Expats Like Us
A podcast series exploring life as a U.S. Expat in Mexico. Topics include preparing to move to a new country, navigating your new home and finding your passion as a retiree.
Expats Like Us
Renewed Vitality Through Expat Life
Embark on an intimate exploration of life beyond borders with our friend Scott who traded Seattle's drizzle for Riviera Maya's dazzle. Scott, a beacon of resilience with his physical disability, shares the unexpected health benefits of Mexico's warm embrace and the cultural tapestry that awaited them. We delve into the nuances of expatriate life, from adapting to Mexico's economic shifts to facing the idiosyncrasies of local bureaucracy with a blend of patience and humor.
We are incredibly thankful for engagement and stories from our listeners, who have found their own sense of 'home' across the globe. Stay tuned as we continue to share the wisdom and wanderlust of those who've charted their unique international courses. We'd love to hear your comments and questions. Email them to expatslikeus@gmail.com
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Don't necessarily make a big decision in your life and your lifestyle based on just visiting one area of Mexico. It's a vast country and the environment is different the natural, geographical, historic and just cultural differences throughout this country, you know, which shocks some people.
Speaker 2:Welcome to X-PATs Like Us. A co-production with me, vita Margarita, exploring the world of US X-PAT life in Mexico. In each episode, we'll meet new people and hear their stories. We'll also learn more about X-PAT life and get a few tips on everything from making your move to settling in, to living your dreams and, most of all, having fun. Let's dive in.
Speaker 3:I'm your host, chris Kowalski, and today we're thrilled to be talking to our friend and fellow X-PAT, scott Lawson. Scott and his wife Deb moved to Riviera Maya about three years ago. Scott is here to share his experience in moving from his original home in the Seattle area to living full-time in Mexico and adapting to a new life in a new country. Scott will also share some insight on the special challenges of navigating Mexico with a physical disability. Hello, scott Lawson, welcome to X-PATs Like Us.
Speaker 1:Hi guys, nice to be here and appreciate you asking me Glad to have you here.
Speaker 2:Scott, thanks for coming in today. So tell us about your life pre-Mexico in the US.
Speaker 1:Well, as Chris mentioned, prior to moving here, we lived in the Seattle Washington area, and that was with our two children, our dogs, and while there, I should mention my wife, debra. The dogs got to feel like they were out of their beards.
Speaker 2:You're going to have to distract her during this part of the podcast. Yes, shame on me.
Speaker 1:And while there, we both went to the University of Washington and she went on to become an engineer for our local public utility, and I spent my entire career in construction management, doing single family, multi-family and commercial healthcare work. And prior to being diagnosed with my disability, which we'll explain and talk about here in a bit, I was a very active guy. I played a lot of softball, golfed, skied and a lot of that just came crashing down in my late 40s.
Speaker 1:Oh right and but it kind of one of the things that precipitated the move down here. The warmth, the sunshine it's really done wonders to my health, including things like blood pressure. I think it affects a lot of people, but yeah, so that is sort of an outline of what we did there. I could elaborate on it, but really the next chapter was coming here.
Speaker 2:Right, and what inspired you to decide to move to Mexico instead of just being in Seattle?
Speaker 1:Well, you know it. A lot of it had to do with my health, of course, and I was approaching retirement age, my full retirement age, and both my wife and I, we were working at home during COVID and it was in a sort of that pivotal point in our lives. Where do we? Do we stick with this, or do we work our way back to commuting to work rather than working at home?
Speaker 1:And you know, there was some challenges for myself being at home as far as mobility. I didn't get up enough. I would sit there at my desk for 10 hours a day without even getting up and moving around. You know, something that I normally would have done pre COVID. So it really it kind of was the catalyst for us to move and retire.
Speaker 2:I hear that a lot from people, that when you say what inspired you to move to Mexico, there's almost always, at least you know, the people that have probably been here around as long as we have, but it's a consistent thing. Where they mentioned the pandemic, yeah absolutely, and it changed something in all of our minds and we all decided to make a big move at that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, yeah, and you know much of that is people reflected on. You know things just as simple as family members becoming sick. You know everybody and I'm sure including yourselves, new people that passed away during COVID and you know it's one of those things where you just say you know, do I want to work to die or do I want to work to retire? And it was just something that we just, you know, we figured. You know we want to go to the next chapter of our lives. Deborah, she, she was a little more reluctant to retire. She absolutely loved her job and it was a job that unfortunately she couldn't do remotely. But you know, she jumped on board and you know, here we are Now. We have, we have a bit of a history here in Quintana Roo. We we had been traveling here for, I would say, over 50 years since we were you know pretty darn young.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, exactly. As a matter of fact, we honeymooned in Cancun and through the course of that period we we had visited Cosmow quite extensively. We had friends there and that was one of our first choices in the area. There were times where we looked at Playa del Carmen, and then we eventually, of course, came to the Riviera Maya, where we're at.
Speaker 2:I'm guessing Cancun was a different place at that time. Oh my gosh, yeah, tell us about that.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, many of us know that Cancun is, you know, relative to most larger cities, it's a new city. Cancun has only been in existence the city itself, for roughly 50 years, and when we first came here, I would say it was around 1988. We decided that we would take a vacation and we had all of these different places that we looked at, and Deborah came up with Cancun. We had no idea what it was. In simple terms, cancun became in existence by I don't want to get this wrong, but it was computer-generized.
Speaker 1:The city they were looking for, the Mexican government was looking for a place for folks to vacation or retire and they just, you know, mixed all these balls up in a bowl and, with you know, all those different criteria, cancun was picked, and I think we all know that, with its beauty, they made a pretty good choice Back in that time I mentioned that, you know we decided to go on vacation and we picked one of the few accommodations that were in the hotel zone. If you're not familiar with it, the hotel zone is primarily the zone in Cancun where people vacation.
Speaker 2:And, like most people that come to Cancun, stay there and never leave there.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. But at the time, like I said, in the late 80s, there were a handful of accommodations. Now it's this high rise Mecca that you know. It looks like a large city if you're across the way, in Moheris, you see, you know these these tall buildings. But anyways, this, this hotel that we picked, it was horrific. The first thing we walk in the door, a cockroach. And you know, we, we just we were not happy, so I had, my trigger is pretty short and they put us in the presidential suite instead which was not much better.
Speaker 2:Not really not totally presidential.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. I recall another time that we came with some friends and we were staying at a and this is, later in time, a different hotel. No, actually I think it was this one, deborah. Deborah pulled out a postcard or the advertisement for this and she goes I want this room, I paid for this room and it, you know, they pushed us to a different suite. Yeah, so anyways, long story short there is is that Cancun hotel zone was nothing. Back then they were even dumping sewage into the what do they call the area in the center?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the Lagoon, or whatever it is the Lagoon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean, just read the suit we hope.
Speaker 2:We hope they're not doing that today.
Speaker 1:I don't think they can confirm that but. I think they come a long ways, but anyways that that was sort of the start of things. We were going to stay in, like I said, cosmow, but we we decided we looked at homes there and we decided that there was really very little new. A lot of the infrastructure was old and we just figured we have all kinds of problems with that Sure. If we purchased. But anyways, playa de Carmen. We looked at a lot there and we all know what Playa has turned into.
Speaker 2:And right, it's now a. It's now a busy, large, busy city, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And, as a matter of fact, we read somewhere that they expect that the population of Playa will exceed Cancun in X amount of years. So we'll see what that happens there. But it's turned into a loud city with traffic and I think we're we're happy with our choice. Where we came to and I know you guys have talked about it, sherry and Erica, and the both of you where we live, and I think we're all very happy with our choice.
Speaker 3:I would say we are. Yeah. Had you gone to any other areas of Mexico to look, or just?
Speaker 1:No, you know, interesting, you mentioned that we, we pretty much had our hearts set on this area. We, from being from the West Coast, we were familiar with the West Coast of Mexico and, as you know, the climate is is much different. Even, you know, even areas of Southern California people often think that it's it's warm, it's in the water temperatures freezing there, and that continues all the way down along the coast of of Mexico pretty chilly temperatures. So, you know, we did this is one of the things that we, we thought that you know was, you know, one of the one of the things that we felt was beneficial to, you know, our well-being, our health, to be able to be in an area that you know we have, you know, bath water warm ocean here and we're all, we can all be active, you know even even with with the disability that we'll talk about.
Speaker 2:I mean you're, you're a very active guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I try to be, you know, given given my limitations, yes, but yeah, so anyways, ended up here. Like I said, we were here multiple times and at the time we it wasn't that time, but we had purchased our property here about eight years ago. I'm not sure how long you guys have been here, but it wasn't until three years ago that we did retire. But we, we, we liked it so much that you know, we used it as a rental for a while and vacationed here, and that's kind of how we kind of ended up in the Riviera Maya.
Speaker 2:Okay, so tell us, in your view, what are some of the most important things people watching or listening should think about before making a move to Mexico.
Speaker 1:You know, be it Mexico or or another country, there are differences, no question about it. And you know if, if you're, if you're from the US or Canada, there are similarities but the differences are greater. And you guys have touched on it, on your, your new little session.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's kind of a team with us is K.
Speaker 1:Padre K came out.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, wow, he remembers that. That's awesome, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I found it very entertaining in it. You know, kind of hit me, you know right to heart, because we've all been through it, and but anyways, you know one of the other things that you know people should be aware of when they come here do your research. It's, it's ever changing, this country, and you know, like I said, either be it this country or another country, there's a vast amount of knowledge out there that can assist you to to make the right choices. You know I would. I would say that don't hit and I'm, my wife and I are a bit guilty of this Don't necessarily make a big decision in your life and your lifestyle based on just visiting one area of Mexico. Right, it's a vast country and the environment is different. The natural, geographical, historic and just cultural differences throughout this country, you know, would shock some people, right? So Bob and Sherry and Debra and I, we were just recently in Mexico City.
Speaker 2:Completely different place than where we live in every way.
Speaker 1:Yep, every way. People are often shocked that they think of Mexico as a relatively you know flat country, you know it has mountains. But what is Mexico City? I think it's like 8,000.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's somewhere out there, I mean it's something.
Speaker 1:It's very high, yeah, and you sit in the middle of the city and you look at two snow covered volcanoes which I personally had never imagined until I saw that.
Speaker 2:Yeah me neither. That surprised me too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you know, I know there are Debra and I really haven't traveled, like you said, much throughout Mexico and I know you guys have traveled probably much more. But culture has a lot to do with it. There simply isn't much culture here, right In Cointanero, other than you know the ruins and you know.
Speaker 2:Mayan culture, and by culture we mean, like music, like you know, concerts and theater and architecture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, architecture, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:I mean, there certainly is culture, but not that type of culture, Because you can find that kind of stuff all over in other cities, in central cities in Mexico like.
Speaker 2:Mexico City or Guadalajara even, or you know, it's very different. Yeah, it's. I think part of it is. Quintana Roo is such a young state. We just we did a thing in a trivia contest the other day and Quintana Roo was not even a state until the 70s, till the mid 70s, right, I mean, it was jungle until then, you know. So, yeah, they don't have the tradition of culture and theater and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so some of the other things that you know one should consider when they move to Mexico. You know I said that things are different and patience goes a long ways.
Speaker 2:And we all learn that often the hard way.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and you know, I've heard, I've heard many people say that give it a couple years. You know, the first year is going to be a test and if you fail the test you're probably not going to be here the second year. It's just. It's something that you have to have tolerance and you know we talk about, you know things, that thing about Mexico that resonates is things, everything, everything is consistently inconsistent and you have to go with that Right, and if you don't, you're going to have problems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you can't expect things to be consistent, yeah, or you will be horribly disappointed.
Speaker 1:I think Bob. Bob has a story that he shared, you know, a couple of weeks ago about getting tabs for his or his license plates. And you know, one guy, they'll tell you something and another person will tell you something else, and it's just, you know, it's a matter of how they rolled out a bed that morning.
Speaker 3:The person yeah, we just did it this week. Yeah, yeah, you know, we brought all the paperwork in. The guy says I don't need any of that. Yeah, Exactly.
Speaker 2:I got sent home to get more paperwork.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I'm touching on that in a second.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah, the guy next to you, you know you've been requested, or the literature tells you that you need these six documents and just for safe measure, you bring eight and you know you're standing there, you give them the six, they take four, but they want you to go home to get another one Right to get another photocopy of one or two. The guy next to you only had two documents and he made it successful?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and anyways it's. You know it's some of the things that you need to consider. And Mexico right now, things are changing a lot. It's rapidly changing With the current administration. The laws are changing, the way that this country operates. It's no longer what we might have thought about in the past. The economy is changing and, as we all know, when we first came here, we could take a pace on its stretching. Yeah, and you know it was one of the alerts of you know coming here.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Well, and you know, minimum wage has gone up since we've been here, like what, 50% at least, and slated to go up more, which affects the prices of everything. But on the other hand, it means Mexico now has more of an emerging middle class that they can afford to buy things and buy more goods and stuff, so the economy is improving. Oh, this economy is on fire, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, we all know what the conversion rate is right now between the peso and the US dollar. And you know, for those of us who are taking our money from the United States, we're getting clobbered, yeah, and it is becoming more expensive to live here, and you know it's. You know. The second punch is that we live in the most expensive area of Mexico, with the tourism region that it is.
Speaker 2:When we went to Mexico City, we were surprised at how inexpensive things were.
Speaker 1:We were taking uvers for pocket change you know, which you know. It was quite a pleasure your All right, we're back.
Speaker 3:Hey Scott, so we know that you lead a very active life in retirement and we mentioned earlier in the podcast that you're a person with physical disabilities. Could you describe that disability and how it affects your daily life?
Speaker 1:Sure, Like you said, a lot of my neighbors they see me walking around and most often I have a cane.
Speaker 1:So I have a disease called Charette Marie Tooth Syndrome and a goofy name, but it's based on the doctors that discovered it. It's a genetic, hereditary degenerative disorder that roughly 3% of the population in the US has it. It varies in severity. My case is it's sort of middle of the ground. What my symptoms are Kind of in a nutshell my nerves are dead from my knees down Kind of the best way to describe it, and part of this disorder is with my motor and sensory nerves.
Speaker 1:It gets scrambled when the signal is sent from my brain. It somewhere along the way it doesn't send the signal to my knees and my legs. It I wanna, kind of. The best way I describe it is I wanna be 20 feet ahead, but the signal isn't telling my feet to be there. Yeah right, and with that I have a gate in my walk, whereas when I walk my feet have to go higher because if they don't I am susceptible to tripping. I have drop foot where my foot drops and much of what I have to do is balance myself with a cane. The other walking aid I have is a articulating brace on my foot and that brace allows me to walk without having to think about every step I take, and under normal circumstances I have to think about every step I take, otherwise I'm gonna trip and that can be exhausting. No, I can't even imagine. Yeah, so this brace is a guide sign.
Speaker 1:Most of these braces go roughly up to the knee, and I approached my orthotic guy doctor and I told him that my wife and I are coming to Mexico and in doing so I'm gonna be wearing shorts. Yeah, 99% of the time, and for several reasons I wanted shorter braces and my request to him was to go ahead and cut the braces off. He had never heard of it, anybody doing that, so it was kind of a unique request and it works great for me. It kind of serves the purpose of helping me not have the drop foot or drop foot. Cosmetically. It still allows me to have be able to wear shorts and still have the brace short enough.
Speaker 1:And we had talked about the act of life. If it weren't for this brace, I would not be able to play golf. Oh right, and you guys are very passionate about your pickleball and I try to be passionate about golf, but unfortunately I don't get out enough. We live on an incredible golf course. It's one of the most beautiful courses in Latin America and anytime we have an opportunity to get out there. It's special and I would like to play more, but it's just a matter of logistics and getting people. But these braces are really something that, if you have the disorder that I have, you really need them and they're going to allow you to carry on with life. I don't wear them all the time.
Speaker 1:I'm in my sandals, quite often and in doing so I pretty much have to use my cane to maintain balance.
Speaker 2:So how is life different in Mexico, I mean in the US, there's ADA compliance for buildings and for everything. Oh, I just see. And when heck I can trip and hurt myself walking around anywhere?
Speaker 3:in Mexico. I always say everything's hazardous in Mexico, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm gonna put it on the swivel. Yeah, it's kind of funny. You mentioned that I just yesterday I was at the doctor and in their parking lot they have if everybody's pretty familiar with a ramp in the United States and Canada. It's got a fairly gentle slope like one inch to 12 feet or whatever. It is this particular ramp going into the doorway. Was it 45 degrees?
Speaker 2:I've seen those before. I always think, oh my God, if I was in a wheelchair I would never want to go down that thing and. I couldn't probably go up it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at the opposing end of this is a main thoroughfare. You can roll right into it. Yeah, so, and you know. Also, with this particular ramp it went up to the doorway.
Speaker 1:So there's no landing, there's no staging area for somebody at 45 degrees to pull the door open Right, and there's no enforcement for something like this. Now they may try, but their effort is a little futile. But anyways, you go throughout any city here in Cancun, be a plier to loom and you'll be walking along a sidewalk and there are junction boxes with a great smessing, and it never embers anybody's mind to put a grate on it Right. Any of the municipal workers or just the guy who has the shop adjacent to it. You think maybe throw a piece of board on it or something. There are few curb cuts that are in the intersections.
Speaker 2:And I'm assuming the places that do have that sort of thing are they're few and far between, like your ramp is at a doctor's place, right yeah?
Speaker 1:exactly.
Speaker 2:It's not just a normal government building or something.
Speaker 1:There's some irony there. Yeah, you have to laugh. I mean, it's as much as things. You want to be safe, you got to chuckle. You know parking spaces. They do have ADA accessible parking spaces, but in the area I have to say they're highly abused.
Speaker 2:They use them for loading.
Speaker 1:I don't think they bust people for parking there Right, and if you take a peak, 80% of the cars parked there don't have blockers Right, and that's kind of a shame, but there are. You know there's no bite to anything when it comes to things regarding ADA.
Speaker 2:So do you have a placard in your car?
Speaker 1:I do Okay, I do yeah, and is that? Issued by the Mexican government no actually mine is from the United States and it is accepted in Mexico and widely accepted throughout the world. I don't know if there is any reciprocating agreement, but it is being acceptable here.
Speaker 2:That's something I've never heard before. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:I've never, you know, had anybody try to enforce it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, but that's good to know because people from the States thinking of coming down here. If you have a handicapped and you do have a placard, bring it with you. Yeah, Because it's good here.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely, and there must be some you know reasoning to have it, because I will say that one of your former neighbors had asked me to loan them a placard and I got stolen out of the car.
Speaker 2:So somebody's using it here and there's probably not somebody with a handicap either. I got to assume.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but you know it's, you know, one of those things that you just have to accept If you're traveling. You know, part of my advice we had talked about, you know, looking at different cities throughout Mexico, you know, probably, before you make a choice of living in a particular area, not every city is even anywhere close to the compliance that you might see in Cancun or one of the newer cities.
Speaker 1:You go to Merida or some of the, even Mexico City, there are areas that they have cobblestone and they don't think twice about and the cobblestones have been there since horses were walking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so horses could have been walking on it earlier today, but since it was built in, like the 1500s or something, yeah, so there really are few expectations to accommodate.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's not like they do anything on purpose to not. It's you know kind of how they do it. A lot of it is, you know, economic. They don't have the money.
Speaker 2:Right, there's, yeah. Yeah, there's been an earlier podcast about one of the good things we like is we pay very low property tax. But the bad part of that is there's not a lot of money for infrastructure, isn't that true?
Speaker 1:That sort of thing. You know that's good and bad. It's cheaper yeah, it is cheaper, it is, but yeah, yeah, so yeah, those are. Those are some of the things that you wish we had a lot of Pause and enforcement for something like. You know, what we know is ADA in the US. But you know, I try to pretty much work with what you know, what we have here.
Speaker 3:So what advice would you have for people with physical challenges who are thinking about making the move to Mexico?
Speaker 1:Kind of what I touched on a second ago. Look at different areas. If it's something that's really important to you, you know, check these places out first, because you'd be, you know, shocked at, you know, making a choice if you're going to live in a particular city and you have those expectations that you know are going to be realized. You know things like you know, and I think we've seen this maybe in our neighborhood every so often, if you're making decisions on homes and they have elevators, you know, consider that often our electrical grid here in Mexico is sometimes questionable.
Speaker 1:It goes out a lot and you know it sort of resonates because, like I said, we've seen a couple instances in here in our neighborhood that if the power goes out it becomes a burden not to have.
Speaker 2:So maybe that kind of house you know you might want to consider keeping in mind, look at places on lower floors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely yeah, it's. You know those are. Those are some of the obstacles that that, if you are considering coming here, I think the biggest you know takeaway there is there are no ADA loss, right, or you know the comparable requirements in Canada to that. You know, don't have expectations that are not realistic.
Speaker 2:Right, okay, we'll take another break and we'll be back.
Speaker 3:Sure, okay, we're back. Okay, scott. So in an earlier episode we played a game called Cape Audre Caymallow, which is things you love about Mexico and things you don't like so much. Give me one thing you really love about living here, cape Audre, and one thing that you don't necessarily like as much as Caymallow. I'd love to just elaborate and you know, play your entire game, because you know one for a while it's fun to listen to it.
Speaker 1:You know, I think, that which is a Cape Audre, the things you do like 365 days of the year, sunshine, summer. You know, occasionally you have a blip in weather here and there and perhaps winter and hurricane season, but it's so nice to wake up every morning and see the sunshine, especially coming from Seattle. Huh, yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, you know a place where we thrive on three months a year. You know, getting outside, but and you know I knew you and Utah. You know you faced snow and same with South Dakota, yeah, and, but it's just something that I'm sure a lot of people can't imagine until you experience it.
Speaker 1:It's just so good for the soul Just feeling now today. Maybe a little warm outside, but you know for March, but you know most often yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. And if you had a list of, like the top thing that someone should consider when looking to retire and making an international move, what would that one thing be?
Speaker 1:You know. One comes to mind is and I've seen in many other blogs and podcasts, people often say rent first before you really make a commitment and to doing so I, you know, it, it, it. I probably should have heated that advice only because you know we haven't experienced the rest of the country Right, and you know we, you're invested here and we're invested here and absolutely love it.
Speaker 1:I mean no question about it, but you know it was a thrill to go to Mexico City and see the different neighborhoods and our area is growing here and you know, I think you know we'll you know, eventually we're going to see.
Speaker 1:You know some of that, yeah, but to answer your question, I would say the number one thing and I don't care where you go research, research the place, you know when we first, you know, thought about coming here and you know, like I said, almost 50 years ago we never had the vast amount of knowledge and tools and internet, and it's. It's out there. You know, listen to podcasts like this. You know it can. It can really help you with those choices rather than, you know, jumping in.
Speaker 2:We both fade. We, you know, we always and we talked about this on an earlier podcast we credit. What's the guy's name? It's 2xpats Mexico.
Speaker 3:Paul, paul Paul.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for that's. They're the reason we moved, you know, they made us realize we could move Paul. Tons of good info. Yeah, paul.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, paul.
Speaker 2:We studied that for years before we came here, paul.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and you know one of the other things that you know I don't want to digress here, but you talk about. You know when you make choices and what choices you make. Look at realistic budgets. I mean, so many times you look at these sites and, quite honestly, they're bogus budgets. You know you can't live in Mexico on a thousand dollars a month. You can perhaps, you know, somewhere in a hut in the middle of Mexico.
Speaker 2:But you know often, you know it's portrayed that you can do that, you've got to look at all of it, and it's taken as a blanket statement about all of Mexico too, which is completely not true, yeah, yeah, but you know that would be some advice when you know you're looking at trying to make that commitment. All right? Yeah Well, thank you, scott Lawson, for joining us today on X-PATS, like Us.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you very much. Thanks, man had a great chat with you guys, yeah.
Speaker 2:In each episode of X-PATS, like Us, we're going to teach you a new Mexican slang word. This is something you may not find in your phrasebook or your online Spanish class or your Spanish app or wherever you're learning your Spanish. Instead, this is a term used primarily by Mexican Spanish speakers. Today's word is Eres la neta. Eres la neta.
Speaker 3:Eres la neta Okay.
Speaker 2:I know that Eres means you are yes.
Speaker 3:La neta is a slang way of saying you're the best, you're cool, you're spot on. Eres la neta, Okay.
Speaker 2:You're the best Eres. La neta, erika Kowalski, from Me, vida Margarita. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's topic. Just look up X-PATS. Like Us on Facebook or send us an email at xpatslikeuscom. You can also see the video version of today's discussion and all of our discussions on our YouTube page. Follow, like, subscribe and leave us a review. Thank you to today's guest, scott Lawson. Thanks also to my co-host, chris Kowalski and his wife Erika, and thanks to my wife, sherry Bussey. Most of all, thank you for tuning into X-PATS. Like Us and thank you for interacting with us on social media. Next time we'll bring you more first-hand information about your international move. We'll see you again in two weeks. Until then, remember our homes are not defined by geography or one particular location, but by memories of events, people and places that span the globe.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
