#074 - Aaron Hunter | Magic, Travel, and Tales: Exploring Cultures Through Children's Books

Aaron Hunter, better known as The Exploring Author, is the author of the popular children’s book Tales of the Magical Postcards and is based out of Frankfurt, Germany. 

On the episode, expect to hear about how Aaron found the perfect medium to connect his love for travel, new culinary experiences, and writing, as well as the importance of helping children see themselves in experiencing other cultures. Aaron and I further discuss his experiences living in Germany, the inspiration behind his book 'Tales of the Magical Postcards', and the creative process he underwent to develop his writing skills, the significance of community celebrations and the differences in childhood experiences across cultures, planning for future projects and an exciting reveal of where the next book will take place, our travel experiences in Italy and Germany, and the challenges of marketing and branding as an author. Finally, we discuss travel logistics and the unique experiences encountered in different countries, various themes related to travel, cultural experiences, and personal growth, and reflect on the educational value of travel. Thank you for tuning in and hope you enjoy the show! 

02:49 Cultural Exploration Through Children's Literature
05:44 The Transition from Quality Assurance to Authoring
08:13 Inspiration Behind 'Tales of the Magical Postcards'
11:09 Creative Writing Journey and Learning Process
14:12 Planning for Future Projects and Books
16:53 Cultural Insights from Different Countries
19:53 The Importance of Community Celebrations
22:56 Language Learning and Cultural Assimilation
25:57 Cultural Observations and Travel Experiences
27:50 Exploring Italy: Legends and Locations
30:41 Children's Literature and Cultural Education
34:48 Branding and Marketing Strategies
38:25 Content Creation and Filming Challenges
42:01 Travel Insights and Experiences
51:07 Travel Experiences and Cultural Insights
53:23 Vacation Time: A Comparison of Cultures
55:05 The Educational Value of Travel
57:41 Culinary Discoveries and Dietary Reflections
59:55 Cultural Differences in Lifestyle and Longevity
01:02:22 Exploring Germany: Wine, Food, and History
01:05:01 Traveling Through Europe: Tips and Experiences
01:08:00 Lessons Beyond the Classroom: Personal Growth and Persistence

You can purchase his book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJ2QM9CN?binding=paperback&searchxofy=true&ref_=dbs_s_bs_series_rwt_tpbk&sr=1-15

Download the Luxy App here: https://www.onluxy.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorQE6gOpRh5iTLYhBH2zLFzKX0WGhAc_oLC3EETPegghQkvcVUg

Thoughts shared on the podcast are purely our own and do not represent the views of the Anglophone South School District or the relevant jurisdictions associated with my guests.

Transcript

Lucas Clarke (00:00.62)
Alright, Aaron Hunter, magical postcard man. Pleasure to have you on today.

Aaron Hunter (00:04.946)
Yes, that's me.

Aaron Hunter (00:09.332)
Yeah, I appreciate it. We finally got this to work. I know it's been a few months coming.

Lucas Clarke (00:12.018)
The third time's the charm. you were just back in the US, you're currently living in Germany. You did tell me what city you're in now, but I can't remember. Is it Branker?

Aaron Hunter (00:23.028)
Frankfurt. I'm in Frankfurt, been living here since 2019. And I was just back visiting my family and doing some readings for schools and mom and her husband had their big birthday party and I know they're going to watch this so I won't, you know, blast out their ages. But yeah.

Lucas Clarke (00:28.473)
Okay.

Lucas Clarke (00:36.676)
Thanks

Lucas Clarke (00:40.544)
Yeah, and don't share the details of that party. I'm sure I got a little wild but so I didn't actually realize it was that recent that you had moved. I guess like born and raised Midwest like we were just talking about. So before we kind of get into your like, authoring of the children's book, a lot of the themes on your book focuses on travel and like the like this romantic kind of spiritual element of travel, I would say and trying to like pass that on to kids, I guess. So maybe that's a

Would that be an accurate description to an extent?

Aaron Hunter (01:10.13)
Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would probably add in that, it's also not just, it's not just teaching them from a tourist standpoint, it's diving into the culture. And I would still say at a high level because you do need to make it so kids can understand it if they've never been introduced to anything outside, you know, maybe their neighborhood even. but we do dive into the cultural aspects, a bit as well.

Lucas Clarke (01:33.42)
And so you're from Wisconsin. that right? Am I? I didn't look back through.

Aaron Hunter (01:36.884)
I got to, I have to answer this question delicately. I was born, cause I always forget to do this and the people in Iowa get upset them a few times. I was born in Iowa and then about, yeah, when I was five or so, we had moved to the Chicago area, north of Chicago in the suburbs, far suburbs. Yeah. No, no, I'm sorry. And then about when I was like two years later, then we moved into Wisconsin on the Kenosha, it's in Kenosha, Wisconsin. So on just north of the Illinois border.

Lucas Clarke (01:44.332)
Of course.

Lucas Clarke (01:52.758)
Okay, but you were just and you were just in Wisconsin though. Am I wrong?

Lucas Clarke (02:01.668)
care.

Lucas Clarke (02:06.582)
Okay. Yeah. I didn't think I had that wrong and I was panicking for a second there, nice. And so when did you visit Germany for the first time and why like, move there in 2019? What's that? It's kind of a, yeah, honestly, no, all day, man, all day.

Aaron Hunter (02:06.708)
So it's.

No, no, no. It's right on Lake Michigan, directly in between Milwaukee and Chicago.

Aaron Hunter (02:21.818)
boy, how much time, how much time you got? How much time do you have? Yeah. So the first time I visited would have been 2014 and I was on my way to South Africa to visit a good buddy of mine down in Joberg or Johannesburg. Sorry. And we, had a flight layover in Munich, just decided to go check it out. Went over to Fleising. I couldn't make it into Munich. Stopped at the oldest brewery and the oldest currently existing, continuously existing brewery in the world.

Lucas Clarke (02:35.13)
Cool.

Aaron Hunter (02:50.74)
in Fleising, which is next to the Munich airport. And so yeah, that was kind of, that was actually, I want to say possibly even my first time in Europe at that point. So, and then I think, God, you're going to kill me here. 1099. Yeah, I think it's 1099 the year. And it's not the oldest brewery ever. Of course, the Egyptians were brewing beer long ago, but it's the one that's still in existence.

Lucas Clarke (03:00.932)
Okay.

How old was the brewery?

I like German beer, that's gonna go bad.

Lucas Clarke (03:16.292)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lucas Clarke (03:22.648)
And so like, what about that makes you be like, you know what, this is a cool brewery, but I'm going to like uproot my life from the US and just bring everything over here.

Aaron Hunter (03:32.18)
Well, I work in quality assurance and I've been doing that for a long time. And so my job in Chicago, just north of Chicago, they had an opportunity for me to go do six months in Germany to work with our German colleagues. Yeah, a little known fact, or maybe it's a big known fact, our Germans and Americans are quite a bit different on how we operate. Yeah, a lot of us may look similar, but overall, yeah.

Lucas Clarke (03:51.694)
Yeah. So what do you mean by how we operate?

Aaron Hunter (03:59.252)
I'll pick up the low hanging fruit. Americans tend to be pretty impulsive. I know myself, especially, I was definitely on the farther end of that impulsive behavior. And Germans are very, it's almost like they need 110 % of the data to make decisions. And mean, I'm completely generalizing, but that's an easy one to pick up. Especially from the Midwest, I will also say we're very talkative. We'll talk to a stranger, we'll talk to the wall if it would talk back.

Lucas Clarke (04:01.647)
Hahaha

Lucas Clarke (04:16.724)
Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Lucas Clarke (04:28.314)
You

Aaron Hunter (04:29.312)
And in Germany, that's pretty strange. I would be looked at kind of funny when I first got here talking to people on the train.

Lucas Clarke (04:39.386)
Yeah, because I it's funny you say that because I'm from Newfoundland originally in Canada. So like known for its I guess, like Huxy Doodle kind of culture, like we'll talk to everyone. We'll talk to everyone. Even now, I joke with my wife. I'm like, sometimes I'm like, I'm like, was that an awkward conversation? Like I felt kind of awkward there. And she's like, Lucas, like you're not like you're like the least awkward person I know. I was like, I don't know. But like, don't know. You just kind of go through it. But so

Aaron Hunter (04:43.657)
Mm.

Aaron Hunter (04:49.265)
You did it.

Aaron Hunter (05:03.7)
You know.

Aaron Hunter (05:07.152)
you do, you do.

Lucas Clarke (05:08.48)
How are you going from quality assurance man on a six month term to children's book author?

Aaron Hunter (05:14.9)
I assimilated pretty quickly. had previously lived in Singapore when I was in university. I would do the school year. I would play my rugby season and then I would go in the summertime to Singapore to work in aerospace at that time. And so I had that exposure. And so I had made some mistakes in that. I was young, didn't really know the world. And so I really sat down and said, okay, when I'm here, let's see if I, I don't want to live in Chicago anymore or the area of Wisconsin, it's really cold.

Lucas Clarke (05:19.79)
Okay.

Aaron Hunter (05:44.56)
I want to, so I need to get out of the cold. can't do this anymore. And I was, I was like, well, let me look at Germany. Let's see if it's possible. And I assimilated quite quickly somehow. And I asked my director if I could, you know, stay here and there were discussions behind the scenes, maybe could happen. Ultimately it did not. And I had to go back. But at that point I had my mind made up and I'm a bit stubborn when it comes to making my mind up. It's a done deal. So it was more of a matter of a how.

Lucas Clarke (05:44.644)
You

Lucas Clarke (06:09.498)
You

Aaron Hunter (06:13.592)
And I sold my house, sold my car and ended up quitting my job and finding a job over here. And yeah, the rest is history. I've stayed here even through the, even through the turmoil, what is it? Tumultuous, 2020, where we will not speak of that, the name of that disease that was floating around.

Lucas Clarke (06:21.508)
Wow.

Lucas Clarke (06:31.546)
Well, yeah, because that is a crazy time. Like you're trying to meet new people, like you're trying to enjoy this new culture. And then like, that when you, I guess, like what tourist opportunities were still available to you like during that aforementioned disease in Germany?

Aaron Hunter (06:36.148)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (06:46.26)
Well, I think we went through two or three lockdowns. can't remember anymore. I've kind of blacked it out of my mind, but obviously when I came, mean, I was coming here, I was playing baseball for Frankfurt as well. So I had met some people through that. I had some flatmates. I decided to do flat sharing just to get to know people. Then of course we went to lockdown. As soon as the lockdown started getting a little bit less restrictive, one of my teammates, my buddy, he's also American. He and I would.

Lucas Clarke (06:53.432)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (07:15.742)
just basically go hiking. kind of, he and another couple other people introduced me to hiking. I really hadn't done much of it a few times, but not much. And through hiking, we just kind of took it. We didn't, we didn't move here to sit, you know, on our butts the whole time. We came here to go experience life and it was okay. Let's make the most out of it. lemonade out of lemons, right? And we started exploring the area. So I guess the, one of the only silver linings out of that entire debacle that happened around the world.

for us was we were kind of forced into exploring the area. And so I got to know Germany much better than I would have because we would have been taking those 40 euro flights all around Europe if it weren't for that. and that's actually eventually what helped me write the book partly. So yeah.

Lucas Clarke (08:04.346)
And so when do you, so I guess now we're kind of going into the like, is the, I guess what is the tales of the magical postcards? What is kind of the goal with that book? Like what inspires that specific actual work?

Aaron Hunter (08:16.829)
Hmm.

Okay, well, I'm going to go ahead and I'm just going to say it up front because I always forget to say this every time I read the classrooms, whatever. Uncle Chuck, the character who writes the postcards and sends it is a real person. And I apologize to Uncle Chuck. My mom, sometimes she'll come to the readings or somebody will and they'll say, Hey, who's that Uncle Chuck? Because I will completely forget. And I'm not even kidding. The librarian of the last reading, I read to her students four different times, different classes. And by the fourth one, she leaned over to my mom and said,

Lucas Clarke (08:24.152)
Absolutely. I wrote that down.

Lucas Clarke (08:38.903)
Eheheh!

Aaron Hunter (08:48.98)
Does he always forget to talk about Uncle Chuck being the real person? Yeah, he's real. And he did write postcards. He wrote them when we were, I was probably, I was still in Iowa, so I would have been three or four years old. Up until probably we got to Wisconsin, so around seven or eight years old. When he was traveling with the US Navy, mostly at that point in time, it was the Far East. I think not even Southeast Asia at that point. So it would have been Korea and Japan specifically. So.

They used to write the postcards and on my Instagram, I do occasionally read some of the postcards that he sent because we still have them. being from a small town in Iowa, I would say Kenosha is a medium sized city, small city type of thing. It's pretty much my first exposure to anything outside of the outside of the US or even the Midwest really. So with that, I don't know, I just kind of came up with this idea. I said, I want to share my travels somehow.

Lucas Clarke (09:36.346)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (09:42.682)
Okay.

Aaron Hunter (09:45.468)
I had just gotten laid off. Actually. They did a downsizing merge, corporate merger. I won't get into that. It's all that business stuff, right? and my friend Ellie, one of the guys from here said, Aaron, you know, just take your time. Think about what you want to do. You're you don't need to be in a rush right now. And, so I took a train about two hours. Was it two hours west of here to a small town to go hiking, clear my head. And on that two hour journey, I said, all right, I need to do something I love. What?

Lucas Clarke (09:50.875)
Classic hit.

Aaron Hunter (10:15.134)
do I love to do, regardless of money, just what do I love to do? it's hiking, exploring, learning other cultures, trying food, blah, blah. Okay, so what do I do with that? And there were a of ideas on that little two hour train ride and somehow I landed on a ride of children's book. said, well, I said in the US, I know a lot of us, it's a pretty divided country at the moment. And what happened when I travel is I opened my mind to...

Lucas Clarke (10:30.347)
Yeah

Aaron Hunter (10:41.928)
Just completely other ways, ways of thinking, not necessarily political, just in general. and you're kind of forced to, right? Because you, if you want to meet other people, they're going to have different ways of being brought up through life. And so I was like, well, maybe the children would be a good time to start introducing them in my home city. was just thinking my home city, maybe where I was born, that that was the scale at that point. And I called my friend in Berlin and she and her mom loved it. So I said, all right, let's do this. And, there's a big, big problem though.

Lucas Clarke (10:46.138)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (10:58.2)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (11:12.468)
I didn't know how to write creatively. Sort of pretty important, I would imagine. Yeah. So that took, it took about, I would say five months of just stubbing my toe constantly. And I still have copies of the, horrific, that will never see the light of day. I don't know if I ever get famous, maybe we could do like a VH1 behind the music type thing. But yeah.

Lucas Clarke (11:14.804)
Yep.

Lucas Clarke (11:29.21)
You

Lucas Clarke (11:34.956)
Absolutely. All of the manuscripts just haunting you from the drawer.

Aaron Hunter (11:40.648)
yeah, you have to keep it though. You need that reminder. You know, if you're having a bad day, you can always go look at the that's actually some of my YouTube videos as well. I keep them up on there. Some people delete them over time as they get better. I keep them up there. I'm like, you know what? It's a good reminder. So.

Lucas Clarke (11:51.928)
Yeah. Leave everything. Yeah, I feel like the first 50 episodes for me are just like a thumbnail of my podcast logo. So don't worry, you are already beyond the artistic point that I am at. And so as you're I guess, what did you kind of do to improve your creative writing? Because honestly, I love to write, I love to think about ideas and different ways of thinking and

I would love to expand on that, but again, a little bit of imposter syndrome might creep in no matter what you're trying new, but how did you actually like hone your creative skills?

Aaron Hunter (12:26.964)
Thank

Aaron Hunter (12:32.7)
Well, I'm just going to throw this out there for the entire world and the audience, whoever wants to listen to it. Nobody is completely successful alone or by themselves. I don't care what billionaire says it. Yeah, okay. I'm just little Aaron over here. But indirectly or directly, you have helped throughout the process of whatever you're doing. And for me, it was both. I had met with a

Lucas Clarke (12:36.792)
You

Lucas Clarke (12:48.227)
Yep.

Aaron Hunter (12:57.884)
An author. in business, you learn how to benchmark, you learn how to network. That's something that's a very important skill. And so that's a transferable skill into what I'm doing now with the book as well. and I reached out to a person who I knew was a children's author. picked her brain and from there, she introduced me to another author and I picked that person's brain. I sat down at a local library when I went back to visit my mom and her husband. And it was, of course I brought somebody with me. I didn't want to be some weirdo just sitting in the.

children's library reading a stack of kids books, but yeah, just a little weird, little weird looking, but I mean, I sat there, I reached out to one of my buddies from college. A lot of my buddies from university were, or are currently teachers in the Kansas city area. Some of them up in Des Moines, Iowa. If you're familiar with that area, I think even Omaha, but I reached out to him and I told him my idea and he really helped me work through the creative side of it.

Lucas Clarke (13:27.322)
These are so good!

Aaron Hunter (13:56.454)
And he also connected me with somebody in his school. Shout out to Liberty, Missouri. They, yeah, I got to give them a shout out. Yeah. Because the English Language Arts department teacher named Taylor helped me as well with my grammatics. And yeah, I mean, was just, even the title of the book, I had a couple of titles picked out, workshopping them. And my friend's wife, who was also named Taylor, basically put it up for a vote in her classroom.

Lucas Clarke (14:02.796)
name.

Aaron Hunter (14:25.944)
And so that was, and also, you know, my family, I had run it past a few, I've interviewed a few German, friends of mine. I, as I said, I didn't want to treat the book as a, only, you know, from a tourist standpoint, can Google anything if you want to learn about tourism. I wanted it to be specific to the local as well, not just my own experience. And the second book will be the same. I've already interviewed the people. so I'll be taking it out of there.

And I ran it past also another lady down in Switzerland. She's originally from Bosnia. Cause I wanted to get a perspective that was, yeah, she had lived in the U S but outside of the U S type of perspective. And I really, I mean, I had, if you look at my thank yous, that doesn't even begin to cover it to be honest. So, yeah, it was just really workshopping it, making mistakes and which is another here. You could put it on your board of things. You only fail in life when you don't try.

Lucas Clarke (15:04.344)
Yep.

Aaron Hunter (15:24.2)
or you give up too early. Everything else is an educational opportunity, so.

Lucas Clarke (15:27.258)
Absolutely. Well, it's like, what was it? I was reading the other day, it was talking about like successful failures. It's like, even if like, no matter what you're doing, like, let's just say, God forbid, two years from now, I decide to stop doing the podcast. It's like, well, I've still recorded 200 episodes of great conversations with people and I've learned things along the way. it's even if I like failed, it's like, it's still a success because you're continuing to try things like that to me, I think is

Aaron Hunter (15:50.484)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (15:54.866)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Lucas Clarke (15:57.302)
what makes life fun, not even like the worth living, just like it makes it enjoyable. It makes you like taking risks, trying different things, talking to different people. And so I'm just curious, like what other titles did you have in mind that like the kids that maybe you thought was like, I'm going to go with this one, but you're like,

Aaron Hunter (16:13.63)
Honestly, it was all kind of a blur because it was just so much going on. I honestly don't remember. I can tell you, I don't remember what the other titles were. I will say the book was definitely more geared towards Christian holidays within Germany. And that was not by design. was just kind of the friends I interviewed, their memories came from, and not only that, but it was also the last quarter of the year.

Lucas Clarke (16:16.046)
Hahaha

HNNNN

Aaron Hunter (16:42.62)
And so I'm like, yeah, no. I don't want to do that because Germany is a lot more than that. Also Germany is a lot more than just that time period of the year. So I decided to scrap a few of the things like St. Nicholas day. Really cool holiday. I wish I could have kept it, especially if you would have started going down towards the Alps with the Krampus. But of course I would not put that in there. I wouldn't put that in there, but just something.

Lucas Clarke (16:51.267)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (17:02.19)
Hey, that's I was literally thinking before. I wonder if you could do like an adult children's book that's like scary. Yeah, that would be fun. I think I like

Aaron Hunter (17:12.01)
there are plans, there are plans, not, not for the children's side of things, but there's, it'll, there's something with the YouTube, the, the exploring author brand that will be coming out next year as well. And it will be more geared towards the adults, maybe older kids as well. So.

Lucas Clarke (17:24.228)
Cool.

Lucas Clarke (17:28.026)
So how far in advance are you planning? Like I'm always kind of wondering, like even for myself, I only go in a weird way. I've planned the rest of my life in my head, but like obviously I know that's naive, but I'm usually one to three months, like when it comes to like, I guess this kind of creative planning, if that makes sense. like you seem to be like next year already kind of getting into that, like even third and fourth projects. So like how far in advance are you planning typically?

Aaron Hunter (17:36.308)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (17:46.579)
Hmm.

Aaron Hunter (17:51.924)
Yeah. I mean, that's something, and I guess in business we have to do, we have to have our, our, especially if you're leading teams. So you have to have your, your plan for the next year, which generally is about October, September timeframe. And I kind of kept my business in line with that or my, my publishing business and everything. So I already had the 20, 25 goals out there enough. could see right here, actually. Like that whiteboard, that whiteboard is 20, 24 goals, but actually if you look at that.

Lucas Clarke (18:15.94)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (18:20.756)
I'd say I only did about 20 % of it because there was just so much fluidity on what was going on. But then I take a look at the long range plan. So what are some of the things I'd like to see happen in the future? And that's more 2026 and beyond. And yeah, it's just, I know for sure I'll have the children's book in 2025, early 2025, the second book of the series, Different Country. And you know what?

Lucas Clarke (18:24.452)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (18:33.85)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (18:43.119)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (18:46.664)
Let's, let's make the announcement of which country I haven't done that yet. I was thinking about that before we started this. I'm like, let's just, let's do it with Mr. Clark. All right. But, and then also with this exploring author is, you know, you, you were so patient with me because I said, Hey, let me do my rebranding first. And then, which is this and the filming I was doing today this morning. So, so that's all planned. And with that comes another book series. again, it would, it'll involve more photography.

Lucas Clarke (18:48.868)
Sure, yeah, okay. Yeah, I was going to ask, see if I can, yeah, let's do it.

Lucas Clarke (19:03.002)
yeah, it's all good.

Lucas Clarke (19:07.897)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (19:14.996)
Legends, mysteries, histories of these locations. And we'll get at a high level. I don't want to go too deep into the history. I love it, but I know a lot of people would probably, I mean, you're a teacher. Kids, kids start to nod off parents do too. So yeah. Yeah. But then, yeah. So in 20, 26, 20, 27, I have some, some big plans or not. wouldn't call them plans, but they're more than just a wishlist. Things are in motion to get to that point. so yeah.

Lucas Clarke (19:15.172)
Mm-hmm. Cool.

Lucas Clarke (19:22.01)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (19:29.134)
yeah, fair enough, yeah.

Lucas Clarke (19:37.945)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (19:43.021)
So what country are you going to next? For the book.

Aaron Hunter (19:45.522)
What country am I visiting or for the book? For the book. drum roll. we will be doing, or the book will be taking place in, well, let me get, let me, let me back up. Let's tease, let's tease it a little bit. Let's tease it out. Let's tease it. so this will be the second book of the series. the goal is to continue this, you know, there's 197 countries the UN recognizes, I think. So something like that one's, but I do have to, the rule is I have to have visited it. That is the rule.

Lucas Clarke (19:50.572)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (19:56.292)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (20:14.644)
And I have to be working with people in the country as far as interviewing them about their childhood. So those are my two main rules. So the third and the fourth and the fifth book will be outside of Europe. They will be spread out in different continents. I already know where the third one will be. A pretty good idea where the fourth and fifth one will be as well, but not solidified completely. But yes, but the second book will remain in Europe. And that's really a lot of it is

Lucas Clarke (20:21.572)
that's cool

Lucas Clarke (20:35.546)
Okay. I love that.

Aaron Hunter (20:43.814)
It's familiar with some of the people it's, it's a way to kind of get the, get it launched off the ground, the entire series. And then we can start working, making our way to lesser known countries. So second book, long winded answer. Italy. So, yeah. Yeah. We'll go with Italy. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (20:58.498)
Italy, nice. I love that. So I guess if you don't mind me asking if you've already kind of done the groundwork because I love that you are writing that that children kind of perspective with the people in that country. guess like what have you learned about different like childhood upbringings just through your different interviews? Because I would honestly I think it would be cool if you ever had like posted some like notes and stuff from those interviews as well.

Aaron Hunter (21:12.19)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (21:26.168)
If, with their permission, obviously, but.

Aaron Hunter (21:26.28)
Yeah. Yeah, I could. I could definitely. I will say like a lot of the stuff they do in school, for instance, we had track and field and this is stuff that's not going to make the book, but it's just more interesting. They had track and field days. Like we had, you know, was it right before summer break, we'd have this big day of athletic, almost like the little kid Olympics, if you will. I don't know if you guys have that in Canada, do you? Okay.

Lucas Clarke (21:36.879)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (21:46.894)
Yeah. yeah, yeah, I coach track and field, but yeah.

Aaron Hunter (21:52.592)
Okay. So yeah, they have that. You know, they do think they're, I will say they travel a lot more than we do for sure. But, they're definitely brought up to be out in the nature. But it also could be because it's easily accessible to them where, you know, in Wisconsin, we don't have the mountains. think the closest, or like 12 hour drive. yeah. Yeah. Not to mention our 15 days of vacation. So.

Lucas Clarke (22:01.303)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Lucas Clarke (22:12.73)
We're gonna drive for two days to get to this this hill

Aaron Hunter (22:22.537)
Yeah, that's, that's, that's a whole nother podcast about that. But yeah, I mean, it's, there's a lot of similarities, but they also have different things. For instance, St. Martin's day, which is in the book in the Germany book. they just had that on the 11th. So five days ago and I St. Martin's day.

Lucas Clarke (22:22.682)
You

Yeah

Lucas Clarke (22:33.572)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (22:37.624)
So what is that? Because I literally, I live like maybe 10 minutes from where I live, there's a town called St. Martin's. So I actually am not aware of the backstory there.

Aaron Hunter (22:45.289)
Yeah, could, could, yeah, it could be the same, same. basically there was a Roman soldier, Roman Legionnaire. And I, I want to say it happened in the, what is now Germany because they were here. They were, West of the Rhine. I won't get into too many details, but they were in Germany. He, the legend is that he saw a beggar or a homeless person on the streets freezing. And he took half of his.

Lucas Clarke (22:58.894)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Aaron Hunter (23:13.364)
cloak, ripped it in half and or he might have given the whole thing to it now that I think about it, but he gave a portion at least of his cloak to the beggar. And so the kids now they'll build little lanterns, these little paper mache or cardboard lanterns. They no longer put candles in it for safety reasons, but they do put lights. Yeah. You don't want kids running around with fire. Yeah, they're really hyped. They're really hyped up.

Lucas Clarke (23:18.315)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (23:32.89)
Mm-hmm.

I love St. Martin's Day.

Aaron Hunter (23:42.034)
Yeah, they, so they walked down the streets, with their little lanterns. For instance, I got off of work and I got out the car to go to the grocery store and all these little kids about three, four years old with their little lanterns walking down the street. And, some of the villages still do it where St. Martin is dressed up in his Roman gear and he is on a horse and they lead the kids as procession to a bonfire in the middle of town. And they'll have like pretzels, candies for the kids.

ciders, I think something like this. So, and it's a it's a pretty big holiday. So the point of that is the reason they have the lanterns is to bring light into the world, just as St. Martin did by bringing light into the world by good doing doing good. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (24:15.382)
Ahem.

Lucas Clarke (24:26.586)
And honestly, feel like Canada and the US has like nothing like that. And I am generalizing a bit here, but I feel like when you go to Europe, again, generally speaking, there's all of these little kind of micro celebrations that they do all the time that everyone loves. And it's almost like it's cool to be a part of the culture in Europe, but here it's cool to be like anti-culture, which is just...

Aaron Hunter (24:31.59)
No, no.

Aaron Hunter (24:42.168)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (24:51.148)
everyone sitting in their homes scrolling on their phones and kind of losing that community aspect. Do you kind of agree with that or am I?

Aaron Hunter (24:56.966)
Yeah, I do. And I don't, and I have a theory on a very small anecdote as to why, you know, my, my grandma, I think her mom and dad were from Sweden, I believe. And they were speaking Swedish in the household when they had moved here. And so up until she was about five years old, she spoke Swedish, but she went to school and I don't know if it was because of kids making fun of her for speaking other language or what the case was. she just stopped speaking it. And I've seen other cases, more modern.

than then, than back then. But I wonder if that has something to do with it where we're kind of like, you must assimilate fully and then we lose a bit of that where, yeah, I don't know. That's my theory.

Lucas Clarke (25:27.78)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (25:34.543)
Yep.

Lucas Clarke (25:39.002)
I love nothing more than an anecdotal theory. But did you have to like learn German like fluently to kind of work or is it?

Aaron Hunter (25:42.824)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (25:47.54)
If any of my friends watch this, I'm probably the worst out of all of us. I'm getting better right now for a number of reasons, but work as well. I still do quality assurance and it's going to be helpful. And they do in the lunchroom, they'll speak German more often than not. yeah, I think I'm probably about B1 level right now. So out of all my friends, I think I'm probably the worst.

Lucas Clarke (25:51.126)
Ha!

Lucas Clarke (26:02.308)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (26:14.008)
Be...

Aaron Hunter (26:15.476)
I was actually getting really quite good at it. And then I just, for the last year when I was just working on my business, I just, other than going out to eat or something like this, I wasn't speaking as often. So it's easy to lose even in country. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (26:27.028)
Okay. Yeah. Because even when again, like I visited weirdly enough, I spent three weeks in Italy this year and I had never been to Europe in my life until this year. It's just, I was fortunate that I was able to be on a few trips like chaperoning for students in Fort McMurray where I used to live. Cause I've also made the move to New Brunswick in Canada now on the East coast. But as you've seen from all my, my ocean videos that I've been posting on the story. Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (26:54.36)
Yeah, your kite surfings. That looks awesome.

Lucas Clarke (26:57.188)
Kite surfing was crazy. was like, my, cause I guess like that place is about, it's about a six minute walk from my, school that I'm at, but literally, like if I go grab coffee at lunch, like we'll get like 45 minutes to an hour. There's a, there's a, do you know what Tim Hortons is?

Aaron Hunter (27:06.057)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (27:16.404)
you know, my God, I haven't been there. I've been to Canada. just somehow I did not go to the church of Canada and Tim Hortons. I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm a bad, bad American for that.

Lucas Clarke (27:18.522)
Hahaha

Lucas Clarke (27:22.329)
That's...

Lucas Clarke (27:26.476)
No, that's all good. Actually, it's because now we're only about an hour from Maine and people are always like, yeah, we always go down for a drive once a fall to go get Dunkin Donuts. That's kind of the classic thing around here to go do for a day for for better. Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (27:31.155)
Okay.

Aaron Hunter (27:41.368)
Could be worse, I guess. Could be like Starbucks or something horrible.

Lucas Clarke (27:45.152)
Yeah. But, but again, like being in just different geographical locations is just like, like these people, like we were in Rome, for example, and it was 38 degrees. And some of the people in my group, like when we're coming from, like I think Fort McMurray in Alberta gets like up to minus 50.

degrees Celsius in the wintertime, maybe like we've had minus 53 before even just last winter. And the only it has been the coldest place in the planet several times. So to move somewhere where you can just like, now watch people surf in November. And then like when we were in Rome, it was people like, yeah, it's just a nice day. And like we're like dying of heatstroke just seeing just the different way that people kind of go about living their life I think is

Aaron Hunter (28:37.257)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (28:42.648)
It's just fascinating. It's fascinating without having to say why, which I think is interesting. You don't actually have to justify it because people just intuitively understand what is interesting about that. can you share a bit about where you went in Italy? Because it seems like in Germany, you're not going to Berlin necessarily. You're going to lot of these cool castles, and you're doing these little niche stories and these little legends. guess where in Italy did you against?

Aaron Hunter (28:46.44)
Mm.

Aaron Hunter (29:07.923)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (29:12.132)
apologies for the voice crack there. Where did you go in Italy to kind of see where you would want to write about and include? It's my, I gotta straighten my chest a bit here.

Aaron Hunter (29:18.772)
Maybe the voice crack keeps us young, right? It's like old man puberty. Yeah. By the way, just a quick 38 degrees for your American audience is, I think it's closing in on a hundred degrees Fahrenheit and minus 50, I think is about minus 55 Fahrenheit. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (29:30.52)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know how that works. know like zero is 32 or something, but I don't know.

Aaron Hunter (29:40.914)
Yeah. Zero is 32, minus 40 is minus 40. I found that out the hard way, one winter visiting my family. So it's cold, but, yeah. So I've been a few places in Italy. One of my favorite stories is I had my buddy from, my baseball buddy, Jason. He called me up one day on a Thursday, I think. And he said, Hey man, found 22 year old flight round trip to Milan. You want to go this weekend?

Lucas Clarke (29:48.634)
Interesting. That's so weird.

Aaron Hunter (30:09.364)
I said, yeah, I think so. I think I can move some things around. And so we spent the entire, yeah, I think we can handle this. So we left on a Saturday morning and we spent, I want to say it was like 22 or 23 hours in country. So we were just basically, we flew in, we got in somewhere. I think it was like around noon, maybe. Took the, took the bus into the city because we were at a different airport. And yeah, we just spent kind of touring, had some Negronies cause they're pretty famous for Negronies.

Lucas Clarke (30:11.951)
Ha

I can move some things around.

Aaron Hunter (30:39.24)
I think with everything all said and done, I think I spent less than 100 euro for the entire weekend just flying all, and that's flight everything. So that was pretty amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we did, we did the Milan thing and yeah.

Lucas Clarke (30:50.948)
It's a great day.

Did you go to the huge, can't honestly, in a weird way, even though I taught history for a few years, I knew something a little bit different this year, but I'm so bad with remembering names of places. So obviously I know Milan, or Milan, and did you go to the huge mall? Like with the golden roof over it?

Aaron Hunter (31:17.626)
yeah, the, God, what's it called? Yeah. It's right in front of the cathedral and everything. Yes, I did go in there. It's Milan is a, is pretty interesting place. It's yeah, it's you got the very, very high end areas for sure. lot of shopping districts. I felt.

Lucas Clarke (31:22.69)
Yes. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (31:27.459)
It is cool.

Lucas Clarke (31:32.994)
Yeah. Well, I remember, too, we walked through that mall and there was no, I think it was there was no Versace in there. And I was so disappointed because I knew that that was like the peak or the origins of where that brand started. So I figured that would have been and maybe my own bias is coming out because I watched American Horror Story or Crime Story like a week before or few weeks before. And that was the main thing that we watched. But so were there any like

Aaron Hunter (31:51.219)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (31:59.406)
weird legends or stories of malotters. It's just like, what I guess, what are you trying to convey in children's form about Italy?

Aaron Hunter (32:08.53)
Yeah, I guess so the important thing here is to separate. So the the exploring author, which is myself doing the YouTube channel, which will be involved. That is about visiting these places that have these legends, maybe some folk tales, stories, some sort of mystery, and then getting into the history at a high level, not getting too deep into it, just getting so you get an idea of what's going on. So it's beautiful locations, legends. And then this will

Lucas Clarke (32:25.945)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (32:37.288)
with the book series for the adults, it will be this kind of format. So I, yeah, but for the children's book, I really just focus on introducing them to the country. So for instance, the Germany one, you see the Neuschwanstein Castle. It's honestly not even in my top 10 favorite castles in Germany. So just to be point blank, I'm just being honest. Yeah, yeah, it's not even top 10. It's not even scratching it.

Lucas Clarke (32:41.53)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (32:57.475)
You

That's the most German resident thing to say it's not even my top ten

Aaron Hunter (33:06.686)
There's so many better ones. I mean, it's beautiful. Don't get me wrong. The location is amazing and it's recognizable is the, is why I wanted to say, okay, I can't just, you know, blindside them with just all this new, new information. It needs to be something they can relate to. And of course, Neuschwanstein, the Disney castle was basically made based on that castle, the real castle. So it's the real Disney castle, which I could not write in the book because I didn't know if there was some kind of.

Lucas Clarke (33:34.567)
Whoa

Aaron Hunter (33:35.974)
legal ramifications for writing that. But yeah. Yeah. So Disney, and it's the same thing with, with Italy, you know, I'll probably do something Colosseum, probably do something with Venice in a gondola or something, you know, something they can, maybe they have seen, but from there, then we deviate. So in Germany, for instance, I start going down as a segue that there's over 20,000 castles. I think actually now they're saying over 25,000. So

Lucas Clarke (33:38.646)
Yeah, just including Disney, you never know. Take a call.

Lucas Clarke (33:52.858)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (34:04.588)
I've heard estimates up to 30,000. So I went on the conservative side and just said 20,000. So there's over 20 top 10 does. Yeah. I guess you have to start to differentiate. it in the South? Is it older? How younger? But then, yeah, so we start to go in there and then we start to get into like the hot, the festivals like St. Martin's day, carnival, not the Rio de Janeiro one. So don't worry if anybody's hasn't bought the book yet. It's child friendly.

Lucas Clarke (34:08.474)
But top 10 does get hard to crack.

Lucas Clarke (34:16.76)
Yeah

Lucas Clarke (34:31.246)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (34:32.161)
And then, you know, getting into Oktoberfest again, not the carnival. They also call it carnival, carnival, yeah.

Lucas Clarke (34:34.756)
Wait, what is the Rio de Janeiro festival? Okay. Yeah. So why is it not safe for work? What is the... No, I don't know about...

Aaron Hunter (34:46.238)
you know, no, it's a carnival. yeah, no, it's like closer at a minimum, this type of thing. Yeah. I mean, so no, it's a child-friendly carnival. Cause it also, it gets a little bit of a party atmosphere towards the evening in the later. Yeah. Oktoberfest, of course, again, there are like family-friendly parts of Oktoberfest. So I do show that. And honestly, there's nothing.

Lucas Clarke (35:02.988)
Yes, I can imagine.

Aaron Hunter (35:14.052)
non-family friendly that's going on. then I do talk about the Christmas markets and the Christmas markets. One of the, think one of the characters asks, you know, is this what if they don't celebrate Christmas? So we do get into that a little bit just to say, no, trust me, I've seen people from all over the world coming to these things. It's just mainly a group of community coming together, having some glue vine or kinder punch kids, kids punch and you know, good food.

Lucas Clarke (35:15.764)
No. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (35:38.784)
Nice.

Aaron Hunter (35:40.756)
It's just a good atmosphere. So we get into that a little bit. And with Italy, I have some really amazing things that I got out of the people I interviewed and I'm really excited about it. It should lead to some pretty amazing illustrations from Victoria. I was also taking that into consideration. You know, there were some pretty cool topics they brought up, but I'm like, I don't know that's really gonna translate well with the illustration. So, but that's what the book is about. And then I do more of the history and the mysteries and the legends for the YouTube and.

Lucas Clarke (35:48.954)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (35:53.749)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (36:02.179)
Yep.

Aaron Hunter (36:09.79)
and the exploring author.

Lucas Clarke (36:11.066)
Okay, so is that, and so I guess talk to me about like your rebranding process. Is that kind of like you're trying to get that split a little bit of like still having the child friendly, but also kind of having that adult, like legends, stories section of your work as well?

Aaron Hunter (36:26.802)
Yeah, mean, I'll still from the exploring author, I will still promote my children's series. But what I'm trying to do is make sure that I'm not putting this kind of stuff, like for instance, on my Instagram with my with my children's book, because it kind of takes away from from what that is. And I don't want to add confusion. So I said, Okay, I have to I have to separate this because it's not. And also, I met with some one of my friends in Singapore. I met with her. And she's kind of a marketing guru. She realized I didn't really know what I was doing marketing.

Lucas Clarke (36:30.787)
Yes.

Lucas Clarke (36:39.512)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (36:56.37)
So she gave me a lot of good pointers and she said, eventually you need to brand yourself as an author. And it just kind of came like, was like, okay. So I started doing the YouTube, trying to figure out how I was going to do it. And at some point in time, you know, you get this like probably with your podcast too, where it just clicks. You're just like, this is it. And what do I love to do is I like to look at the legends and the history. And then I go to visit these places that are maybe not so well known on the tourist trail. And, yeah, that's.

Lucas Clarke (36:56.57)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (37:23.363)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (37:25.876)
That's kind of how I came up with the idea. And then I said, okay, let's brand this. And one of my friends who I met through the book series, actually, she works in Kenya and I brought her up to you one time. She works, she does art therapy for kids in Kenya and she's originally from Alabama. She's incredible with this art stuff. And I was like, you know, I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm not very artistic other than like writing and stuff. But she just, all of a sudden, like the next day I woke up and boom.

Lucas Clarke (37:36.686)
Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (37:55.464)
She had messaged me while I was sleeping, like, hey, I have all these things, take a look at them. And she came up with basically all of the concepts for the color palette, which is important, which is what I'm wearing right now. It's part of the color palette. Yeah, it's something that keeps you recognizable as a brand. She came up with like the YouTube thumbnails, how I would be doing this. Even eventually I'll start.

Lucas Clarke (38:10.903)
Okay.

Lucas Clarke (38:17.433)
Mm.

Aaron Hunter (38:22.388)
putting things on Pinterest, I just don't really know how that's gonna work at the moment. So all of these things she really helped a lot with and opened my eyes like, okay, so now everything I do is with the brand in mind. So, yeah.

Lucas Clarke (38:25.24)
Yep.

Lucas Clarke (38:37.388)
Okay, so I guess like what were the hidden parts of branding that you weren't really aware of? Like you're going for marketing and now you're kind of changing like the clothing and the look and the color palette. Like those seem like very specific things that even like even myself, like I wouldn't necessarily think of. So like I even think of, do know who Andrew Huberman is? The Huberman Lab podcast. He's like a famous like psychology podcaster, but I've

Aaron Hunter (38:56.018)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (38:59.457)
no.

Lucas Clarke (39:05.466)
I always thought it was funny because he wears the exact same black dress shirt every single day. Like his closet is literally like, I think it's like the classic like TV character where they open their closet and it's like all the same outfit. Like was like Dracula. was watching Hotel Transylvania the other day. Went for Halloween with my niece and nephew and it's like all the same outfits. So is that kind of something that you are like embodying as like

Aaron Hunter (39:10.505)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (39:23.272)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (39:34.944)
maintaining like a bit of a similar appearance most of time to kind of keep that brand, especially online.

Aaron Hunter (39:41.342)
Yeah, yeah, online. So, I mean, it's not, it's not so different. It's not like changing who I am by any means. I mean, you know what I mean? So yeah. And all this stuff is new. mean, from like, and going all the way back to writing the book, I've never been in, I've been in pretty much everything you can think of within business, you know, quality operations, logistics, sales even, but I had never had done marketing and I had never done branding. And so all of this stuff is as well. I've never filmed anything really. I mean, really like truly.

Lucas Clarke (39:46.922)
No, no, no, but you're being more aware, cognizant, yeah.

Lucas Clarke (39:58.554)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (40:10.984)
So everything is a learning experience. My photography skills, again, that's another thing that I'm right now I'm really honing in on so that I can do this book series. I'm working with photographers to teach me some tricks of the trade. I'm practicing making mistakes. And it's the same thing with the branding. It was just like, all right, I need to figure it out. And again, it took I think for the filming, I was doing YouTube for about four or five months now. And I just wasn't really sure the direction. And one day it clicked and I'm like, OK, now that I know what the what.

Lucas Clarke (40:22.682)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (40:38.704)
Now I need to understand, what goes into it? How does this, how does this, it's almost like a character or a character, you know, what does this character look like? What, what does the, what am I trying to convey here? And then that that's kind of where this went. So am I going to wear a tuxedo where I'm talking about legends at a castle? Probably, probably not. Right. But also I don't want to look sloppy. So there has to be a concentrated effort and a plan and a direction. And now that that direction is in place today.

Lucas Clarke (40:55.783)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (41:05.914)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (41:08.54)
telling you, it was the best, the best I've shot, but the best filming I've had so far, it was there.

Lucas Clarke (41:14.062)
I love that. So do you have a volume goal for how much you're trying to post in your long-term plans? It's like how have you kind of getting more on the technical side of it. How do you kind of do that stuff?

Aaron Hunter (41:25.684)
That's, that's a bit, that's a bit tricky because right now I'm trying to balance, you know, the head of quality for a company, which is, which has its own, obviously I have to put priority on that, but what I'm at the moment trying to do is build up the pipeline again. So I want to have, now that the branding is done, I let everything else run out. So the, Sunday, which I'll post tomorrow, that episode will be the last one that was pre-branding. And so now I'm working on getting it built back up.

Lucas Clarke (41:34.189)
Yep.

Lucas Clarke (41:53.402)
Okay.

Aaron Hunter (41:55.618)
you know, I write the scripts, I do all that kind of stuff for it. And what I'm trying to do is build up that pipeline right now. And I don't want to go blow through them just because right now it's rainy, rainy season as I call it in Germany. It's winter. So I have to, yeah, I have to kind of be careful, but there's the good thing is like a lot of these locations have multiple. Legends, multiple stories today there. I didn't get into legends. They were actually real stories. I just found them to be incredibly interesting. so I, I went.

Lucas Clarke (42:01.934)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (42:06.456)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (42:18.874)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Aaron Hunter (42:23.55)
focused on that as part of the history. so, well, yeah, so right now to answer your question, it's, don't have a set amount. I would like to do a one short, one YouTube short, one YouTube main episode per week. At the moment, it'll probably not be until the beginning of next year that I'm able to do that. I also will have part of my 2025 goal on January. I'll be purchasing a new camera. So it'll be a proper, a proper good camera, proper, proper good camera.

Lucas Clarke (42:30.362)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (42:45.912)
Yep.

Lucas Clarke (42:49.658)
Well, yeah, that's kind of the, yeah, well, even for myself to like, know for podcasting, some people use like the continuity cameras on like iPhones and iPads and such. I've learning those kind of subtle things as well. But I would like to actually like, have a like an empty basement down here for the most part. And trying to get like a little kind of studio together and get to kind of get some local people in and actually have like more in person conversations. But

Aaron Hunter (42:59.419)
Hmm.

Lucas Clarke (43:19.746)
Yeah, I feel like it's the non-sexy part of this creative process, but it's also the fun part. It kind of makes it interesting to kind of make it more for yourself. So I appreciate you sharing. I don't want to pry too much into your business plan and stuff, but I always think it's interesting seeing what is... I know we have these creative ideas, but what's your long-term thinking like to actually make it something tangible and long-term and effective, I guess is kind of the...

Aaron Hunter (43:27.314)
Mm.

Aaron Hunter (43:35.838)
that's cool.

Lucas Clarke (43:49.23)
the goal.

Aaron Hunter (43:49.308)
Yeah. Well, I mean, the first step is going to be taken in end of March when I launched the book. It'll probably be actually in April. So that'll be the first step. You can't really call it a series if there's only one book. So you got to have to make it actual series. So that's the next step. And also the next step for the exploring author is getting that camera and beginning the work on that book as well, that book series. And I'm going to be going to, I'm not just going to be focused only in Germany. have,

Lucas Clarke (43:54.362)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (44:00.824)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (44:12.121)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (44:16.86)
Right now I'm working trying to go visit Lauren in Kenya for about a week. You know, go spend some time working with her kids. Just doing some stuff like that. course, it's safari, why not? Right? You're there. And I told her I'd like to dig into a little bit of that. We're going to be in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan for just a personal trip. I'm going to waste, it's a wasted opportunity if I'm not at least filming a little bit of it. You know? So I think with those... No, no, no, worries.

Lucas Clarke (44:19.694)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (44:23.694)
Yeah. That'd be cool. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (44:38.938)
Yeah. Do you find that's almost sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you there, but do you almost find that's a weird part of doing this content stuff for your like, now I need to do content all the time or else like I do things and I feel like I'm wasting an opportunity to not like it's almost weird to be fully present in a sense because you're like, again, being a teacher, like we'll have funny staff room conversations and I'm like,

Aaron Hunter (44:59.774)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (45:06.958)
God, this would be excellent to have on the podcast, like, you that it comes into your mind. Do you think that have you noticed that with yourself? Or is it mostly just like brushing it aside?

Aaron Hunter (45:15.868)
no, a hundred percent. That went in. That was, that was part of the thought process of branding. It's when I'm on vacation, I mean, you know, bless, bless their hearts. the people that are able to go on vacation and film the entire thing and then have the time to edit it. for me, that's, I don't want to do that. That was the thing. You know, that was some of the suggestions I was hearing. Go around and film yourself. And I'm like, again, I like some of these guys out there that are doing it and girls out there that are doing it. But, to me, it just comes from myself. I feel like I would be looking at myself like,

Lucas Clarke (45:27.01)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (45:45.14)
Who is this guy? You know, this narcissist. He's out there like showing the world what he's doing. What a guy. But no, no, go for it. Go for it.

Lucas Clarke (45:50.938)
Okay, but do you want to a crazy stat? Sorry, I didn't interrupt you again. But I heard this two days ago. Do you know how many paid content creators there are in the United States alone?

Aaron Hunter (46:03.188)
couldn't even tell you.

Lucas Clarke (46:04.666)
It's 11.6 million.

Aaron Hunter (46:07.54)
Well, to find paid though, because even on Facebook I get paid right now at the moment, but it's not much.

Lucas Clarke (46:12.504)
Well, but that's, that's what I mean. But the fact that there's still an opportunity for income and just like, I'm going to do my thing, post online, see what happens. And like, I mean, for whatever reason, I've also gotten a couple sponsors here in like the past couple months, but it's like, Whoa, I'm just a guy living life having fun conversations in my basement. But like, that can actually become opportunities for people, which I think is fascinating. But sorry, I didn't interrupt you there. were saying?

Aaron Hunter (46:19.282)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (46:22.644)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (46:32.649)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (46:37.714)
No, it's interesting. It gave me more hope.

Lucas Clarke (46:40.8)
Yeah, that's what I mean. It's like, just if anything, it's like, just do it like who like no one's actually thinking that we're thinking that about ourselves, which I think almost makes it better because you don't want to like post narcissists type thing. I don't know, like weird, like promoting things. But yeah.

Aaron Hunter (46:52.403)
Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, in all my videos, I will say, I think maybe in the first couple, because I was trying to figure it out, I was doing the little selfie thing like, hey, know, talking to the camera, but it was mostly on hikes and things. And I was, there was a point, there was a method to that madness, but now I don't, I don't do that. And it's, it's to the point where I'm like, all right, well, I'm on vacation, but at the same time, I'm still learning a bit about their culture through the legends and learning about the history through the legends. Why not just come up with a script?

Lucas Clarke (47:09.007)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (47:18.284)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (47:24.39)
Most of my videos are under five minutes anyway. And how much time will I really be spending? Not the entire vacation. And at the same time, the guys that are with me or whoever's with me, get a little bit of knowledge as well. it's.

Lucas Clarke (47:36.536)
Yeah, I'm jealous of those 22 euro flights though. That's not the case in Canada right now. I'll be completely honest. is, that would be one reason why I would want to, like I've never lived in Europe obviously. I still think like in the future down the road, like if I do like my master's PhD and stuff to like teach a semester somewhere, I think that could be fun like eventually down the road. But yeah, that would be, it would be, I'm definitely envious of the cheap airfare over in Europe. Like actually,

Aaron Hunter (47:40.874)
no, yeah, doesn't-

Aaron Hunter (47:58.078)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (48:05.46)
I don't get them anymore. I don't get them anymore though. That's the problem. So you can be envious, they took Ryan, it's not in Frankfurt, they took Ryan and Wizz Air and they took them out of Flughafen, which is the international airport, Frankfurt Flughafen, and they moved it to Frankfurt Hahn. Now you'd be like, Frankfurt Hahn, that's probably like Milan. It's only like maybe a half hour outside town or something. No, it might as well be in France. It's literally on the French and Luxembourg border.

Lucas Clarke (48:06.436)
So my...

Yeah...

Lucas Clarke (48:31.428)
Heh.

Aaron Hunter (48:34.952)
And I'm not kidding you, by bus it takes over two hours to get there. So then you have to pay for the bus and it's like, you you guys really ruined my time. But we took advantage of it. We went to Dublin for 45 euro. We did, of course, Milan. We were just jumping on it. We're like, okay, they're taking it away in March of that year. Let's just travel. Yeah. So yeah, no, but it's still pretty cheap though. It's still like, you know, to Tesla, Niki Greece one time.

Lucas Clarke (48:35.124)
wow.

Lucas Clarke (48:39.29)
Wow.

Lucas Clarke (48:43.876)
Well, it was...

Lucas Clarke (48:49.498)
That's cool.

Lucas Clarke (48:55.898)
like we gotta do it every weekend.

Aaron Hunter (49:05.064)
I just, found a cheap flight and I was like, I'll go there for four or five days. was a hundred euro. So why not? Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (49:10.756)
Why not? I love that. Because even my friend that I taught with in Fort McMurray, his daughter was in university in Belgium. he said me, he's like, Lucas, like, you go to Rome, he said just down from the Spanish steps is like a, I guess, what am looking for? Like you buy a suitcase from it.

I don't know like it's a store that sold like fancy suitcases and He's like, can you bring it back for me? I was like, well, I don't know. don't know sure like whatever I got on mine. He's like, I'll give you the money for it. Whatever. They could I'll pay the extra bag, but then He's like no, I actually just paid for my daughter to go She got like a return flight to Rome from Belgium for like again like 50 euro She one got the suitcase brought it back and then when she went home for Christmas brought it to him

Aaron Hunter (50:08.073)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (50:08.256)
madness living like I'm so it's almost like watching people surf in the ocean in November I'm like this is just not something that I am used to in my world but

Aaron Hunter (50:17.3)
yeah. Well, you get, you get like July and August, cause that's when basically all of, all of at least Western Europe shuts down because it's, it's when the kids are off, off of school, families are traveling. So at that point, the airports are really busy. Make sure if you are traveling in Europe at that time, make sure you're getting to the airport even, even earlier than you normally would. I would suggest. but yeah, it's the ticket prices are going to be a bit more. So what will cost me maybe 110, 120 euro to get to Rome round trip.

Lucas Clarke (50:31.384)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (50:46.356)
in December or not Christmas time, but January, it will cost me maybe 350, which is still, I mean, to get to, I flew to the Chicago O'Hare round trip through Lisbon and it was 350 Euro round trip. When I got there, I wanted to fly to Kansas city to see some friends, some college friends, and it was $500 round trip was the cheapest I could find. So it was cheaper for me to fly, significantly cheaper for me to fly.

Lucas Clarke (50:54.19)
Not nothing. Yep.

Lucas Clarke (51:00.11)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (51:14.324)
But on the other hand too, my dad was gonna fly over here. He said his flight was for, he lives in North Carolina. He said his flight was like, you know, 1200, $1,300. And I looked at it on my end, same day, same timeframe. It was half the price for me to fly round trip there. So I don't know why that was the case. I don't know if that was a one-off. Maybe it was a one-off, I don't know. But yeah, it's just some interesting. I don't know how the flights, how they come up with the prices.

Lucas Clarke (51:32.526)
That is weird.

Lucas Clarke (51:38.722)
Well, even now, we have, Canada really only has two airlines. Like we've had a couple like flare air and a couple like laying like the kind of those smaller ones that will pop up every now and then. Then they're only around for a few months and they seem to kind of get bought out or pushed aside seems to be the norm. So yeah, maybe maybe I'll do a bit more New Brunswick traveling because honestly you can drive anywhere here and be in beautiful scenery. But I guess to kind of move us toward

Aaron Hunter (51:50.654)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (52:07.418)
wrapping up a little bit. I've got a couple more questions for you. So this is one, especially where I was talking about the like learning German. What has been the most complicated or confusing place you've visited?

Aaron Hunter (52:22.406)
as far as language or as.

Lucas Clarke (52:24.154)
Like, well, it just like you get there and you're like, I don't know who to ask to get to where I want to go. Like, has it ever been confusing or?

Aaron Hunter (52:29.684)
yeah, absolutely. Especially when I was younger, I was, as I said, I was in Singapore when I was quite a bit younger, 21, 22. Not going to age myself at the moment. Just if you think, if you think I'm in my twenties, bless your heart. But yeah, so I mean, at that point in time, I would have said, I would say China was for me, even though I was with the colleagues, it was still pretty difficult to navigate. As far as now in Europe, Sofia Bulgaria.

Lucas Clarke (52:38.874)
No.

Lucas Clarke (52:48.313)
Okay.

Aaron Hunter (52:59.4)
There's some small things you need to know. You know, the taxi services, some of them are basically run by the, I guess mafia or something, something to this effect. So you got to make sure that you're taking a proper, taxi. Otherwise they'll just run the bill up on you like, three, four times more. But other than that, I really liked, I really liked so people said, Bulgaria, cause it's, know, Eastern Europe. I liked it. I had a great time in Sophia. So I don't know. I think I'm trying to think really.

Lucas Clarke (53:09.7)
HUEH!

Lucas Clarke (53:16.346)
Wow, interesting.

Aaron Hunter (53:27.846)
Istanbul was really amazing. know, it's even, even Swaziland down in South Africa. It's not in South Africa. Well, it's landlocked within South Africa. That was, I ran into no issues. Cambodia was fine. I'm trying, I'm really trying to rack my brain here. Whoa. No, I mean, we ended up accidentally in the Fovella in Lima, Peru, and I would highly recommend not to do that. just, just.

Lucas Clarke (53:45.466)
Well, no, because I'm trying to sorry. Go ahead.

Lucas Clarke (53:54.296)
Hahaha

Aaron Hunter (53:56.988)
If you want, if you want some very obvious advice, if you want Aaron's Aaron's Aaron's obvious tip of the day is don't end up in the fabula in Lima. So, but no, I mean, it's, if you're just going into it, I mean, if you're going into it with a mindset that it's going to be like almost like your home country or your hometown, then you're going to run into issues. But if you, if you know. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, I would say India, I do want to visit India, but I know as I, especially as I get older, I kind of like my quiet time.

Lucas Clarke (53:58.202)
If you want to do that, don't.

Lucas Clarke (54:14.554)
Yep. We're not in Kansas anymore.

Aaron Hunter (54:27.1)
And India is not the place to go if you want quiet time necessarily. But I know you just have to mentally know that, okay, it's going to be pretty crazy. There's going be a lot of your sensory overload. And as long as you know that, then I think you're going to have a great time. And also when you're traveling, take it like, you know, it's not going to be a hundred percent. It's Instagram versus reality, right? Instagram versus reality. If you go in thinking it's going to be like an Instagram where you're holding your girlfriend's hand as she's running towards the ocean.

Lucas Clarke (54:27.585)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (54:37.367)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (54:48.494)
Yes, yeah.

Lucas Clarke (54:55.15)
Yeah... No.

Aaron Hunter (54:57.082)
Yeah, you're going to have some rough times, but especially in Southeast Asia or in different parts of the world, you know, but as long as you.

Lucas Clarke (55:02.594)
Yeah, because I would love to visit Cambodia. I think that would be really cool.

Aaron Hunter (55:06.836)
Beautiful country, beautiful country. Even outside of CM Reap, know everybody goes, course, if they do go, they go to Angkor Wat, 100 % to spend three or I'd say spend three days there at least. I only spent a day and a half and that was severely, you know, we were back on when I had American verification time. So we were really blowing through things. So, but yeah.

Lucas Clarke (55:25.698)
Yes. So what kind of so question there, what kind of like vacation time do you have in Germany compared to the US? If you don't mind me asking.

Aaron Hunter (55:35.252)
All right. Yeah. Get ready to hate me Americans. I get 30 days of vacation and not only that, but even as a, even as a, even though I'm head of quality, right? You know, I'm salary, all that kind of stuff. If I work overtime, overtime per my contract, which I think is 39 and a half hours per week. if I work overtime, then I can either get paid for it or I can take it as extra vacation time. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (55:38.916)
Ha ha!

Lucas Clarke (55:47.044)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (56:02.754)
I like that. Honestly, why not? If you're doing asynchronous time, want to like, or not asynchronous, you're doing individual work on your own time to like bank days and stuff. think that's, honestly, I think the way that we're going, even yesterday, obviously teaching, we get pretty solid vacation time as well. But like for example, yesterday we had a report card writing day where there was no students at the school and we all had to drive in, sit down at our desks.

Aaron Hunter (56:06.152)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (56:31.61)
and type our report cards, but I'm like, I can do that at home. So I think like even like some places in North America are slowly catching up to that. But I think we're going to start to see a lot more autonomy, I think, in our sectors, I think, no matter what your sector is kind of moving forward, which is obviously nice. But yeah.

Aaron Hunter (56:34.484)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (56:41.193)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (56:45.042)
I hope so. I hope so.

Aaron Hunter (56:52.272)
I think the first thing I'd like to see in the U S and I've seen more vacation time, or at least they get their 20 days sooner. Some of the companies that I used to work for, but I would like to see that sick time where you get five days a year to me, and then you have to start using your vacation. I really hope we can eventually, yeah, kind of move away from that. mean, I think that the fear is that people will take advantage and of course, yeah, I mean, there are people that do, but for the most part, people aren't really taking advantage of it. So.

Lucas Clarke (57:16.131)
Yes.

Lucas Clarke (57:20.389)
I know it's always like the fear of like, no people are going to abuse everything, but most people are trying to do their job and live their life and whatever. But so one of the last questions I've got for you is even for myself, I thought about this a lot being involved in some different travel opportunities this year of like people often say like, travel is the best educator and like traveling is going to like open your eyes. And that's that's what we tell our students. That's we tell ourselves. But

Aaron Hunter (57:26.9)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (57:46.237)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (57:49.688)
Obviously outside of those general kind of eye opening experiences, like what has travel given you that maybe you didn't expect?

Aaron Hunter (57:57.842)
Yeah. To add onto that though, I did talk to the students in my hometown and maybe the socioeconomic school, the schools where their socioeconomics are not high. And I say, okay, obviously maybe travel isn't realistic for some of the families. So another good thing to do, the good way to experience culture is try the food. And, we live in, I think Canada is the same from what I've seen, but U.S. as well, such a diverse Germany as well.

Lucas Clarke (58:08.762)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (58:13.56)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (58:25.662)
go try a different food. Don't just do hamburger or like meat and potatoes, right? And I did tell the kids that I think it's another good way. And then, and don't be afraid to ask whoever owns the restaurant, if they're from a different country, ask them questions. They're going to answer more than likely they're going to answer it. Yeah, it's they get to share their, they get to share their, culture with. So, and I'm sorry, I wanted to add that when you said that I was like, make sure you tell them that too. So sorry, what was the question? I just completely.

Lucas Clarke (58:28.186)
You

Lucas Clarke (58:39.366)
And they're gonna love it. Yeah, typically.

Lucas Clarke (58:48.634)
So I guess like outside of the obvious kind of generalities of travel being eye-opening etc. Like what do you think travel has provided you that maybe you didn't expect? Either educationally or just personally.

Aaron Hunter (58:56.456)
and

Aaron Hunter (59:01.854)
Beautiful.

You're finishing strong Lucas, you are finishing strong. It's a great question. I mean, for me personally, like I said, I'm a pretty impulsive person, I would say, but it's something I didn't even realize that I was until I came here. And even actually my American friend was the one that told me, but now then you start watching how other people are doing it. Or I realized how much meat we eat in our diets in the US in particular.

Lucas Clarke (59:31.33)
Yup. yeah. Yes.

Aaron Hunter (59:31.772)
And just, just different, or like process meats in particular. And I'm like, okay. So I just, I started watching how other people are doing things, even at restaurants or wherever the case is. And I'm like, huh, I wonder. So I try to take what's what I like about that. There's some things I think Germans, for instance, they do extremely well. I think there's some things I don't necessarily like as much and same thing for my own country. I think there's things in America that we're really, really strong at. And I think there's things we need to improve on. And I, and so for me, it's like,

I take what I like from kind of each culture and I try to incorporate it a bit in my life somehow, some way. And I think it really helps because if you, yeah, if you look at, like if you look at my friend group in Germany, yeah, I have like one American friend. But then it's, you know, South Korea, Lebanon, India, Oman, Czech Republic. And the list goes on and on. So you're, when you're in the room or you're hiking with that group of people, and of course a lot of German friends too, when you're hiking with that group,

Lucas Clarke (01:00:07.386)
Mm-hmm. I like that.

Aaron Hunter (01:00:31.112)
that big of a group of people from that many different backgrounds, you guys are going to have completely different ways of thinking and that's okay. And you just, pick up what you like and you try to, you you just try to incorporate in your life a little bit. So.

Lucas Clarke (01:00:44.846)
Yeah, process meat is crazy. Like my friend and I, Devon, Devon and I, like he's from Jamaica originally. And so he was teaching in Fort Murray with me. And we were the only two male chaperones on the trip when we went. But we always joked like, again, like I'll eat eggs for breakfast and I'll have like a protein shake with my lunch. And then I'll eat something with chicken or beef for supper. It's always.

Aaron Hunter (01:00:48.518)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (01:00:53.534)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (01:01:08.724)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (01:01:12.03)
very kind of like bro meals that I eat. mean, shamelessly, but it's like, that's kind of been that's been my life for like 10 years. But then we go to Italy and it's like, have like like, maybe like you have a croissant for breakfast. And then in the afternoon, it's like, like you actually have pasta in the afternoon, because it's like two or 3pm. It's not actually like at six or seven.

Aaron Hunter (01:01:14.484)
Pro meals.

Aaron Hunter (01:01:25.619)
Mm.

Aaron Hunter (01:01:33.908)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (01:01:33.922)
And then, maybe like a salad with some meat in the evening. Like it's very like smaller portion. It's very different schedule. I'm like, this is crazy. Like we would joke that there was no protein in Italy, like everywhere that we look, but it is, it's interesting. You're just kind of seeing those little like micro changes and differences of the cultures for sure.

Aaron Hunter (01:01:41.598)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (01:01:51.762)
Yeah. Now, have you ever heard of those blue, I think they're called blue regions or something, maybe blue cities, blue regions. Essentially what it boils down to is they have an excessively high number of residents that are over a hundred years old or more, over a hundred years old. And now the crazy thing is like Sardinia in Italy, all of the bro, I got played sports growing up and I played rugby at university, baseball here.

Lucas Clarke (01:01:58.956)
No.

Lucas Clarke (01:02:08.995)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (01:02:18.596)
Yeah

Aaron Hunter (01:02:19.88)
you know, protein, heavy protein, lifting weights. You go to Sardinia and one of these guys, got mama in the kitchen, like making homemade pasta. There's not a chicken wing to be seen. And it's just this pasta and yet they're living to over a hundred years old. They're drinking wine in the morning. And you're just like, wait, what have I been doing with my life?

Lucas Clarke (01:02:21.622)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (01:02:30.65)
No.

Lucas Clarke (01:02:38.2)
Yep. Yep.

Well, and that's like our tour guide, Max. I've been meaning to get around to it, but I'm going to do a podcast with him, like our tour guide when we were there. He's from Rome originally and still lives there. We couldn't drink at all because we were like adults from a... We had to like abide by Canadian rules even though like it was only 16 for the age or whatever. But we couldn't drink. And so we said that we couldn't even... He's like, what?

Aaron Hunter (01:03:06.216)
Here too.

Lucas Clarke (01:03:13.08)
having wine with supper isn't drinking. It's like, it's just, that's what you have with your supper. Like, what are you talking about? He was just so blown away by that, which I thought was hilarious, but it's, the wine with the homemade pasta is definitely a different thing, but yeah.

Aaron Hunter (01:03:17.947)
and

Aaron Hunter (01:03:22.004)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (01:03:27.88)
Yeah, you're making me want to go see if I can find a 22 euro flight and just jet down. I didn't have the wine when I was in Milan. We were hitting the Negronis probably a little harder than we should have, but yeah.

Lucas Clarke (01:03:36.812)
Yeah, well, again, like whatever. it's honestly like alcohol is not that expensive. I've noticed either like in a lot of the areas, especially. Yeah. So I'm actually coming to Germany in twenty twenty six. As far as I know, I obviously, depending on life plans and things that we're doing, but we're doing another EF tour to Berlin, Prague, Auschwitz and Vienna and Budapest, I believe. Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (01:03:41.808)
It's super cheap here. Super cheap here.

Aaron Hunter (01:03:47.284)
There you go.

Aaron Hunter (01:04:01.318)
That's heavy. That's heavy. I will, I haven't been, surprisingly, I haven't been to the concentration camps yet, but I did go to the killing fields in Cambodia and Phnom Penh. It is heavy. It's heavy. just mentally, speaking of mentally preparing yourself, mentally prepare yourself for that. And I would even say don't even have like some exciting activity afterwards because you're, you're not going to be there. You're not going to be ready for it. So yeah, that's super, super heavy.

Lucas Clarke (01:04:07.385)
Okay.

Yeah, that's, that's yeah. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (01:04:24.846)
No, it's like it's not gonna be an exciting day. Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (01:04:29.406)
But yeah, mean, the thing about Germany is everybody thinks it's only beer that we have, which, Averia, yes, Averia is heavy on the beers, but we have wine. We actually have some of the best white wine, I think, in Europe, my personal opinion. And it's right in this region, right along the Rhine and then all the way down towards the, it's along the French border as well. So yeah, just a fun fact for you.

Lucas Clarke (01:04:35.054)
Yeah, honestly, my, yeah.

Lucas Clarke (01:04:47.311)
Okay.

Lucas Clarke (01:04:53.0)
Yep. Another thing that was interesting was, because on the last trip, we drove from Paris into Lucerne and then like Lucerne down into...

Lucas Clarke (01:05:08.27)
We went to Lake Como actually as a stop, but seeing like the cultural mixing along the borders of like, this is like the Swiss French region. And this is the Swiss German region and like how like different everything is like meshed in those areas. And that's kind of like Europe just seems a lot more like transferables the wrong word, but it's like you can leave France but still be like

Aaron Hunter (01:05:09.812)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (01:05:18.484)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (01:05:36.452)
feel like you're in France, if you're on the border of Switzerland, if that makes sense, it's kind of like what I've noticed from the tour guides that we had especially.

Aaron Hunter (01:05:38.024)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (01:05:44.936)
Yeah. Well, Luzern is an interesting town anyway. Notice how I said it the German way, you said it the French way. But yeah, that's an interesting town because there are, there's two ways to really pronounce it. Luzern and Luzern. Yeah. But there's a way, there are ways, there are ways to get by. We had my friend in Berlin, part of my hiking group planned a big, we do once a year, we used to do a hiking, a big hiking trip.

Lucas Clarke (01:05:47.576)
Yeah. Lutern, yeah.

Lucas Clarke (01:05:55.586)
Yeah. And Switzerland is insanely expensive. That was eye opening.

Aaron Hunter (01:06:13.0)
And we did it in, gosh, what was it? Innsbruck? Not Innsbruck. I always forget. I always get the Austrian city. I think it's Innsbruck. No, Insalachen. I always get those two mixed up. Innsbruck is in Austria. Okay. So we went to, we went to Insalachen and I was thinking like, all right, I am about to drop some coin. I'm, like I'm traveling to Asia or something for a whole huge, massive trip. And no, she found a really good place where we can stay and.

Lucas Clarke (01:06:24.506)
Yeah, same. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lucas Clarke (01:06:35.03)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (01:06:42.748)
She somehow we ended up walking out of there relatively inexpensive. I think we still spent about 200 euros for four days, but still that's for Switzerland. No, and same thing with Kitzbuehl. Yeah. And even Austria, like Kitzbuehl, which is a, it's basically like the, Aspen of Austria. It's a big party area, big, big ski snowboarding. My friend and I went down there. We stayed at a, like a farmstead, like a traditional farmstead with like, even there were cows or cattle underneath and we were up.

Lucas Clarke (01:06:48.238)
Yeah. Yeah, that's not bad. I paid that for like a meal.

Aaron Hunter (01:07:12.164)
of like the, I don't know how to explain that without visuals, but there's literally farm animals and then you're, you're sleeping above them and it's for the heat to rise. So it's a proper, proper traditional, yeah, they're, milking cows in the morning when you walk out and, but you can get those, you can find those places for a fairly affordable prices. So if you are afraid to go to these countries, Norway is another expensive one. There are ways Scandinavias that that actually, I don't really know how to work around that one, but

Lucas Clarke (01:07:14.776)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (01:07:25.464)
No.

Lucas Clarke (01:07:35.79)
Yeah, Scandinavia, I've heard it, yeah.

Aaron Hunter (01:07:41.31)
There are ways to go, or if you want to just go to the Alps and you don't want to spend the Swiss money, you can go to Austria or you can go to France. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (01:07:48.718)
Yeah, I'm excited for like Prague and Vienna and Budapest because honestly the trip I went on the summer again, it's we spent like a day or two in each major city, which I know is not long enough to experience really anything is more so just seeing the sights and move on because it was like I think like eight countries and 17 days or something like it was was nuts and it was super fun, but it was exhausting. was. Like there was just.

you're going through a lot and it's literally the European showcase or whatever. So I would definitely love to narrow down some cities and actually like spend a week there or four days and do a couple different things like that.

Aaron Hunter (01:08:19.57)
Mm.

Aaron Hunter (01:08:31.137)
All three are gems, man. Vienna, I love. Budapest and Prague are two of my favorites. Budapest, you want to talk about a mixing of cultures over the history of what that entire area has been through as far as Ottoman Empire, all sorts. My brain's freezing a little bit here, but there's a lot of cultures and that's the reason the bathhouses are there. You have to go check this out when you're there, by the way. Check out the bathhouses, even if you're like, that seems a little weird.

Lucas Clarke (01:08:45.998)
Yeah, true.

Lucas Clarke (01:08:55.886)
Yeah. Absolutely. No, whatever. If it's weird, honestly, when you're traveling, let's like someone said, I never say no, or like always say yes when you're traveling, like trying different things like new foods and stuff like that. that is the point. Because honestly, one of the running jokes that we had with our group was that a lot of the younger kids just kept trying to find a Starbucks everywhere that we went. I'm like, guys, like we have

Aaron Hunter (01:08:59.476)
do it 100 % do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (01:09:07.668)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (01:09:11.88)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (01:09:23.374)
caramel macchiato is in Canada. Like you can, I try to expand the palette here and like not eat the same thing every time. anyway, so.

Aaron Hunter (01:09:25.321)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (01:09:32.122)
Mm-hmm. You know the yes theory guys. Do you know the yes theory guys on YouTube? They're check them out. They're pretty they're pretty great, but they have a I think they it's something I'm gonna butcher this but they have a they have like a catchphrase it's basically like Get comfortable with being uncomfortable and that's perfect. So

Lucas Clarke (01:09:36.632)
No

Okay.

Lucas Clarke (01:09:47.778)
Yes, yeah, absolutely. Okay, Aaron, one more question for you, my friend. So we've talked a lot about Tales of the Magical Postcards. We talked about your vision, strategy, places you wanna take it to rebranding. It's a lot of learning involved in that. And one of my favorite quotes is, not let school get in the way of your education.

Aaron Hunter (01:09:53.406)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (01:09:58.952)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (01:10:08.244)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (01:10:13.646)
I think that kind of blends a lot into, even as a teacher, I'm the one who's taking that curriculum and trying to play with it as much as I can to actually make learning not completely boring. A bit more difficult this year learning a lot of new stuff, but with that quote, do not let school get in the way of your education, I guess. What have you learned that has helped you kind of through all of this that you wouldn't have necessarily learned in a classroom? Even like networking you were talking about before, like what are the things that you are?

Aaron Hunter (01:10:13.896)
Yes. Yes.

Aaron Hunter (01:10:25.108)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (01:10:41.779)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (01:10:43.278)
that you have taken away from this experience.

Aaron Hunter (01:10:45.684)
I mean, a lot. School, university was great. I'm glad I did it. I needed to grow up. That was a great baseline for me to get going. You know, without it, think I personally, I'm glad I did it. Is it for everybody? Maybe not, know, weigh your options for sure. But from this, I would say definitely starting something and finishing it. There are oftentimes I would catch myself and I know my mom will say this too.

Lucas Clarke (01:10:51.266)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (01:10:59.146)
and

Aaron Hunter (01:11:16.188)
I would start something or I'd start a few different things and then I'd kind of lose interest in it. And this is the one thing I would say, one of the things, not necessarily the one thing, but the one of the big things where I've said, okay, I'm going to do it. I stumbled so hard to begin with, kept going, kept going. And I stuck with it. There was about a month where I took off because I was just really, you really stuck. But after that, you know, I'm really, really glad that I stuck with it and I just fought through it and the game, same thing with the marketing and everything else.

Lucas Clarke (01:11:21.338)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (01:11:31.866)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (01:11:42.18)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Hunter (01:11:44.884)
If you look at what I was doing last year, there wasn't a lot of direction to it. was just kind of like, well, the book's award winning. You know, the book speaks for itself. Yeah, but you could have a diamond in your hand and if nobody knows about it, it might as well be a piece of coal. that's the, yeah, you've got a lot of phrases you can put up on your website or something. Yeah. But yeah, I that's the biggest thing was just starting something and finishing it and seeing it through and then.

Lucas Clarke (01:12:00.484)
I like that.

Lucas Clarke (01:12:04.312)
Yeah, a lot of nuggets here today. I'm liking it.

Aaron Hunter (01:12:14.076)
Because I did that initially, the next one wasn't so hard to do. And then, you know, I want to eventually turn this into a children's television show and I want to take these things to that next level. And I made some contacts, which I'm hoping, I'm hoping to come through. But the point is, it's like, all right, I know it's going to the first time it's going to probably stumble. okay. Just, but each time it gets a lot easier to just push through the stumbling, push through, push through, push through. And yeah. So just get through that first one. That's the big key.

Lucas Clarke (01:12:23.738)
They're awesome.

Lucas Clarke (01:12:27.618)
Okay, I like it.

Lucas Clarke (01:12:43.544)
And one day Uncle Chuck will make it to the airwaves. So.

Aaron Hunter (01:12:47.666)
Uncle Chuck has made it to the airwaves. He's getting kind of, my mom says he's getting kind of a big head though. So there's a class in Chicago, Ms. Curry, she works with children on the autism spectrum. And they got really, she read the book to them and they got really fixated on Uncle Chuck for some reason. They're the only group that has gotten so fixated on him. And so Uncle Chuck did even a video up in, he's up in the UP, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, part-time. Sometimes he's in Pensacola, Florida. So he did a little video for them.

Lucas Clarke (01:13:07.661)
You

Lucas Clarke (01:13:13.112)
Yeah.

Aaron Hunter (01:13:17.224)
And I put it on Instagram and the kids loved it. And then now he even shot, well, I was back in Kenosha for my mom's birthday. He made two episodes with me or not two episodes, two. One of them was just an announcement about the second book. The other one was actually read a postcard that he had sent me and he explained where he was at the time. And then I read it. And so after that, he's now, you know, asking for his trailer. He wants an upgrade on his trailer. He wants only green &Ms in his bowl. Like, you know, he's starting to get a little, he's starting to get a little cocky over there.

We have to bring them back down to earth. I don't know if a podcast is the way to do that.

Lucas Clarke (01:13:51.802)
Honestly, if we do one of these in the future, which I think we will for sure, maybe like one book two comes out, maybe we can do a three-way call with Uncle Chuck for a brief included. I think that would be fun.

Aaron Hunter (01:14:01.693)
Yeah, we can get them on.

he's an interesting guy to talk to. mean, he, he's seen basically almost all of the world just through the Navy. he was a captain in the Navy. So he got to see a lot. He's got a lot of wisdom, although, you know, if he's listening to this, don't keep your head small. Keep your head small.

Lucas Clarke (01:14:11.288)
That's yeah, that's true.

Lucas Clarke (01:14:19.738)
Alright, so that pretty much brings us to the end here today. guess maybe let the listeners know where they can find you on social media. then honestly, thank you so much for coming on, man. Alright, there it is.

Aaron Hunter (01:14:30.643)
Yeah.

That's the book. That's the book. Yeah, they can find me on social media. Everything is at the exploring author. So it's Facebook, TikTok, Instagram. Definitely check out the YouTube and subscribe to that because there's a lot of cool things coming with that. And then if you want to look at the book, you can either see it, the link on the exploring author. always link the book page to it too. Otherwise it's at at tales of the magical postcards. So everything is simple, easy peasy.

Lucas Clarke (01:15:00.378)
Beautiful. I'll add the I'll add those to the show notes as well. But anyway, Aaron Hunter, thank you so much for coming on today, sir. It was a pleasure.

Aaron Hunter (01:15:07.664)
I appreciate you.

Lucas Clarke (01:15:11.202)
Okay, so we are no longer rolling my friend. It's gonna give this, be stopped now. recording. something went wrong. Weird. that's weird. Something went wrong. I'm scared to refresh the page because I don't want it to. I can edit this out after, it's not a big deal. Anyway, I guess I'll edit this part out even if it's still kind of like being weird, but how'd you find that? That was fun.

Aaron Hunter (01:15:16.616)
says recording. Put this in the bloopers.

Aaron Hunter (01:15:36.914)
Yeah, I liked these. The first time I did a radio interview was I was a bit nervous, but I don't know, because I didn't know it was my first, everything, know, first time doing anything. But yeah, this one was pretty, pretty laid back, but I had watched a few, actually the guy from Czech Republic, Pejta, he's a big fan of yours now. He came over to watch baseball one night. We had a couple beers and then he's like, he wanted to know about the podcast. And so I showed him the episode with, I think his name is Darrell, the guy,

Lucas Clarke (01:15:43.396)
Yeah.

Yes.

Lucas Clarke (01:15:56.213)
Okay, cool

Lucas Clarke (01:16:05.614)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aaron Hunter (01:16:05.886)
guy that works with the KKK guys. Yeah. And he's just like, this is pretty cool.

Lucas Clarke (01:16:10.439)
You got to preface that really. Yeah, this guy works with the KKK. It's like what?

Aaron Hunter (01:16:13.126)
With, yeah, yeah, even that doesn't do it. Yeah. He works to get them out. I really need to, yeah. Yeah. Even at work, I'm finding myself, I'll say things that probably somebody from my home city would understand. I don't know that one though. Even that one probably wouldn't have. Yeah. They're really, really cool guys. Super, super cool, man. And that's how we're, we're both canceled now.

Lucas Clarke (01:16:20.42)
So yeah, great podcast. Listen to this.

Lucas Clarke (01:16:30.468)
Yeah, they wear these white hats. like, Aaron, what are you watching online?

Okay. Yes, I'm going to refresh here and I'm just going hope I don't lose you, but we'll see what happens.

Aaron Hunter (01:16:48.276)
Hope we don't lose the whole recording. That would be really bad.

Lucas Clarke (01:16:49.818)
No, that would be, I'd be devastated. no, Riverside's usually pretty good with recording this stuff, but.

Aaron Hunter (01:16:59.028)
I didn't even know, I didn't even know about the, it's uploading. That's why.