Girlfriend Wanted Venice but I Took Her to Iraq Instead

Girlfriend Wanted Venice but I Took Her to Iraq Instead

I want beautiful canals romantic gondola  ride and it would also be lovely to be serenaded when your girlfriend wants to go to  Venice but you bring her to Iraqi swamps instead friends I’m Joe and the last 8 years of my  life I’ve spent traveling all around the world

As you can probably imagine in such a long time I’ve  seen many interesting places and one of such is definitely Venice. you know, the floating city  in Italy. probably the most famous bridge here in Venice and you can see on the other side, it’s  just full of people taking pictures

But honestly I wasn’t a huge fan. yet here’s the thing, every  time I tell this story my girlfriend Liisu wants to be involved. remember when you went to to Venice, I think you traveled it in a completely wrong way  

When you went there alone and on more than one  occasion she has hinted that we should go there together so that we could really experience  the magic of this place because after all, it is the city of love. well I’m sure that after  being asked so many times

A normal boyfriend would have already given in and taken his girl to Venice even though he doesn’t like the place   yet after reading the title of this video I’m  sure you understand that there is nothing normal about me I’m a homeless dude who lives in his  yellow van and calls making YouTube videos his job  

Now that I said it out loud, I’m actually wondering why Liisu’s parents even approve of me as her boyfriend   but I guess it’s not too smart  asking those questions out loud. hey guys! anyways to finally settle the debate I asked Liisu what  is it that you actually want to see in Venice  

And her answer was quite predictable: canals  gondulas and just one song in Italian and when I followed with but what if we could have all of  those things in a different place her reply was all I needed. yeah sure whatever. and this brings  us to today’s adventure or well almost

I should probably tell you that it isn’t my first time  trying to settle this Venice topic once and for all the last time I tried it was a bit more  than a year ago. it was our anniversary and the plan was to take Liisu to the so-called Turkish  city of love.

Turks themselves even call it the Venice of Turkey. I warmed her up by taking us to the closest thing this city has to a Disneyland the fairy tale Castle was followed by  many local dishes and once I felt that the mood was set  

it was time to make the move that’s  probably one of the reasons why it is called   Venice of turkey. we hired a gondula for a romantic  ride and without a doubt it was lovely you get all those nice memories that you can reminisce  years after but I made one fatal mistake

There was just no way I could find an Italian guy to  serenate us in the middle of turkey after this failed attempt I lost hope for quite a while. I  even started adapting to the idea

That I might have to go back to Venice one more time but well  this time hope really came from a least expected place about 10 km that way is Iraqi border you see while planning our current Adventure in the Middle East I realized that in Southern Iraq, there’s a place I have never even imagined  

It’s a region where two famous rivers meet. this is  Tigris, that one over there is Euphrates and this is the point where two magnificent rivers meet and they  have created a giant Wetland an intricate system of natural canals. yep you heard correctly Iraq is far from just being a Barren desert

And one thing for sure this time I had the element of surprise  on my side. we have made it to a very special and unique part of Iraq and if you ask locals many  say that this region here is the most beautiful in the whole country

first off we needed to find The Boatman. well that turned out to be much easier than expected there was literally dozens of locals  fighting for the few tourists who end up in this part of the world. Hello! after the initial greetings. Yusef. Ali. Ali, nice to meet you. Liis.

We made sure to agree on the price first. around here it’s just  common knowledge to do it beforehand to avoid bad surprises okay? I freaking hate this absolutely  hate this yeah sometimes it still does not work

And then it was time to go I’m not sure if  he was reading my mind but Ali knew exactly how to set a romantic mood and his few carpets and  pillows made all the difference

And we have a lift off. welcome to the marshies. first 15 minutes flew by fast, we got used to the cold breeze and as we were still quite close to the Village. it was  a perfect opportunity to admire the architecture  

I know the buildings here might not be as tall  and luxurious as they are in Venice but in some ways they were even more fascinating cuz all the  houses here are built out of reeds

They use the plants to build their houses, shelters. it’s pretty  cool. Ali made a stop near one of the houses which happened to be his. everything is Out Of reeds. from  his body language I understood that he also has a house in a village

But as in Islamic cultures  the woman is in charge of the household he uses this one here as his mancave. you know a place  where he cooks fish and drinks tea with the boys when we directed our boat deeper into the  marshes the landscape changed drastically

The canals grew smaller and the highway noise  transformed into sounds of nature we heard fish splashing around our boat and many birds  using the high Reeds as their watchtowers    it’s a bird watcher’s Paradise. mostly with  different types of King Fisher

And an occasional eagle flying in the distance but as I  looked at Liisu’s face it was obvious that the magic of this place was slowly creeping  up on her I guess it’s just unavoidable that as we grow older bird watching just sneaks up on all of us

And before we even notice a random brown bird on a branch has suddenly turned into the Magnificent Basra Reed Warbler yet there was also an animal here  that we did not expect to see water buffalos were everywhere. they were so common here that Ali even had a special call for them

Every time we passed them he greeted them  with this haunting Melody it is thought that the Buffalo used to roam wildly in these  marshes for a millennia yet today they are all domesticated and together with tourism and fishing. these guys were fishing with electricity.

They serve as pretty much the only source of income  for many indigenous locals well becoming a real estate developer on a muddy Marshland where only grass houses can be built just isn’t a very profitable career option yet even though many of the modern-day Comforts have not found  their way here

The locals themselves didn’t seem to be bothered by that everyone we met on this journey seemed friendly. how are you? where are you from? Estonia. Australia? Estonia. yeah they waved at us and some even tried to ask us for lunch and tea. what’s up.  come here have lunch. we felt conflicted saying no.  

But still decided to put our own well-being first.  it’s very tempting but for the last 3 days    we’ve had stomach problems so for our own health  and safety we had to decline.

It just isn’t Fun traveling in a caravan when you have to stop in  each gas station to awkwardly use their facilities   which by the way don’t even have a pot or paper  in this part of the world

Once we reached the more wild part of the marshes Ali suddenly turned off the engine and I’m not sure if he was again reading my mind or it was just a  common practice of his but like magic

He turned into a Boatman from Venice. he pushed the gondula with a wooden stick and even serenaded us yes maybe showing us dead fish wasn’t quite as  romantic as he thought but well cultural differences I guess we drifted through some  magical landscapes in total Solitude

Again very very interesting landscape just like towers  of the reeds and sure it was quite strange    when he jumped off the boat and started making cat  noises in the bush yeah that’s our captain in the bushes. but even this had a purpose, you see he was preparing a snack for us

It’s quite interesting how Iraqis use this plant for both  eating and building houses it’s a little bit sweet but it’s very very crunchy it’s actually good. Reeds store their nutrition in The Roots so that’s why there’s probably a little bit  of taste there and and that’s why the locals eat it as well

It’s nutritious. on the way back I was  trusted with the captain stick and it was much more challenging than I thought. apparently we are trusting Joe now with the navigation of the boat   and the steering it’s a bit wobbly I must say.  what’s with the wobbliness?

But while in control I seized the moment to finally check the last of the three requirements. try to keep steady love yeah being honest only half of the song was in Italian and I actually learned it from a TV commercial as a kid but at this point it  didn’t even matter we felt happy

This adventure had been much more than we ever hoped for and I guess it was time to ask the most important question I know it’s not quite Venice but what do  you think of our little Adventure today I think the journey has been even more eventful than we  would have had in Italy

So thank you for arranging all of this. are you disappointed a little bit as well, it’s not as romantic maybe than you thought   oh it’s very romantic there’s a guy singing  to us, we’re alone in the nature I think it’s very romantic

You heard that guys when your girlfriend  wants to go to Venice, bring them to Iraq instead   so what do you guys think should I now be  celebrating that the Venice argument is finally settled well I’m not so sure about it. in the last  2 years that we’ve been traveling together

Both of us have changed a fair bit. Liisu has definitely  showed me that some travel destinations are simply made for couples and maybe Venice just happens to be one of them. very fresh.

But when it comes to her Liisu’s travel style has also changed a lot. it has been a long time since she last chose places to visit by what she saw on Instagram and to best  demonstrate it, our next journey to a city

That was for 3 years ruled by terrorists was solely her  decision. every wall of every building is just full of bullet holes hundreds and thousands of them. we’ve never seen anything like it and it’s it’s  so so so sad

thank you for watching and we hope  to see you back on the channel next Thursday bye

For years my girlfriend has wanted to travel to Venice in Italy, but I decided to suprise her and bring her to the marshes in Iraq for a similar experience.

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HELLO THERE:
We are Joe and Liisu, full-time travelers from Estonia on a mission to break stereotypes, show diverse cultures and wander in the magical nature. Joe, a seasoned traveler of 8 years, began his journey while working in Australia, New Zealand and Canada (holding over 25 different jobs). Liisu, a former medical doctor, joined the adventure 2 years ago. Now we live on the road, exploring the world either from our backpacks or in a van.