Episode Transcript

Julia Landauer 0:04 Hello everybody, and welcome to the season two finale of if I'm honest with Julia Landauer, yes, this 50th episode is the end of season two. It has flown by. It's also been quite a bit more challenging this season, between working full time and ramping up my speaking again and all that. It's been a lot of work, and it's been really exciting. I'll get into more of a recap of season two in a bit. But first I want to talk about my sibling trip to Iceland that I just got back from on Sunday. Yes, we finally got to SIB trip time of the year. And for those of you who listened to Episode 30, which is about building strong sibling relationships. You know that my siblings and I take a trip every year. We started in 2019 once we were all done with college, and this trip is really an opportunity for us to have somewhat unstructured bonding time over a several day period away from our parents, away from significant others, and it's a really safe space. It's a space where we know that we're going to have a powwow, and in that powwow, we can share how we're feeling, what's going on, what we're proud of, what we're working on, what we're worried about. We talk about things related to all of us. And it's also a really cool time where we we go in knowing that we're welcoming unsolicited feedback, and we trust each other enough to do it respectfully, and we know that it's always coming from a place of caring and wanting the best for each other. Sometimes it skews really heavy on one sibling. Sometimes there's stuff that all of us have to think about, but it's really incredible. And we all agree that this was probably our best sibling trip yet. Combination of the vibes during the trip and what we were chatting about and the location, it was our first international sibling trip, and so that added a little pizzazz to the whole weekend. And it was in Iceland. Now, I had been to Iceland in 2007 when I was part of the Formula BMW education and coaching program. And so there were about 10 or 12 of us, younger, like teenagers, early, 20 drivers, who went over to see the BMW factories in Germany and to do some stuff over there. On our way back, we were flying back to New York, our one of our engines gave out on the plane, and so we had to do an emergency landing at the nearest airport, which happened to be Reykjavik. So we had 12 hours in Iceland in August, in 2007 and we got to see the blue lagoons, and we got to go on these big cliffs. I don't remember all of it, but I do remember that, and it was really cool. So this was a fun way to revisit and make my own agenda, knowing some of the stuff I had known from that past trip. This was a short trip. Most of our sibling trips are three to four days, and it's really a chance to reset. And it didn't even feel too short, to be honest, because I think Iceland is a nice balance of being far enough away that you feel like you're going to a really cool new place, but it's only a four hour time difference from the East Coast, and it's a five hour flight, so it doesn't feel that jarring. And we left on Wednesday, May 29 and as we were getting ready to meet up to go to the airport, we saw that a volcano erupted again right near Reykjavik and the blue lagoons and stuff. And so we were partially wondering, okay, well, Are we flying to Iceland? Is this a problem for us? But our flight was scheduled, and we knew that the town near the volcano was evacuated, but we weren't planning on going there right away. So it was all good, and we we flew out. We had some delays getting out, which was a little stressful and a little nerve wracking, that maybe they were going to cancel our flight due to weather. But we made it, and we landed in Iceland on Thursday morning, and our plan was to immediately drive out to the southeastern coast. We were going to spend about five hours driving to diamond Beach, which is a black sand beach that has big chunks of ice on it and just looks like diamonds are scattered throughout this. This sand beach and Iceland is so, so cool because, one, it is not very populated, and there's a lot of basically untouched land. And I kid you not, the only road that was going from the Reykjavik area out to the out on the southern coast to the east. Eastern side was one two lane highway where the speed limit was 90 kilometers an hour, which is less than 60 miles an hour, and it just keeps going. And there really were not a lot of cars on that road. And we drove through so many incredibly different micro climates. One area was kind of rainy and overcast and looked very lush, and there was a little more mountainous. Another area felt like we were on a different planet. It was so dry and Rocky, and you had little little mounds here and there. And then there were other areas where we saw snow capped mountains. And then there. Were other areas where we saw glaciers. It was so incredible. And as my sister heard from one of her friends, the weather can change in an instant. So we had rain, we had heavy wind, we had major fog and smog and dust storms, and then sunshine. And I was starting to get a little tired at one point, after a red eye, and then driving for a few hours, and we decided to get out and look around at this, this house that had been built into the side of a mountain, basically. And we get out, and there are these huge gusts of wind and and it was so cold, and it woke us right up. And then I was good to go for the rest of the drive. We keep making our way eastwards, and we we finally get to the area of diamond beach, and we saw that a lot of people were parked in this one parking lot just off the side of the main road, and all we could see was this little hill of dirt, this mound. And we park, we get out, we walk up, and as we crest the top, we see this big lagoon full of large chunks of ice that just goes for a while, and then we see this big glacier in the background. And it was so beautiful. It was there's something so cool about seeing big chunks of ice that are just floating around in the water. And we kept driving to go to the other side of this lagoon, and we got to get up on the shore of the water and see these ice chunks. And some of the ice chunks were floating, and some of them were bobbing in the water, and we're talking massive, massive chunks of ice, like bigger than cars. And it was just really romantic and wonderful and kind of magical. And then we crossed the street and got to diamond beach on the black sand beach, and we didn't see a ton of ice, but there were still some ice chunks. It had just melted a lot by that point. And then we drive about another hour to where we were staying, which is the town of Hofn, spelled H, O, F n, and this was a lovely little place. It was just a random hotel, literally off that main road, but we went to dinner at a place called Otto matur and Drykkur. And I'm sure I did not pronounce that right, but that was my best shot. And this meal was amazing. I had a smoked cod that was so light and fluffy but also so rich and flavorful, a lot of really great vegetables. Emma and Aiden had great dishes. We had a beautiful homemade sourdough bread with a whipped butter, and then I think, lava salt that we had to sprinkle into the butter. Oh, it was so good. And I kid you not, I had one of my top five desserts that I've ever had in my life, and all it was was a Blackberry tart, but the pastry of this chart, the creaminess and vanilla and rich, complex flavor of the filling with the fruit on top, it was a religious experience. It was so good. So when we went to bed, and it is trippy, because in the summertime, it feels like it doesn't fully get dark. It the sun didn't set till around 11, 11:30. But even at 12, one in the night, it's still pretty light out. It is so weird, and it totally trips you up. Between the jet lag and that lighting. It makes it so you just don't want to go to bed, and then it's just, it's just light all the way around. And the curtains are really incredible in every place that we stay. I guess they're prepared for this. But it was just, it was so cool to be 11pm and looking like you could just go outside for a walk. That's so nice. So that was really, really cool. Second day we got up, had a delightful continental breakfast. I love a European style continental breakfast. My sister loved that they had canned fish that were basically preserved, and eating that for breakfast. And the egg situation was fantastic. Great jams, Nutella, as always. And then we started driving back westward. So we had made it to our furthest East Point. We started driving West, and we were trying to get to Vik, which is another city on the southern coast, and we this time, we made a bunch of stops at different hiking points. We had some really brutal wind at one of them, we had a beautiful, lush hike that would have been absolutely stunning had not been raining the whole time, but it was still very cool. I just wasn't totally prepared clothing wise. And we made it to our place in Vik and we stayed in a little house. It was a tiny house that we rented. Had another great dinner where we had carrot soup and we had the great Icelandic gin and tonics. Mine had lemon and thyme. My sisters had blueberries. It was absolutely delicious. And their their food is so good, it is really expensive. Food and drink is expensive in Iceland, and I think that's the same in most Nordic countries. But oh my goodness, it is fresh, and they do it well. That second day, Friday was when we had our powwow. And it was just really good. It was really fruitful. I'm really grateful for my siblings to be able to have these conversations. And then we went to sleep and woke up and started driving to Reykjavik. We had planned to make some more stops on the way to Reykjavik, but it was really nasty weather. It was raining, it was cold. There was really low, dense fog, so we just couldn't see very much. We wanted to see if there was any chance we could see the blue lagoons. We couldn't, because it was closed because of the eruption of the volcano earlier, so we had to skip that. And we went to Reykjavik. And Reykjavik kind of feels like a small Seattle. That was the vibe I was getting. And we were staying right in downtown. Got to park the car, and we walked over to their National History Museum, which is really cool. Honestly, Icelandic history doesn't go that far back, and it isn't particularly dense, and I don't mean that in a disrespectful way at all. It's just that it was uninhabited for so long, and then it's still a very small country. And so we got to see kind of the Danish and Norwegian rule over it. We got to learn more about the lifestyle. It was really cool, but it's definitely interesting to have such a short history based on just the lack of a population for a very long time. And then we went out and about in Reykjavik. We went to the main church. We went to a few different food establishments. I'm going to butcher these names, but I am going to link them. We went to a really cool, seemingly very local pub called Vedur. I don't know if that's how you pronounce it. We went to dinner at a restaurant called Krons, which was so good. And it was really funny because one of the waiters, he started speaking a little bit in French, and I got all excited. I was like, parlez vous francais? He was like, Oh no, no, no, un petit peu mais non. And I felt a little a little great for my ego, because I felt like, Ah, I know more French than this person, but I will side note say that icelandics, Icelanders item, I actually don't know how what you refer to them as. People in Iceland have impeccable English, so bravo to them for mastering that second language. And anyway, so we went to Krons It was really good. We then went to a speakeasy called Amma don, which is a sister establishment to the Michelin star restaurant that's in Reykjavik. And then the next morning, we had breakfast or one cinnamon roll that we shared at Braud and CO, which was a very good bakery. We got to listen to a little live music. We got to kind of get ready to pack and leave, and then we went to sleep. And then the next day, we went to the airport. Pro tip. There are a lot of long lines at the Reykjavik airport between security, passport control and then additional customs to get on the plane. It was a very long process that we were glad we had a full two hours for so heads up there, and that was our SIB trip. It was so so cool. I posted pictures on my Instagram. I just again, feel so grateful, and my heart is so full, and I 10/10 recommend a visit, especially if you were a little more outdoorsy and like hiking and wandering and exploring other territories and terrains, it was really, really cool. The last little bit of this episode, I want to give a recap of the season. As I mentioned. It was a different season. It was challenging. I really tried to diversify the type of content that I provided. You know everything from Episode 32 which was driving tips from a race car driver. That was a PSA that I feel very passionately about, and I do hope that you share that with everyone, because everyone should know some of the rules of driving, because it can be made a lot better. You guys particularly like some of the guest episodes, one with fan behavior, an f1 podcast that was episode 36 and you really liked my episode with dad joke, tiktok star and prop master Scott Reeder. He was really fun to talk to and to learn more about the industry. I gave my emotional thoughts on Luke combs and Tracy Chapman's fast car in Episode 34 and on the music theme, I shared my opinions on Taylor Swift's the tortured poets department, which has evolved from Episode 44 when I recorded that my feelings have changed a bit, and it is so fun to see the kind of grainy videos from people going to her concerts. Again, we love seeing Taylor Swift on tour. We also learned about new things together, like psychological safety, which was episode 48 and I had not heard about it before, a speaking client attendee had asked me about it. And I also did a little deep dive into the psychology of pre competition rituals on episode 46 so it felt like a really fun, diverse topic range. For me, it was really fun to learn. It was fun to share opinions. It was really cool and engaging to talk with so many cool guests. And thank you again to all of my guests, and I would love to hear from you as we take a little break between Season Two and season three. I would love to learn what you found engaging, what you did. Like what you didn't like, did something in particular resonate. What would you like to see more of moving forward if you're willing to share some of that feedback, either by leaving your thoughts in a review or commenting on some of my social media posts or posting at me on x. It's weird to not use the Twitter terminology, but that's okay. It would all be really helpful, because I want to give you guys content and discussion that you you like to hear. And as we round out season two, I plan on taking a couple months off before starting season three. I am taking a decent vacation. And, you know, have some other travel going on, but I also really want to take the time to let my creative brain really think about what what we want to do next for season three. I have some ideas, and I want to hash them out. I want to find really great guests for you to listen to, because there's so many cool and interesting people. If you have a guest request, please let me know. And again, it's really helpful for me and my producers and the podcast in general. If you're able to share episodes that you like with other people, if you can follow the podcast, rate it. Leave a review. Encourage your friends to leave a review. It would mean so much to me as always. Thank you so much for letting me be honest with you for two seasons and 50 episodes, it's been incredible. This has been a journey, and I look forward to seeing you at season three of if I'm honest with Julia Landauer, you.