In this episode of Moving Along, host Christi Cassidy converses with Anna Bernstein about her diverse experiences living in different places worldwide, from Oklahoma to New York, and now residing in Cuenca, Ecuador. Anna shares her journey that led her from being a stockbroker to running a voice consultancy business, and ultimately deciding to move abroad out of financial and, with the election of Donald Trump, personal safety concerns. She discusses the unique experiences acquired through her travels, including cultural adjustments and living frugally. The conversation also emphasizes not fearing change and embracing opportunities for personal growth.
Episode Highlights
00:00:03: Introduction to Christi Cassidy and Moving Along podcast, which focuses on travel, relocation and life transitions.
00:00:35: Christi welcomes Anna Bernstein, discussing her past with Mantra Public Relations and moving to Ecuador.
00:02:14: Anna thanks Christi for the introduction and mentions their use of audio for the podcast despite having a video connection.
00:02:17: Anna talks about her upbringing in Norman, Oklahoma, and the influence her parents' New York roots had on her.
00:03:19: She describes her early travels to New York and experiences while in college.
00:04:17: Discussion on how she ended up choosing the University of Kansas over schools in New York.
00:06:26: Anna shares her career shift from being a stockbroker in Kansas City to pursuing her passion for performing in New York.
00:07:44: Her journey to New York involved a detour to Italy, fulfilling her dream to be there.
00:08:22: Transitioning from a stockbroker to becoming a voice coach and founding Voice Success. 00:09:45: The birth of her teaching career in singing and exploration of brain function in voice.
00:14:04: Her success in accent reduction and subsequent focus on corporate training.
00:14:56: Discusses her career establishing a business in Seattle and working with major companies like Microsoft.
00:17:45: Details about her work and life in Seattle before moving to Mexico. 00:19:39: Decision to move to Mexico and experiences that followed.
00:22:24: Logistics of moving to Mexico discussed, including traveling with the car and a cat.
00:24:38: Learning Spanish and living in a small Mexican town. Experience in Mexican culture and affordability.
00:30:34: Her choice of exploring North Carolina when unsure about staying in Mexico. 00:32:59: Selling her house in Seattle facilitating further travels and transitions.
00:34:07: Addresses a lack of fear in moving and taking big life changes, viewing them as non-threatening endeavors.
00:41:15: Explores moving to Cuenca, Ecuador, due to financial concerns and safety considerations with the political climate in the USA.
00:49:41: Living comfortably on Social Security in Ecuador and the liberties afforded by financial stability abroad.
00:51:47: Recommends Ecuador as a favorable destination for retirees.
00:54:08: Closing remarks and encouragement to listen to Moving Along for more stories.
Key Takeaways
Tweetable Quotes
"It just never occurred to me to be afraid." — Anna Bernstein
"Just don't be afraid. Just try things." — Anna Bernstein
"Any excuse for a party, that's Latin America or South America." — Anna Bernstein "I know where I don't want to be, and right now it’s in the States." — Anna Bernstein
"You can always buy furniture. You know, who cares?" — Anna Bernstein
Resource for Those Wanting to Move Abroad
Christi : [00:00:00] Moving up, moving out, moving along. Where are you headed next? I'm Christi Cassidy, your host and the creator of Moving Along a podcast about travel. Relocation and life transitions. Listen in to real life stories as we explore moving along and what it takes to make your life a positive new adventure.
Welcome to Moving Along Today. My guest is Anna Bernstein. We worked together many, many years ago at Mantra Public Relations in New York when Anna had a company called Voice Success, which she rebranded into the Brain Voice Connection and truth be told. I [00:01:00] think this was before a lot of this interest in, um, social science and the Hidden Brain and so much of this kind of exploration that we hear in podcasts and on the radio and read about Anna was on it long before any of that happened.
The reason I wanted to talk to Anna today is because our mutual friend at Mantra Public Relations Gaye Carlton, who is the founder and president of Mantra Public Relations, said to me, you know, Anna Bernstein's on Facebook, and I see she's moved to Ecuador. Maybe you wanna talk to her about why she ended up in Ecuador.
Last I'd heard Anna was in Seattle. I knew she was in New York before that. She [00:02:00] got her degree in Lawrence, Kansas. I. I am like Ecuador. Well, indeed, Anna is talking to us today from Cuenca, Ecuador. I hope I'm saying that right. Welcome, Anna.
Anna: Thank you, Christi. What a lovely introduction.
Christi : Well, thank you. It's so nice to see you and to be here.
Yeah. We're actually looking at each other, but we are not gonna, we don't use the video. We just use the audio. Anna tell me you grew up in Norman, Oklahoma. Which is a, yeah, far, far ways away from Ecuador. But what did, tell me, what did travel and moving mean to you as a child?
Anna: Oh, well, I grew up in Oklahoma, but my parents were both New Yorkers, so I always was fascinated by New York.
I had visited there as a kid. We'd go to visit my grandmother, lived upstate in Rhinebeck [00:03:00] also we'd visit in the city and I just, I, I was in love with it from the very first time. I just said, that's the best city ever. So that was my first desire to travel was always, can I go to New York? Can I go to New York? You know?
Christi : Did you come by yourself?
Anna: Um, well, when I was in college, I traveled there by myself, but I think up until then. I had traveled, I had a car. You know, you grow up in Oklahoma, you pretty much have to have a car. So when I went to college, I drove, yeah, I'd gone to Aspen and driven around the country a bit.
Not too much, but I had traveled. I went to a summer camp in The Bahamas in Antigua. Which was then only known because, uh, Paul McCartney had recorded an album there after he left The Beatles. Now, you know, who knows, it's probably a huge overdone place by now. But yeah, I was fascinated with the world [00:04:00] and I just wanted to visit everywhere I possibly could.
I was always enamored of history and I ended up majoring in history. So as I read about all these things happening all over the world, I was like, oh my gosh, I wanna see that. So, yeah. Always felt that way.
Christi : And so, but you, you went to University of Kansas, right? Mm-hmm. In Lawrence?
Anna: Yeah, in Lawrence, yeah.
Christi : How come you didn't go to NYU?
Anna: Well, that's a good question. My father, he had made a promise to all of, I have two brothers. He said, I will pay for your college. And he just didn't want us to start life with debt. So. I never gave much thought to where I'd go and stuff. So I did start applying to places on the East coast and my father said, no, I won't be paying for that, you know, so I narrowed it down pretty quickly.
I just wanted to get out of my hometown, so I didn't really care where I went. [00:05:00]
Christi : I definitely know that feeling. Were your parents, did they, were they professors, were they educators or you said they're from New York? No, but my father had grew up in
Norman.
Anna: Yeah, he, he left Brooklyn where he was, where he grew up, to go to the University of Oklahoma, which is in Norman.
And he never left. Uh, he went back to New York for visits and he met my mom who was living in the 92nd Street Y at that time in the fifties. That's where all, all good Jewish girls lived and, and perhaps other good girls. And, um, met him there, had a long distance, romance, got married in New York and he whisked her off to Oklahoma.
She thought they'd be back in New York. She had like a hundred cousins there. He has family there. But no, just had to stay there. So no professors.
Christi : Wow. Was it a small town life in Norman or suburban or, well,
Anna: At that time, when I was growing up in the sixties and seventies, it [00:06:00] was about 50,000. I think that was when school was in session.
It's grown now. I think it's at least 120,000 now. It's pretty close to Oklahoma City, so it's, it's considered, you know, you could commute to Oklahoma City from there. Yeah. But uh, yeah, it was a small town. You couldn't go out and I couldn't go out and, and run around and do stuff and not have somebody who knew my family see me, you know?
But it wasn't tiny, tiny, you know, I could get away with some stuff.
Christi : Do you still have family there?
Anna: Yeah, my older, older brother still lives there.
Christi : Do you ever visit?
Anna: Oh, I haven't gone back in ages. I was never a big fan of Oklahoma, so I'm definitely not a big fan now politically, so I don't wanna give them any money.
Christi : Well, okay. Yeah, that's, that's a hard part too. I know I have family in Texas. Not a lot. Oh lot. They moved from Detroit. Okay. Oh my God. I'm like, I don't wanna give, I don't wanna, I don't understand why you would pay money into that state, but anyway, what [00:07:00] you went from. Lawrence to New York. Right. So you did make it to New York?
Anna: Well, I, I was in Kansas city for a few years, so Kansas City's right next to me. I'm sorry, Kansas City. Yeah. So I was there for about three years trying to be, at that time we called them yuppies. I know what they call them now, bougie. And I ended up, uh, I was in sales and then I ended up being a stockbroker for a year.
But what I really wanted to do was visit Italy. I, I just, I'd studied Italian in college. I tried to go to Italy for a year in college. It didn't work out, so I said that's it. I just sold everything and went to Italy, and that's when I lived Kansas City. I was 25.
Christi : Wow. How long were you in Italy?
Anna: About four months. I was, I actually had interviewed for a job in Paris. Because at that time I still had my brokerage license, so I had, I had looked around, but I really wanted to be in New York City. You know, it was just kind of a, a [00:08:00] strange way to go from Kansas City to New York City. When you come back from Italy, of course you land usually in New York.
So I just landed there and stayed, and that's how I got it there.
Christi : That's great. And but you didn't go back into being, uh, you didn't go back into being a stockbroker?
Anna: No, I was a, a frustrated performer. I really wanted to perform, so I had been a, I had actually started college as a voice major and I, I had a minor in both voice and piano.
I, I just really loved singing and performing and being funny. So that was my dream to go to New York and pursue that.
Christi : Wow. And tell the story about Voice Success, how that started.
Anna: Okay. After I started on the path of performing, I pretty quickly during my classes for different things, my song, performance [00:09:00] class, I realized with all the training I'd had, 'cause I'd been studying, well piano since I was five, but I'd been studying singing since I was 17.
And then all through college. So I had a, I had really good background in music theory and, and how to sing and everything, and I had a good understanding of the technique and I, I saw people in class and I thought I could help them. I. Sing better. And so I just started advertising in Backstage, beginning singing lessons, you know, if you're a beginner.
And I turned out to be quite good at it. I actually helped everybody sing on pitch, and while I was doing that, I became fascinated with how do you sing on pitch? What the heck is going on? So singing. Is you can't feel it, right? It's vocal chords, but you don't feel them. They don't have nerve endings. And no one had ever told me that all the I'D had four or five really good teachers, and no one had ever pointed [00:10:00] that out.
They just said, imagine this, and imagine that. So I started thinking about it and I realized it's really your brain that controls your pitch and everything that you do when you sing, of course you have to open your mouth. You have to breathe correctly. But it's mostly a brain function. And at that exact time, they, excuse me, invented or started using the FMRI machine and started looking at the brain while you did things.
So one of the things they love to do was people singing or talking and which part of the brain would light up. And so I started really, in getting into all that research, I had this anything to do with singing or talking. I was fascinated. All the things I had figured out or guessed were happening with the brain and the voice were confirmed by all that research.
So basically you did have to think of the pitch and the minute you started thinking of something else, the pitch would [00:11:00] go off. So without that focus, without the brain creating the pitch and holding it. You couldn't sing. So it really is, you know, a brain function with little, little breath and vocal cord thrown in there.
I'm sure there'll be teachers out there saying it's not that simple. But that really worked when it came to teaching people who were, I mean, these were not people studying to be opera singers or something. But people who were, you know, trying to get jobs on Broadway and off Broadway and a lot of dancers who wanted to be able to sing.
'cause that's the big thing,
Christi : right? An additional skillset. Right?
Anna: Yeah. You wanna be a triple fan for a dancer. Yeah. Dancing and act. So after I'd been doing that for a while, I was having a lot of success with all my voice students and then I thought, well, what's a way I can make. Better money doing this.
And of course finding some sort of corporate gig was the answer. They have all the money. So I changed into Voice Success. [00:12:00] So what I started with was saying how to sound like a leader. Because of all the training I had done, I knew how to get a speaking voice to sound good because again, just a brain function, but not something most people put together.
Then I was, um, doing some work and I was referred by another business woman in New York. She said, do you do accent reduction? So I said, yes. I had no idea what that, no. Yeah, of course I do. But I had been fascinated by the fact that when people sing in English who do not speak English, a lot of times you hear absolutely no accent.
And it didn't take long to figure out that that was because. The mouth was open so wide. So accents occur on vowels. You get a little bit on consonants mostly when people struggle to pronounce an American consonant with their original [00:13:00] language. So we all know the Eastern European struggles with w and b, and Asians often struggle with L and K, and even the French have an incredibly different R from our
R sound. So well all What I did is created just a four step process to help improve your spoken English if, if English was your second language. And that's where, I mean, I always did both, right? So sound like a leader for anybody and sound like a leader and improve your accent. So people particularly on conference calls and remotely.
I can easily understand your English.
Christi : Wow. How long did you do that for?
Anna: Well, I was doing it in New York for a few years. It was okay. It never really took off. Then I took a trip to Seattle. Was that 2003? I was stunned that people could drive cars and not honk their horns. [00:14:00] I said, what is this?
I was standing on a street corner going, why is it so quiet in the city? To be fair, I had, I, I'm constantly researching places to live. It's kind of a hobby of mine. And I had researched Seattle a few years earlier because it had become, uh, around 2000, late 19 hundreds, 1990s. It had become, you know, a hot town. So I'd went to a visit, I said, this is great. And so I just picked up and moved there in like two or three months.
Seems to be my habit. And. After I wasn't sure if I wanted to restart the business, so I was working administratively in the Starbucks headquarters there in South Seattle, just south of downtown. But I really just could not let it go. I loved doing it and it was, it was just fascinating to me. So I got to know, there was another New Yorker [00:15:00] there who was the senior Vice President of organizational development.
So I said to him, do you know anybody over at Microsoft that you know does what you do? And he said, sure, I know this guy. So he put me in touch. And I said, I've got an accent reduction course for people whose second language is English. Of course, they had so many people whose second language was English.
I don't know if you know Seattle has so many people from East Asia, specifically India, that there's actually a consulate, uh, in Bellevue, which is across the river. Or across the Sound from,
Christi : I didn't know about
the consulate. I
Anna: that's, it's huge. It's Well, and they've got people from all over the world there because there's so many tech companies there.
So I got launched like that. I launched the company, I. But I went around and, and promoted myself the way you do when you're an entrepreneur. And I, I just got so much business there, it was so much better than New York.
Christi : That's amazing. And Amazon was really just getting [00:16:00] started there about that time, right?
Anna: Yeah, I, I worked with, uh, several people at Amazon. It was fascinating. That's why I learned, you know, about their meeting etiquette. They,
Christi : I've heard about their meeting etiquette.
Anna: You have to write up what you wanna talk about in the meeting, and everybody spends the first 10 minutes reading it. It's like three pages. Then they start the meeting. So brilliant. So brilliant.
Christi : Don't they have something about when they end the meeting too? Like something?
Anna: There may be, I, I don't really remember, but I thought, you know, 'cause I helped so many people struggling in meetings for so many reasons. I just, I saw so much and that solves 90% of the problems right there. Brilliant.
Christi : Was it mostly East Asian Indian, East Indian people that you worked with?
Anna: A lot of people, yes, but a lot of people from China. [00:17:00] There's a huge amount of Chinese working in Seattle or who've immigrated either way. I actually have worked with somebody from every continent except Antarctica, so I've hit South America, Africa.
You know, all of Europe, maybe maybe I miss New Zealand. I may not have had a Kiwi, so I gotta take that back now. Yeah. But there were a lot of French speakers. I mean, I worked with every language you could imagine. It's fascinating. I loved it. 'cause I, that's how great, what a great way to meet people from all over the world and experience, you know, something of, of their lives and how they live. Just great.
Christi : Mm-hmm. And did you work in small groups or one-on-one or both?
Anna: Both. Um, when we launched at a, um, at Microsoft, we launched with an accent reduction class and immediately 400 people signed up. So I couldn't do that many. Wow. Yeah, it was instantly very popular. [00:18:00] They, you know, I gotta, gotta thank Microsoft and got me going there.
So I did, I like to work with, when I do a class. Or even individual. I like to work once a week. I like to do just an hour, and I record the session. Then I like them to spend that week listening to the recording and trying to do whatever's on the recording. Again, with all the neuroscience research I had done and just my observation, that is the best way to get to a new habit, especially a speaking and listening habit.
Those are tough. So I would never give them written materials. I may be just an outline of what we did. 'cause I'm like you, if the more you listen to that recording, the easier this is going to be. I just wanted it all right. Downloaded into their brain. So once they could listen. To themselves speaking, everything was easier to do. So that was my approach.
Christi : And [00:19:00] how long were you in Seattle for?
Anna: I guess Sep I left, I got there in 2003. I left in 2018, so 15 years.
Christi : Oh wow. Yeah. Okay.
So. What happened next? Gaye mentioned that you had been in Mexico City Yes. Before you landed in Ecuador.
Anna: Not Mexico City, Mexico. Mexico, the country. So yeah, I just had such great clients there.
I, I just loved it so much and they were, you know, a lot of tech, but all, a lot of other industries as well. So the last couple of years I was in Seattle, I had gotten. A 20 hour a week coaching gig with a company there, a digital advertising company, strangely enough. So I was helping them with everything at whatever they needed a coach for.
In terms of business, I was there. Right? So communication issues. So because it was a tech company, they had. They're advertising people who use their brain one way and they're technical people who use their brains a different way. So a lot of it [00:20:00] was getting those two to connect. An, an example would be just in your everyday life, right?
You see above, you ask somebody to build you some sort of algorithm or some sort of app, and you say, you know, to serve the client it has to do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 thing. And then the tech people put it together, but they don't put it together thinking user. Friendly, what the ux, you know, how do you use your technology?
So they put it together the way that they think makes sense. So, which it's usually, that's why you can never use the first version anything because they will often ignore the most important thing to that, to the client facing person is not the most important thing to the technology person. So I just had to keep creating systems for them to talk to each other.
'cause you didn't want to get upset because then they really wouldn't do your job. They. Slow your job or whatever. And everyone's very sensitive because they're human beings. So [00:21:00] it was a interesting and challenging thing to do. Really enjoyed it. Wow. So, yeah, I was doing that and it was just a great experience.
I, I had other clients around the world though. I had this one client I met in Seattle who was originally from Russia, but he would buy different technology companies around the world. So he kept moving from place to place. And the biggest part of the company he was most focused on at that time was in Russia.
And it, they had offices around the world, but uh, they were mostly in Russia and then parts of Eastern Europe. So I would work with everybody in his group remotely. So I had that going on. So when I was doing that, I was working 20 hours a week at the company and then. It just ended, you know, it had to end at some point and they said, okay.
They kept getting bought out by different people and didn't wanna coach on site. And I said, okay. So at that point I had already been looking into moving to Mexico. I was just ready for a [00:22:00] change and I couldn't think of anywhere else in the United States I wanted to live. And I didn't know if I wanted to rebuild my business because that's a lot of work.
So I had a house in Seattle that was rented out. And I thought, well, if I move to Mexico, I can just live off of what I get from my house. This is back when house prices were going crazy. So Seattle was such a hot real estate market. So I just picked up, yes, again, in about two months I picked up in, moved to Mexico.
I sold everything I own just like that. I had a cat and a car, so I. I was a, my car was old. It was a 2004 Ford Focus built in Mexico, actually. Oh. And I talked to my mechanic.
Christi : This is, uh, 2020 or is this 2018? This, this is
Anna: 2018 and it's August or September. So I went to my mechanic. I said, is it okay for me to drive this all the way to Mexico?
And he said, I'd be a little worried, and I'd never done a [00:23:00] trip that big. So. I shipped to the car, I put everything in the car. I filled up the car with everything I wanted and I shipped it to San Antonio. And then the cat and I flew down a few weeks later when the car was there. And then we hopped in the car and we drove into to Mexico.
I was in a town called Patzcuaro. P-A-T-Z-C-U-A-R-O. Patzcuaro, it's got an accent on the A so you gotta, that's why you say Patzcuaro instead of Patzcuaro, which I did for several months before somebody smacked me. But, uh, and I just popped down there. So it was so affordable. It was so easy, and it was such an, an interesting experience.
So I. I had studied Italian and actually in high school I had studied French, so I wasn't too worried about learning a new language, and I, that's what I did is I studied my Spanish and I learned when they were very patient, as [00:24:00] long as you try, they're always very patient with you. And it was a lovely town.
It was, um, actually about 50,000 the size of the town I grew up in, but it was in the mountains, so it's in a state called Michoacan. But it's in the mountains. So the weather was like spring year round, like 74 degrees every day. They had a couple of hot months, I guess April and May. Then the summer was the rainy season 'cause it was in a semi-tropical zone.
So about every day, around four o'clock in the summer, you'd get rain for, I don't know, 30 minutes or an hour. Just lovely. I just love the the mild weather.
Christi : Tell me, how did you find Patzcuaro?
Anna: Well, I heard about it. I had been researching all the colonial cities. It's a colonial city, so there's 10 Colonial, I think.
Puebla, 10 colonial cities in Mexico, including Mexico City and Guadalajara, and all the ones you've heard of, Puebla, where the Mexicans really built it up. And so those are called colonial cities 'cause they were colonized [00:25:00] and, and it had a beautiful, beautiful town square. So I knew someone who had moved to Mexico a few years earlier and they had moved to a very popular gringo place called Ajijic, which is over by Guadalajara.
Then they discovered Patzcuaro and they moved there. So I had, when I went to visit them, I didn't know this, but we went to Patzcuaro. So I had seen it. I, they're like, oh, we're leaving, we're going on this trip. I said, okay. So I, I said, this is lovely. And I thought it would be, um, a, you know, a nice small town, easy to kind of get into moving abroad without knowing the language.
'cause when I'd gone to Italy, I did know Italian. It was right next to a big city called Morelia,, which is the capital of Michoacan. So it was so easy. It was just effortless.
Christi : Well, tell me about the, talk to me about the logistics of all that. First of all, you put your car [00:26:00] on the Amtrak, right? The car train?
Anna: No. I had a semi haul it down to San Antonio. I never thought about that.
Christi : Ah, interesting.
Anna: It was like a thousand dollars. Yeah. Mm-hmm. About the, about the same as driving and all, all the hotels and driving. It was almost the same price really.
Christi : Right. But it saved you the mileage so you could keep driving the car, right.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. Though, okay. There's a addendum to that story, but go ahead.
Christi : Oh, I wanna hear the addendum to the story.
Anna: Well, I'll just say that, you know, once I moved there, I still worked remotely with, uh, my Russian client. 'cause he had, he, they really wanted to get their, they had businesses all over the world. Well, their business had offices all over the world. It was an accounting software.
So they had, they had to use English, you know, it was the business. Language of the business. Business, yeah, the language of business. So they, they just wanted to [00:27:00] improve their pronunciation of everyone who had to speak in English there. So I continued to do that. So I did have some income coming in. Then after about three
Christi : plus the rental
Anna: and the rental, and. You know, the first year I was there, I rented this house, uh, that I just, I found a house. I'd gone down for four days to look for a place before I drove down. And on the third day I found this house. What, what did that cost me? Maybe $500 a month, this huge house and all the utilities. And then after I'd been there a year, I didn't wanna stay there.
And there was a, an apartment I got in town, it's a Mexican apartment, so it was. You bring everything, you bring your fridge and your stove and you know, if you want a kitchen, you kind of gotta build one. You know, it was $175 a month for a two bedroom apartment and it was right in the middle of town. I mean, you just can't get any better than that.
Yeah. So, [00:28:00] and there's so many incredibly skilled artisans in Mexico. It's, I think, I think the two last countries with that many artisans are Mexico and India. So I went, I needed um, like a big counter space. So I got a seven foot long island and he built it with drawers and then he, he did these beautiful carvings of hummingbirds and flowers.
So I had him do that all over and paint it. And that whole thing was $250 and it was just insane. Wow. It was beautiful. So that was my, you know, that became where I had all my kitchen stuff and I got a fridge and a stove, and. A bed and a couch and I was set.
Christi : And what happened to the car?
Anna: Car with my car Up until I moved here, I drove the same car. I had that car, let's see, I bought it in Seattle. I drove my 19, my 2004 [00:29:00] Ford Focus for I think 10 years. And I, I bought it in. 2005 or 2006? No, uh, May, 2007 maybe. So it was already used and that thing always started, always ran really well, did not have to do any major improvements.
And I ended up, after three years in Mexico, I thought it's time to do something else. And I wanted to see now that Trump was out of office, I was like, well, maybe it'd be nice to move back to America. And I was. Curious about the south. I lived in, I liked the east coast better than the west coast, but I didn't wanna go back up north 'cause you know, the weather's just too yucky.
So I went up, I drove from where I was in Patzcuaro to Seattle, which I think was five or six days with the cat. And I had, had, I arranged everything beforehand and I had, my tenants had moved out and then in six weeks I had a new house. I just [00:30:00] did everything that had to be done. Everything was improved and replaced, painted carpet flooring, you know, just everything.
Got it all ready for sale. And then I realized I didn't need to be there while they were trying to sell it. So I was curious about North Carolina. So I drove from Seattle to North Carolina. Which was beautiful. I went through North Dakota, Montana. Oh, it's just gorgeous. They were having a lot of wildfires, a little smoky, but you know, it, I, I had never seen that part of the country, you know?
So I drove down through Minneapolis and Indiana. So I was, I was so excited. And the cat was there and he was doing great. And then I was in North Carolina. I was like, it was in, uh, Winston-Salem. Oh, this is interesting. And the house wasn't, wasn't selling so. I just said, you know what, let's rent it for six months and try again in the spring.
'cause that was in August. And for some reason, like the month before the market had been hot, it had just cooled off in [00:31:00] Seattle. I said, I'll just go back to Mexico. 'cause at that point I'd spent most of my money improving the house. I, I had very little money left and I certainly had no income. So, rented it and we, we lowered the rental price 'cause it was only for six months.
So it was a really nice deal. So I just went back to Mexico and waited. And in the spring,
Christi : wait you still had your apartment in Mexico?
Anna: No, I had, I'd given up my apartment, but since I was coming back I called her and said, 'cause I knew from other apartments in that building, they didn't rush to turn these apartments over.
Right. So. It had been a couple of months and I called her and said, is my apartment family? She said, oh, it's almost ready. So I moved back into the same apartment. There was a great guy there, Ugo, who he had lived in the US for many years and he spoke English really well. So he helped us, all of us who needed help with any little thing [00:32:00] that we couldn't handle with our limited Spanish.
So I had sold him all of. My contents that I, that I didn't, you know, just give away. And he still had the bed and the couch and that seven foot long island.
Christi : Oh wow. Weren't you lucky?
Anna: So I got it all back. I bought it back and, um, got a fridge and a stove and I was, that's all you gotta do. So I was there, and then in, in April, someone.
A, a realtor who had seen the, the house for sale in fall had some clients in Seattle who had been just shut out of house after house after house. And they called before we put it back on the market and said, you know, can we take this? No inspection necessary. Offered 50,000 above my last asking price. I said That's fine.
So [00:33:00] it was sold, um,
Christi : good for you.
Anna: Yeah, so I, I hung around in, in Mexico a few more months, and then I left in August and I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. Wow. And I, yeah, because I was curious. I'd never lived in that part. I mean, Oklahoma kind of is the South, but it's not the original South. I mean, there were. I lived across the street from a military park where, you know, they'd fought the Battle of 1776 there. Right. So this is real history. Mm-hmm. And I'd never, I mean, New York's like that too, but you know how New York City is, you don't quite see all that.
Christi : No. Not until you get up to where your grandmother, uh, yeah.
Lived in Rhinebeck right. That's, I'm actually in Hudson, which is the next town up from Love Hudson. Oh, race. That's great. Oh, of
Anna: course. Well, that whole area is so gorgeous. So
Christi : gorgeous. Yeah. But tell me, um, a [00:34:00] couple questions. One is like, did, was there, have you ever had any fear factor in all this moving about?
Anna: No, it never occurred to me to be afraid. That's interesting because when I moved from New York to Seattle. I think my sister-in-law, she said, I could never do that. I'd be too scared. And I thought, what is there to be scared of? I just, it just never crossed my mind. Interesting. And I've now learned that that's not the average person.
Christi : Aha. You've been talking to people about all they're moving about, right?
Anna: I didn't know. I didn't know. Do you know somebody there? Do you have any work? I'm like, no, I'm just going. I'm sure it'll work out. You know,
Christi : that's a lot of self-confidence and taking your work with you, I think makes a difference, don't you?
Anna: Well, that was only the last, that was the only the time I moved to [00:35:00] Mexico, so that was the only time I moved and I had any sort of financial stability. So when I moved to New York from Italy, I was 25. You know, I didn't have anything. Then when I moved to Seattle, I had a little bit that I had, you know, I'd saved some money, but not much.
So, yeah, it was the first time Seattle to Mexico was finally, I had an income coming in. I didn't have to do anything for my house, so right.
Christi : Yeah, no, that makes a big difference. And, and then when you move from, you gave up all your stuff again, right? The seven foot long counter and went to Greensboro. You were never tempted to take any of the stuff with you?
Anna: Well, I did drive, so I mean, I had. I had the cat and I, I had like boxes of things. You're just like, you know, you don't wanna have to buy all your kitchen stuff again. I had that, I had my clothes and just stuff that you accumulate books and things I. But I always, my [00:36:00] opinion's always been, you can always buy furniture.
You know, who cares? I, obviously, I don't collect antiques. People who collect antiques would, would be in shock right now. But, you know, so you spend a couple thousand, you buy some stuff and then you sell what you can make some of it back and then you move on. So it's, it's just to me. Not a big deal.
Christi : Interesting. And did you have a visa when you were in Mexico?
Anna: So, no, I did not. I just, I
decided to just go down and see what happened. I, I literally, I just was like, I don't know what's gonna happen. But after I'd been there a while, I realized what I had to do. So I got there at the end of September, around Thanksgiving.
I drove up to. McAllen Texas, which is the closest border town that's like a two day drive. I mean, it's 12 hours. It's not a fast drive. I was almost all the way down to the Pacific Ocean, so I was three hours north of Ixtapa, which is kind of a beach town there. So I drove up to McAllen, went to [00:37:00] the Mexican consulate.
I had my, at that point, you just needed to show you had a certain income, I think it was like $1500 or $1,600 a month. And some pictures, I mean, in fill out a form they did, they didn't do a, um, FBI background check, which I did have to do for Ecuador. So it, it just wasn't that hard. So I just went up there and came back down.
But when I went to go get, apply for my visa, I didn't have a particular piece of paper, so I had to go back up again and go again because when I went. Back through the customs into Mexico. I was supposed to get some piece of paper and the guy didn't give it to me. And so it was so funny 'cause I was sitting there, I didn't speak Spanish at that point.
I was, and I was telling him, I'm not leaving here until you gimme this piece of paper. And he's just like. Nope, I don't like the way you're talking to me. I'm not gonna give it to you. I'm like, you have to give it to me.
Christi : [00:38:00] Uh-huh, the New Yorker was coming out even after all those years elsewhere.
Anna: I showed him all my paperwork from the consulate and then he goes, no, you're missing, blah, blah, blah. I said, don't do this. I gotta have that. So he finally gave it to me. Yeah, I mean. Petty bureaucrat power.
Yeah. And maybe, maybe he was waiting for a bribe and I just didn't get that, so Oh, right. Probably that's what, that's probably what was going on, but. I wouldn't go away. He had no choice finally to give it to me. So then I, um, I, I had a lawyer down there and, and I went through the process and I then I did have a visa.
And what you could do is you could have a 1, 2, 3, or four year visa, and once you had been there four years, you could apply for a permanent visa. But they had just changed the law that you could just go right ahead and get the permanent visa. It was more expensive, so that's why some people didn't do it.
But I wasn't sure again what the heck I was gonna do. So I just did one year and then after [00:39:00] that I said, okay, so I got the, uh, two, two or three years at once. And when I left was when I could have gone ahead and gotten the permanent visa and I didn't do it, which only matters because when I decided to leave after the November election.
I went to look back to go to Mexico, and it didn't matter that I, I didn't have status anymore. It had expired and I hadn't, you know, done that, but that didn't matter at all. So I went to the consulate. The closest one was in Raleigh, about an hour from me. So I went there two different times and I had made two, two mistakes each one one time.
Each time I made one mistake. So I'd go back second time, made a mistake, and that's when I started thinking. Do I really wanna go there? I didn't wanna go someplace really hot, and the only place that was good weather was where I had been. But I [00:40:00] didn't really go to a small town. You know, I'm really not a small town person.
And then suddenly end of la end of the year in December, I finally heard about Cuenca Now, of course, everybody else in the world knew about Cuenca I didn't. And I said, wait a minute. It's 74 degrees every day. year round, what? It's eight, 8,000 feet in the sky. It's uh, beautiful weather. They use the American dollar.
What? You know, I was just, I felt like such an idiot and I said, that sounds much better. So, and the city, it's a colonial city. It's beautiful city surrounded by the Andes and there's 600,000 people, so it's a good sized town. I said, that's it. And I just started doing what I had to do. Had to get an, you know, fingerprinted FBI background check, worked with a gal.
Uh, a person in DC who has a comp, they have companies where they help people [00:41:00] get all their paperwork together for visas. And then I had a, I have a gal here in Cuenca who is shepherding my visa through for me. So again, pretty simple.
Christi : Wow. And if you are willing to share the name of that company in DC that helps you with visas, we can put it in the show notes.
Anna: Well, they, well, they don't help, like, well, they help you gather documents for a visa for any country in the world. So it's not just Ecuador, it's called Elite Documents. And it's uh, she's fabiola. Well, of course I worked with a Spanish speak lady, but she helps everybody. Let me see here.
Christi : That's wonderful. You could just send it to me.
Yeah, if you want Elite documents in Washington DC
Anna: Yeah. Elite Documents Apostille, A-P-O-S-T-I-L-L-E, which is once you start trying to move abroad, everything has to be apostille, which just means notarized. Or this not really notarized mm-hmm. [00:42:00] But has to go through a process. So the different government agencies, like, you know, the FBI had to put a particular stamp on there and you know, everything that you get a document for has to then be verified with an apostille.
So she's the one who followed up with all of that because when you get the documents, whatever you're getting. They're not apostille, and then you have to get it done. So that's what they're really great for. Wow. Yeah. Just that's,
Christi : and it seems to me like you just kind of follow your nose. Uh, I do. From where you going next?
Anna: Well, it's like, you know, I know. I don't wanna be in the States. I, after, uh, the election, I said, there's a really good chance I got early Social Security. I says, A really good chance that's not gonna be around much longer. So where can I live? I mean, I wasn't living on my Social Security, but where would I live comfortably? If for some reason I no longer had my Social Security, [00:43:00] so I just felt like I had to take care of myself. I felt like. Um, I, I knew the stock market was probably gonna tank. I had, uh, I was getting interest, a monthly dividends off of an investment, which by the way was 10 and a half when I left. It's $8 and 4 cents now, which means the dividend is very high, but I would've lost all of my capital.
So I looked at those things and I said, I can't stay here 'cause I can't live here without that income. And I don't think the stock market's gonna do well. It looks like Social Security not gonna do it. So I was right about both those things. Well, we'll see about Social Security, but I think they'll, they'll try something and then
Christi : Yeah, bite your tongue.
Anna: Well, I'm just being realistic. Um, I mean, Republicans have been trying to take away Social Security ever since it got invented, so that's no news. But no. Anyway, so that was my concern. I also, I'm Jewish. [00:44:00] Don't know, but do they get done with the immigrants and everybody else they wanna get out of America?
They always end up running after the Jews. Again, a very small risk, but it just didn't feel safe to me. It didn't feel safe to me the first term I left after he got elected. 'cause, and I went to the town of Mexico. There were quite a few American Jews there and they, they understood exactly what I meant.
You just, when you're raised Jewish, you just, you just really don't wanna be around authoritarians. It's like never works out well, never works out well for the juice. So it's kind of a thing.
Christi : So, do you keep up with the news here?
Anna: I do, but not, not like I did in, before I decided after the election
Christi : in North carolina.
Anna: Yeah. Um, after the, the election last year, I said, I have just gotta back off here so I know what's happening, but I don't go into the nitty gritty. I, you know, when he [00:45:00] first got elected, I was very obsessed with it because I wanted to figure out what was going on. You know, what is happening. Now I know what's happening, so I don't have to obsessively read everything to figure out what's happening, so I know what's, what's happening now, so I'm able to back off. It's just not good for your mental health to spend too much time. I. Reading about it.
Christi : It's true. So how do you spend your days? Are you, you're learning more Spanish, the Ecuadorian Spanish? Yes.
Anna: Yes. Which luckily uses the same rules. Uh, Spain has a different Spanish just in the sense that they use a formal u.
And, uh, Latin America doesn't use the formal use, so you only have to learn five conjugations instead of six, so that's nice. But yeah, I'm studying, uh, I just, I had a private tutor, but now I'm just hooking up with a school, which again does private sessions, but it's a. Got a nice selection of teachers, so you can try different [00:46:00] teachers.
And I'm gonna do two hours a week there because again, you know, one hour at a time, few days in between, do it again. That's $10 an hour, so.
Christi : Wow.
Anna: I um so I do that. I've actually, I had, uh, learned bridge while I was living in North Carolina, and I, there's people here, I, I play bridge with. There are, there's about 8,000, 6,000 American expats in Cuenca
It's a very popular place to retire to. Uh, there's a weekly poker game that I go to sometimes, 'cause I learned to play poker in Mexico. I. There's this weekend, there's theater. They have a theater group and then of course the town of Cuenca itself has everything going on. So there's museums, there's a university here.
I actually go swimming there. They just let anybody go in there for three bucks and swim. Um, nice. There's [00:47:00] this weekend they're having an election for the president, so. A curious thing they do. It's also the same weekend. They're celebrating 483 years as a city named Cuenca. When the Spanish came, ah, they were another, they were here before that.
They celebrate that and then in the fall they celebrate their real history. But um, they celebrate that. And so the election is at the same time as the birthday party. There are bands and stalls, all over town, artisans selling stuff. It's any excuse for a party that's Latin America or South America for you.
So yeah, I
understand
that. Yeah, there's tons to do hiking, so,
Christi : and is there, is there a Jewish community? Will you be celebrating Passover? Are you, are you,
Anna: I've never been very observant.
I'm not an observant Jew. I'm, I'm sure there is. In fact, I probably even saw an expat Jewish group listed. [00:48:00] But, um, my first, on my flight over here, I met a, a Jewish lady from L.A.
I mean, you know, what are you gonna do? They're everywhere. So
I actually, I go to a meditation group. I, I, I enjoy meditation more than the services, so I do that.
Christi : There you go. Wow, that that sounds, it sounds idyllic.
Anna: Well, what's beautiful about it is, you know, my monthly health insurance is $75 and that includes the dentist. I just went to the dentist and I had. A broken inlay, a little break that he had to fix, and two tiny little cavities.
Each cavity was $15 to fill and to fix the broken inlay was $18. I'm telling you. Wow. I mean, they do dentist tourism here. They promote it very heavily. And this guy was excellent dentist. My God. [00:49:00] He He was so detailed. He was so kind. Everyone hugs you. Hello. And hugs you goodbye. Even though you just met them.
My dentist is hugging me, you know, it's great.
That's wonderful. What could you ask for? Yeah. It's really nice and, and now that I'm doing this, 'cause I, 'cause I live so inexpensively here, I can go and travel other places and really take my time. So I've already got a Europe trip planned for the fall for three weeks and then I'll probably Oh, nice. In the spring or late winter, I'll probably do at least a couple of months traveling.
At one time. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So,
Christi : so, yeah. And you don't feel, you don't feel that Ecuador has gotten overrun yet with Americans retiring or doing whatever they're gonna do?
Anna: Mm. I mean, in a city of 600,000, 6,000 American expats, that's pretty tiny. You know, we can all see each other. 'cause [00:50:00] usually our skin is much paler.
Yeah, though there are some, some, some natives who have paler skin, but not as pale as us. We're really, really pale. No, no, I, I don't think that's like that. Even in Mexico, there's a lot more, it's like a million expats in all Mexico. Of course. It's a huge country and there's scattered everywhere and Ecuador is a much smaller country, but Cuenca is the number one spot they come to.
And, but there's, they're in Quito which is the capital also colonial. Yeah, it's fine. You can, you can choose what you wanna do. Like I wanna hang out more with the locals 'cause I already know what it's like to hang out with Americans. So, you know, I see them, I play bridge with them and, and play, play poker with 'em and whatever, go to their events.
But, um, yeah, you can have ev you can have both.
Christi : That's wonderful. And no regrets anywhere along the line. No,
Anna: I, looking at what's [00:51:00] happened, especially since I left I, smartest thing I've ever done,
I would've lost like half of my capital. I mean, come on.
Christi : So you took it, you basically took your capital with you, right?
Anna: Oh, and by the way, when your CD here, if you put in a hundred thousand or more, it's almost 10%. Which they do not report to the US Treasury.
Christi : Wow.
Anna: Just saying.
Christi : So, so do you, do you recommend, do you recommend Ecuador for people who are looking to Absolutely. Where am I gonna go? Where I can stretch my Social Security or
Anna: my, oh abs. I mean, I was adding up the other day and I don't get a huge Social Security, you know, I don't get like 3000, I get, you know, like 1600.
'cause I. And [00:52:00] it's a long story. But anyway, uh, I can live on that and still have some leftover, and then I have all the interest from my, now my CDs that I just will keep reinvesting for a while so I can just build up my, my nut. So it's pretty ideal. Wow. I mean, I wouldn't say pick up and move like I did.
I'd already lived in Mexico, so I knew, I knew basically what I was getting into. And it's not Mexico, but it's not that different either. So a lot of, there's a Facebook groups for people who wanna, you know, retired Ecuador expats. So go on there, look at the different places. That's what I did. I learned so much before I came here just by, you know, reading all that, and then visit you.
Come for a visit and see what you think.
Christi : That's wonderful. That's great advice. Um, any, any other words of advice before we, I, we're getting to the end of our hour here.
Anna: [00:53:00] Just don't be afraid. Just try things. You know, it. I mean, I went back to America and checked it out for another two and a half years and then left again.
You can always do that, right? So there's nothing to really be afraid of. And people all around the world, they. Especially in South America and in in Central America, in Mexico, they are very warm and welcoming. They're not, they don't have the status thing like in the States, what do you do? They try to figure you out right away.
Here, they don't care about that. They just wanna know where your heart is. They wanna see who you are as a person. So even the woman I go and I go to the market and get my, uh, meat from this butcher, you know, so after two visits, you know, we're very good friends because she can see, you know, I'm just, I'm there.
I'm not gonna play games with her. That's really nice.
Christi : Wow. What a lovely story. Thank you. Thank you.
Anna: You're welcome.[00:54:00]
Christi : Thank you for listening. I'm Christi Cassidy, your host. We'll be back next time with more stories of travel, relocation, and life transitions on moving along. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Till next time.