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Euro Spooky Trip Report!

Don's Pinball Podcast (patreon feed)·podcast_episode·51m 42s·analyzed·Jun 2, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Don's trip report: European Pinball Championships with Spooky crew, castles, Alps, and adventure.

Summary

Don recounts a four-day European trip with his wife Monica, Spooky Pinball's Luke and Morgan (Squirrel), centered around the European Pinball Championships in Völklobrudk, Austria. The group visited Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, rode alpine coasters in the Austrian Alps, crossed into Italy for dinner, and explored various European towns and attractions before arriving at the pinball championship.

Key Claims

  • The European Pinball Championships in Völklobrudk, Austria featured approximately 350 pinball machines representing every major manufacturer (JJP, Spooky, Stern, Pinball Brothers, Home Pin, and others) plus homebrew machines

    high confidence · Don describing the championship event hosted by Stefan from RS Pinball

  • Stefan from RS Pinball distributes essentially every European pinball machine from U.S. manufacturers to sub-distributors

    medium confidence · Don's description of Stefan's distributor role and business model

  • The Serles Summer Rodelahn alpine coaster in Mieders, Austria is 2.7-2.8 kilometers long and is the longest single-rail alpine coaster in the world

    medium confidence · Don describing the coaster specifications during the trip

  • Neuschwanstein Castle tickets cost 22 euros; availability sold out weeks in advance due to Ascension Day holiday

    high confidence · Don recounting ticket booking experience and holiday impact

  • Business class flight upgrade from Chicago to Munich on Lufthansa cost approximately $800 or 800 euros (roughly $150)

    medium confidence · Don discussing flight upgrades and bidding process

Notable Quotes

  • “I want to inspire and also encapsulate and chronicalize all the fun stuff that we got into, because it was plum wild.”

    Don @ Opening — Sets the tone for the trip report as entertainment and inspiration for the pinball community

  • “This guy has got contracts that I am envious of. Essentially, like, every European pinball machine from the U.S. goes through him and then out to sub-distributors. So he gets a piece of everything, man.”

    Don @ Early discussion — Describes Stefan from RS Pinball's dominant distribution position in European pinball market

  • “I think you would very much appreciate the Dune Pinball Machine more if you'd actually seen the new films, because I hadn't seen them, and I went to the launch of this thing, and like, I had nothing to connect it to.”

    Don @ Mid-flight discussion — Suggests manufacturers should pre-announce themes to allow players to familiarize themselves with IP before game launch

  • “As soon as we get to the bottom, he's like, I'm going and I'm doing that again.”

    Don (describing Luke's reaction) @ Alpine coaster section — Shows Luke, who initially expressed reluctance about thrill rides, enthusiastically returned to the alpine coaster

  • “We're in Italy, you know. So we left the United States. We landed in Germany, got to the hotel in Austria, and now we're in Italy. So we're four countries deep for the first day.”

    Don @ Italy dinner section — Captures the rapid geographic movement and excitement of the European adventure

  • “My plucky wife came, like, out of nowhere. She's like, hey, here's a place in a town 40 minutes away that makes cheese wheel pasta.”

    Don @ Cheesy Wheelie restaurant discovery — Highlights Monica's resourcefulness in finding a specific restaurant matching Morgan's request

  • “It's like a Mod Pizza or like a Chipotle, but they do it with a big Parmesan cheese wheel and freshly made pasta. Like, I had no idea that this thing existed.”

    Don — Conveys surprise at discovering an unexpected dining concept in Austria

Entities

DonpersonMonicapersonSpooky LukepersonMorgan (Squirrel)personStefanpersonSpooky PinballcompanyRS PinballcompanyEuropean Pinball ChampionshipseventSterncompanyJersey Jack Pinball (JJP)company

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: European Pinball Championships in Völklobrudk, Austria featured ~350 machines from all major manufacturers; hosted by RS Pinball's Stefan; attended by top players including Jeff Teolis and David Van Ness

    high · Don's detailed description of the event scale, participant list, and manufacturer representation

  • ?

    industry_signal: Stefan from RS Pinball acts as primary distributor for U.S. pinball manufacturers into European market, controlling flow to sub-distributors across the region

    medium · Don states 'essentially, like, every European pinball machine from the U.S. goes through him' and describes Stefan's envious contractual position

  • ?

    content_signal: Don's Pinball Podcast producing long-form travel report content featuring industry figures and manufacturing representatives; serves entertainment and inspirational purposes for community

    high · Episode title and framing as deliberate content strategy to inspire European travel among pinball community

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Spooky Pinball dispatched Luke and Morgan (Squirrel) to European Pinball Championships, marking the company's first European championship presence; organized through distributor relationship

    high · Don states 'this was the first time for the Spooky Crew' at European event; Stefan invited them through distribution partnership

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Don suggests pinball designers/manufacturers should pre-announce theme IP to allow players time to familiarize themselves before game launch, as lack of IP knowledge diminishes engagement

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.155

0:00
Oh, as we listen to the relaxing sounds of Ja Rule from the 90s, I'm going to recount a journey that happened over like only about four days, if you can believe it, between myself, my wife Monica, Multiball Monica we call her, and two of the Spooky Crew, Spooky Luke and Morgan, better known as Squirrel, at SpookyFootball.com. on an adventure throughout Europe. It was fun. It was so great. I want to cover this trip report for everybody. I want this to serve as a source of, number one, entertainment. Number two, inspiration. To try to get more people out to Europe. It's incredible. We've been going for like 20 years now, over about six, eight trips or so. And so this was the first time for the Spooky Crew. So it was fun to take some people to Europe who had never been before. So I want this to inspire and also encapsulate and chronicalize all the fun stuff that we got into. because it was plum wild. Okay, I'm going to start with what the basis of this trip was. The European Pinball Championships were going on in Volklabruck, Austria, right? Right in the middle of the country, a medium-sized city. You know, not quite big enough for a Costco, but big enough for maybe a small university. And anyway, Stefan from RS Pinball, he's a big distributor, man. This guy has got contracts that I am envious of. Essentially, like, every European pinball machine from the U.S. goes through him and then out to sub-distributors. So he gets a piece of everything, man. I don't know who his agent is, but I want to hire them. Anyway, so he hosts the European Pinball Championships that take place in this town, in this ice arena that they, of course, clear the ice out. And then it's, I don't know, 350 pinball machines or so. A pinball machine from every company is there, like every JJP, every Spooky, every Pinball Brothers, every what the hell is Mike from Home Pin. Every Home Pin is there. Every Stern is there. Cool homebrew stuff. It's nuts. and they also do this championship there. Jeff Teolis was out there. David Van Ness was out there. I'm sure there was tons of other top-level players that are all out there. So the idea was Stephan had reached out to the Spooky Crew saying, why don't you guys come out to this event? I distribute for you guys. You guys haven't ever been in Europe. Come make an appearance. And they were like, bet. And then they thought about it for a minute, and they were like, hey, Don, would you guys want to go too? And I was like, let's see, pinball, Europe, yes. and yes, yes, yes, I would love to go. Thank you so much. So we were invited. I happen to have the time off as well. And so the plan was for, you know, a quick weekend trip, you know, like three days. I think, you know, fly out on a Thursday or fly out Wednesday, land there Thursday, an overnight flight to Munich, Germany. And then it's about a two and a half hour drive from there to Vokalbrook. You could also fly into Vienna, Austria, but then it's like a three and a half, four hour drive. So this Munich was a little bit closer. And there's direct flights from Chicago. The plan would be to land there Thursday, go to the event Friday and Saturday, fly home Sunday. And I'm like, that's kind of a short time. But you know what? Heck it. Let's do it. So nonstop flight from Chicago. We all met there. We left in the afternoon Wednesday and just were splendid flight. These guys bid for an upgrade and got it, the lucky bastards. And so they got to fly business class lay flat seats for the eight-hour flight from Chicago to Munich overnight, which I was a little bit jelly of. I also bid, but, you know, I mean, I put in, like, the minimum bid, so I didn't get it. It was about $800 or so, or 800 euros, so it might have been, like, $150. It's a little bit pricey, but then, you know, these seats go for, like, six grand sometimes, so it's not a bad upgrade. Anyway, it's luxurious, absolutely. We flew in Lufthansa, a 777 wide-body plane, very comfortable seats, even in economy class for us, full screen, and I love when planes, when I'm able to fly in them and I'm able to toggle through not only the map of where I'm at, where I'm going, where I've been, but also live camera feeds. And it had like five cameras on this plane, like one from the tail, from the vertical stabilizer, one from the undercarriage just in front of the front landing gear, one outside of either side of the plane, and then one straight down, like a Bombay door view. So this was great. So I'm sitting up there all night just like watching cameras while the sun was up. Otherwise, I was watching movies and things. I watched Dune, the new remake for the first time. almost all the way through. We landed, I saw, five minutes left. I'm starting to get it now. I think you would very much appreciate the Dune Pinball Machine more if you'd actually seen the new films, because I hadn't seen them, and I went to the launch of this thing, and like, I had nothing to connect it to. I would say that would be one good reason to go ahead, and even if you're not ready to release, at least let people know what the theme is going to be, so it gives us time to watch the movies or whatever before the game's released, so we kind of know were to meet you because they're talking to me about Fremen and the Shalabub and all this stuff. And it sounds as gibberish-y as it does, you know, without having anything to tie it to. So I understand the game more. Regardless, we landed. We got in a little half hour early. Shout out to Lufthansa. They were early on both flights. I think we landed just before 7 a.m. We picked up an Enterprise Rent-A-Car from the Munich airport. And then, you know, the plan originally, make our way to Völklobruck, be there for Friday and Saturday of the show, and then early drive back, our flight out was Sunday morning at 10 a.m., right, which was yesterday. All right, so I decided, hey, you know what, we're in Bavaria in southern Germany. I haven't been to this region of Germany before, and there are two things that I want to do if I ever go to that region, and one of those was Neuschwanstein Castle, which we did. The other one was to go ride this weird coaster called Hexenbezel, which is like a witch's broom, a really weird game you ride, a really weird coaster. It only seats one person. You ride in this plexiglass tube and then go through this course. It's very strange. We didn't do that. But we did do Neuschwanstein. So this castle is Mad King Ludwig's 18th century, 19th century castle that he built in the hills of Bavaria before he, like, was declared insane and drowned in a lake. This is, like, the fairy tale castle of Europe. It's more recent, right? It was built in the 1800s. So, you know, it's not, you know, totally medieval. But it's the best example of what you would expect a real-life Disney castle to look like. Take a look at it. New Schwanstein Castle, Bavarian Castle, most fairytale castle in Europe. Just Google any one of those things and this thing will come up. And you can tell where Disney took the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland. And later on, pretty much every castle they've built around the world has taken some part of this one. This is like the fairytale castle up on a cliffside with a bridge, a waterfall, like the whole bit, man. And so it's like 22 euros to go to this thing. We didn't realize this, but there was a holiday that Thursday called Ascension Day, which is like the day of the feast of Jesus' ascension or some such. I don't think it's a really big holiday here in the U.S. I'm sure there's a fish fry somewhere, but it was over there. So when I looked at this castle originally, tours were 22 euros. Every time slot was open, and I was like, oh, we're not going to have any problems at all. two or three weeks ago I was like hey okay we should pick a time to get these tickets and everything was sold out until like 5pm and it's like I don't want to land at 7am sit around all day waiting for a 5pm castle tour this really sucks right well luckily I was able to find well Monica helped find another travel office that's run by a third party company in town that also sells tickets and they did have times available so we got ourselves a 2pm tour which was much better than 5 p.m. So we got the car. We had time in the morning. So we stopped at a European McDonald's. We tried all the cool, weird foods. We marveled at the great coffee and cafe setup McDonald's in Europe have. It's like they have a separate Starbucks counter inside of their McDonald's where you can get better coffee drinks and cake pops and chocolate croissants and good baked goods and things like cakes and all kinds of fun stuff. They're great, man. McDonald's is legitimately in Europe, a place where you can go and get a coffee and a cake and sit down and it's not terrible, right? So we all had fun on that. We tried to go over to an Aldi, but it was Ascension Day, so it was closed. I found this gas station car wash called WAP, and it was something in German, but it was W-A-P and it had a picture of a skunk, and I thought that was awesome. Maybe it was a raccoon. I took a picture of it and posted it. Genghis has been sharing that around.
@ Cheesy Wheelie description
Pinball Brotherscompany
Home Pincompany
Jeff Teolisperson
David Van Nessperson
Cengizperson
Neuschwanstein Castleproduct
Serles Summer Rodelahnproduct
Burg Reifensteinproduct
Cheesy Wheelieproduct
Dune Pinballproduct
Völklobrudkproduct
Innsbruckproduct
Miedersproduct
Hotel Alpenstolzproduct
European Coaster Cluborganization

medium · Don's specific comment about Dune Pinball: 'I would say that would be one good reason to go ahead, and even if you're not ready to release, at least let people know what the theme is going to be'

  • ?

    venue_signal: European Pinball Championships utilizes converted ice arena in Völklobrudk capable of hosting 350+ machines; established annual event with strong manufacturer participation

    high · Don describes venue preparation and scale of machine representation

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball community members (Don, Spooky crew) actively participate in shared events organized by distributors; demonstrates tight-knit international pinball community

    high · Trip organized through Stefan's outreach to Spooky, Don's subsequent invitation, shared travel and experiences

  • $

    market_signal: European pinball market operates through centralized distributor (RS Pinball/Stefan) rather than direct manufacturer distribution; reflects regional market structure differences

    medium · Don's description of Stefan's central role funneling all U.S. machines through his distribution network

    • 8:26
    We make our way down to the town where the castle's at. Now the plan was we need to pick up our tickets by 1145 and then our tour starts at 2 p.m uh so we were able to get parking we were able to get there early they let us pick up our tickets early which was nice and then we had to make our way up to the castle there's a couple of ways to do it you can wait for a bus which will take you all the way up there or you can do a horse-drawn carriage up the hill for eight euros a person and guess which one the girls wanted to do absolutely it was that one we waited way too long for horses to drag us up the hill luckily the girls were able to go into a crystal shop and go crystal shopping while we were waiting. But we got on up there and kind of tour around the grounds of the castle. And this thing's magnificent. It's like white granite. It's just like, you know, absolutely like a preserved fairy tale. Like no cannonballs ever touched this castle. Like totally awesome. We did have to hike up a hill to get up here the rest of the way, which was kind of sucking a lot of our energy out. And then I wanted to go to the Marion Brooker, which is this bridge behind the castle up on the rock face over the waterfall where you get the best, the pictures of the castle. And we did. So begrudgingly, these guys followed me on up there, hiked up even more. And it was packed with tourists, man. It was warm. It was uphill hiking. It was touristy. We just got off an overnight flight. But these guys were totally troopers. We went up to the bridge. I was the only one that actually crossed it. Everybody else was a little freaked out by it or just didn't care enough.
    9:49
    But it was great getting up there and getting these photos. It was like picturesque freaking castle. So we go on the castle tour itself. It's great. Audio guides in English. As you go in each room, it plays a little snippet of what's going on. The whole place is absolutely immaculately preserved from throne room to everything. Gold leaf on all sorts of stuff. It's a great castle tour if you want to go check it out. There's not one singular moment of it. Really, the location of the castle itself is the moment. There's no dungeon that you get to go see. This wasn't something that was from the 12th century. but like as far as touring like just an amazingly decorated castle in Europe this is like this is the one I mean Google the picture dude it's amazing so we got done with that successfully got back down to the car we would hike down the hill the line for the horses was even longer heading down but we were basically ranged from that was amazing to that happened Luke did a great job putting up with us you know this is a guy that's just he's just a heart of gold from the plains of Iowa and Benton, you know, and so to pluck him out and just drop him in Germany, you need a little bit of time to adjust to like crowds and smaller roads and things. The funniest thing, dude, was as soon as we're driving around, we're in like a kind of a touristy area where people are taking summer tours and there's people out there with your camping trailers, right? They're travel trailers. They're dragging around with them, but they're all towing them with hatchbacks, right? You know, because they don't have a ton of F-150s and Chevy Silverados and Duallys and none of that. Because the road standards are different in Europe. Roads are narrower. So it makes less sense to have a full-size pickup like we would have in the U.S. But he's like, there's a hatchback towing a horse trailer. What is going on here? I could tell his mind was trying to adjust to this new reality. I'm like, that's the joy of travel. So these things can occur to you. We had a great time at the castle, though, all told. The girls loved it. I loved it. And Luke participated in it. And we were all in good spirits and having a good time. We stopped and grabbed some snacks and things. And then we decided to continue on our tour. Now, we were at the very edge of Germany. We would have to drive from Munich two hours to get into Völklobrook, Austria. I thought rather than do that, which was essentially driving across plains, right, past the equivalent to cornfields and stuff, if you've ever driven across, like, the middle of Illinois, that's what it would have been like. I said, look, we're in Bavaria. We're at the footsteps of the Alps. let's dip our toes into those alpine mountains and take this mountain valley all the way up there now i'd been through impst austria and innsbruck which are like two big towns right in this valley just surrounded by alpine peaks and i was like look it's not really out of the way and we can travel up this valley we can stay there the night and then make our way to the show the next day and uh i found a cool hotel to stay at it's in the mountains and they were like bet let's do that So as soon as we left the castle, we crossed the border into Austria and made our way into the Alps. And from then, like, the trip improved exponentially. If you've ever been to the Alps, as soon as you get to them, everything is just much more fun. The air smells better. The trees are greener The food tastes better You feel like you on an adventure It nothing but like alpine meadows and wildlife and it just fantastic Fantastic
    13:01
    So out we went into the Alps, made our way down past the Zugspitze, which is the tallest peak in Germany. It's this giant rock edifice that just rises up into this valley. You can take these cool cable car gondolas all the way to the top. We did not have time for that today, but we did stop on the way to take some pictures and view it. We stopped at this grocery store parking lot. The grocery store was closed. I wouldn't have found a soccer ball. I was able to kick it around the parking lot for a little bit. I had a good time. Back in the car we go. We head past the Zugspitze and into Innsbruck, Austria, from which we make a right and start heading up into the mountains. Because I found this little town called Miders, M-E-I-D-E-R-S, in Austria. I had been here about 15 years ago with the European Coaster Club, and there is a ski resort up in this area. And it's like, you know, beautiful alpine mountains and valleys and it's just like that awesome place to be. Snow-capped peaks even in June.
    13:53
    It was just great to go up there. And I found like the like ski chalet Swiss-looking lodge to stay in for the night. Hotel Alpenstolz. A-L-P-E-N-S-T-O-L-Z. Go look this place up. It's fantastic. So I had been to this ski resort. And in the summertime, these ingenious people decided to put in these alpine coasters. And this could be anything from like a toboggan run to like an actual roller coaster on rails, gravity powered, where you ride in a personal sled where you have a handbrake and you can control the up and down. We have them here in the U.S. now, but these things have been in Europe for decades and they are amazing. So there's this one at Surles, S-E-R-L-E-S, the Summer Roldobon. It's in Meters, Austria. It is 2.7 kilometers, 2.8 kilometers long. All right. So you ride a gondola up to the top of the mountain, and this is what you would take your skis and everything up and then ski down the hill. But in the summertime, they've got this roller coaster that's up there. This is a single-rail version. So think of one steel pipe, almost like an irrigation pipe or something, running from the top of the hill to the bottom of the hill. There's a little fin rail, like, right up in the middle to stabilize it. And then you ride on what is essentially a cafeteria tray with wheels on it and a handbrake and a seat belt. And you jump into this thing, and then you control your descent speed, all the way down. It is governed, and I think it's got a magnetic braking system, so you can't get, like, you know, if you pass out, you won't just careen down the hill. But it's fast. It's fast, and it's wild. Go check it out on YouTube. There's POVs of the whole thing. I think Luke even caught one. You know, now, going into this, I know Morgan and myself and Monica, we like roller coasters and rides and stuff. Luke, not so much. Not really big into, like, you know, like a drop tower or, like a swing ride. He's like, absolutely not. I will hold your purse, go have fun. So I was like, I hope this guy like digs this and we're not like pushing him too out of his comfort zone. We go up on top of this place. We all write it down. And as soon as we get to the bottom, he's like, I'm going and I'm doing that again. All right. So it's 25 euros for a ticket that takes you up the gondola and then down the coaster. Uh, it's 2.8 kilometers, which is a 1.75 miles, a mile and three quarters, nearly two miles long is what this thing is. Now, it's only about 8 to 12 inches off the ground the entire time, and it's following the terrain. It's in the woods. It's out of woods. It's crossing irrigation canals. It's going under bridges. As we were riding the gondola up, there was a herd of cows that were crossing it, and they all had, like, those Swiss bells around their neck, like, dinging. Oh, my God, it was fantastic, like, the perfect moment. We're just riding up. Everything is, like, dead quiet, you know, in the woods. The air is fresh, and then all of a sudden you hear the bells, And here comes these cows like they're freaking Switzerland or something just crossing over. And we're like, this is like perfect. This is perfect. It's right where I want to be. Total opposite of the crowds we were in at the castle just the day before. So we wake up at this Alpine chalet. We head up the hill. We ride this coaster down. We end up going twice because it was so much fun. There's a giant metal slide up at the top at this like playground thing. And it's probably drops about three or four stories. That was fantastic. Myself and Morgan did that. It was crazy. But check out this if you're ever in Austria and ever near Innsbruck. Go check out this Alpine coaster. It's the longest single rail one in the world, and it's fan-flippantastic, man. I'll post some pictures and things. Holy crap, what a great place. And how fun was it to go back to a place that I went to with the European Coaster Club 15 years ago, and then now I'm here with Spooky Pinball. Like, it was perfect. It was perfect. Such a great time. So spirits are incredibly high. We're having so much fun. Oh, I forgot something. The night before, we got to the hotel. We got ourselves a suite there. It was $300 for the night, which for a two-bedroom suite in essentially a Swiss log cabin chalet in the Alps on a holiday was just phenomenal. The place was great. We got there at around 5, 6 p.m. We all took showers, got dressed, and then I had made this suggestion earlier. I was like, guys, I found a hotel. I booked it. That night, if you guys are up for it, we're only about 20 minutes from Italy, from the Italian border, which is essentially at the top of the mountain. There's a mountain pass, and then Italy's on the other side. And I was like, right at the border, there's a duty-free area, a shopping mall, and a bunch of restaurants. We could, if you guys are up for it, go up there for dinner and grab a pizza in Italy. And Morgan was like, yes, that's what we're doing. And at first, I was like, man, is this a lot of stuff to pack into one day? an overnight flight, get there in the morning, go through the castle tour, drive over to the hotel, and then go up into Italy for food. Like, is this too much to pack in? But the guys were like, no, we're absolutely doing that. Let's go. And so we hopped in the car. Twenty minutes up the road, we're in this little mountain town. About half the restaurants were still open. We found a place that was open until 10 p.m., a little Italian restaurant. A fantastic walk-in. A table was waiting for us. It was just perfect. We got pastas. We got pizzas. We tried everything. It was phenomenal. And, like, listen, it was just across the border, and, like, nothing, like, there was 10 restaurants, and nine of them were pizzerias. So it was, like, it's totally a place where tourists would go to the border just to get a pizza and then go back or whatever. So I didn't expect, like, Michelin star or anything. But, man, this place delivered. I got to Aglio e Olio, which is, like, my favorite pasta dish. Very simple. If you haven't had it, if you have had it, you know how awesome it is. It's spaghetti noodles, olive oil, garlic, chili flakes or chilies, some parsley, and that's it. Some people throw parmesan in it. Some people throw tomatoes in it. But essentially, it just means oil and garlic. And that's really essentially all it is. I throw a little parmesan in there, some parsley. But it's got to have the chili, so it's got a little bit of heat to it. Oh, God, it's good. So I got myself a cheeseless pizza on the side, basically just like a round tray of breadsticks. and myself and that oily pasta, we had babies together. It was so freaking good. The girls got carbonara. They got tortellini with cream sauce. We got a couple other pizzas too and everybody agreed. And it was under $100 for all four of us and we ordered like six entrees and all of that for $100 and you don't even have to tip. We did, of course, because we're American.
    20:14
    But it was just like the best night. It was the best food at the best time. End of an exhausting day and just nothing but just like, here's a bunch of noodles and garlic and oil and good bread. And the pizza was great. And it was just fantastic. We're in Italy, you know. So we left the United States. We landed in Germany, got to the hotel in Austria, and now we're in Italy. So we're four countries deep for the first day. So fun. That was so fun. After that, we wanted to continue exploring the town. We didn't want to just go back right away. We headed on down the hill, past these cool little towns and everything, and then found myself a castle, like another castle for the day. Everybody's pretty exhausted, but the sun was still up. The castle was closed for the day for tours, but it was this 12th century castle, Berg Reifenstein. It's in Italy, and it's been owned by the same count family since the 12th century. And they do tours. It's $9. They have a dungeon, but it was totally medieval. And the fun thing for us to do as Americans in Europe is when you drive around, you'll see a hillside in the distance. And just as you start to think, man, that'd be a great place to put a castle, there's usually a castle up there or some ruins or something so it's like if you've ever been to arizona like the first time you go into tucson or something and you just keep pointing around you're like whoa look at that cactus whoa look at that cactus like every cactus you pointed out like the big saguaros and then after a while you're like okay there's cactuses everywhere the people that live there are like yeah there's cactuses everywhere so to the europeans the castles are like of course there's castles there it's a hilltop it's what you see up there but for us like it's so fun like castle spotting like pull off the side of the road take pictures oh god it It was great. Just tons of those. So I went ahead and ran up this hill after eating my weight in pasta. Almost passed out, but I got to go up to the castle and take some photos. And, like, it was just such a great 12th century castle. Nobody else was around. Looks abandoned. I'm sure the place is haunted. There's probably werewolves all in it. It was just perfect, like just in the woods on a hilltop castle. Great. I love Europe. Made a way back there. Rode the Alpine Coaster the next day. And now let's pick it up and we'll head on up the road. We went back into Innsbruck for a little bit. Drove around the downtown. Innsbruck is a town that hosted a winter Olympics at some point. So there's like a giant ski jump in the town up on the hill. A lot of cool places to go shop and stuff. Very much a bustling kind of like Germany, Austria type town. Very much feels European. Tiny streets. Charm up the ass. Just great. Stopped at a grocery store and we picked up some locally made pastas and some spetzel to bring back home. I just went to the bakery case and bought some cheese-covered pretzel breads, like baguettes, but, like, made out of pretzel, but, like, had cheese on them. And they were warm, and I had that for breakfast. Before I left, because I'd run into this problem before, I went all throughout the Chicago airport grabbing mustard packets and ketchup packets. Because one time, if you can find them in Europe, you have to pay extra usually for ketchup and stuff. And mustard just isn't as popular over there as it is here. And I will be damned if I'm going to eat a soft pretzel without mustard on it, man. It's delicious. So I had my mustard packets that I had scavenged. I ate these warm pretzel baguettes covered in cheese. So good. And just, like, had a Diet Coke and hung out in the parking lot in this cool, like, the weather was great. The sun was shining. Mountains are on each side of this valley. We're in this cool town, and we're just, like, having a great trip already. You know, we've already done, like, enough to fill up an entire trip. It's only been a day. All right, so we made our way, crossed over to Germany for a little bit, back into Austria. I got to Vulkla Brook, got into the hotel that was booked for the show for us, and it was, listen, by European standards, a fine hotel.
    23:51
    Luke wasn't digging it at all. The guy that was running it was giving off Creeper vibes. He didn't like the way the room was set up or the linens he was having problems with, so he was just like, I don't want to spend much time in here. There was no air conditioning. It's kind of a traditional hotel. It wasn't a Western-style hotel or anything, And so if that's like the standard you're used to, it can be a little different, you know, especially if you're prone to like, you know, heat issues and stuff when you sleep. So he didn't really want to hang out at the hotel.
    24:21
    You know, none of us were really feeling like traipsing around the floor of a pinball show just yet. And I had been looking at some other options and things in the area. Volklabrück is a fine town, but it's not anywhere you would go to unless like you had a reason to be there. It's just fine. It's nice enough. Um, but you know, it's not like there's a big major attraction or major castle or major hill peak or anything that's there. And so, um, when I mentioned we were going to Italy, Morgan was kept bringing up that she wanted to have some pasta that was made in one of those giant Parmesan cheese wheels. Some of you've seen these, you know, the giant wheel of cheese, you get it hollowed out and then they'll throw like hot, fresh pasta that was just cooked in the wheel and like throw some cream in there and stir it around. So it gets like this, you know, Parmigiani creamy stuff and then plate it out. And it's of course, fricking delicious. And I was thinking, like, you know, I kind of had some time and, like, my laptop. I could probably research and find a restaurant. But, you know, would there be one or whatever? And so I kind of was like, that would really be nice to do. But I just don't see a way that we could reasonably know exactly where to go, where to get it, and all this stuff, you know. But my plucky wife came, like, out of nowhere. She's like, hey, here's a place in a town 40 minutes away that makes cheese wheel pasta. And, like, I didn't even really realize that that was a thing. I saw like, not Emeril Lagasse, but who's the celebrity chef that wears the Crocs? Like that guy was on the Today Show one time, and he threw like some fresh fettuccine in a big cheese wheel and made it up, and it looked phenomenal. And anyway, she found a place. I kid you not This place in let me I wrote the name of the town down Wells in Wells Austria 40 minutes away or whatever there a restaurant called Cheesy Wheelie That's the name of the restaurant. And it's like a small kind of counter service place where essentially you pick your pasta, they throw it in the cheese wheel, and then you can pick your toppings you want in it, whether it's chicken, vegetables, or whatever else, and they'll kind of finish it up. You pick one of five different sauces and they make it for you. Kind of like a mod pizza or like a chipotle, but they do it with a big Parmesan cheese wheel and freshly made pasta. Like, I had no idea that this thing existed. It was exactly what we were looking for, right? Inexpensive, fresh pasta, cheese wheel, and local to us. Like, what are the odds? What are the odds? And my wife is like, here, let's go to Cheesy Wheelie. So we were like, you know what? We found a restaurant to go get some food. Morgan, do you want to go? We didn't tell her that this is where we were going. I told Luke and he's like perfect so we all made the plan we got in the car we headed over there it's like 4 or 5pm and we pull up into this place we park in the street it's in the town it's in this pedestrian thoroughfare so we park one street over walk on in there and then as we're walking up I'm like oh yeah here's the place we're going to go to and we all kind of turn and watch Morgan's face as she read it and she's like eyes drop down and they had the big cheese wheel there in the window that they cook out of and she was just like oh my god is this a Pasta cheese wheel place? Like, it was perfect. It was perfect. So she was super stoked on that. I got an Alfredo because, of course, I did. The girls got Gorgonzola, and Luke was looking around for meat on sticks to get instead. And we all kind of sat there and, like, you know, drank an iced tea and ate pasta that was cooked in this giant wheel of Parmesan Reggiano in a window sill in the middle of Austria. Just another great, great moment. I've got to talk about this. Okay, so my wife, right? We get the cheesy wheelie, and she realizes, like, oh, hey, I don't have my phone. Dawn, run back to the car and grab my phone. And I'm like, all right, oh, fine. So the pasta's cooking in the cheese wheel. I run back. I look all throughout the car. I call the phone and listen. The phone is not in the car. The phone's not in the car seats. The phone's not under the car. And I'm like, it's somewhere else, right? So I go back, and she's like, oh, it's not there. I must have dropped it. And it's like we walked half a block. We were in a group. There was nobody else around us. Nobody heard a phone fall. Are you sure? So I went through her purse and checked. She was getting mad at me. I'm like, I don't know. So she came to the realization that she must have been pickpocketed of her phone, and that's why we didn't have it. She was really upset because it was her iPhone. All her photos are on there, and we're trying to reassure her, like, I'm sure the iCloud exists. We can replace the phone. It's not a big deal. We looked through all this. We looked through every sewer grate that we walked by between the car and Cheesy Wheelie. She made me go underneath the car like three times, check it and make sure it didn't. She made me go underneath the cars next to us, right? And I was like, are you sure? Are you sure it's not in the hotel? And you just forgot it. And both Monica and Morgan both said no. We were looking at photos in the backseat of the car on the way to the restaurant. I know for a fact I had it. I know for a fact she had it. It's here. It was here. It's lost. Somebody stole it. It's on the black market. Oh, my God, what do we do? I'm doing the locate your iPhone thing, and I don't think her location was sharing, so I couldn't do that. Whatever. So we put it in lock mode, and we mourned the loss of Monica's iPhone.
    29:11
    And just jumping ahead in the story, it was in the hotel room the whole time. It was there. But they were both like Mandela affecting that they absolutely had it on the way to the restaurant. Oh, my God. So, goodness, we figured this out when we got back that evening. Her phone was right there and was fine the whole time, which relieved everybody. But, like, it was so strange because they were both so convinced that they had their phone. And maybe they did. And, you know, the European ferry sprites are the ones that made sure it was back in the room, whatever. All right, so here's another thing. We were sitting in the hotel when we got to Vogelberg, and I was looking at maps. I'm always looking for, like, other bonus fun things to do if possible. I noticed that the Czech Republic was an hour and a half drive away, wasn't really a major town at the border or anything. And if it was just up to me, I'd probably drive up there just to go because I'd never been to Czech Republic, and I'm trying to collect countries. but I definitely didn't think anybody else would really want to sit for an hour and a half in the car each way just to go cross the border and stand out on the side of the road and say, hey, we're in another country. But after we left Cheesy Wheelie, everybody was like, you know what? It's like, again, it's like 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock maybe. Sun's still out. It's summertime. They don't want to go back to the hotel. And they're like, yeah, dude, let's totally go to the Czech Republic. And I'm like, bet. Boom. like 45 minutes later we're up in the mountains again and uh crossing over in the the border of the czech republic we pull into the little duty-free shops that they have essentially across the border and they were all like just closing um so we popped over to a gas station bought some czech snacks bought some ice creams used the bathroom and then i was like well it's still kind of early the sun's out everything just closed we could either head back now or we could push in a little farther into the interior and everybody's like yes that let's do that so we drove on into town i had no i i looked at what was at the border but i didn't really look at what's further into the town i made sure that there wasn't like you know there wasn't a disneyland or something that was there but i didn't really look through you know what is there to do in this town that's like you know 20 minutes past the border because i honestly didn't think we'd even get this far uh but we ended up going there wandering in and uh you know cute charming little town. And then I saw a sign. In Europe, when you're driving around, there'll be brown signs with outlines of castles on them and an arrow where there's castles or a ruin or some kind of archaeological thing. And I saw one. And I was like, well, there's a castle down this road. We're driving around. We're kind of aimless. We don't have a plan. We're just scoping things out. And I was like, well, I'll just drive in the direction of this sign and we'll see what we find. What we found was magical. What we found was absolutely magical. As soon as we start going, We're following the course of this river, the Vltali River.
    31:55
    Vltalu? Vltau or something. Anyway, following this river, and I'm noticing that for the first time, this part of Europe looks like somewhere in the U.S. It looks like, kid you not, West Virginia. West Virginia in the United States is full of mountains and, I mean, hillbillies and coal mines and all that other stuff. The roads are a little rougher just because the infrastructure is not really there to keep everything super pristine. So it's very much like the most lived-in kind of state that you can go to where things are just kind of gritty and real. And that's kind of what this felt like, but not like in the way that the hills have eyes. Anybody that lives – people in Ohio are probably thinking like, oh, my God, why didn't you turn around and get the hell out? It was like in a charming sense, in the woods with rivers and some patches in the holes in the road. and we're just driving along having an adventure. We come to a bend in the river and of course there's a town there because that bend in the river has been there for 10,000 years and people settle along them. And so sure enough they did with this area. Now the name of this town it's in Czech.
    33:05
    And let's see what we call it. I don't think I wrote it down. Yeah. Rosendak Nadvitalu I think is the name of the place. Probably like Roslack on the River or whatever is the name of it, and you can check.
    33:20
    But we go into this little town, and it's just absolutely perfect. The end of the river, old bridge crossing over it, hills on each side, nice 15th century church right in the center of town, a town square that's probably from 1100. And then on the hillside, of course, there's a giant castle with the ruins of a second castle next to it. and I'm like, we need to pull over and stop in this town and get out and walk around a little bit. So we did. It was just phenomenal. I'll post pictures on the Patreon here in a bit. We're walking around this place. There's people renting kayaks and kayaking down the river, and the town is the takeout spot. So it's in the later evening. The sun's getting a little bit lower, but it's still out. People have fires going on. There's meat grilling. The restaurants are open on the river. People are kayaking down. and that's just the sounds that you hear. Birds and kayaks and river noise and just like a perfect little place. The shops are all closed because it's Europe and it's after 6 o'clock. So we're just wandering around and there's stone edifices and monuments in the central square with 1577 carved on them. It's craziness.
    34:29
    Here's a fountain from 1700 that's been in constant use since then. So we make our way around. We go to the riverbank. We're just hanging out with the people. Everybody's just outside. There's fires going on. People are just kicking back by the river in the evening like they would anywhere else, only you're surrounded by castles and ruins. So, of course, we make our way up to the castle, take some photos up there. There's a giant castle tower from the older castle that had burned down that's still there and preserved. And during the day, you can go and tour these places. We didn't even know we were going to be here in this country, let alone this town. So, of course, we didn't have plans for that, so we showed up a little bit later. But just like wandering around the castle, having fun, goofing on stuff, We found Hilton's name carved in the castle door or something. We took a picture of that for Hilton. He's the one that operates games over at IO Arcade in Madison. He also helps do rules for TCM and probably other games that are forthcoming.
    35:21
    It was just like a moment that was completely unscripted, wasn't planned. You know, we started that day off with this Alpine coaster. We're ending this day walking around the Czech Republic, like two countries away, after eating a Cheesy Wheelie, you know, for all intents and purposes. Monica stole my phone to take pictures because hers was, you know, quote, quote, lost still. We just had a great-ass freaking time, a great-ass time. And then, you know, leaving there and getting back in the car, I didn't want to head back right away. I want to go and explore the entirety of the Czech Republic because so far, this is the greatest country I've ever been to in Europe. Holy crap, we had so much fun just, like, driving around in the woods, the castle, the town, the people.
    36:01
    Getting lunch at Cheesy Wheelie and then heading to Czech was just absolutely perfect. So this is fun. Now we're following the river up, and of course there's little campgrounds that are full of people, and they're all partying, having a great time, campfires and stuff. And I'm like, I just want to stay here forever. Can I just go get a tent? There was a Native American-style teepee at this campground we drove by. There was a bar across the road that was just full of people. When I say bar, it's not like a smoky hole in the wall. It's like an open-air pub tavern where people are just having some snacks and having some drinks and enjoying the ambiance of the area in this valley. Just so fantastic. The other thing was I was tuned into a new podcast that I got to listen to by Luke that Laura Danger does called Time to Lean, I think is what it's called. And he played me a couple of select episodes, and it's very much in the vein of like a, how would you describe it? Well, there's lots of words we could use to describe it. I guess like self-help, whatever. but just it was just totally a vibe driving around trying to wrap my head around these concepts like weaponized incompetence I think was a term I was learning all these new terms and so it was just a very much a vibe for the time we're spotting animals and like wild boars and huge rabbits and stuff making our way back across the Czech Republic back to our hotel we got there like 10pm that night now it's Saturday it's the final day right have we not packed enough stuff into this day this whole trip. So I don't even remember what we did. We got up in the morning. I walked up the road. I played in a little playground. I had some slides and some cool stuff. I went to a train station, found a soda machine, grabbed myself a Coke Zero, and then just kind of wandered back through town, just basking in the early sunlight of this European village. It's like 70 degrees out. It's just perfect, you know? Like the blackberry vines were there and flowering, and I know in a couple of months they're going to have, like, full of blackberries everywhere. It's like I just want to go back and kind of hang out on all these trails and paths and things.
    37:59
    You know, we made a way to breakfast at McDonald's because I did find another breakfast place that I wanted to go to. We didn't have a reservation, so they kicked us out. So we made a way to McDonald's, and we're hanging out. And then we're over at Vaux-Le-Brooke. We finally make time for the European Pinball Championships. This place was amazing. All these games, I talked about it, right? Games for every manufacturer there. Dunes there. We're playing it. We're having a good time. Stefan's meeting us there. We're having sandwiches. We're having French fries. I had a pretzel. It was just a great time hanging out, seeing everybody. I'm having people come up to me that are like, Don, we know you here, like European listeners of the podcast, which is phenomenal. One guy came up, and I keep forgetting everybody's damn name, but I met a guy that I sold a T to and shipped to him He like you here This is crazy I was walking around and I did a live stream just to show off kind of everything that was at the show do a walk of the show floor show off what I could. And like another viewer, Koon, I think is his name, from Belgium. So how you doing, buddy? Speaks Flemish. I know it was zero Flemish. Dank you, Wells, about all I know in Netherlands.
    39:03
    But he was apparently in the grocery store next to this place where he took a break to go get some food while his friends were playing in the tournament. and he saw my live stream pop up. This is why everything's so crazy. Here I am from Wisconsin in Austria at this show for this specific time doing a live stream. Here's a guy in Austria in a supermarket watching my live stream. The reach of this is crazy to me. And he thought I was maybe just doing a green screen thing, like I wasn't really there. Maybe I was playing a video of somebody else that had walked around and I was just narrating over it. And then when he was walking back, he saw me walking out and he's like, dude, you're actually here. This is crazy. And I mention this because I've had this same moment with other people that, like, I watch and follow on YouTube. Like, you know, if you're ever, like, out in public or something and you see somebody that, like, you follow on YouTube or something, like, I watch all your videos. I feel like you know you. And, like, here you are in my town. This is crazy. Like, it's a weird feeling. And, like, for me, this was being on the other side of that, you know. So I was trying to be, you know, gracious and kind. We got some selfies. It was just so much fun. Stefan had spooky people up on stage To sign hats and banners And t-shirts and things for everybody And they invited me on up too They're like no Don go up there too Get in the autograph line And I felt like completely imposter syndrome there Sitting there signing autographs But people were coming up and bringing stuff And were happy to get an autograph and a sticker And a selfie and a handshake And keep doing what you're doing Thanks for that man How do you respond to that as a normal human It was crazy Like, so many moments on this trip. And there's still more coming. Like, this is the last day of the trip, and we're still doing stuff.
    40:39
    We had a great time at the pinball show with everybody. The food was great. The people were great. The tournament was going on. I saw we were sitting at the screen watching. They were live streaming, you know, portions of the games were being live streamed, as they do during tournaments. And it's like Jeff Teolis is up there, and he's, like, here playing, you know. David Van Ness was there from Barrels of Fun. Like, you know, I've come all the way across part of the world. You know, I'm in this town I've never been to before. at this pinball show, and it's like I recognize pinball, and then I run into people that I recognize in an area with things I recognize in a town I've never been to before. Such is the power of pinball, man. So awesome. So we decided the plan was initially to stay one additional night at that hotel that nobody seemed to really care for, and then leave at like 5 in the morning for a three-hour drive back to Munich to catch that plane, which, while doable, is less than ideal. I always like to, if I'm on a road trip like this, do my driving the night before so in the morning I just have to wake up and I'm already there. You don't have to wake up extra early and then travel to whatever thing you want to do and then do it. Then there's delays that can happen. Whenever possible, it's always better to do the driving in the evening the night before and then be ready to go in the morning. It's much more fun. We decided to do that. I booked us a hotel right by the Munich airport. It was perfect. It was a Mercure Hotel Atomics or something like that. Mercure is part of the Accor brand of hotels. They do Ibis and stuff. Accor also owns the Motel 6 brand in the United States, but the hotels in Europe are much more better. They own hotel franchises in, like, every category. So if you say, like, a Novotel or a Sofitel or a Mercure, those are, like, their topper-end ones. Ibis, Formula One, ATAP are, like, the lower ones, you know, so they serve every budget. But I knew it was legit. They'd have air conditioning. It's a Western-style hotel. It's perfect. So it was fine. So between Vaux-le-Brooke and Munich, we had time and we had distance to cover. So I found us another alpine coaster is what I did. Down at the Grinwald, Greenwald or something, by a lake called the Traunsee, T-R-A-U-N-S-E-E. A giant, almost like a finger lake. It's a glacial lake. There are several of these in that area. If you look on Google Maps, you can see exactly where we went. But essentially, like as the glaciers are carving out down a mountainside, They're making a valley, and they usually also dig like a glacial lake. And so along one of these lakes was, of course, a mountaintop that rose abruptly from the valley floor, and there was an alpine coaster on top of there and a gondola to get up there, and I'm like, yep, let's do that. So I'm following the GPS, which eventually would take us to a closed road up the mountain we'd have to backtrack, but it took us along this freaking lake, this giant glacial alpine lake. There's ferries on it. There's sailboats, right? It's like a huge lake, like the size of one of the Finger Lakes almost is what it looked like. Maybe not quite that big, but like the same style. So we're driving along it, and we were like, it's hot out. This lake looks amazing. The water is clear. Everybody's out there having a good time. We're going in this lake. So luckily I had an extra set of cargo shorts I forgot to bring. I didn't even pack any swim trunks. Spooky Luke did. He's like, let's go. So we finally found a place to park. We jumped in the lake. Of course, this is a glacial lake. so the water's just frigid. But the air was so hot in this valley, it felt completely refreshing. It was warm. You can get used to it. It wasn't like jumping into a bathwater lake that we get sometimes here in Wisconsin. So we're out there. The girls are in ankle deep. We're over there like idiots, like fully submerged in this stuff, just like having the best day sitting in a lake in the middle of the Alps. We're at foothills of the Alps. The Alps are like starting right where we're at, right where the lake is. You know, you can see paragliders up in the air. You see, like, boats on the lake. People are having fun. It was just like a perfect, another perfect moment, right, just hanging out at this lake, Trounsea. So we swim around for a while. We go down to another beach. We swim around over there, too. We watch the ferries come in. Everybody's having a good time, whatever. It's just great. And I'm like, you know, it's still, it's 2 o'clock. We can go up and do this Alpine Coaster still. Everybody's like, bet. We drive back into town, and to find out that there you can board this giant gondola that will take you to the top of the mountain, and then you can go on the Alpine Coaster. So that's what we did. Just phenomenal. I love riding these giant gondolas. They're like being in a helicopter. They're so big. Like rather than be like a ski lift or like an enclosed pods, it's like one giant 70-person pod that just travels via cable ropeway all the way to the top of the mountain. So we did that. Oh, God, it's so fun. We get up to the top and then there's another Alpine Coaster up there. It's only a kilometer and a half long, not as big as the other one, but the same style. So we ride that. It's super fun. We're just having a good time. You go from, like, the valley floor and this lake that you're in, and all of a sudden you're on the mountaintop looking over the entirety of the valley and all of Austria.
    45:31
    Just fantastic. Popped down in the car, and then we made our way towards the airport. We stopped at Strasvochen, which is the town that I'd been to, again, 15 years ago on that same European coaster trip. There's this place called Leibniz Park Strasvochen, which is essentially, you know, fairytale-themed park in the town of Strasvochen. and small family-owned park was super fun. I pulled over on the side of the road right out in front of it. They've added some new rides since then. It's 5.30 p.m. They close at 6, so, like, it really didn't make any sense to try to pay 30 euros and go into this place, but at least I got to go back there and kind of sit and see it for a little bit. I'm going to hit it back up because the park looks, like, super fun now. It's even bigger than when I went originally, but we made our way into town. We were all hungry, all starving, and somebody, some rock star in the car, found an Italian restaurant that was right in that town on our route. We walk in there. It's perfect. The waitress is, like, speaking Italian. Again, I go for the garlic pasta. We get some pizza, some breadsticks. It was just perfect to just kind of chill there in this cool atmosphere. Like, imagine an Olive Garden, but, like, authentic, not anything like an Olive Garden. Actually, don't imagine an Olive Garden at all because that was the opposite of what this place was. But just, like, another just, like, cool little town we happened upon, a great little restaurant. The food was really good. Again, I think it was like 77 euros for all of us to have dinner with drinks and no tipping because the cashiers are paid or the waitresses are paid a livable wage. You don't have to tip. It's not a custom. Super fun. So we got food and then we made our way to the hotel. We're back in Munich. And really, I thought about this later. It was about 8.30, 9 o'clock. We could have went into town and found like the area where they do Oktoberfest and like go check out the beer gardens and stuff. But instead, we all fell immediately to sleep. We got up at 7 in the morning. We got on our flight. We went home. We landed at noon yesterday. I went home. I fell asleep. I'm awake now. I'm recording the Trip Report podcast. I hope that encapsulates absolutely everything that happened. What an awesome road trip this was. And I'm glad we were able to be there to kind of show off, you know, some places in Europe that we knew that you wouldn't necessarily know if it was just your first time and you were planning from the U.S. and you were just planning on maybe hitting one or two things and then going to this pinball show, right? We went to the show. We had a great time at the show. But we were able to do and I was able to revisit a lot of these cool things that I'd done before. And I could really tell that they were appreciative of being able to get that kind of experience. So I still have in my mind it would be cool to organize a group trip to a lot of these places where people could just pay money, show up, and we'll do all the travel arrangements and everything. We just travel around as a group and just do fun stuff. I think there'd be some fun in that. I don't know how much pinball I would pack into it, but we'd see a lot of fun and cool stuff, and we'd have some cool adventures is all I'm saying. Such a fun time. I can't wait to go back. I'm already, like, looking and planning another trip to go back out there because it was just so much fun, man. It was so much fun. While we were there, some news broke on the Harry Potter pinball machine. We all seen the images of the cabinet and everything. We're going to know more on Thursday. I did a show on it today I don't know if I'm not really going to speculate anymore Because in just a few days We're going to see everything right So anything I would put out now will be outdated in three days And will never matter again I don't know when Pinball Brothers is bringing out their game They've been still teasing us every day I don't care At this point I'll just get a Predator tease every day I'll read the paper and then I'll go about my day And if they decide to release it All the better As far as the third game That's forthcoming it'll be spooky pinballs next game I'm honestly I don't know what it is I know that if I pressed a little bit I could probably find out and for all I know they may have already like been dropping hints around me and I'm too oblivious to notice but the thing is like I don't know what it is and that allows me to talk about it if I knew what it was I wouldn't be able to say anything about it if so if I could tell you anything about it it's only because I don't know what it is and yeah I feel like at this point I've heard every rumor and everyone seems to carry equal weight I can't wait to see what it's going to be but it will probably be November again I think that's when we'll see a game from them and I'm going to keep a little bit of deposit money carved away just because I think it could be something really really cool and I'm saying this honestly without knowing what the title is what the theme is or what the aspects of the layout are I don't know if it's a wide body or not honestly I don't know and I'm fine with that because let's be talking about it Now, that doesn't mean that as we go into August, September, October, I might not know why then when the game's in its complete form and actually playable. And if I get the opportunity, hell yeah, I'm going to jump in there and play whatever it is early because I can't help myself on that. But I won't be able to say anything. But what I will be able to communicate is my impressions on if I think it's really good or not. But I'm really hopeful about it. So I hope you enjoyed this jaunt through our entire trip. I packed a lot of detail in there. There's still more details that I didn't typically hit. If you have any questions on, like, trip planning or things or some fun things to do or something, you can always hit me up, donspinballpodcastgmail.com. Answer my email all the damn time. If you have any other questions or anything, that's a great way to interact. Hello to all of the new Patreon members. I think launching that Patreon-specific episode was really helpful, and people dug that. So if you like that, let me know. I'll do even more of it, and maybe we'll build up this crew even bigger than it already is. I'm going to bring Ja Rule back in, and then we'll gather again next time. How about that? For episode 193, which should be out probably in the next couple of days.
    51:13
    I'd like to say thank you to my trip partners. Monica, you were awesome. And Luke and Morgan, you guys are absolute troopers, man. And I can see that you came away with an appreciation for Europe, which I love, man. I hope I did Europe good.
    51:28
    Let's go back.