're
Speaker 1: not going to make it? And here are some of
Speaker 1: the best answers. One of my good friends got married
Speaker 1: and on the wedding day she was belligerently drunk before
Speaker 1: the ceremony even started and couldn't even get through the lines.
Speaker 1: She was supposed to repeat, such as I promised to
Speaker 1: love you. She ended up slapping the groom, spilling champagne
Speaker 1: on her dress, and then crying under a table while
Speaker 1: he tried to comfort her. They lasted about four months.
Speaker 1: You know, it's never a good sign if you're actively
Speaker 1: trying to erase the memory of what is supposed to
Speaker 1: be the happiest day of your life. Look, some people
Speaker 1: make a baby on their wedding night. Other people turn
Speaker 1: into one. My wife got invited to a client's daughter's wedding.
Speaker 1: The couple were both drama students. Many of the bridal
Speaker 1: party were drama students. The maid of honors toast consisted
Speaker 1: of tearful declarations of unrequited love to the groom along
Speaker 1: the lines of if it couldn't be me, I'm glad
Speaker 1: it's my best friend that's marrying you. The best man's
Speaker 1: speech was a lusty declaration of if it doesn't work out,
Speaker 1: call me babe, like the previous time you called me.
Speaker 1: Other toasts were similarly weird. A guy at the table
Speaker 1: I was seated it was a friend of the bride,
Speaker 1: and said to me that he was this close to
Speaker 1: standing up during the speed now or Forever Hold your
Speaker 1: Peace thing. I'm still not sure if the whole thing
Speaker 1: was a bunch of emotionally fucked up twenty year old
Speaker 1: or one big piece of performance art, I would totally
Speaker 1: go see that play. Also, haven't these people heard of polyamory?
Speaker 1: This can all work. They can have their cake and
Speaker 1: fuck it. Do not the couple getting married, but the
Speaker 1: best man and maid of honor who were married to
Speaker 1: each other. Best man's speech was all about how hard
Speaker 1: it was to be married. I've been married for a
Speaker 1: year and it feels like one hundred years made of honor,
Speaker 1: stands up to give a speech and just says ditto.
Speaker 1: It was so awkward and really brought the whole room down.
Speaker 1: Best man and maid of honor were to worst within
Speaker 1: a year. Couple who got married are still married thirty
Speaker 1: plus years later. I sometimes wonder if the speeches actually
Speaker 1: were helpful in how not to act as a couple.
Speaker 1: Next time I have to give a speech at a wedding,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, dittoh, I don't care what the person
Speaker 1: before me said, That's all I'm saying. When a couple
Speaker 1: was doing the vows and the priest got to the
Speaker 1: for richer or poorer part, and she said for richer
Speaker 1: or richer, and maybe for poorer. The officiant was not pleased.
Speaker 1: I think they made it a year. This lady sounds
Speaker 1: like the worst. But the officiant was like in sickness
Speaker 1: or in health, and she was like, I mean, as
Speaker 1: long as he's not like super sick, because that would
Speaker 1: be gross. She was like, I do, I guess, and
Speaker 1: these are all reasons why I'm never getting married. Thank you, robots.
Speaker 1: Do you have a cringey story you want to share
Speaker 1: with your best friends on hashtag storytime. We'll let us
Speaker 1: know on our Instagram at story time dot pod, or
Speaker 1: call the Storytime hotline at three to three seven one
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three. Take a second and hit subscribe so
Speaker 1: you don't miss next week's episode featuring Mike John's Here's
Speaker 1: a sneaky, little peaky and then a barker climbs up
Speaker 1: into the ring and he starts shouting at the crowd.
Speaker 1: We're here today to see the battle between the literary
Speaker 1: giant Michael Mohammed Knight and the literal giant Abdullah the Butcher.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to hashtag storytime. I'd
Speaker 1: love to give another big don kashin to Ben Boland
Speaker 1: for being on the podcast. As always. You can find
Speaker 1: links to all the awesome stuff he has going on
Speaker 1: in the description. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave
Speaker 1: us a review. It helps us out a lot and
Speaker 1: I literally read every single one of them. Hashtag Storytime
Speaker 1: is produced by I Heart Radio and Curativity Productions. Hosted
Speaker 1: by Will McFadden. Sound designed by Tony Maddox, written by
Speaker 1: Will McFadden and Jason Shapiro, Produced by Jason Shapiro, Daniel
Speaker 1: La Mora and Jordan Elijah Michael. Theme song by Scott
Speaker 1: Timon's artwork by John Kuzagah