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Oh, it's so good being back in the mountains. I'm about to spend a long winter weekend in Italy by traveling to the locations of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics where I've been challenged by Cronisero to try and find my own golden moment in this beautiful natural arena. Let's just see what happens. So, I'll begin with a half day exploring Milan before making my way up to the Doommites where I'll spend three nights in Cortina Dampezo trying out some winter activities. Exhausting, but rewarding. That's what we want. It doesn't get much better than this. Sun's going down with incredible view of the valley around. So, cheers to that.
Having moved from the UK to Canada, one of the things I really miss is having Europe on my doorstep and just be able to do quick little getaways. So, I'm back in the UK for the start of December to see like catch up with friends and family. So, I figured whilst I'm over here, why not film a little weekend getaway? So, it's a Thursday evening. I'll be traveling back on a Monday. So, it's basically a 4-day weekend I've gone away for. And of course, one of the other things I miss living in the prairies are mountains. So, yeah, could be heading up to the Doommites, which is going to be so much fun. Like, uh I've been there before back in 2019, but it's like a press trip kind of thing. So, you
know, I had a lot of fun, but I don't feel like I really got stuck in with the mountains there. So, hopefully get to experience a bit more of it this weekend. So, yeah, it's like a 2-hour flight to Milan, if that, hop over there, have a morning in Milan, and then travel on up to the Doommites. Once I touched down in Milan, it was just a quick metro and tram ride to reach my hotel, which was right by the central station. So, that's the station. That's my hotel. So, this is my room. Apparently, I got a free upgrade. So, God knows what kind of cheap ass room I actually originally booked. But yeah, it's pretty late, so I'm just going to settle into the hotel tonight and go explore Milan
first thing in the morning before I head off to the mountains in the afternoon. All right, good morning from Milan. In 5 hours time, I'm going to be getting the train from here heading to Venice and up into the mountains. But until then, I'm just going to have a little potter around the city cuz this is actually my first time in Milan like properly. Like I've changed trains here before, but it's my first time exploring the city. I've only got a short amount of time. So, I'm going to jump on the metro and head to the downtown area and go check out the famous cathedral and then just have a wander around after that. So, let's go.
It took less than 10 minutes on the metro to reach Duomo, which is right in the center of town. Oh, here it is. I was like, I'll get outside and get my bearings. And it's like, oh, it's right here. Construction of Duomo Cathedral began in 1386, and it took nearly 600 years to finish. It's one of the largest cathedrals in Europe and the Gothic architectural style features over 3,400 statues. When you get up close to it and see the amount of detail in the architecture and all the different sculptures, it's like ah that's why it took 600 years to complete this thing. Anyway, going to says you can just buy a ticket online. So, I'm going to do that then go on inside. So, there is a lift you can get
to the cathedral, but that costs more. So, I thought I'd do it old school style and take the stairs. All right. This is cool. You get to wander around on the rooftops. Get a real good close to the architecture. You see how far we've come up though. This is really cool. Getting to see a cathedral from this kind of perspective. All right, we're going further up. So, now we're actually on the top of the cathedral. This is way better than I thought it was going to be. I thought we just going to get to like poke around and get a couple little viewpoints, but getting to walk on top of it like this, it's pretty sweet.
There are still some bits of scaffolding on the main bit, but I'm guessing they're doing some little touch-ups before the Winter Olympics start. You get great views around the Milan, but you can just see the detail. Every single spire has all these little mini sculptures up. Took a lot longer to come down than it did going up cuz everyone's going so slow. But now actually in the cathedral, it's pretty impressive. these giant paintings here and someone's tuning the organ. So, it's not quite the scene setting music you might expect.
So, now I'm just going to go for a quick walk through the shopping center here at the Galleria Victoriao. I think that's what it's called. Let me check that. Yeah, near enough. In a weird way, it kind of reminds me of uh being in a hotel in Vegas, except this is real, but that was based on this. These incredible paintings up here. Oh, look at this gingerbread house. That's huge. It's a gingerbread Milan. If you want to spend €20 on spaghetti, it's your place. It is beautiful, though. That is definitely worth just a quick pop in cuz you can be right by the cathedral. Just pop in and check it out.
Well, checking out the cathedral took a lot longer than I thought. So, kind of running out of time this morning. I could easily just happily just wander around the streets here checking out the Christmas markets and stuff, but there's a castle about 15 minutes walk away going to go have a look at. And then from there, just work my way back to the hotel. Yeah, you can see the cathedral over there and a castle just down here. And between it seems like one of the main shopping streets in town. Maybe kind of like Oxford Street, but not an absolute hellscape you want to avoid at all costs. Well, this is pretty beautiful fountain in front of the castle here. I don't dare put my camera down and get a shot because it's like, you know, like around
the Eiffel Town, there's lots of people trying to sell you things and trying to give you free bracelets. They're here. Foresco Castle is a massive 15th century fortress in the heart of Milan. Once home to the powerful Sporza dynasty, today its grand courtyards and museums are home to some masterpieces, including Michelangelo's final sculpture. Wow. This massive square in the middle of it. Kind of reminds me of the Forbidden City in Beijing, just with European architecture, but when you get the big kind of walled squares between each bed. this one.
No. Okay. So, just walk straight through the castle and it leads out to Parkco Symphonio. It's a beautiful, beautiful spot. I think if you want to escape the hustle bustle of the city, come wander around the park down here. All right, I'm back at the station. Just want to get a quick bite before the journey. And there's this food market right here on the edge of the station. Just opposite my hotel. Those sandwiches look amazing. Oh, and so do these. Loads of great stuff in here. There's a bar, too, but save that for later.
I got myself a nice big sandwich. It's been good though. It's nice having a quick wander around. Cathedral was amazing. Dead easy to get around. Beautiful city. So, no, from my brief time here in Milan. Pretty impressed with it. Definitely worth check out even just for a small time if you're coming through. It's a pretty grand train station. Amazing design. Take a 2 hour 15-minute train to Venice and then a 2 and 1 half hour bus to Cortina from there. On our way now, zooming through Italy, heading east towards Venice. It's kind
of strange sort of going to Venice, but not actually going to see Venice. I'm just going to get straight on the bus to Cortina. But if you want to extend this little trip that I'm doing, you can easily have a day in Venice along the way. All right. And then Venice, not actually in the old part of Venice, just on the mainland, the main station, but it's where I changed to the Cortina Express bus. It would have been cool to actually get the bus up during the day cuz then you would like weave through the mountains and it will like it would have been a spectacular journey, but just timings worked out. So, I'm heading up there in
the evening. But it means there'll be a lovely little surprise when I wake up tomorrow morning and open up the curtains and Doommites will be there. You know, this like challenge of finding a golden moment, it's something that everybody's looking for on their travels. And for me, the mountains are the perfect place for it. So, I'm very excited to get up there this evening and get amongst it and just find those moments where you just pause and take in the beauty around you. After driving for 2 and 1/2 hours, the bus reached Cortina and then it was just a few minutes walk to my hotel.
lovely. Showed us some views in the morning. So, yeah, I've come down to the hotel's restaurant for dinner. By the time I got the room stuff, it was 8:00 and I need to get my stuff sorted for tomorrow for the activities and for filming those activities. So, I was like, I'll come to the hotel restaurant. It's lovely. It's so nice. Just a chilled evening, get a good night's sleep, and then start enjoying the town, particularly the mountains tomorrow. Just open up the curtains to have my first glimpse up at the mountains. And yeah, I see one cable car station up there. I think there's another one round over here.
Oh, just want to get out amongst it now. Heat. in Quina. Obviously, one of the main winter activities to do is skiing, but I'm not much of a skier. I dabble in it. Plus, skiing is really hard to film if you're just by yourself. So, I thought I use my time to sort of show off some other winter activities you can do here other than skiing. Right now, it's mid December. I said there isn't a ton of snow actually in the town, but further up into the peaks, there's plenty of snow around. So, I signed up for a
snowshoeing hike, like a guided snowshoe hike. All right, I am off to find the uh the guide center where I'm going to be doing my snowshoe experience hike thing through. But yeah, sun's come up now, so finally got a good look at the town. And wow, like what an incredible, incredible setting. [snorts] gorgeous valley in the Doommites. Mountains in every direction. So yes, very excited to be here now. It's like what a beautiful, beautiful place. So I'll show you around the town more this afternoon, but for now, time to get on with the adventure. I'd signed up for a snowshoe hike with guide Alpine Cortina, and my guide Eduardo drove us about 20 minutes out of town up towards an area called Pasu Jiao.
only worn snowshoes once before. So, see how I do. Do we have a nice path? Yeah. Through the trees. Yeah. And then we have this nice wide valley. Perfect. We'll see. Always better. Let's go. It's not too cold out. It's only minus 2, which living in Winnipeg now, it's like a hot sunny day. It's heading through the trees into a little valley here. The mountains right above us. Just amazing. The whole thing started like just so beautiful and blissful and like walking this magical winter wonderland kind of thing.
This is kind of cool. What's the name of this area we're in? Like right here? Paso Joe. Just behind you minutes. Yeah. And behind uh Tfana Peak, right? The icon of Coutina, right? The big one. Yeah. Mostly known for rock climbing. Yeah. But also skiing for example on the right side. That's a ski slope. That zigzag.
It's a north piece. Very famous. Right. Okay. On the right side beyond the ridge. Yeah. There's the Olympic run. Okay. Where the women will compete. And now we're hiking towards Portella Jao. Forella means uh settle. You can see over there. Yeah. Not very snowy. Behind me you will you can see the bl for me rock formation. This is um very popular area for um backount skiing. Yeah. And it's so quiet here as well like cuz we're not near any slopes or anything. So there's no people around except us two.
Not even animals. Yeah, we said there's some wolves around some places. You see the mountains all around. Now, you talk about sort of being in nature's arena when it's like literally like an amphitheater around you. It's like, yep, yep, this works. This is amazing. There was like different directions we could go, but because it looked like there was more snow to the right, it's like, "Oh, let's go up around that peak." We're going to try go around the back of this one here cuz the other
paths look a bit too rocky right now, which no good for snow issues. But we'll see what happens. Might have to turn around, but whatever. Just bad the sky is clear and we can see all the views. We're back in the soft snow here. Take bigger steps. This is great though. Just what I wanted. Spot two or three mountain goats up there. Yeah, it's perched on the hill. The last grass of the winter.
It started out okay. Like, you know, it's a bit of a workout. A bit more tiring than just regular hiking, but it was all good fun. And then as soon as we started going up the steep bit, that was so hard. All right, we're about to start the climb up. Kind of feels like when you're walking on sand, cuz each step you take, you go back a little bit, but we'll get there. the irony when you're making a video like when things get hard and tough that makes more interesting video but it's also way harder to film cuz you're trying to lally trying to climb up this mountain with my poles and snowshoes. whilst holding a GoPro and like falling over. Like I fell over a good few times.
This is so hard. Started out fun and easy and this is really hard. Honestly, I wasn't even sure if I could make it up there. Like it was just regular hiking. Like it's easy. It's just a little slope. But I was struggling so much. It's the hardest thing I've done in a long, long time. It's like every single step is like climbing a whole mountain. I struggle and struggle, but eventually you got to top. You can see over the ridge into the next valley and just more amazing 360 views of mountains, which is just what I wanted basically. How high up are we here? Uh, it's about 2,000 m 2100. Yeah. So, nothing too high. That's a incredible view to come up to.
Now, we're going to go around the peak here. Exhausting, but rewarding. That's what we want. Good. You make so much quicker progress when you're not going up a snow slope. You can say that. Now I just got to get down. Yeah. Now the easy part hopefully. Yeah. So, we're just heading car's just down there. Not too far now. This is a bloody brilliant car. What a good start to my time in Corina. Snow's coming down now. For real. Yeah. What an incredible hike. What an experience. And I had brought a couple of beers with us. Like I was like, "Oh, being a DO can
have one at the end where we're standing up there in the mountains." Plus, it's a 0% alcohol. So, it's like, you know, I don't have to worry about him having to drive back down or anything like that. But just as we were getting to the end and that moment would have been there, the clouds came in and the snow came in and it's like, don't really want to just crack a beer right now and just stand around in the cold and the snow. So, I'm having one on my hotel balcony instead. So, that was a great start. Really, really great start to my time here. And he's recommended a hike that I can do tomorrow just by myself. So, feel like I'm getting a grip of what I'm going to be doing with my time in Cortina. So,
going to finish up here and then have a wander through town, actually explore the town a little bit. On the opposite end, there's a cable car and get up. Going to try and go up there for sunset, but don't know if we'll get a sunset with this weather. We'll see how we do. But either way, hopefully be spectacular views of this gorgeous place. All right, let's go have a wander through the town. Oh, cool. Look at that cable car. Yeah, definitely going up there tomorrow.
One thing you do notice with this town is the amount of traffic going through. It's a beautiful place, but it's not like, you know, I've just I guess I've just been spoiled by Ven and Switzerland where there's no traffic at all. It's fine. It's just a observation. But yeah, I think last night at dinner I spent about €100 maybe. So for lunch today, I've gone for a wrap that has 20% off. So all of this and a snack or drink came to €7. So balancing it out. Despite what I just said about the traffic, the main street here is pedestrianized, so you are kind of away from the noise. And it's a very, very pretty town. Quite bougie. Quite a bougie uh alpine resort.
They have a motorized toy gondola cable car in the window here. I need to move away before I waste my money. This is pretty cool. The whole building's like one giant advent calendar. At least I think that's what it's doing. But it's been good to actually finally have a little wander around. You could spend a fortune here if you wanted to. There's some nice little souvenir shops, though, so maybe I'll get a little something for home, something for the pub, maybe. All right, it's 3:00 and sunset's in like an hour and a half, so I'm going to hopefully get this cable car up there. €27 to go up and down. The last one down was not till 7:30 or so. Got plenty of time to enjoy it up there. That was really cool. What an
incredible, incredible view. They got some deep house sounds playing like appris kind of vibe. So, I'm going to go for a bit of a wander away from it and then come back here and enjoy the appri ski without the skiing. This is sick. All right. So, I'm basically walking through a ski slope. Uh, I think there's a cliffhanger lodge, like the movie Cliffhanger, a lodge that was in the film that was [snorts] shot around here. Let's give this a go. I'm just in my hiking boots. This is about as snowy as what I was walking through earlier. So, we'll see how far we can get. If I can find a nice viewpoint like away from everything, that'll be nice enough.
Is that it? Cuz it said it was half an hour walk and I've walked 5 minutes. Maybe it is. Let's go have a look. Didn't think I was going to come for a little sunset view and a drink at the lodge from Cliffhanger, which apparently there's a lodge in that movie. I'll have to rewatch it. This is so cool. Yeah, I just thought I'd come up here and go for a little wander and find a little viewpoint. I didn't think I'd be stopping in the lodge from cliffhanger. I'm going to go down there, [snorts] enjoy the view from around there without
falling off the mountain. I mean, it's just an abandoned building, but still. I mean, I love a good '90s action movie, but I think I've only seen Cliffhanger twice, and the last time was about 20 years ago. I'll have to rewatch it. Got to let the beer cool down a bit before I have it. And yes, I did bring some lime. Always be prepared. It doesn't get much better than this. my own little private cliffhanger logic with incredible view of the valley around. You know, sun's going down. It's golden hour. I'd call this a golden moment.
This is great though. This is so great. Oh, it's so good being back in the mountains. They call this nature's arena and it is I mean it's got like mountains all around you. I can just about hear the music from the App Ski Bar. There's like a little bit of a vibe going, but otherwise it's my own little private cliffhanger lodge up in the Doommites. So, cheers to that. cuz tomorrow I'm going to go on the cable car on the opposite side of the valley and do this all again. All right, let's head to the AR ski bar for one before I head down. That was great though. Just a mini little adventure by Lodge. It was fun.
See, I can follow the path. Or I can just follow the sounds of the thumping tunes. How do they say this is half an hour? I've literally been walking 2 minutes from the lodge. I think I missed the party. I'm not going to stand there, have a drink by myself in a big empty bar. Have my moment at the lodge. Let's head back down. Town's all lit up now. Super cozy. Love it. Got a little cable car ornament for the Christmas tree. After a long busy day, I ended up having a pretty chilled evening, stopping for a drink in Bar Sport before having dinner
at my hotel again. Then I got some good rest before I started exploring again tomorrow. All right, good morning from Cortina. It's looking a little gray and a little wet this morning, but it's not going to interrupt my plans. I'm basically going to go for a hike uh up this way over here. It's about a 3-hour hike. So, just out through the town, through some fields and stuff, and hike up to this ridge, and I should get some amazing views all around. So, that's the plan for this morning. And then this afternoon, just get a cable car up on the opposite side of the valley to what I did yesterday. Very, very excited.
It's like my last day here, and I want to make the most of it. So, let's go. Yeah, it's a little damp and chilly out this morning. Just got to work my way out of the town, start heading up the hill. So, you can see where I'm heading up to now. And there's like a light dusting of snow on it today, which wasn't there yesterday, but should be all right. It's there and backwalk, so if anything goes wrong, just turn around. This is why I don't trust the weather apps in the mountains. Haze with a bit of sun.
It's nice to be on the outskirts of town though. See all the pretty shallows? Church right here. I think this is a ski run. It's like properly in the winter season. All the snows here. Luckily, I don't have to dodge any skiers today. Oh, suddenly got steep, though. Got the channel station here. So that refugeio somewhere I'm going to stop at on the way down. It's like a little detour on the path on the way up. But rather than do that detail on the way up, I'll stop there for a little snack or drink on the way down. Let's see if I make it to the top. the footprints in the snow because the road's just a sheet of ice right now.
All right, this is where I turn off the main road cuz the uh refuge restaurant place thing, Metres, is that way, but I'm going to be going up this little path just here. And there are some markings on the trees. So hopefully between that and all trails, uh I'll find my way up. And the point I'm going to is sitting right in the cloud right now. We'll see how we do. Well, it's nice actually being on a proper hiking path, but I think it's going to get pretty steep. Well, the path's easy to follow when there's snow cuz you just follow the footprint. So, yeah, that's where I'm heading up.
I've climbed up 500 m in altitude from Cortina and I got just over another 300 to go. I think now it's going to get steeper. Just having a little rest, a little breather. Still got to get up there. But an amazing view across the valley here. Even with the clouds, it has like a mystical vibe to it. Feels very kind of em and wheel at the start of two towers. Yeah, if you thought I was going to get through as a video without making a Lord of the Rings reference, come on. It's like 1 km to go and 200 m more of ascent. So, let's get it done.
I can see a mountain going up ahead. I can see like hoove marks in the path. Yeah, he's just up there in the cloud. Path's starting to get icy now. See how far we can get. I don't want to slip here cuz I'll go all the way down. Having to take each step very carefully here. I'm going to get to this bit here and see what the rest is like cuz this is getting sketchy as hell. Like walking in snow. One flip and it could fall down there, which I don't want to do. [snorts] Like that. Well, goes a little further up there into the cloud, but there's a little viewpoint right here. So, maybe this will do for me. That was
was kind of stupid, really. I just going to be very, very careful getting down there. I think this will do me. I could go up further to stand in the cloud, but don't really see the point. I got a nice view here of the valley. So, let's have a moment here. Oh, yeah. If you thought I wasn't going to bring a beer on this track, then you must be new here. So, welcome. Please subscribe. She's a little shaken up from the walk. Well, I don't know how well the view is coming out on camera, but you can sort of see bits of the mountains in between the clouds. And uh I might not have reached the very top, but this will do.
I think I'll probably see more from here than I will directly in that cloud. So yeah, I'm going to have to be very careful on the hike down because it's going to be very steep and slippy. So I'm not out of the woods yet. But I guess that's one advantage of having a 0% beer. So cheers. Yeah, I guess not every golden moment is going to literally be golden, but it was still a great hike and it's so cool being up here. It's so nice how quiet it is up here as well. Like our lives are so noisy these days, like in cities with traffic and people playing their phones out loud and all that stuff. So to get up here where it's just peaceful, it's like just feel your shoulders drop. But yeah, I was lucky to still get a
hike in anyway because like I when I planned this trip, I wasn't sure how much snow there would be. So, I booked the snowshoe hike and then I thought if there's tons of snow around, I'll just try and do like a little stroll somewhere. But to get to do a proper mountain hike like I've just done now without there being too much snow, like it's worked out pretty well being here at like sort of early part of the winter season, but I still need to get back down. say tripod as a walking pole, not just a hatbag, my friends. Once I made it back down to the town, I got some lunch and freshened up at the hotel. And then I went to get the Tfana cable car, which in the summer goes all the way up to Tana, the third highest
peak in the Doommites. But right now in winter only goes as far as Ra Vales. Now it's my last afternoon here in Cortina and we're officially in the [__] it. Let's just see what happens kind of phase of the trip. Will I see anything up there? Who knows? Probably not. But, you know, I'll go up as far as I can and uh make the most of my last afternoon here in Cortina. Guessing this is a ski run or something for the Olympics. I'm trying to film through this tiny little gap in the window here. So, yeah, in the summer you can get up here at 3,244 m. But today I'm going up to here, Capano Raales. So,
these are the three stops, right? Caldrusi 1700 then you get to Ral Vales and then in the summer you get up here. All right, stage one done. Let's keep going up. So, this is what I'm supposed to see out there. I think maybe if I just stand next to this at the right angle, I could be like, "Wow, what a view." Let's go have a look. I think this is the highest I've been so far on this trip actually cuz we're about 2,000 mters at the snow shooting and this is like 2,400. Just going for a little wonder.
Let's have a look up here. So, I'm guessing there's supposed to be an amazing view of Cortina through this love heart. It's not too cold, though. Like, my hands getting a little chilly cuz I haven't got any gloves on, but that's my own fault. Either way, it's fun to be up here. Every now and again, the clouds thin just a little bit. Get a glimpse of the peaks around here. Yeah, you can see the cable car lines go all the way up now or nearly all the way up.
You can see a little cross up there. So, I think normally you can walk up to a viewpoint up there. Well, normally in the summer. I'm glad I come up here, though. Like, I much rather just sort of experience this just for a few moments rather than just pottering around town for the rest of my time here. Oh, yeah. You can see you see the top of the cable car station now. Yeah. Just I don't know if this is quite a golden moment, but since it's the last activity I'm doing, may as well crack a cold one open. There's people just skiing past me here looking like, "What the hell's that guy doing?
Yeah, I'm happy with that. Still a lot more than I thought it would. It's like nearly clearing up. Well, it's 4:00 and the last cable car down is at 4:30. So, best get a move on. This has been nice though. Despite the weather not behaving, I've still really enjoyed today. I mean, um the hike was good fun. And uh I didn't fall over and die, which was always a plus cuz last bit was so sketchy. And then, you know, it was nice to get the cable cover up, but considering our thoughts is be standing in the cloud for it to clear up and get a glimpse of the mountains around, I'll take that win.
Once I got back to my hotel, I treated myself by booking the spa, which was free. I just had to reserve. And I made full use of the hot tub and the cold plunge. Okay. Then I went for one last wander through town, grabbed myself a pizza, and then pretty much called it a night. Yeah, I've really enjoyed my time at Cortina. It's been fantastic like long weekend away and uh I've been to the Doommites twice now, but just kind of dabbled in it. So I really need to come back and do an extended trip here. And I know I said about every place I go to, like I need to go back, but like the Doommites is right at my street, just
like these gorgeous mountains and so much outdoor activities and hiking to do. Whilst today wasn't as good as yesterday, just cuz the weather wasn't behaving, I still had a fantastic time. Plus, it made me appreciate how special yesterday was cuz I only came here for two days and both days could have been clouded out and uh the trip might have been a bit of a non-event. But to sort of have that day yesterday doing a snowshoeing and pushing myself and getting exhausted and wondering how am I going to actually do this, but also just seeing all that amazing scenery around and it was just so special. And then topping it off with going to that cliffhanger lodge uh was really
really cool. This is great though. This is so great. Those are the kind of moments you hope to have when you go traveling, especially when you go to like a nature-based place rather than like a city. You want to have those moments where you can just sit back in awe of what's around you and just take it all in. But that's what it's about, you know, just finding those golden moments in the everyday, whether you're at home or off on a big adventure. And I've been fortunate enough to have so many of these moments in my travels. But let me
know in the comments, guys, what are some of your favorite golden moments from your adventures? You know, I'm talking about those moments you look back on and go, "Yep, that's what it's all about. But yeah, it's been a fantastic long weekend away. I've had a really, really good time, you know. And the next series is going to be on my channel is going to be more time in the mountains cuz it's going to be my Switzerland trip for the summer, which has just gotten delayed in my release schedule because of lots of things happening and other series happening and things like that. But it's going to be great to finally get that out cuz that was a fantastic trip. And you know how much I love Switzerland.
So, thanks for watching. As always, make sure you've hit that subscribe button and I'll see you next time.
