Moving to Another Country | Listening English Conversation Audio | How to Improve Fluency in Speaking
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Hey everybody, it's Curtis and Amy from Real English Conversations and today we're going to talk about what it's like to move to another country and where did we decide to move to? Well, we decided to move to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico actually. And why did we choose the beautiful location of Mexico?

Well, that's kind of a complicated question, but overall, we have done a lot of traveling and we've seen a lot of different places around the world, particularly in Latin America. We've always been interested in traveling to countries that were speaking the language that we were learning, which is Spanish.

And over the time, we've really grown to love the Latino culture and the language, of course. But above and beyond that is the climate and the beaches. Those are our favorite places to go.

One more factor that really was one of the major reasons why we moved was that in Mexico, things are a little bit more economical than they are in Canada. And if you've been following us for a while, you know that Real English Conversations has been around for about two years now. And what you might not realize is that we've been working a full-time job at the same time.

And we decided to dedicate 100% of our focus to real English conversations. And thankfully, a place where it's less expensive to live has allowed us to do that. But we had some preparation that we had to do in order to get from Canada to Mexico. So what was one of the biggest obstacles that we had to deal with?

We had to deal with our house. We bought a house six or seven years ago, and we obviously had to sell that house. Oh, this is a bit of a complicated story, but we've got some good vocabulary. So six or seven years ago, we bought...

that's known as a foreclosure. Yeah. And what is a foreclosure? A foreclosure means that the owners of the house had a hard time paying their mortgage. So the bank will take over ownership of that property. And the property is of...

Less value? Yeah, like the bank knows that they're not receiving any income from the property anymore. So they're trying to sell it as quickly as they can.

And, I mean, if you think about it, someone who can't pay their mortgage probably isn't able to maintain things within the house. Yeah. So what were some of the things that when we moved in, when we decided to buy it, what were some of the problems that we had with the house? Well, we had to do some renovations, so...

The basement wasn't finished. Meaning it had just concrete on the floor with no carpet and...

the walls weren't finished. So you could just see the boards from where the walls were going to be, but they didn't have drywall over top. No. And we had to replace carpets and do, we had to paint the whole thing too. Yeah. And one of the reasons why we bought this property was because we seen the potential to be able to put a basement suite in. Oh yeah. And

This is really common for people to do when it's their first home that they're buying because, I mean, houses are expensive. You have a high mortgage payment and you need a little bit of help with paying the mortgage. So if you can put in a suite in your basement and have a renter, that person essentially is helping you to pay your mortgage, which is great.

Pretty good. So anyway... And we found one, and she was great. Oh, she was great. She lived there for years. I think probably five and a half years or something. Yeah. And she was one of the first ones that we had to tell...

that to say, hey, we're going to be moving to Mexico, sorry, but you've got to start finding another place to rent. Luckily, she was able to find something and she moved out a couple weeks before we turned over possession of the house to the new owners. But wow, how difficult was it getting rid of all of our stuff?

It was fairly difficult. We had a bit of a process. There was a three-step process in order to get rid of our house. So we had the take-it pile. Well, not to get rid of our house, but to get rid of everything in the house. We had a take-it pile of the stuff that we were going to take with us and a sell-it pile.

And a store it pile. Yeah. So it's basically a process. You would pick something up that you liked, obviously, if you have it in your house, you like it. There's a reason why it's still there. So you pick it up and you ask yourself, is this something that I want to take? And usually the answer is yes. And then you say, yeah.

Well, do I really need it? Because, you know, you can't take everything. And you go, no. So then, well, is it worth storing? Like, am I really going to bring it down to Mexico later? And usually the answer is no. And that means that you have to sell it. So what was something difficult that you had to sell?

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I had to sell a huge vinyl record collection and it was like a thousand records. It was probably worth about $10,000. And I managed to find another DJ friend of mine that was able to buy my record collection and

But how much did you have to let it go for? About $1,000, but it was better than nothing, and it went to a good home. I know. Curtis talks about his records like it's an animal. This is a really common phrase. It's like, oh, but the cat went to a good home, you know? So his records went to a good home where they would be appreciated and taken care of. That's right. What was something that was hard for you to part with?

Well, I mean, there were things that we wanted to keep here in Canada and we decided to store them, like our camping stuff and my snowboard. Because I don't think we're actually going to use those in Mexico. Those are kind of things we use in Canada when we would be visiting here. But really, my collection was glass art. So I collected these glass pieces mainly from the 60s.

And they were really cool. They were different colors and different shapes. And, you know, I had many, many different pieces, maybe 20 or 30. And I only kept a couple. They were actually Curtis's grandma's glass art pieces. And she's passed away. So it's kind of a sentimental thing for him. And for me, I just really love these things. They're awesome. Yeah.

And everything else I had to sell. I think I maybe got 20 bucks. I don't know how much the pieces cost me to get, but it was pretty hard. So yeah, during the process of selling the house,

One of the things that you need to do right before people come to look at it to see the condition of the house and what the layout is, you want to try to make it look as big as you can. And part of that means that you have to get rid of a lot of your stuff and only keep the essentials, really, like maybe a couch and a coffee table and

a couple shelves. But everything, all of your personal pictures that you have, family pictures you have on the walls. Yeah. Things that really make it personal, like it's someone's home you sort of want to put away. And we had a garage sale. Yeah.

Very successful one. Yeah. Yeah. We made, yeah, a few hundred dollars. But the main purpose was to get rid of everything that we needed to, to be able to have photos taken of the house and have it...

Yeah.

Um, but then we had the final part where we had to clear out everything. Yeah. Everything, every drawer, every cupboard, every piece of furniture had to go. It did. Yeah. Do you remember what it was like trying to deal with the couch? Yeah.

Oh, the couch. Well, when we first bought the house, it was hard to get the couch in because the walls were really narrow in the stairway. Yeah, we couldn't make it around the corner with the couch. Yeah. So the movers had to take it over the balcony. Yeah. So I was already thinking about this, kind of like, okay, how are we going to get this damn couch out of the house? Because, you know...

Curtis and I aren't strong enough to like, we're not movers. So I invited over some of my friends and I kind of bribed them with a bit of food. I said that I'd buy them dinner and man, we fought with that couch. We had to take the feet off the bottom of the couch. We had to take the balcony door off. Oh yeah. We had to do everything we could to try to make it wide enough to get this couch out. But

thanks to my five friends and Curtis and I, we were able to get this couch out successfully and transport it to our other friend's house that wanted to have it. And, you know, just things like that, you know. What was it like leaving or selling, like knowing that this house that you bought and you put all this love and care into and really made it into a beautiful home?

What was it like leaving then? In a way...

It was sad. It was sad because we did put all that work in it and made it our own. So we had a great looking backyard that we love to hang out with our friends in. In the summer when it's warm at night, have barbecues, garden. Had a huge raspberry patch. Yeah, it produced a lot of raspberries, especially last year. But it was...

Yeah, it was sad a little bit, you know, thinking, oh, this isn't mine anymore. But, you know, it did allow us to pursue our dream of relocating to another country. And, you know, now we are on to new adventures. We will have lots of stories to share with you guys, I'm sure.

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