Normal

What’s Normal? You’d be surprised. With Sebastian in Germany and Igor in Los Angeles.

Transcript

Frank Say, we are live and it is the 16th of January, 2024. You don’t have to stop bouncing, Sebastian. I know it’s…

Igor Are you sitting in a ball, those kind of gym balls?

Sebastian Yeah.

Igor Oh, yeah. I guess that’s a good idea.

Frank So his wife is doing… She’s doing a maternity gym.

Sebastian She’s doing  antenatal exercise.

Frank And that’s the word. That’s the word. God’s been a long time since I’ve had to use it. Antenatal exercises. And you’re doing the… You’re doing the solidarity bit, yeah?

Sebastian Yeah.

Frank Jumping jack flash. Okay. Is this normal, what you are doing, Sebastian?

Sebastian  Is the..  What is normal? That’s the question. But today I was sitting all the time in the car. There were two hours when I was at Daimler Trucks. But the rest of the day I was sitting in the car. So I decided to take the ball and not the chair. So that’s the reason.

Frank So you went to a client meeting, sitting on a bouncy ball, yeah?

Sebastian, No, no. That’s why I now decided to sit on the ball. It was just, I don’t know, two hours standing today. And the rest was just sitting in the car. And so that’s the reason why I decided not to use the chair.

Frank Okay. We’ll come back to that. You went to Daimler Trucks? Sorry, this is an old client of mine. Which one? Where did you go?

Sebastian I was in Woerth, not so far away. And we started a test phase with a Smartwasher, which I was working for since one year to get this chance. And today we started the test phase. But it was a funny start today because I was there with a distributor, which is the main distributor of Daimler in Germany.

And this guy, they call it Insite. So, this guy is permanently or two days a week in the plant of Daimler in Woerth. He’s supporting the guys when they have technical problems, and then they sell the products and all the stuff to them. And it was funny because we decided that we send the device to the distributor. And then he, the Insite, the guy who’s responsible for Daimler, take the Smartwasher, put it into a, what is it? Sprinter? What is it? How is it called in English? A van? A van.

Frank Yeah, a van, yeah.

Sebastian Transported from Karlsruhe to Daimler. So, let’s say 15 minutes. And this morning when I drove to Daimler and when we wanted to meet there, he called me just 15 minutes before we had the appointment and told me something went wrong. I don’t have a van, so we have to cancel the meeting. I said, no, we don’t cancel the meeting. We need to find a solution somehow. Maybe I rent a car or I don’t know. And then we, it was possible to get the device into his car and my car. So we put it in two parts or we divided it into two parts.

Frank You took it apart into two parts.

Sebastian And at the end, we were able to drive to Daimler.

Frank It sounds incredibly complicated.

Sebastian Yeah, but that’s how things are going in Germany.  Everybody thinks that everything is perfect in Germany, but that’s how it goes. He said to the logistics department that he needs the van for this day. And at the end, the van wasn’t there. And the reason for that was that the responsible person didn’t tell somebody that the van is reserved.

And then it was in Offenburg. So 35 minutes, just for your understanding, Igor, away from Karlsruhe and we had no van.

Igor Oh, wow. What time was it? What time of the day?

Sebastian 8.30 something.

Igor So your day started with emotion.

Sebastian Yeah, it was not emotion, but he wanted to cancel it. And I said, no, we don’t cancel it. We need to find a solution. If it’s not possible to get it into our cars, then we rent a Sprinter or I don’t know. Yeah, we don’t cancel it because I told him in 10 minutes, I’m in Karlsruhe. So I don’t stop. I don’t turn.

Frank And just to put you into the bigger picture of all of this, Igor, it’s been snowing over here. So it’s about minus three, minus four. It’s a cold and place is actually quite icy as well. Yeah. And the weather reports are forecasting black ice tomorrow. So you only venture out unless you really have to. Yeah.

Igor Oh, got it.

Frank So that just makes things complicated.

Igor It’s good to know that service providers, they are not so good in Germany as well, because sometimes I get frustrated, not only with the USA, but Brazil as well. It’s so hard to find good service providers nowadays. It’s good to know in Germany, which is like the highest standard, at least the word has its conception about Germany, that they have high standards for quality in terms of service providing. And you also have trouble with that. So I feel better now.

Frank Well, I’m going to push you into deep depression, Igor, because Germany is actually in trouble. Had a recession in 2023, and it is a country that doesn’t really adapt to change. Or if it does, it takes an awful long time, because Germany likes to overcomplicate things. They like to discuss things to death, and then they reach a …. Maybe I’m getting this a little bit too wrong, but sort of my experience is working with Germans is that, and I have a lot of that, is that people will discuss everything until they reach a consensus that everybody feels that they’ve been looked after. But the result is so complicated that nobody actually understands it, and then everybody does their own thing anyway.

But the powerhouse of the European Union is in trouble, and they’re forecasting two years of not so positive news out of Germany.

Sebastian But you have to say it was 0.3 minus 0.3. So it was a really, really…

Igor Wait, what was minus? What was minus?

Frank Recession. Recession of negative growth.

Igor Like the GPD?

Frank Yeah, 0.3%, negative 0.3% growth in GDP.

Igor Wow, that’s crazy. We hosted some friends two weeks ago here in our house, not in our house, but in LA. They are Brazilians, but they live in Germany. They live in Frankfurt. They have been living in Germany for five, well, seven years, I think. And at some point, we went to an amusement park here, which is of the Universal, the studio, which is very good, by the way, but that’s another story. We went there, and there is a place with a lot of lights, like too many lights.

You know, Las Vegas, this picture of Las Vegas, we saw a lot of lights and everything. And our friends said, oh, I wonder how much it costs to keep this energy. And we started laughing. Like, that’s a very German thing to say. Here we pay like no jokes. We pay the electricity bill here in our house in each two months. So it charges us in each two months. And the last one, no jokes, was like $45. For two months, our electricity.

Sebastian But maybe that’s the mistake, you know, that it’s not expensive enough.

Igor That’s a good point. That’s a good point.

Sebastian If nobody is thinking about it, how to use it and so on.

Igor But say bye, Sebastian, welcome to the United States, man. People don’t care.

Sebastian Wait, just drive. But I think is there a change of using cars that are not using too much fuel?

Igor Yeah, you see a lot of electricity cars in the streets right now. But it’s because it’s getting cheaper and there are a lot of incentives. It’s not because people are worried about the environment.

Sebastian Okay. California is not the prototype or the general country. You can compare to the rest of the states, maybe.

Igor No. Well, like this friend, her name is Georgia. She works for P&G. Do you know the company P&G?

Frank Proctor and Gamble. Yeah.

Igor And she specializes in water treatment. And she mentioned that the United States is the worst example in the world of water treatment and usage. So I think that it’s a United States thing.

Frank Do you drink tap water in LA or do you drink bottled water?

Igor Yeah, we drink tap water here.

Frank Because every time I go to the UK, I sort of shy away from tap water because it tastes of chlorine. And that’s just like really bad. Yeah. I drink bottled water, but here tap water is not a problem.

Sebastian But Frank, here in Germany, I had a talk or a conversation about is it a good idea to use tap water here in Germany because there is a lot of stuff in it that you can’t filter or, for example, was it antibiotics?

Frank Antibiotics.

Sebastian Antibiotics. And so these are the discussions you have here in Germany.

Frank So this really brings it home, doesn’t it? Again, to put it into context, Germany, as I said, Igor, Germany is in trouble. And at the moment, not all, but the majority of farmers are up in arms because of some reason. And they’re all going out to protest, and they’re all converging in Berlin and protesting about a whole range of things. And in one of the German newspapers, I haven’t finished it. I started reading an article about there was one farmer who’s flowing against the grain. And there seems to be a perception, and this one sentence actually triggered this whole normalcy train of thought that I’ve been pursuing. And he said that the attitudes in Germany are such that if three snowflakes fall on a cow, the owner of the cow will be accused of cruelty to animals. So we have become so disassociated with the way nature works. We’ve become so hysterical about so many sensitive things that normalcy doesn’t really exist. If a cow stands outside in the snow, nothing is going to happen to it. And so from this point of view, this point, it’s an exaggeration. But it sorts of highlights where we are headed to in understanding what is reality and what is not reality. And that you can extend this thought to just about any strain of life. You can start it with politics. You can finish it with anything else. And the question is, as Sebastian said at the beginning, what is normal these days? And I just wanted to bring it down to some really simple level, like what is normal in our weeks.

But for me, it’s normal to work from home. Ditto for you, ditto for Sebastian. Ritesh probably works somewhere else. And how long does he need to take to get from his house to his office? We don’t know. We’ll find out. And it’s this perception of normality. And I see Sebastian jumping up and down, wanting to say something.

Sebastian Two things. One thing I remembered, it’s not fitting to the topic, but before I forget it, I saw documentation this week that they try to hire a lot of Brazilian employees from Brazilian in the skiing areas in Austria, in the restaurants and so on. And so there were, I don’t know, three or four of them that are working for two years here. And one family said, what is positive in Germany? It’s really secured here. So there are no crime.

Frank There’s no crime.

Sebastian The crime is really low. And the second thing, just a remark on site, was from the cook. He was just for one, he’s now here for just one year. And they ask him, what is he missing? And he said, just hugs and smiling. And Igor it was something I just want to tell you. I think that’s maybe the difference. So that was something. And then the reporter. Is the reporter correct?

Frank The reporter.

Sebastian Yeah. The reporter or the journalist. Just gave him a hug, you know, and he was smiling.

Igor Oh, really? That was nice of him.

Sebastian It was just a remark on the side. It’s not fitting to the topic.

Frank It’s actually interesting. So, I had just before Christmas, I met Martin, one of the community members for the first time in three dimension. We’d never met each other before physically. Of course, we speak to each other every week. He works for the company, so it’s a company contract. So hugely more professional, allegedly, than sort of what else we do in the community. Met each other for the first time, and we gave each other a hug. You know, a manly hug, not a feminine hug, but a manly hug.

And it was okay when I arrived and when I departed again an hour and a half later. Igor, is it normal for you to hug a total stranger in Brazil?

Igor It’s totally normal, like totally normal. There are no restrictions in terms of hugging others in Brazil, and usually people, when they meet each other, let’s say I’m going out with friends and they introduce me to some friends, it’s quite normal to hug. Actually, it’s weird if you don’t hug when you meet someone the first time.

Frank So if I were to meet Mari for the first time, would it be deemed as strange if I, in the German way, politely shook her hand and very formally said, nice to meet you, with a bit of British reserve thrown in for good measure, or would that be seen as strange by her?

Igor Yeah, well, I don’t know if strange is the right word, but it would seem like you are putting the limits, you know, like it’s so she would think like, oh, okay, so he is putting this limit. Not that it’s strange, you know.

Frank Okay.

Igor Yeah, of course. And of course, like in a very formal environment, let’s say you are going to a meeting like for a multinational company in Brazil, of course, you won’t hug everyone. But I’m talking like generally speaking, the way we walk around the street, it’s totally normal and touch each other. So here I was talking yesterday with a friend on jiu jitsu, like here, people don’t really touch each other. I don’t know, like they, you know, like when you are walking on the street and you like for some reason you bounce on someone by mistake, like here, people say, I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry. You know, that’s funny because that’s okay. You know, like that’s not the big deal.

Sebastian They think that maybe if they don’t excuse that there is a problem, they have a problem with the person or that’s why their behaviour is like that, right?

Igor That’s a good question. I don’t know. My hypothesis is that here people feel like your body, like the touch, it’s a very personal thing, you know? So it’s a very personal thing to touch you. Way less than Brazilians think it’s personal. So I think that’s the reason.

Sebastian Okay.

Igor But yeah, that’s a very true thing. So answering the questions like in Brazil, it’s very normal to hug people. Here in the United States, it’s definitely not normal.

Sebastian Yeah, here nobody will hug you normally. If you don’t know, if it’s not a really good friend, you don’t hug. I think it’s different in France, right?

Frank No, no, it’s pretty much the same. I mean, what we have in France are the bisous, which is you kiss a woman on the cheek. And from what I understand, it depends where you are in France. In some places, it’s only left and right or right and left. I think even that’s important, which cheek you kiss first and you don’t kiss. You just sort of like peck on the cheek. In some cases, in some regions, it’s two. In some places, it’s three. And I think in one or two places, it’s four times. It’s really complicated. And then you sort of lean forward and the woman looks back and says, which way is this guy going to approach me from?

And I had a really, really embarrassing situation in a supermarket a couple of years ago, where I had met or re-met an ex-client of mine, a woman, and I had totally forgotten that she is Muslim because she wasn’t wearing anything to display this. And I lean forward to, oh, hi, good to see you. I lean forward to give her a peck on the cheek. And she jumped back and screamed at the top of her voice. They were attacking, you know, physically assaulting this woman. And then it dawned on me, oh, my God. Yeah, she’s Muslim. And this is when I did the American thing. Look, I’m really sorry. Please don’t worry, et cetera, et cetera. But that was one of the most, so it can go brutally wrong. In that case, it did. And of course, there were like people everywhere looking at me. What’s going on?

Igor You know, it’s something that left a mark on me when I was in France. I was in the south of France. I don’t know if it’s normal or just it just happened a few times when I was around. But I was doing volunteer in a place in the very south of France.

And something broke in the house I was working. And I think it was a pipe, something like that. And one guy, I think his name was Sebastian, by the way. I think he came to fix it. He was a very, you know, like the stereotype of a handcraft, you know, like someone strong with the like how dirty, like a mustache and everything. And he came into the door and he gave like a very, very deep kiss the cheek of the guy I was working for.

And this in Brazil is not normal. And I saw it a few times when I was in France, like between men kissing each other in the cheek. Is it normal or was it particular of this environment I was on?

Frank I would say that I would find that not to be normal. But again, we have one dedicated listener to this podcast now. Maybe Alexandre, I’ll talk to him about it in the later. But maybe he can actually give us some insight into the male version of greeting each other in the various parts of France. You know, what is normal?

From my experience, no, it’s not normal. But, you know, like we said, what is normal?

So, Sebastian, what do you do during the week from Monday to Monday that you think is perfectly normal? You don’t even think about it anymore. It’s perfectly normal for you to do this. Does anything come to mind?

Sebastian I drink two coffee a day.

Igor Two coffees or too much coffee?

Sebastian Two. I don’t know. It’s too much. But yeah, I think this is pretty normal. It’s pretty normal.

Frank Igor, is that normal for you?

Igor No, I think it’s normal overall, but it’s not normal for me.

Sebastian What are you drinking?

Igor Oh, I drink so much coffee, man. You won’t believe me. But it’s like I recognize I never fixed it, but I recognize the problem. It’s like it’s not that I’m addicted to the substance itself. It’s more like I like to be drinking something hot, you know? So I’m always and like the fact that standing up and going grab some coffee, like petting my dog, it’s something that I feel good about. So I have this trigger about going get a coffee. But I should look into that because I drink at least, like, five cups of coffee every day, at least.

Sebastian So it’s a routine for you?

Igor Yeah, it’s a routine. But it’s like a behavior that endures all day long. It’s not only the morning. That’s the problem. I’m always grabbing some coffee.

Frank So with me, it’s two cups in the morning, possibly three. And then I switch to tea.

Igor Yeah, maybe I should try this.

Frank Yeah, because if I drink coffee at night, then I have sleeping problems. But funnily enough, if I have an espresso, I know I’m 62. I’m an old man.

Sebastian Yeah, that’s not what I want to say, but go ahead.

Frank Yeah, I can drink an espresso in the evening for some reason. This does not keep me awake, but an ordinary cup of coffee. That’s okay. But I have a follow up question to this coffee. Sebastian, you wanted to say something about coffee?

Sebastian Yeah, I wanted to say that you have to drink tea. Otherwise, you have a problem in this household.

Frank Yes, but it is normal. So this is how strange this house can get. My wife brings her tea with her from England, because English tea is actually stronger than the stuff we get here on the continent. And when my sister-in-law came over for Mary’s birthday in October, she was asked to bring 300 or 480 tea bags. Now, this sounds really strange, because it sounds like a huge quantity, but in England, you get boxes of tea bags, 80 tea bags per box, up to 480 tea bags per box. And my wife when my sister-in-law arrived, Mary then said, so here are 320 tea bags. And they asked, why do you need these tea bags? And she said, the tea here is different. I prefer drinking this English tea from that in that supermarket. Yeah, it’s bog standard, bin end tea powder almost. Yeah, but it’s stronger. It’s brewed differently. It’s done, it’s prepared differently, and it just tastes different. And that’s what my wife wants to drink. So for her, it is perfectly normal to have tea bags shipped across from the UK to France. Entering the European Union was a bit of a difficult thing now. And it’s also a damn sight cheaper. Whereas I here have a cup of Earl Grey tea, bought from a discount supermarket, 20 tea bags for 99 cents or something like that, brewed precisely three minutes. Yeah, and we’ll come to the coffee brewing in a minute. But yes, this is one of the differences of living in a multinational household.

And for us Germans, we love our bread. And we would remember living in London back in the late 80s, early 90s, I would always source out some bakery that produced or baked German style bread. And even if I had to travel to central London for it, I would do it. Yeah, not every week, but if I knew I was going into central London, I would make sure I would pass that bakery, pick up some bread, freeze it and eat it then in my own leisure.

But getting back to this coffee, because I know 50% of this answer here, but I’m going to start with you Igor. So, when you make coffee, how do you prepare your coffee? Is it instant coffee, just add water or do you do it a little bit more complicated?

Igor Well, it’s a little bit more complicated, but not that complicated. So, we do, I don’t know if it’s the right term, but like filtered coffee. That’s what we do here. We have a small machine that you can put the paper filter, and then you put the coffee and put the water through it.

And then the thing will keep it heated for as long as you want. So we do it in the morning and we drink during the day.

Frank So you have a filter, you put some filter paper into it, you put the coffee, the ground coffee into the filter paper, add water. The whole thing goes into a thermos can, and then it stays warm for a long, long time.

Igor Yes. Like in Brazil, 99.9% of coffee are made this way. But my father and mother-in-law, they do like French press coffee, which is something very rare in Brazil.

Frank Really?

Igor I like it as well, but you cannot do large quantities. I don’t like using it.

Frank So would you like to know, because I’ve had this conversation, would you like to know how Sebastian prepares his coffee?

Igor Oh, how long it will take? I’m joking. Yeah, I want to know it. But coming from a guy who takes care of the grass as he does, I won’t be surprised if it’s a detailed process.

Frank That’s an understatement. My request, Sebastian, is we have 23 minutes left. It’s not enough, it’s not enough. I would say, kiss this topic, keep it short and simple.

Sebastian Many, many years ago, when we had already bought the automatic coffee machine, I decided if there is a time that the machine is not working anymore, one day in my life, I will buy, I have to buy a filter holder machine. So, this typical Italian machine where you first grind your coffee, grind the beans in a grinder, and then you put it into the filter.

And it came the time, I think, three or four months ago that the machine was not working really good anymore. And I decided now it’s the time that I have to buy such a machine. And it’s also something you can celebrate, like having a green outside in the garden. It’s, I think it’s really similar. And so, you have to have a closer look to all the details.

And it’s also, yeah, how can I say it? It needs some time because first you have to test different beans with the different roast types. And you also know there is some different type of beans, Robusta beans, and so on. So they are coming from Brazilian, for example, or they are coming from other locations.

Igor It is, I think it’s a science.

Sebastian Yeah, it’s a science. But what was also really interesting to me was that, you know, you go to the kitchen and you calm down a little bit and then you need, let’s say, five minutes for preparing everything, calm down, relax, and just concentrate on this stuff. And I think this is also a good thing. Because you have to, you need a Waagen.

Frank Scales.

Sebastian You need a scale because first I do everything manually. That means you first have to scale the beans. You need 18 grams, for example. So you put it into a cup or something, weight your beans, and then you put it into the grinder. Then you put it into the filter. Then you press it down in the filter. And then you put the scale under your cup. Because if you have 18 grams in, you need, let’s say, a brew ratio of one to two or 2.5. You know, you can play a little bit with this. So you need to know what is the output. And then you measure, or you weight what’s coming out. And then you, that’s, for example, doing a cappuccino. Then you put the milk into the cup, into the special cup. And then there is a really great variety of milk steam. How you can produce it, how it flows. And then you can do different, what, how is it called?

Drowies? Yeah, you can paint with the designs.

Frank You can design the froth.

Sebastian Yeah, and then you have to, yeah, you need a lot of time to do all these things. But at the end, it tastes really good. And what was also a point for me is if you’re using a device that is doing all the stuff for you, you have a lot of dirt inside that you are not cleaning.

And here you just have the grinder and you have the filter. And it’s really clean. Nothing is getting dirty inside. And it’s having a lot of mold, and so on. So I think it’s a complete process and it tastes really good.

Igor So the water temperature, do you get it to boil to the limit, like 100 degrees Celsius? Because I have heard that it’s better to not get to the point of 100 degrees. So what’s your take on this?

Sebastian Yeah, so on this machine, you have three different temperatures. I think 90 degrees, 92, and I’m not sure, 95. And it depends on the beans, how they are roasted. If they are really, really dark, you need to go a little bit down with the temperature. Otherwise, it tastes a little bit bitter. So you can play with it at the end. I’m not sure if everybody is doing it, but there are so many varieties. And so for me, it’s just trying something different.

Igor Yeah, if we enjoy the process, that’s what matters, I guess. Sounds like cooking, right?

Frank Right up your street, Igor.

Igor Yeah, that’s the thing. I don’t really enjoy it. I think maybe someday I will enjoy the process, but right now I don’t enjoy it. But I respect who does.

Frank Yeah, but I have to say, this was the simplified version, because when Sebastian and I talked about this a couple of months ago, grinding the bean is also an art form in itself. You just don’t grind a bean. There are different ways to grind it, etc.

Igor Oh, okay.

Sebastian, you need to understand. So you have, let’s say, 80 grams in, then you have a brew ratio of one to two. So that means 36 out, but you also have to brew it in a time of, let’s say, 26 or 30 seconds. So if it’s flowing too fast through the coffee beans or to the grinded coffee beans, you need to adjust the grinder a little bit finer.

Frank It’s more fine, or more finely.

Sebastian More finely, because then the water needs longer to go through the coffee beans, to the grinded coffee beans. So first you need to find the right adjustments on it. Because at the beginning, you get the sour notes in the coffee at the brewing process, and at the end come the bitter notes. And you want to have it in a balance. Yeah, in the balance, you want to have it balanced at the end.

Igor The question for me, sorry to interrupt you, but the question for me is can you actually taste the difference?

Sebastian No, but it’s funny. I was today, after my visit with the inside from the Institute, we had a coffee together in a coffee house.

Frank In a cafe, not a coffee house, a cafe.

Sebastian But they are producing coffee by themselves, so I don’t know. And we talked about this topic. And because there is a salami, you can have a salami try or a shot. That means you have, let’s say, four or five small espresso cups. And every, I think, I’m not sure, two or three seconds or five seconds, I have to check it, you change the cup in the brewing process. So you start the brewing process, let’s say, 30 seconds. And every, I’m not sure, five seconds, I have to check it. You replace it with a new cup, and then you can taste the different notes of the complete brewing process. But this is something I have to check. Then you know what it means, what is the sour and the bitter phase in this brewing process to get a better feeling.

Igor That’s very cool. That’s very cool. Like in the south of Brazil, the city where Mari was born, they have a chocolate factory. So they make chocolate, and it’s a really good chocolate. And you can go through a tour, like you’re going to see the factory, the history and everything.And in the end, they have something similar so that they have like a line of steps in which you taste the chocolate each step. So you taste the cocoa, then the processed cocoa, etc. And just the last one is good. Like all the prior steps are terrible. Like it’s impossible to taste it. At the end, it is a little bit testing and trying things, but that you have a feeling how it looks like.

Sebastian So I just show it to you. That’s, for example, the machine. And it’s completely manual. So you have the grip on the right side. When you start, the water is flowing and so on. So it’s completely manual. And that was something I like because it’s really simple. And just that you have a feeling for what we’re talking about.

Igor You would love to know my state in Brazil, the state I was born. It’s called the Minas Gerais. And in the south of Brazil, in the south of Minas Gerais, they produce a lot of coffee and they are very famous worldwide. And if you drive there, drive through the south of Minas Gerais, you’re going to see a lot of farms. It’s beautiful because they dry the coffee. So they put those giant carpets of coffee and they will dry in the sun. It’s a beautiful drive.

Sebastian Yeah, I can imagine. And yeah, that’s also a topic. If you buy here in a supermarket coffee beans, the question is, is it a fair-trade coffee bean? That’s what we are thinking about here in Germany. Not many people, but if you buy it here in the supermarket, it is collected all over the world. And you have no idea because this is a special price, and they don’t care about if people can live from this profession or not. And there are also fair-trade products where you have to pay more. Then you know where from which farm it’s coming from. Okay, at the end, you never know if it’s the truth, but I think it’s a good way to…

Igor It’s the best you can do as a consumer, right? You cannot go for sure anything, but that’s what you can control.

Sebastian Absolutely. But this is also the coming back and stop talking about this topic, coming back to the farmers in Germany. At the moment, they are protesting. Is that the right word, Frank?

Frank Yeah, they’re protesting.

Sebastian But nobody or less people want to pay for regional stuff they are producing. Because if you, just for example, if you buy tomatoes or paprikas. What’s paprika?

Frank Peppers. Peppers. Peppers or capsicum, depending where they come from.

Sebastian From Spain, it’s cheaper if you buy it from a farmer in Germany. So here in Germany, the people are really positive about all of these protests of the farmers. But I think, and this is just, I’m just guessing, but I think 70% buying the cheap stuff from somewhere in the European Union, where it’s cheap, you know. And why they are on the streets at the moment is why they get a subsidy. They get a subsidy for the fuel. So, they get it cheaper and they want to stop. They want to stop to subsidize. They want to stop to subsidize the fuel, but that’s not the reason why they have problems.

I’m not so positive for the farmers. And maybe the reasons why I don’t want to always go mainstream. I think this is also something I’m not doing. And what I found really positive was a comment from a biological farmer. Is that the right word?

Frank Yeah, an eco-farmer, ecologically an ecological farmer.

Sebastian An ecological farmer. And she told in front of the camera, the reporter, that she’s not participating on this protest because the problem is not the fuel. The problem is somewhere else. And, you know, it’s just a drop in the ocean. As always, it is not so easy.

Frank Times are a turmoil in Europe. Igor, in the last seven, eight minutes of this, your typical week, what do you do that you would consider to be perfectly normal without even batting an eyelid?

Igor Walk with my dog. It’s perfectly normal. Training jiu jitsu is perfectly normal. Yeah, my life is pretty normal overall. So yeah, I would say like walking with my dog. That’s a standard thing I do every morning. And at the evening and doing jiu jitsu at night. So those are very normal for me. Those are more regular than what I eat, to be honest, because.

Frank Yeah, so the question would be, and we can ask this, Ritesh, and I think, Ismar not so much but British, would it be considered normal for him to walk a dog in his neighbourhood in Bangalore in India?

Igor It’s a good question. Oh, OK. I have to tell you guys this. So there’s a trend in Los Angeles. That’s very shameful to say I live in a city like that. But people walk with their dogs in strollers.

Sebastian Say it again?

Igor You know, like baby strollers. People walk if they put the dog on that and they walk with the dog.

Frank Why?

Igor I have no idea and I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to know the answer, but they do that. Like every day I see at least one person doing that. And I don’t know. I just gave up to understand, you know, there’s a there’s a thing here. It’s normal in Los Angeles to see this. I haven’t seen this anywhere in the world. I guess like a question for Ritesh. Like what would happen if someone did that in India? Like in Brazil, people would think the person is crazy.

Frank I think pretty much everywhere else.

Igor Yeah, exactly.

Frank How weird.

Igor Yeah, it’s very weird. But I know if you guys are aware of that, but Los Angeles, like in the rest of the United States, it’s known for being a very exocentric city, like where people do very weird stuff. Yeah, so that’s and a friend told me once, I asked because it was very hot like months ago and I would see people with sweaters and jackets and very stylish people walking around. And I asked this friend, oh, why do people do that? Like they don’t feel hot or what’s the point? And this friend gave a perfect answer. She said, oh, yeah, but the style is more important than comfort here. So it explains a lot of things in Los Angeles. Style is more important. How you look is way more important.

Frank Wow. Okay. So are you going to set a trend of actually walking your dog, making it physically put a paw in front of each other and walking it around the block?

Igor That’s what they do at least.

Frank So what happens if your dog has a call of nature and has to do a poo? Do people then collect? Do you have a poo bag where you pick up the dog’s poo or do you just let it let it there and wash away by non-existent?

Igor We carry bags, so we collect it. Not everyone does that, but we do. Like we did it even in Brazil. But it’s funny because fortunately our dog, he will just do his business in grass on the top of grass. He wants to own concrete, which is better. But that’s funny because here all the grasses on the neighborhood are front gardens of people. They don’t have grass on the sidewalk, like the public sidewalk. So people are okay with that. So there are a lot of places that they already know us and give us an eye. That’s interesting. Like here comes the dog, show shit on my grass.

Frank Fantastic. A dog in a stroller.

Igor Yes, I swear. I’m not exaggerating. I’m not exaggerating. Like it’s very normal.

Frank All right, gentlemen, I want to close today’s session with some listener feedback.Like I said at the beginning, we have a dedicated listener, Alexandra, who meets me on a Thursday morning with Celine. And I sent him the first opportunity exchange we did, you and I, Igor, going back. We sort of explore what’s it like to be a tourist in your own city. I sent him that first episode and he said, Hello, Frank. Thank you for the podcast. I am free this weekend. And I read this transcript and give you my feedback. Best regards, Alexandre.

And then a couple of hours later, he writes. Wow, Igor speaks very quickly. Everybody.

Igor Yeah, I do. Imagine if I speak that quickly in English. Imagine Portuguese. Just imagine.

Frank Okay, we’ll try. Anyway. Wow, Igor speaks very quickly and it’s very good for me. I don’t understand all the comments between you and Igor, but I don’t really need that. It’s cool. I think that I read the podcast when I have free time over and I’m free every Saturday.

So gentlemen, we have to be on our best behaviour in future because we have one who will not hesitate to give us important feedback.

Igor Yeah, we are setting examples here.

Frank Igor, speak Portuguese so we know that when you speak English, we can understand you.

Igor I speak so fast when I go to my dad’s place and I have to do some. I don’t do that anymore because I don’t work in Portuguese. But when I used to work in Portuguese, I would do so many meetings all day long and speak so fast that my dad would say, like, how do you process so much information in our brain? Like, I don’t process them. They just go out without any processing.

Frank Is that when your mouth sort of starts taking off by itself and starts talking away?

Igor Exactly.

Frank The rest of your mind. Okay, gentlemen, we are 50% on board. Let’s hope that next week we are 100% on board. Igor, topic next week. You will tell us in due course how you will entertain us for 60 minutes. Quick organizational question. Do we meet in 24 hours?

Igor Yes.

Frank Good. We will talk about comparing Brazil with Los Angeles now that you went home. In for Christmas. What was it like to go home after being in LA for a couple of months?

Igor Yeah. Okay. Sounds good.

Frank The culture shock of coming home. Gentlemen, thank you for your time and see you all again next week, I hope.

Thank you.

Have a good day.

Good night.