Updated: The Trips I Want to Take

I've written various variations of this list over the years. In that period I've also taken the trips of a good many of them as well, from South Korea, to the Baltics. It's an ongoing list - some trips happen, others take their place. So here's the latest in my list.

10.) Amazon Rainforest

I don't know if i'm lying to myself with this list, but as we'll soon see most of the list is now places known more for natural beauty, or at least not as city-centric compared to most of my actual trips. But anyway, let's start with the place that wass just out of reach. Before choosing to go to Foz do Iguacu, I was hoping to do a few days in the Amazon, but it was super hard to find anything that made sense. It seems it's easier to actually book a 4-5 day tour/ride in the world's biggest rainforest starting from say Peru. That's where I'll aim in future. I'm sure it will end up being humid, and the type of thing you may end up seeing too few actual animals, but much like the Sahara, or the Polar Regions, there is something cool about being in the world's largest rainforest, larger river and the site of so much abundance.

9.) Morocco

My parents have been to Morocco. In reality, they've been to a lot of these places. I'm still catching up. Morocco is one of them, with them doing a 14-day tour back in 2018. They really enjoyed it, and the pictures make me feel teh same way. As does the Somebody Feed Phil episode in Marrakech. The cuisine, the scenery, the feeling of being on the Northwest Corner of the giant African continent. All of it is quite appealing. Granted, not as much as the nine to come, but what makes Morocco probably not be higher up is that it is relatively easy to get to. Unlike some of them to come, this one is more on me for just not having done yet.

8.) Scandinavia (non-Finland)

Having been to Finland for a few days last year, if anything my desire to go to the more traditional locales of Scandinavia have only increased. I've been to Canada, to Patagonia, to Australia, but not to that scintillating bit of northern country-side. From people I know who've been there, both Copenhagen and Stockholm come well regarded, but I'm more interested in Oslo and rural Norway or Sweden, maybe even visit Faviken, of Chef's Table fame. I mean, when you go to an expensive place, may as well steer into the skids I'm sure to encounter in the snowy Scandinavian countryside.

7.) China

For a couple years there, of course it seemed a bit tough to ever consider going to China, but with Covid now five years in the past, the prospect seems brighter than in years. But even then, China seems so formidable a vacation spot, so large that it almost necessitates two weeks to do it any justice. There's clearly a ton to see, and all I've heard is the food is a lot better in China than we would think given the profligacy of stunningly average Chinese food in teh US. I want to experience that China, along with the pandas and the Yangtze River and Terracotta soldiers and what-not. 

6.) The Stans

To be honest, I really don't know enough about the varios stans to say which ones I would want to visit. Now, Turkmenistan is probably off the list for obvious reasons, but I've heard nice things about basically all the otehrs. The mountains, the scenery, the weird food, the great people. There's a lot of mystery and intrigue about really one of the stranger areas of the world - strange in its foreign-ness, it's remote-ness, it's staid exotic-ness. It isn't too easy to reach, to be honest, but of all the various two-week type vacations I schedule in my dreams, this is up there.

5.) Proper Safari

Another holdover from my initial list, the safari would be higher up if I could easily afford one, and if I didn't do a one-day safari in Chobe National Park. Certainly a proper, multi-day, rise at 5am type is better, but that one day sated me for now. From everything I've seen, these are damn expensive luxury trips, even if 'luxury' means sleeping in some godforesaken tent in the Serengeti. Of course, I would still love to do it one day. It's just more practical dream trips have overtaken it because at the end of the day, we still ahve zoos in this world, or even mini-safaris like Johannesburg's Lion Park.

4.) Namibia

I've had a few cousins go to Namibia and swear by it, both loving the extreme mix of dessert, grasslands, and everythign else in between. There are always struggles with traveling in Africa, and Windhoek is certainly not easy to get to, but the scenery again looks so amazing. After years and years of shuttling through museum and church in Western Europe, I've slowly grown to shift my travel love to the natural world. and places like Namibia are perfect to dive into that world. Namibia is also a relatively untouched pearl of Africa, somethign not destined to last long given its relative stability and breadth of sights and beauty.

3.) Russia

Truly, I think a lot of my yearning to go to Russia comes from not being able to go in 2007 with my school's Orchestra (went with my family to Turkey instead). We can have our issues with Russia the country as a political entity, but as the World Cup two years ago showed, Russia the people and the country is a beautiful, fascinating place. Food is probably better than people think. The drink and nightlife looks great. The sites are many and varied, from world-class museums and history, to beautiful scenery and nature. All of it seems so appealing. Openly, this is my other preferred option for after my sister's wedding. If only there was any security in planning an international trip in July 2021, but alas these are times for dreaming, not planning.

2.) Antarctica

This is one that is growing up the list, mostly from seeing videos of trips there and now knowing a couple people that have gone recently. I've loved "remoteness", particularly when it comes to the Southern Hemisphere, which by default is already fairly remote. I've loved it in Patagonia, in Cape Town. But nothing would ever beat Antarctica. Yes, it would be expensive. Yes, there are some rough, rough seas to deal with. But also... there would be penguins, and seals, and amazingly impressive mastiffs of glacial ice and rocks; oh, and did I mention penguins! of all shapes and sizes! I will do this once - probably a family trip for a big milestone or something. What's eyed up is my parent's 40th Wedding Anniversary in 2028 potentially. It will be a wait - I wouldn't be shocked if, despite its lofty ranking, this is one of the last trips I actually check off this list, but let's see.

1.) New Zealand

New Zealand still appeals to me as maybe the best combination of natural beauty and cuisine that I can think of. From the food perspective, I know there is amazing seafood, lamb and local produce. From the natural beauty - well come on. From the coastline, the caves, the mountains, the fields. New Zealand looks to be one of the great treasures in our world. Hopefully one day I can experience it so. The toughness is the specific time of year you reasonably have to go doesn't really line up to where I can easily take two weeks off. Now, I guess going over Christmas Break is an option at some point, and probably one I will take on, but for now it remains elusive. The scenery, the mysticism, the remoteness, the lambs - I want all of it some day.

The Pros and Cons of the Club World Cup

The FIFA Club World Cup 2.0 started over the weekend. I call it that because by it's name, this competition existed before, played annually between teams that won generally each confederation's Champions League. It was shoved in the winter break, and generally was made no mind, other than when one of the big European clubs won and wanted to pump up their annual total (e.g. Pep's Barcelona winning six trophies - this being one of them). Well, now we have a very different tournament - played once every four years, featuring 32 teams It is very different. It's still way to early to think or determine if this is a good thing or not. 

There's a vocal negative outcry, particularly coming out of Europe. I'll get to those reasons shortly. There's a less than vocal just nonchalance in teh US, the host country. There's a vocal loud love, so far, of this from South America, and Africa. On the whole, it's way too early to call success or failure, but let's get to some of the pro's and con's so far a few days in, and since i'm very much in the "pro" camp, this will be more me pushing back against the Con's and extolling the virtues of the Pro's.

Con's

5.) This is a fake tournament / cash grab

I mean, the fact that this is a cash grab is 100% true. But FIFA is a business. We've gone so far away from FIFA, or organized football, being anything but a cash-hungry, greedy business. The Club World Cup isn't even nearly as bad as say the rube goldberg-type logic to get the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia. Or say LaLiga selling its Supercopa to, yet again, Saudi Arabia. Also, the fake tournament stuff is jsut stupid. All tournaments are fake, in that sense. Games are only as important as we give them importance. Of course right now there is no cache behind this tournament yet - but way back in 1934, people literally did say the same thing about the World Cup, which took over from The Olympics as the world's premier football tournament. That started out as a fake tournament / cash grab as well.

4.) These are glorified friendlies

This is tied a bit with the earlier one, but the logic is just dumb. Yes, the Atletico v PSG match seemed to be played at 80% pace, but that may have also had to do with the 100-degree day in Los Angeles. Most matches are clearly being played at a level above friendles - especially all of them involving South America and Africa so far. If the European teams are treating these like their old pre-season international tour friendlies, then that is their loss. And hopefully there are losses eventually for the UEFA teams. Friendlies have no meaning. These have meaning. The winning team will celebrate this. Let's take heed from the Nations League, which similarly replaced friendlies, and have turned into something pretty cool.

3.) The gap is too much - i.e. it will end up being all European teams

Again, if we think these are friendlies, or at least not being taken seriously by European teams, then this will eventually not be true. But right now, the point of this tournament is to show the gap. Yeah, Bayern hammering a semi-pro New Zealand team 10-0 was a bit much, but that was one of the more one-sided matchups. We've also seen Brazilian teams beat Portugeuse ones. We've seen African teams play well. There will invariably be upsets in the knockouts, but ultimately yeah it is likely most of the semifinalists and likely finalists and liekly winner all come from Europe. At the end of the day, those domestic leagues are just that much better for now.

2.) No one is showing up

On one hand, this has been true in some matches. Particularly the emptiness in Atlanta for the LA Galaxy v Chelsea game. Now, that game was played in Atlanta at 2pm local time. And probably featured the two areas of the world that seem the least into thsi so far: Europe and North America. But we should critique FIFA here - mostly because they set frankly ridiculous prices for these games. They've had to slash them to sell tickets - but ultimately, I'm fine with that tradeoff - FIFA gets less money than their greed wanted, and we get solid atmosphere's at most games. And if Europe continues to not care, then so be it. A lot of the con's coming out of Europe around this wreak of European football exceptionalism.

1.) The football calendar is now even more full

More than any other con, this is the only one that really resonates. The football calendar is just stupid full right now, and it's really tied to the various levels of football not working together. FIFA had their World Cup (which of course they continue to expand). UEFA wanted something similar so made the Euros. Great. We've lived with that every other year thing for a while. But then UEFA had the Champions League. FIFA wanted in on the club action. UEFA also wanted even more, so made the Nations League. Every domestic league seemingly has 1-2 cup competitions. Brazil league plays like 70 games. Think about PSG. They finished the French season in mid-May. Then had to play Champions League final end of May. Then some of their players had the Nations League final the weekend after. And now they are back in this. By the time this tournament ends, it will be like only a few weeks until the league starts up again. There is no time off. There will be more injuries and shorter careers and what not. But still, this is not the fault of the Club World Cup.

Pro's

5.) The crowds are actually way better than been advertised

This whole lack of crowd thing is so stupid. Basically any game that features at least one non-European or American team has filled >80% of the stadium. Yes, FIFA had to cut prices, but again - fuck FIFA and all, but why should we care. And lastly, because I'm sure not fully sold out stadiums will be a thing next year too - let's just remember that the US will host games exclusively in NFL stadiums that seat 65,000 - 80,000 people. These are larger than most stadiums in prior World Cup host countries, which often mixed 2-3 stadiums of that size with more in the 40,000 - 50,000 rate. Lot easier to fill that. Anyway, PSG and Atletico filled most of the Rose Bowl. Boa and Benfica filled Miami. This is drawing well, just not from the elitist UEFA contingent.

4.) The passion from the non-European countries has been great

There have been great videos of Palmeiras fans milling about cities, same with Flamenco, Tunis, Boca, Benfica, others. Sure, maybe Londoners haven't made the trip. Let's see about Real Madrid later (though at least with them they have a giant US-based fanbase). The energy has absolutely been there. These matches mean so much to fans of clubs outside of UEFA, who don't get the spotlight. The idea of a South American team playing a top European team and potentially winning is something to rally around. The idea that tehre wasn't interest in this tournament is a pure fallacy. If anything, I'm shocked how quickly it's picked up steam.

3.) Seeing South American clubs play European ones are just fun

Again, these matchups are just fun, especially in a larger format than the earlier Club World Cup which featured effectively just one club per region. This is a lot more special. This is, in that way, just like the World Cup. It's just cool seeing matchups of two clubs in a meaningful setting in a way that never would have happened previously. The legacy of a whole continent is very much on the line here. 

2.) All FIFA tournaments start as cash grabs

Again, I can't reiterate this point enough, that somehow this tournament is the one that people feel is the tipping point is absurd. Also, the soccer world's whole MO is largesse, and always there's initially some push back, before people often realize things just work better. I already mentioend the example of the World Cup initially getting some complaints and pushback. That sounds absurd now, but was absolutely true at the time. Even the Champions League, which became an insane success, was initially seen as a sign of UEFA's greed by opening up the prior Cup Winners Cup (and then European Cup). More teams, diluting play, what-not. Well, dilution is not always a bad thing...

1.) This does help the game get more global

At the end of the day, football is becoming an increasingly global game. Maybe not in distribution of talent, but in distribution of dollars and interest. And let's take heed from the World Cup. In 1998, they expanded the World Cup to 32 teams - and people felt it was going to turn into a series of blowouts for those new eight teams. And that happened for a bit - say Germany's 8-0 win over Saudi Arabia in 2002. But surely but slowly, the "lesser" teams got better, culminating in 2018 when all teams scored at least one goal for the first time, and then in 2022, when no team won all its group games, and we saw the likes of Saudi Arabia, that same team that lost 8-0 to Germany twenty years earlier, beat eventual Champions Argentina. The world is smaller. Club football isn't, yet, but while it will probably take some act of God for any federation outside Europe to become the pre-eminent one, the idea that this will end up with eight UEFA quarterfinalists is just silly. And over iterations, I can see the world get smaller here too, and it is very much worth seeing that play out.

The Alcaraz v Sinner Rivalry and the State of Tennis

Carlos Alcaraz defeated Jannik Sinner in an epic French Open final. If anything, "epic" is still a wild understatement. Alcaraz came back from two sets down. He came back from 3-5 0-40 (e.g. triple match point for Sinner) in three fourth set. He finally won in 5:29 - the second longest slam final ever, only surpassed by Djokovic's 2012 Australian Open win over Nadal (5:53). It was thought few matches would ever get close to that length, and similarly few would get to that quality (or the quality of the 2008 Wimbledon Final, or so many other Big-3 matchups). Well, we got one that nearly caught both, and cemented really Alcaraz v Sinner as one of the great rivalries - thsi being their first slam final against each other.

On the one hand, this is a cause for celebration. Tennis from a sporting concern aiming to capture eyeballs and interest, persisted well longer than anyone could've expected on the backs of the Big-3. Put aside that Djokovic is still arguably the 3rd best player in the world, but the Big-3 essentially dominated this sport from 2004 - 2023. That goes from Federer's first rise to #1, the entirety of Nadal's career, and then Djokovic's last top season (2023, when he won three slams to get his total to 24). Djokovic remained good in 2024, even winning his long missing Olympic gold, but for the first time since 2002, none of the Big-3 won a major. Sinner and Alcaraz split all four of them - Sinner winning on hard courts, Alcaraz on clay and grass. Tennis should count itself absolutely lucky. The sport should've been facing down an abyss at the end of the Big-3. 

The Big-3 literally changed the sport, changed what it meant to consider the span of dominance, the lengths and heights a career could rise to. It reset the sports axis. Those three swallowed so much volume, but more than that so many careers. They won 64 of 81 slams played between Wimbledon 2003 and US Open 2023. The rest of the world one seventeen. Only three people managed to sneak in more than one - Stan Wawrinka, Andy Murray, and Carlos Alcaraz himself in that period. So many players that had they palyed in the 90s, or even early 00's were just left by the wayside. There was first the lost generation - the Dimitrov and Raonic types that came about in the early-00s but went away with nothing. If anything, they made the prior generation's second class of the David Ferrer's, Tomas Berdych's, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's of the world seem downright consistent.

But the lost generation begat the "next generation" but with teh Big-3 just extending and extending their winning, they became if anything more lost. Alexander Zverev is a supremely talented player, who has won an Olympic Gold and two Year-End titles. He's made three Slam finals. Lost them all. Stefanos Tsitsipas was for years a top-5 player - made two slam finals himself, including once blowing a two-set lead to Djokovic in the 2021 French Open. Even the two "successes" of that generation leave us wanting more: first Dominic Thiem who seemingyl the day after his 2020 US Open Win hurt his wrist and was never the same, to Daniil Medvedev, who is somehow both a guy who beat Novak Djokovic to win his only slam, but also lost in memorable fashion 3-4 times in finals. This "next" generation got their careers lost as well.

Which brings us to Sinner and Alcaraz, who are both good enough to stake their ground completely, but also lucky enough to be just far enough younger than the Big-3 to catch the tail end. Sinner and Alcaraz had their run ins with Rafa - namely Sinner in the 2020 French Open, where Nadal swept him aside easily (Sinner was just 19 at the time). They've had theri run-ins with Novak - including Alcaraz being oddly inconsistent against Novak, save for the two Wimbledon finals (which granted, is quite the exception to draw). They were young enough to not pile up years of shrapnel and harrowing losses. And good enough to cut through anyway.

But here's where I have to think if tennis truly ever will be the same post Big-3, or will that nearly incomparable shadow still fall on these guys. Put it this way - Alcaraz just turned 22 years old a month back, and has now five slams. That's amazing. Guess who also did that almost exactly? Rafa Nadal. It is going to be a race to see if any of these guys can start outpacing the Big-3 - especially since at various stages each was at incomparable levels. Nadal the best say 19-23 of any of them (his 2005-2009), Federer the best 24-29 (his 2005-2010), and Djokovic the best 30+ (his 2018-present). Of course, who has the second best 30+... well that would be Rafa Nadal (his 2017-2022). They will almost always be behind in the chase.

The issue really is that the chase, the drama, the competing storylines where both the opponent and history are equally the competition, has been so everpresent in tennis since about 2008 (when Nadal beat Federer outside the French). From 2009 onwards, there was chasing of history, be it the slam record, or streaks at the French, or Djoko-Slam and Calendar Slams, and of course the slam record a 2nd time (Nadal in 2022 Oz) and a 3rd (Novak at 2023 French). Now it really will be many years until any of that is real (granted, I guess a Calendar Slam could still be a thing).

The challenge is Sinner and Alcaraz are so good. They are lucky to be this much younger, but maybe also the Big-3, especially Djokovic, is lucky they are so much yougner - that there was that 2020-2023 period, because since 2024 they've split the six slams. They've lapped the field. They have great games with few, if any, weaknesses. They are relentless players, emotionally cool and calm as well. They can play blistering tennis five hours into a Slam Final. They bring out the best in each other. They'll hopefully do the same to the Joao Fonseca's and other sub-20-year olds that can make this a Big-3 or Big-4 in a few years. But for now, they are peerless, but deserving of that praise.

Yet is it still the same. That was a tennis match for teh decades, for the ages, but it wasn;t the same. Maybe that's more a position people like me, who grew up and lived through teh entirety of the Big-3 era will be taking - for the youngsters who've only heard tell of the 2008 Wimbledon Final but didn't experience it in the moment - this year's French Open final may just be the pinnacle. I just worry that for too many people, me absolutely included, the pinnacle passed us and it may be years before we can have a rational argument we've gotten back to there again.

Once Again, Can We Just Let Canada Win a Cup

I wrote a version of this before, just last year in fact. When we had the, let's see... Oilers play the Panthers in teh Stanley Cup Final. It didn't work out. The Panthers dominated three straight games, then decided to stop covering Connor McDavid for a few days, before grinding out a nice Game 7 win. It was a crazy series, leading to maybe the first time in decades that hockey was the biggest story in teh sports world - as it finished the season after the NBA, and had a Game 7 with one of the craziest preludes - team comes close to blowing 3-0 series lead. As mentioned though, the underlying premise on giving Canada a cup... and it didn't happen.

So yes, this might be a bit of a repeat, but then again, so is this series. On its face, I don't really like the fact of seeing the same two teams in the final two straight years. Hell, don't know if I like it even if there's a year or two in between. Case in point, the mindless Cavs v Warriors series were honestly just boring disasters come round 3 and 4, and of course unless a confluence of dozens of events in 2016 that conspired have the Warriors blow a 3-1 lead, it could've been four fairly staid years in a row.

But realistically, there is a chance here for something special. The matchup itself is great on paper - a deeper, better Oilers team than last year coming up against a Panthers team trying for semi-dynasty status (the reverse 2020-22 Lightning). But the real drama is again, can Canada just win the Cup.

When I wrote the piece last year I talked about the various stats - the various near misses for Canada, the slew of Game 7 losses - the '95 Canucks, the '04 Flames, the '06 Oilers, the '11 Canucks and of course now we add to that the '25 Oilers. I talked about the way Canada loves this sport in a way the US never will, the way the crowds sing O Canada so beautifully, the white-outs, the goal horns, the "eh's" of it all. This is Canada's sport, but we've stolen the top trophy for 32 years.

Of course, one year later, there are two components that swerve into geopolitics that we have to talk about - namely our awful President repeating the "51st State" line over and over and over again from February through May. Yes, that rhetoric has kind of gone away in recent weeks, as Trump has faced many other problems, and new Canada PM Mark Carney has fought Trump's lunacy head-on, but it is still an embarrassing undercurrent in this series. 

What makes it worse is the US team is Florida - the home state of Donald Trump, playing a stone's throw away from Mar-A-Lago. More than even that micro geography, si the macro-geography of a "Southern Expansion" team beating out a Canadian team for a Cup (much like not only last year, but the '04 Lighting, '06 Hurricanes, '21 Lightning as well). Canadians in many cases hate the fact that these teams exist in the first place. That's probably a bit too narrow a view - and does the NHL no good as it needs these teams to work out to build the game. But it is so pointed of how hard Canada has had it.

So, more than ever, I hope they get it this year. I hope they get it to stick it to Trump (not that he would care, but you know he would become a Panthers fan if they win the Cup over the 51st state). I hope they get it because Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl deserve a Cup (and yes, I realize Leon is not Canadian). I hope they get it because the Edmonton fans have gone 35 years without winning one. Yes, they won five of seven right before that streak began, but a high % of Oilers fans weren't alive for that run. I hope they get it because Canada deserves it - deserves it this year more than ever for putting up with Trump's bullshit, for putting up with American's jokes, and so much more.