Los Angeles, Venice, and Vegetarian- Romana Hasenoehrl Pt. 2
Ready to pack your bags? Forrest and Romana take us on a wild ride through their travel tales, chatting about everything from cooking in hostels to unexpected adventures in American cities. They reminisce about the good ol’ days when you could stroll into the cockpit and chat with the captain like it was no big deal. There’s some serious nostalgia as they share stories about Venice Beach, cowboys in Dallas, and the bizarre food scene of the past. Plus, we learn how one girl’s obsession with the Dallas TV show and the Edmonton Oilers sparked an unforgettable journey.
Takeaways:
- Traveling with a camping cooker was totally a thing back in the day, right?
- Backpacks and cooking on the go? Who knew that was the original travel hack!
- Venice Beach in the 80s had more skaters than muscle heads – what a sight!
- Imagine calling Europe back then – talk about a phone bill nightmare!
- Dallas was not just about oil; it was about cowboys and unexpected shopping trips!
- Wayne Gretzky had young fans worldwide, even in Austria – hockey truly is universal!
Transcript
Pack your bags, let's take a ride. 5 minutes fly and we'll explore the wide with Forrest Kelly. It's travel time. It's The Best 5 Minute Travel Podcast. Let's go.
Forrest:Was there a big change, the American food choices and to what you were used to?
Romana Hasenoehrl:Yeah, but honestly, and I know that sounds so crazy, we brought in our backpacks, a little camping cooker. So most of the time we, we cooked our own food.
Forrest:Getting that through security now they'd be going, what are you doing? Get out of here.
Romana Hasenoehrl:No chance, no chance. You know, in these days it was allowed to get into the cockpit during the flight.
And if you were an interested person, you just may take a look at the cockpit and you had a chat there with the captain and that was so exciting. I mean that war, the 80s. And we then got over to Los Angeles and stay in Venice. They had a lovely youth hostel there at the beach.
And we didn't get that. Venice was a real hot spot there for gang crime and stuff like that. We just didn't know. And I remember that it was lovely there.
I went to the first vegetarian supermarket in my life. So over here at these days they still thought that you will die if you don't eat meat within the next two weeks. And I never wanted to have meat.
I always wanted to have vegetarian life. And in la I saw that it's possible. And now what we have here, now that they had it 40 years ago.
Romana Hasenoehrl:So Venice is also known as this Muscle beach. What did you think of Muscle beach in these days?
Romana Hasenoehrl:There were not that many muscle people there, but many skaters and people on. Oh, I don't know the word for that.
Romana Hasenoehrl:Rollerblades.
Romana Hasenoehrl:No, the little wheels on your shoes.
Romana Hasenoehrl:Yeah, Rollerblades back in the day, in the 80s.
Romana Hasenoehrl:Yeah, that's it. Rollerbladers and many, many artists. So painters, musicians, all along the beach you could meet the most interesting people.
So we went to San Francisco, to Dallas. We wanted to go there because of that famous movie, you know the Dallas series, the TV show, TV show.
I wanted to go there and I wanted to go to Edmonton because I was a large Oilers fan in these days. And I wanted to take a look at where Wayne Gretzky, he does his magic. Yeah, yeah. And my luggage got like lost.
So I, I ended up there in a motel with just what I had on my body. And we met two real cowboys who then went to a mall with us for shopping. And I got my, I got a real Stetson.
That's what I remember when I think of Dallas, the.
Romana Hasenoehrl:The man who helped you in New York, these cowboys that didn't. You just can't do that today.
Romana Hasenoehrl:I've heard that it changed that lot. But in. I was just blown away how helpful all the people were. We never had any bad.
Imagine that in these days, doing a call to Europe was incredibly expensive. So our parents didn't hear from us for two weeks. I mean, that wasn't normal. But nowadays parents would freak out.
Romana Hasenoehrl:So how does a girl growing up in Austria get fascination with the Dallas TV show and the Edmonton Oilers? Wayne Gretzky. Is it all from tv?
Romana Hasenoehrl:Yeah, we had that show over here as well, and we. We loved it and because it was so, so very strange, you know, that everything was so strange. The people, how they looked like the Oilers.
I'm pretty much into ice hockey in these days. So we had some lakes where I grew up and which froze over during winter so you could do your skating there. And ice hockey.
Yeah, I was the only girl in the team, of course, then ice hockey. And so if doing it right, then you get information. You get books and stuff and magazines.
And so I found out that Gretzky was the top star in these days.
Romana Hasenoehrl:Oh, yeah, the great one still. Still is. Record's about to be broken by Alex Avecin. But I see where you. You said you financed your political science studies by driving a taxi now.
So after you got done from coming to America, then you went home?
Romana Hasenoehrl:I went home and then I wanted to become a teach. You have, like, teachers academies over here. It takes you three years and you start with the training and teaching already. So you do your studies.
You've got 40 hours per week, and then you have a class and do the teaching there.
Forrest:We've touched down and landed. The episode's done. With five quick minutes of travel and fun.
Forrest:We have touchdown. That completes this episode.
Forrest:Join Forrest Kelly for the next big show, The Best 5 Minute Travel Podcast. Let's go.
