Celebrating 4 Years of Adventures Together

On March 12, 2011, like 30-40 minutes after the scheduled time, I walked down the aisle to Brad Paisley's "She's Everything" a little too fast, with both my parents in tow, towards a slightly skinny man with a huge heart, to whom I now say "I do" over and over and over again, even when it's hard.

Every year since then (I know, it's been so many years, right?) we say our vows again to each other. I decided to do a little somethin' different. See, a lot can happen in four years, and things change. I know Ben a lot better than I knew him when we wed... but I also know myself a lot better, too.

2011 was a tumultuous year. Just five months after our wedding, I got fired from my job from pretty much the worst company on the planet. That was a really tough time for me, and if you know me now, at all, you know I've grown more from that single experience than I ever thought imaginable. Rising from ashes to building several successful online businesses that will support us when we go abroad this summer was no easy task. But that's 'cause I didn't have to do it alone.

Porkchop was there.

Those who know me best know that my husband's name is unofficially "Porkchop". He likes it that way, too.  Even his Instagram username is porkchophusband. It just fits, I dunno.  I've always thought that nickname was cute ever since that Nickelodeon show Doug back in the '90s -- Doug's dog was named Porkchop, and who gives a sh*t about blue-faced Scooter, Porkchop was his best friend.

Porkchop was there when I could barely get out of bed in the morning because words hurt, and so many words that had been said to me by my former bosses burned like hot lava. He saw the best in me, even when they didn't.

Porkchop saw the best in me when I thought no one would want me to teach them how to proofread for court reporters. Porkchop encouraged me to write my first eBook and start my website. Porkchop is who I give the credit to when people ask me how I came up with the idea for my online course. Without him and his constant, gentle flow of encouragement, I'd probably still be working at that hell hole of a job I was in four years ago, and nothing we've created together in the last six months would have ever come to fruition.

Porkchop has been there for every crazy idea I've had, including the one to spend $6000 on personal training school after losing my job. The one to get a second cat. And the one to quit living a regular life and go to South America for a year.

Yes, Porkchop was there. And he'll always be here, I know it. Even though I hardly ever put on makeup (geez, yesterday I don't think I even brushed my teeth...sorry.), and even though it sometimes takes an act of Congress to get me to do something other than work. "You created this monster," I chide, jokingly. He did, though. He somehow got me to stop watching Netflix in my free time and start sharing my gifts with people who need them.

So... why am I writing all this? Well, this year, instead of just reciting our vows like we've done on our past anniversaries (all three of them) and storing them away for next year, I decided to revisit the digital version on my computer -- which I hadn't opened since I printed them out for the ceremony.

I revisited it because on the digital version, I can make changes.

I want to make changes. More so, I want to add to them. I was a much, much different person then than I am now, and I have a lot more things I want to promise Porkchop than to just love and respect him (blah, blah, blah, amiright?!)

So here we go. My (re)new(ed) vows for the man I love.

Still. 

I still can’t believe I fell in love with my best friend. All the searching, all the heartache, all the mistakes, and I was looking for you all along. I lose you sometimes, in my haste and confusion, but I always find you again, because you always stop and wait for me. Even when it's hard, I still can’t picture living life without you. You are the still kindest, most patient, hardworking man I have ever met, and I love and admire you more than anyone else. 

Still.

Thank you for always being true to who you are, even when that means you have to change. And thank you for accepting me and loving me for all that I am and all that I have been, for being my soft place to fall, and for always being there when I need you. 

Benjamin. Porkchop. I promise you….

…that for the rest of my life, I will always be honest. I will encourage you, and try really hard to put your needs above my own, even when I don’t want to. I promise to still love you and respect you, even when you’re sick, and whether we have a lot, or just a little. And even when it feels like we’ve got nothing at all, I will remind you that that’s not true. I promise to always be your very best friend, and I will never leave you…

I promise you my whole heart, for my whole life, and I am so honored that I am still your wife after four crazy years. 

I love you. Still.

Here's to Year No. 5, Porkchop, and here's to countless more adventures together. I am so glad I woke up and realized how short life was. And I'm even more glad I woke up next to you.

Recent Adventures... five months and counting!

We're just over five months away from our big departure to Ecuador -- still doesn't seem all that real just yet... I was thinking today once we start packing up our stuff and our house is rented to someone else, then it'll feel more real! The lightning speed in which January flew by should serve as a good indicator that the next five months will pretty much disappear before I can blink!

Gradually, though, I'm finding myself making changes to my schedule here and there. I put in my notice at Florida Hospital, where I've been teaching fitness classes for two-and-a-half years now. My last class will be April 9. I'm also looking for a replacement for my neighborhood classes. Bittersweet. It's time for a change. I'm changing and growing apart from my fitness-instructor self. It's not something I enjoy as much as I used to, which is hard to admit to myself, but liberating at the same time.

Going to NYC

Cashed in some airline miles for a direct flight to NYC on April 14 -- Kathrin (a good friend from Germany) and I will be renting out a sweet little apartment in Greenpoint/Brooklyn for 8 nights. Found it on AirBnB (love that site). I am very much looking forward to doing some barre workouts with her and then eating our way through vegan NYC... I've been to NYC before, but not as a vegetarian (or even remotely as a healthy eater, for that matter) so the food I ate the last time I was there was limited to deli sandwiches, hot dogs, and pizza. YUCK! That's not to say I won't eat pizza when we're there, but it'll (hopefully) be from a world-famous vegan restaurant, not a greasy spoon in a random alleyway! Although... some of my favorite restaurants are indeed in the most random places...

Food and New Friends

I told Ben that food is what I'm looking forward to most about our South American adventure. Srsly. Cuenca has some fantastic restaurants (so I'm told) and dining out there is at a fraction of the cost of dining out in Orlando. I am super stoked for tapas and martinis!!

Speaking of eating (again), we had the absolute pleasure of meeting some folks we'd met on Ecuador Expats Facebook group last month. Juan and Diane, who starred in the first-ever Ecuador episode of House Hunters International (who also live in OUR NEIGHBORHOOD here in Orlando 6 months out of the year!!) and Beth, who lives in Puerto Lopez, and whose daughter is a student at UCF (my alma mater). We had lunch at Pannullo's in Winter Park (greasiest pizza EVER, do not recommend!!)  and just talked and talked. I loved it. A few weeks ago, we had tea with Juan and Diane at their place (literally 1 mile from our house) and talked more things specific to Cuenca. We are so blessed to have made the connection with these lovely people. And we have Facebook to thank for it! :)

Visa Decisions

We also decided that, based on some weird rule changes with various tourist visas, we'll be applying for a student visa to use after our basic 90-day tourist visa. Ben wants to take Spanish classes anyway, and a student visa is not only cheaper to get than the TWO tourist visas we had planned on applying for, we can also add me on as a dependent on his visa, which saves $100. The classes are all one-on-one, $9 per hour, and it's 80 hours per six months (I think 90 hours for 9 months), self-paced. You can take them in person or online, too. That way Ben gets an education and we save some visa headaches. The school might allow Ben to share the hours with me, even though he's the one on the student visa.

New Online Course

We have been hard at work launching a super amazing renovation/upgrade of my ebook training for Proofread Anywhere, and I've built an entire online course with 9 modules and 40 lessons for my students. A bunch of people purchased the training as it was, and while the material I had covered a solid 80-85% of what they needed to know, there were indeed some areas that I needed to cover better... and the course-building software for Wordpress has helped me to do that! I didn't know such a plugin even existed.  Now I can offer students SO MUCH MORE.  I did increase the price, but I feel I arrived at a very fair one, taking in account the many extra features and overall robustness of the course. We went from a 32-page ebook with one practice transcript to a 9-module, 40-unit course with videos, screencasts, nine practice transcripts, and even a 50-question final exam.  The new course launches on February 16! We'll also be offering an affiliate program for our friends and family, both near and far: anyone who signs up for our affiliate program and sends us a student will receive a $75 commission.

Other Recent Adventures 

• Ben quit his job at Full Sail (did I already mention that?) on January 16. We went on a cruise with my mom and her husband Noah at the end of January, that was a nice getaway. It will also be our last cruise for over a year... le sigh! We plan to do another one sometime in (possibly) late fall of 2016. We have our eye on a southern Caribbean cruise out of San Juan, Puerto Rico!
  
• One of my very best friends, Emily, got engaged last weekend and we are already starting the planning for her wedding next October! I am SUPER excited!!!
  
• Ben and I rode the Sunrail train down to Winter Park a few weeks ago. We enjoyed the boat tour, an AMAZING dinner at Cocina 214, and the delights of the Morse Museum.
  
• We had a fun little game night with a few other couples last night. Ben's cousin Jake just got married on Jan. 3 and we got to hear all about he and Kristin's Costa Rican honeymoon. We also made good friends with Dylan and Heather, some fellow fun-lovers we'd met during various festivities through Jake and Kristin. And we saw STEPHANIE who is Ben's beautiful sister, and she is in town for a work event. We had a yummy Caribbean-themed dinner complete with fruity cocktails (my favorite)!

Well, that's about all that's happening in Adventure Pyleand! And to think... I sat down saying to myself, GEE... I don't have much to write!!

Why Ben Wants to Go to Ecuador

Until I can figure out how to set up a different username for Ben, he'll be posting as a guest :-) I asked him to be a regular contributor to our adventure blog! Here's his first post. I contemplated calling it "The Porkchop Perspective" ... and for those of you who know me best, you know why! :-) 

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Over the recent holidays, I saw many family members and friends who asked me, “What made you decide to go to South America for a year???” My answer to this question varied a little, and I also answered in a briefer way than I would have liked to. This post is my expanded explanation to you, the reader, and my own personal musings on why Caitlin and I decided to plan a twelve-month trip to Ecuador!

Before I get into the reasons, I want to talk about why this question is even a question to begin with. If Caitlin and I announced this year that she was pregnant, no one would have asked us “Well, why would you go and do that?” I mean, we’re going to Ecuador for 365 days. Having a kid is a lifetime longer than that, but we’ve gotten some weird looks and confusion as to why we’d want to spend just a single year of our lives someplace other than our two-bedroom house in Orlando. Similarly, if my company promoted me and had to send me across the United States, or even to another country so I could do this bigger job with more responsibility and more pay, I don’t expect people would have asked, “Well, why would you go and do that?” That question wouldn’t come up because those are big events many people experience in their lives (or hope to experience) and they understand and can relate to the decision making behind starting a family or taking a promotion where you leave home. Deciding to travel long term in foreign countries is not, however, something people normally do, especially people at our age and life stage, so it takes some explanation to help others see where we are coming from.

And that’s why I’m writing this! So, let’s get into the reasons we are choosing to travel.

The first reason we’re traveling is because it’s a great way to get you out of your comfort zone. Living in another country where the language spoken is not your own, and where the culture is very different from yours, is a surefire way to force you out of your typical routine and social activities. Pretty much everything that has made you a better person in life so far has been something in which you needed to get out of your comfort zone. Think of learning to ride a bike, leaving for college, public speaking, or having the guts to ask your boss for that promotion you’ve had your eye on. Doing these things for the first time is always scary, and requires you to take some action that you’re not used to. But once you commit and follow through, you become that person who rode the bike, went to college, spoke in public, or got that promotion! What were you so afraid of?

This trip we are about to take falls into the same category. It is a little scary and exciting at the same time. Up to now, I have never had to purchase groceries using Spanish, or felt the inclination to dance to Latin music, but I am gonna do both of those things, and I bet it won’t be boring.

The next reason for going would be that the best way to learn a new language is to live in a country where people speak it. I wish I had taken advantage of the semesters in high school and college that I learned Spanish, but unfortunately I didn’t, and forgot pretty much all of it. Now is my chance to undo that. I don’t think I need to argue how valuable knowing Spanish is today. It is even more widely spoken than English. Knowing Spanish will help me appreciate a different culture, make friends I otherwise wouldn’t, sharpen my mind, and perhaps even open up some business opportunities. If you already speak more than just English, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Reason number three may be unexpected. It has to do with being a more interesting person. Many of the people that I look up to and try to learn from are all really interesting people. Tim Ferriss, Dane Maxwell, and Richard Branson are a few that come to mind. They are people who are not just wealthy, but people who are really interesting, too. I plan to be wealthy in my future, and I plan to have wealthy, interesting friends. Tai Lopez, when asked why millionaire investors would consider talking to him about business, responded by saying, “If you want to have wealthy friends, you have to earn their interest.” Give a millionaire a reason to talk with you and you may have a chance to make a friend. In other words – stand out from the pack.

Now, don’t get me wrong here. I don’t believe that by taking some long trip I will automatically have powerful friends, or that you need to take a long trip to gain them. What I am saying is that living out your own dreams already gets you closer to meeting and knowing people who inspire you—and becoming a person that inspires.

Lastly—and this one is my favorite—the best reason for taking an extended trip is to fulfill a deep human desire to explore and see the unknown. I call it “human” because I know that everyone feels it at some point in life. The desire to see what we haven’t seen beckons us. Without this desire, we would have never made it to the moon or discovered underwater caves (and those endeavors are way more risky than what we are doing). So this trip is not just the fulfillment of that desire, but the refusal to stifle or ignore it.

Now, while Ecuador is our first big trip, it won’t be our last! There will be other adventures, but living somewhere for twelve months won’t happen too often. I think the desire to explore can be partially satisfied with shorter vacations. Caitlin and I love our little vacations and cruises, but those trips only give us glimpses of other countries and are more entertainment-focused. We don’t have the chance to make new friends, learn a new language, learn to cook new foods and so on. Staying long-term forces us to slow down and experience the culture, rather than merely see it.

There are a hundred and one reasons not to commit to long-term travel, and there is never a perfect time to do it, either. For me, the pull of exploration and excitement is stronger than any reason to stay home. Most people would think it was more sensible to do this sort of thing right after college or once you retire. I can understand that perspective, and until recently, thought the same thing. Since Caitlin and I are not pursuing typical careers, though, we have nothing tying us to one spot. The mindset of “I’ll just do all the things I have always wanted to do once I retire,” is actually filled with more risk than one might think—it’s what most of us do, so it seems safe. But who says we’ll even make it to retirement? Sure, there’s risks traveling abroad at length for such a long time, but isn’t waiting 30-40 years to start on our bucket list a risk, too? Plus, let’s face it, there’d be much more risk if we waited to go live in Ecuador if we were in our 70’s instead of our 20’s or 30’s. So I guess we just have to choose which risk we want to take…and we’re choosing a different risk than most, which can appear to some people as if we’ve gone off the deep end!

So there you have it.  Those are the things that, for me, answer the question “Why are you doing this?” We leave on July 15, 2015 and are pumped about this new chapter of our lives!! If you have a question, or some other great reasons for long-term travel that I didn’t mention, I would be delighted if you shared them in the comments!

Hasta Luego!

Ben

We have a departure date!!

[EDIT: We had to change the departure date to July 14... Stephanie (Ben's sister and my one-and-only sister-in-law) is turning the big 3-0 next year and we just learned that we've been invited to a big family gathering in Bat Cave, NC at the River View Cabins  (owned by Ben's parents) in celebration! That'll be happening the weekend of the 12th, and we will come back Monday, and leave for Guayaquil on Tuesday the 14th. We haven't bought our plane tickets yet, but we will soon!

We also decided to hit up Puerto Lopez on the way back to Guayaquil. If Mom and Noah are indeed with us, we can escort them back by bus towards the end of their stay and before they leave we can all do the Isla de la Plata excursion and whale watching, with quite a bit less baggage :-))]

[ORIGINAL POST]

This is kinda huge news.

We leave in less than 7 months!

We haven't made it super public, or purchased any flights yet, but we are 99% sure we'll be leaving for Ecuador on Tuesday, July 7, 2015. We will be flying first class on American Airlines from Orlando via Miami to Guayaquil, spending the night, getting up on Wednesday and taking a bus to Puerto Lopez to whale watch and explore Isla de la Plata on July 8. We will spend the night in Puerto Lopez and return to Guayaquil the next day to sightsee a bit and head to Cuenca by bus on July 10!

We have some more exciting adventures planned between now and then, such as renting out our furnished house, figuring out what to do with our stuff, selling off a bunch of stuff, etc. etc.!!

My mom and her husband Noah want to come visit us and are toying with the idea of coming along for our move.

I've already started my packing list for the trip! We are going to attempt to take one large rolling duffle bag each, plus a carry-on. It is going to be a challenge, but I think we can do it! It will help that first class luggage allowance is 70 lbs per piece, as opposed to 50.

We just got back from a 7-day Western Caribbean Cruise on the Carnival Glory. I'm still in recovery, LOL. No, it was fun, but I am pooped. Back to my regular teaching schedule tomorrow. And here are pics from the trip.

Here's my favorite photo from our vacation:

This guy was heavier than he looks!! I almost fell over picking him up!
They like being scratched under the chin.

That's all for now... got a couple transcripts to work on!


Caitlin

The Bathtub of Time

So it's been over a month since I've updated our blog! What's been going on?

• I started a new side business called ProofreadAnywhere -- a project that'd been swimming around in my head for years! It's a training program where I teach people how to proofread transcripts just like me. It has become a huge undertaking for me and consequently... 

• Spanish has been on the back burner... kinda. I've gone from 3-4 hours of intense study to 1-2 hours a day... if that. Some days I don't do any Spanish. But, I am finding that what I'm learning seems to be sticking better with the slower progress, so maybe it's true what they say: Slow and Steady Wins the Race! 

• We've postponed our "leave date" to July. Ben's "graduation" event hasn't even been scheduled yet, but they want to do it in late June, most likely. I've had a lot of mixed feelings about it. Firstly, Ben finishes his program in, like, February. Why they are waiting until LATE JUNE for this event is beyond-freaking-me. When I get something in my head that I want to do, I want to go DO it, y'know?! And this event is the ONLY thing we're hangin' around for. Ben will be done with the program in February and then... what. We sit and twiddle our thumbs until his event and then we go? 

WRONG!

Life is an adventure. Every day is an adventure, and the adventure, if you're not living it already, starts now. No need to wait until LATE FREAKING JUNE to start your adventure. While I had my mixed negative feelings about Ben's event being so late in the year as opposed to, um, right around his program end-date (honestly, it's the wishy-washiness of it all that has annoyed me the most, but I won't get into it!!) I failed to realize the many positives of the situation:

• More time to learn Spanish... especially since it's kinda been on the back burner as of late.

• More time to plan and make sure we have ALL our ducks in a row.

• More time to snag good deals on clothes for a less-than-sweltering climate

• More time with family and friends here

• More time to teach my fitness classes (currently earning me $700-$1000 per month, that I will lose when we hit the road)

See the pattern here? MORE TIME! Of course, we don't know how much time we have, but in this equation I'm making some assumptions :-) 

We'll also have more time to take adventures here at home -- just yesterday Ben and I ventured into Little Vietnam here in Orlando and had the MOST DELICIOUS tofu banh mi sandwiches from this teeny-tiny, almost-couldn't-find-it shop ... for $3.50! They were so good, I considered never leaving Orlando...ever. And then we snagged a $5 matinee of the new film Interstellar. And we're planning a day trip right here in town as soon as we both have a weekday off. We'd like to get on the new light rail here in town and and ride it to Winter Park, and spend the whole day going to museums and hanging out. Maybe do a picnic!

Adventures don't have to be a date on the calendar. Every day can be a little adventurous. Even if it's something as simple as trying a new restaurant, or speaking Spanish to a stranger. If you're used to the hustle and bustle of the daily grind, perhaps your adventure is found in solitude, and a day at home in your PJ's is in order. Have FUN, set aside some time for yourself every day and relax, soak it all in. Do you realize 2015 is just around the corner? Time is flying by faster than the above-mentioned light rail, seriously. 

I'm making a "now, here" resolution (not a "new year" resolution). It's to just stop worrying about things that really do not matter. That I have cellulite on my size-4 frame DOES NOT MATTER. If I don't get my five veggies in one day, it doesn't matter. How much money I make does not matter. That's a big one. Do I have enough money? Yes. Done. That's all I need to know. We've been taught to wait, wait, wait, and save, save, save for the future, save for the future and as I mentioned at length in this post  this can be a big mistake, 'cause we aren't guaranteed ANY of it. 

We've been taught we can have it all, but aren't taught that when you have it all, it can really weigh you down.

Ben and I discussed this recently. We can gather "stuff" and have this house and our cars and tons of cash everywhere (LOL, right) but it's all weight holding us back from going, and doing. In one way or another, it limits us. We think having all this stuff will make us better, but it doesn't. Either we spend our money on stuff so we have no money to go anywhere, or we have so much money and stuff we are buried under it and can't go anywhere. Or, a third possibility, we work so hard to earn all this money to buy all this stuff, and we're so busy we don't realize we're losing time.

TIME!!! Ah, TIME! My now, here resolution is to REVEL in it. I want to bathe in time: the seconds, the minutes, the hours, the days, the weeks, the years, the decades... I want to soak in it, not miss a second of it, because the bathtub of time is draining... the longer we wait to go out and do whatever it is we want to do, the lower and lower the waterline gets. And I don't know about you, but when I'm taking a bath and the waterline is too low, I get COLD. And before too long, it's time to get out of the tub. I'm wrinkly and cold, and all I want to do is get in my bed and do nothing. Don't let the bathtub of time drain on you! ENJOY it while it is still warm and full. Then, when it's time to get out of the tub, you'll be ready.

Going Abroad 7 Miles Away: A Tale of Survival and Triumph

I get the Sedano's Supermarket ad in the mail every Tuesday. They have some great deals. 4 lbs of yellow onions for $0.99. Bananas, $0.39/lb. Avocados, 2 for $1. I drive by a Sedano's every Tuesday night on the way home from teaching.

I was out of bananas. If you know me... I LOVE bananas. I sometimes eat 5 or more in a day. I feel similarly about potatoes. They sustain me throughout workouts and keep me trim!

So I stopped at Sedano's. I was nervous. I was the only native English speaker in sight. It was like walking into a foreign country. A portal to the unknown, if you will. I headed to the produce section, and I was that weirdo lingering by people who were having a conversation near the bananas. That was me. I wanted to hear them speak... unfortunately, it was too fast but I could pick out a few words. Hey... I've only been learning for five weeks!!

Picked up my bananas and onions and headed down towards the frozen foods section in search of frozen peaches. On the way, I passed two employees talking in an aisle. As I squeezed by, I said, "Con permiso." ... and one of them responded something! In Spanish! I only understood "Señora". I didn't care. I'm a Señora!!

So I found raspberries. And only raspberries. But I wanted peaches, too, so I went back and found one of the employees I'd passed, and I said, "Dónde está la fruta... frozen?" He understood me! But he didn't know where the frozen fruit was. So he directed me to his compadre, Delgado. I said, again, "Dónde está la fruta... frozen?... Fruta... peaches... amarilla?" (yellow!) And he understood me! He took me right to the frozen fruit section... which, it was so tiny, no wonder I missed it.

In case you're wondering, they didn't have peaches. Only mango, blackberries, and raspberries.

Onward to the checkout! I got to the cashier and I said, "Buenas tardes!" To which I was corrected that it's actually "noches" ... it was already after 7. So "Buenas noches" I said. Then, I said "Estoy tratando de aprender Español!"(I am trying to learn Spanish!) And I can't repeat the sentence to you, I understood her to say, "Are you taking a class?" I replied, "No, aprendo en mi casa." (I learn at my house). She nodded. A few seconds later, I added, jokingly, "...y en el supermercado!" and she LAUGHED :) Not a chuckle, a full-on laugh. So I not only was understood by la cajera, I also made her laugh :)

So there you have it, five weeks of learning Spanish and I made it through a grocery store.  It can only get better from here :) My goal by the time we depart for Ecuador is to understand and be understood. If I can get to the fruit by saying "fruta amarilla" ... cool. But if I've gotten this far in five weeks, I'm hopeful things will continue to progress swimmingly from here!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Not much other news... today I didn't have very much time at all to work on Spanish... SO much work came in and I just try to stay on top of it all, and when I get done, then I work on Spanish, so it doesn't pile up. Well, I never got done today. As soon as I thought I was done, there was more in my inbox. I was very frustrating today... there were tears. In fact, I STILL have about 60 pages that came in about an hour ago that I started to read until I said y'know what, I've had it. This can wait. Plugged in my headphones and worked on some Spanish audio exercises online. And now I'm blogging.

We have been cleaning out the house lately. Challenging ourselves with getting rid of stuff we haven't touch and don't need or use. It is addicting. We're planning a garage sale soon, too, so hopefully make some money off of this unwanted stuff. I've been selling some DVDs and even my old iPhone online, so that's helping, too.

But really the only thing I want to do all day every day is español... I want to:

• watch Spanish TV
• listen to Spanish music (really enjoying the tunes from Camila, Reik, and Jesse & Joy)
• translate some song lyrics to learn the words and train my ears
• work through DuoLingo (free, top-rated language tool online)
• work through CatSpanish
• work through StudySpanish topics and quizzes (reinforcement)
• write out sentences using new vocabulary
• create flashcards and practice sheets
• listen to the Camino de éxito audio exercises
• read Spanish magazines
• talk to my Colombian mailman, Mauricio (he is awesome!!!)
• take live Spanish classes for $3 on Verbling.com 

SO MANY things to do to help me learn Spanish quicker ... but I have to work. UGH. Can you believe that?! ;-) Seriously, I am trying to be happy that I even have work, but it's hard when I want to do something else so much more. Today I literally worked from 8:00am to 7:00pm... made a ton of money but was so exhausted by the time I was done. Tomorrow I've got a pretty open schedule till about 4:00pm when I have to go teach again. I like my work, I do... but when you REALLY want to do something/accomplish something it's kind of all consuming... can't even sleep at night because I'm running through all the words I learned in my head. Who knew I'd EVER want to learn another language? I sure didn't... but I've rekindled that excitement I had when I was learning German and I'm loving it. Soaking it up like a sponge.

Hasta luego!

Caitlin

Qué pasa? Phones, luggage, and Spanish vs. German

Well...

I got a new smartphone. It's a $100 model from Posh Mobile, a brand new company (NOT a provider) of unlocked phones. It's Android. I have to say I'm very impressed with it. The battery does go down markedly faster than iPhone 5S when in use, but iPhone 5S costs like 6x more brand new. Soooo... yeah. It also has the same amount of storage as my iPhone, but only cost $17 more to get it that way, by way of a microSD card. I paid an extra $100 for my iPhone to have 32gb. Anytime I reach a snag, I just tell myself, "It's a $100 smartphone, Pyle" and if I keep that in mind, I'm pretty impressed with the value for the money.

Why did I get a new phone? Well, and I didn't blog about this before, but I'd been fighting with AT&T for the right to unlock my 5S to be able to use it in Ecuador. I got denied three times. They WILL unlock it, IF I cancel my contract and pay a $245 early termination fee. LAME. It's my phone!! I don't want to cancel my plan, just put it on hold while I'm gone, and use it someplace else! GEEZ!! So I thought, screw that, I'll SELL my 5S while it's still worth something, buy a phone that'll do what I need it to (let's be honest, I only *need* access to email, calls, and text), and then get a local SIM card when we get there. Other folks in EC have shared that they purchase 300mb of data from Claro (provider) and it lasts them six weeks... for $12! Way better than trying to get some $50/month plan.

The Ecuador Expats group on Facebook has been absolutely invaluable to us as we prepare to take this trip [of a lifetime!!!]. Any question we've had along the way so far has been cheerfully answered and many wise voices have chimed in to help us with even the smallest decisions. Today was no different. We'd been discussing luggage a lot between the two of us here at home, and so I thought I'd post and get some feedback from the group. LOTS of feedback, I got. Within minutes. Super responsive, helpful people. I got many new ideas, suggestions for solid duffle bags with and without wheels, packing tips, and much more.

We can get duffle bags on wheels weighing in at 7 lbs each for about $50 a piece... we can get solid non-wheeled duffle bags weighing in at just 3 lbs each for $30 a piece, including a shoulder strap. Now we just need to "weigh" our options. Plenty of folks took ONLY duffle bags, and some people even took THREE duffle bags for their person, and were able to manage. Note some of these folks were in their sixties. There are carts at the airport, and we have options of how we get from the airport to Cuenca, too... the most attractive option with all those bags is a private van, honestly... then we're in charge and you get portal to portal service. No need to get off at a bus station, get your bags out, put your bags in, and then take them out again once we're finally at our place. Ha. Sometimes it pays to go for convenience, even if you spend more.

Still having some fun learnin' Español! I am constantly drawing parallels between English, German, and Spanish (which is my THIRD language, never thought I'd learn a third!) and I've pinpointed a few things that make German harder than Spanish:
- many German plurals aren't as simple as adding -s or -es to the end
- German pronouns change after prepositions -- in 3 ways, depending on the case!!
- prepositions for "at" and "on" change based on the verb

That's all I got so far... but these three things alone (ESPECIALLY prepositions) have made learning Spanish delightfully easy so far. I'm two weeks in and can speak full sentences... learning vocab will probably be the hardest but I've got a couple tools under my belt for making that easier. I've started labeling items in the house with their Spanish names and every time I see the name, I say it, and try to say the word in a sentence. So far, I've only said things like "The sponge is next to the window," and "I need more soap for the bathroom". But hey, I just labeled everything last night :))

Okay, that's it for now...