Yesterday Alex told us how he ended up in the epicenter of the Arab Spring.
Today he tells us how he escaped it.
From tense moment to tense moment we follow Alex through his lifeline phone call, his escape from the apartment building with a contingent of child guards, through his experiences at the refugee camp, and finally his re-entry into “normal” life and his struggles to cope with everything that had happened.
It’s an amazing story.
This is part two of a two-part interview. Make sure to listen to part one to hear the entirety of Alex’s story.
Alex Owumi, a U.S. Basketball player took a contract that would get him out of a bad situation.
Little did he know, it was just going to put him into a much worse one.
Alex was playing for the Benghazi Basketball team in Libya when the Arab Spring occurred.
When the world turned into a warzone outside of his penthouse apartment.
Today he joins us to tell the story of how he, unknowingly, came to be playing for a team owned by Qaddafi, his attempts to motivate the team, and the horrors of being trapped in the middle of a revolution with no end in sight.
This is part one of a two-part interview. Make sure to check back tomorrow to hear the conclusion of Alex’s story.
Today we talk about experiences that had us shivering in our boots…
because it was winter!
Nick joins me again today so that we can layout our top 10 (or if you use Nick as an example, 13) European cities to visit during winter.
Not only do several airlines run off-peak promotions for award bookings to Europe during the winter (most notably, American Airlines) but you can save a ton on accommodation as well because it’s the low season!
We chat about everything from London to Istanbul with tons of locations in between, with a ton of funny stories to go with each. Where do you suggest we travel to in Europe during the winter? What did we miss? Let us know so we can plan next year’s trip!
Now that they’ve scored the book deal they have to actually race each other around the world.
The first step?
Buying the most expensive bottle of scotch they could find.
And, boy, was it expensive!
Steve and Vali share their best, and worst, experiences during their travels along with their opinions on what makes travel so great. They speak about meeting up in Moscow, calling a truce to the race, and the hi-jinks that ensued before completing the race and sitting down to the monumental task of writing the book.
Steve and Vali continue the trend set in Part I of being hilarious. If you’re up for a good laugh, have a listen, you’ll be itching to find out who won!
This is part two of a two-part interview. To hear how Steve and Vali got their book deal, through a series of what you could predict at this point to be ridiculous events, make sure to check out part one of this interview!
By their own admission, Steve Hely and Vali Chandrasekaran were goofy and immature 25-year-olds.
And so like most goofy and immature 25-year-olds, they would come up with crazy ideas while drinking beer in an apartment complex hot tub.
Unlike most goofy and immature 25-year-olds, however, they eventually acted upon one of their crazy ideas.
And thus, The Ridiculous Race was born!
Today, they join me to discuss not only the “rules” of The Ridiculous Race but also the incredible way that they were able to score a book deal from a major publisher before The Race ever started.
Being comedy writers for some of the biggest shows on television (including Modern Family), Steve and Vali not only have a wealth of funny travel stories but are just downright funny.
