Wandering Desk: Recent Episodes
Neil Bennion
Travel, productivity and general mucking about... the good life abroad... the tendency to add prefixing letters to the word 'office'...
All of these things shouldn't be discussed in any length, and will.
Join me as I prance around in foreign countries, interview interesting people and discuss notions related to living and working abroad. All whilst failing to do any justice at all to any of the subjects at hand.
This week, my friend Alexander Woolley joins me to discuss Ukraine, and in particular the historic Black Sea port of Odessa.
We cover various topics, including:
- Is it 'Ukraine' or ‘The Ukraine’ and the whole ‘correcting people on how they pronounce a country’ thing.
- On being squashed between other countries (see also: Poland)
- The wonderful city of Odessa
- The Potemkin stairs (or are they steps?)
- Going to the opera / theatre (including tips)
- Speaking the language – or not (and indeed which one?)
- Ukrainian food and restaurants
- Sleeper train travel in Ukraine
In this episode I share my experience of learning to ride a motorbike (well, scooter) on the mean streets of Bali. Well okay, not exactly mean, but pretty freaking hectic for sure.
I talk about:
- The 4 big reasons I was avoiding riding a scooter
- What prompted me to just go for it
- The learning process
- The speed pact I made with myself
- Filling up with petrol
- The infamous Canggu shortcut
- Riding in the rain
- The single most amazing place I visited
- Insurance, driving licenses and other necessities
- My tips for people thinking of doing the same
In this episode I talk to Johnny Parsons from England who, together with his family, emigrated from their adopted home of Yorkshire to the Peruvian capital of Lima.
We talk about:
- Why they left the UK and moved to Peru
- Adapting to Lima
- Travelling solo versus travelling as a family
- Teaching English as a Foreign Language
- His daily commute
- The incident that made him think twice about biking round Lima
- What he does in his spare time
- Peruvian food - and the need to tread carefully when talking about other nations' food
- Pies
- Johnny's tips for families thinking about emigrating
In this episode I talk about my recent time in that most instagrammable of places - the Indonesian island (province, even) of Bali.
I'll be talking about: The message I send to the future me every winter ... Why Bali ... First impressions of Ubud ... What can make it so hard to acclimatise ... The hipster-surfer town of Canggu ... Bali as a vegan paradise ... The chain of islands that made my own trip worth it ... How Bali is dealing with the problem of washed-up plastic ... Tips for your own trip to Bali.
In this, the first episode, I talk about how I left the comfortable corporate life behind to go on a life-changing trip, and how this changed things for good, whether I liked it or not.
We cover a lot of ground, including:
The epicness of your first big trip ... the personal growth that comes from travel ... reverse culture shock and re-acclimatising back home ... how travel expands your mind beyond its elastic limit (and how this is both a blessing and a curse) ... meeting people on the road ... stagnancy and losing your mojo ... the need to be part of a community ... adapting to cultures abroad ... how you ultimately gain insights into your own culture