hey youtube it's alex conley and in today's video i want to go over a question that occurred to me and in life you know all of us like have some kind of regret hopefully not too many when you're
young but we always have something that you know kind of bugs us and so i'm wondering like you know the question came to mind what's my biggest regret in coming to medici what do i regret you know as
far as my decision to come here and uh fortunately like that's you know that's not i think uh not a question i have a problem answering my biggest regret in coming here to medellin is that i didn't learn
spanish beforehand so for those of you who aren't familiar uh here in colombia the predominant language is spanish and most of the people here in medellin their first language is spanish especially right now with the pandemic i see
very very few tourists there's days where i go i go days without seeing a tourist sometimes and really don't hear english too often this contrasts some of what i read online i'd read online that this neighborhood el poblato
is a predominantly expat type neighborhood and that there's going to be more english here than elsewhere but in fact in my time here in el poblado i actually don't encounter english very much and i have been fortunate to
be able to use a translation app but still that that mostly helps with me communicating to the other party but as far as me understanding what they're trying to say that's a bit more difficult you might be asking
well you know hasn't everybody had a little exposure to spanish from the united states i have had some so i had two years in high school and i took part of the spanish one class recently at my college
back in the states unfortunately i had to drop the spanish class because i was also taking some really difficult math and science courses and my major is computer science so i have you know had to prioritize the technology
studies but that being said i kind of wish i tried to stick it out in spanish even if i had to drop you know later you know a month later or something because here in medellin spanish is very
prevalent and you're going to notice when you come here that your spanish skills or lack thereof will definitely make an impact on your trip i certainly haven't had a bad time but there's been a number of times where
i really wish i had a stronger command of the spanish language a few instances if i had that come to mind in the last week the most noteworthy incident and not really incident it wasn't really a you know
a dramatic or emergency type situation but you can see across the street uh from where i'm filming there's a santa fe mall and there's a restaurant that i've tried in other countries in santa fe mall that i wanted
to try uh here just to see you know how is it here in colombia uh and so when i went to order i you know i got a response from the cashier and i couldn't really understand what she
was saying and i tried to you know indicate my lack of understanding no me habla uh espanol ma espanoles pequeno my spanish is small the first bit is i don't understand spanish but uh basically you know she kind
of sped up and and said what she was saying a bit faster and a bit faster and it was it got to be kind of tense because um eventually there was one person in line behind me all this
took you know place over the course of a couple of minutes but i kind of realized we're not really making headway here she's trying to serve you know a number of people and it's time for me to go
on so i said lo siento i apologize to her in spanish and then just kind of walked away without further incident but that's something to think about uh right off the bat and kind of another situation that happened
i was at a restaurant i really like and this was not in any way on the server at all but i think it's called la avocado cateria and this restaurant as you can imagine the name is an avocado
themed restaurant and this was my first night in medellin i was exhausted tired sleep deprived you know had flown halfway across the world i guess the other hemisphere trying to think of how to how i would uh phrase
that but uh basically when i asked for the bill i was served a uh beer so that's something to think about when you are trying to pay bills or or to order things or to close out your tab
these kinds of things it's really helpful to know some basic spanish like your basic numbers such as please thank you no yes of course no it's just no but still it's it's worthwhile to understand some of the things
that some of the words and phrases you imagine you're going to be using on a day-to-day basis so like for me i like to eat out a couple times a day i find that it just i'm not going
to cook as well as people cook wherever i'm traveling and it tends to be a little bit more affordable when you consider the time cost but if i knew spanish a number of these interactions would be a lot
a bit smoother i think and maybe i would have had a better time when i tried to go to that restaurant and uh and previously you know like i said i'm not a big drinker i you may or
may not have heard that in my previous videos but i don't have anything against a whole i've never really had a problem with it but it just uh as i get older i notice my body just doesn't handle
it as well and so it's something that i've kind of put out in my life so i didn't want the check he did bring me beer i you know i did drink it just out of politeness and also
because i at that point at that very moment i was like you know what i could have one right now uh and fortunately i could afford it i think it was like the equivalent of two or three bucks
but that's that's one thing that is worthwhile keep in mind if you're trying to moderate your costs if you're a budget-oriented traveler if you're even if you just like prefer to splurge on a few things and save on
others for me i don't i don't factor in alcohol costs in my travels because i over the course of months of travel i'm gonna spend you know maybe twenty dollars uh maybe thirty dollars on alcohol it's i would
say it's it's maybe ten dollars a month and that's like occasionally i'll have a drink if it's a social situation and i'm invited out but it's not something that like i seek out myself and it's not something that
i feel like i miss out on if i don't have it and so i don't plan to pay for that but if you're somebody that uh you know for example you're you're like me and that you don't drink
but you really enjoy doing excursions so for me if i enjoy doing different types of excursions well since i'm not spending on alcohol you know maybe i can spend more on that but if i get into situations where
i end up ordering food that i didn't intend to order or drinks i didn't intend to order that might affect that budget somewhat and it's not you know that big of a deal but little things like that do
add up one thing to keep in mind when i i do mention the importance of learning spanish and like i said this is kind of more on why i regret not learning more spanish and kind of some of
the things that can happen because of it not emergencies but i like to iterate i like to optimize i like to make it the best i can given the resources and limitations placed on me and you know if
you end up ha oh so back on to the point i was trying to make something that people a big mistake that people make is they think when they are traveling abroad particularly if like let's say you're living
in an expensive country i'd call it expensive country synonymous with developed if you're living in a uk a united states a new zealand a canada australia these types of countries you know things are expensive and so many countries
that you'll go to not all but many will be cheaper than when you're from and the mistake that some people get in their mind is oh because it's cheap i can just not pay attention to spending i have
had this experience at various points myself when i was younger and just didn't have as much i didn't put as much thinking long-term thinking into my financial planning but that's something i think about is like little odds and
ends here and there they will add up over the course of the trip and when you're doing conversions your head sometimes it can be easy to oh it's just like you know 20 it's just the equivalent of 20
bucks like that's what i'd spend in my home country on you know dinner and drinks but if you're accounting to stretch your dog you're trying to get your dollar to go further or your british pound to go further
these kinds of things add up and so that's something worth considering and why i do recommend having some basic spanish because you're going to reduce that you may not eliminate it totally i think that unless you're a native
spanish speaker or very fluent there's likely going to be some challenges in translation on occasion just because there's things that could go into this like colombia has a a at least several in my mind unique dialects of spanish
so the spanish i would you know if i were taking spanish lessons in mexico city i might learn a slightly different version of spanish um just especially with slang and and accents and and local lingo and references you
know if you're in mexico city you may refer to the subway station whereas if you're in like a cartagena there is no subway station in cartagena it's a beach you know side resort type town and that that kind
of language is just not going to factor in your day-to-day whereas it very well might if you're in a bogota or even in a medellin medellin has a rail system that's something else like if you're you know aiming
to reduce budget by using public transportation here in medellin or let's say you're in bogota not understanding spanish is going to make that a lot harder it's going to make it more difficult to ask directions it's going to
be more difficult to pay attention to the proper stop you might be a little bit more antsy like i hope i don't miss it i hope i don't miss it i better concentrate so that if it comes up
i can just you know i jump off um if you let's say you end up i don't know falling asleep like when i lived in the bay area i noticed several people and i even myself took naps on
public transit let's say you fall asleep you're so relaxed you've had a wonderful meal here in medellin and you ride multiple stops past well it would be valuable for you let's say your phone died you didn't notice your
phone died while this happened and you didn't have an easy way to charge it it would be really valuable for you to ask a local person hey i need to get off at this top do you know how
to get off at that stop do you know how many how many stops i need to try to wait until i get off the proper stop so i can get back to my accommodation things like that that hasn't
personally happened to me here but it did have something similar did happen to me in miami i didn't fall asleep and go past my stop but i was on a bus in miami in miami florida united states but
i was in a predominantly cuban and spanish-speaking neighborhood and everyone on the bus spoke spanish there was no english on the bus so uh and then one gentleman did get on the bus and his english was really good
and we had some conversations that were really nice while you know i went along my way to uh to the event but um that's that's something to consider that if you know you're oh fi another big thing this
is kind of the big thing emergency situations if you find yourself in an emergency situation you're really going to regret not having some basic spanish to work your way through it i've been told specifically like don't go to
certain neighborhoods without spanish there's certain neighborhoods that they're you're just not going to even just walking around is not going to be necessarily safe if you cannot communicate effectively and i'm not going to speak on those neighborhoods whether
they're safe or not during the day or the night time i do go by crime statistics but uh that's that's worth considering that even outside of the the advent or possibility of danger there's going to be neighborhoods regardless
of where you are in a spanish-speaking country that don't have english and those neighborhoods are i mean you could go there and see physically see the neighborhoods you could look at the buildings and eat the food but like
getting like a feel for like what it's like and what the lifestyle is like what the culture is like how what's it like to live in that neighborhood what's it like to work in that neighborhood these kinds of
things are going to be harder to perceive if you can't speak the language and you can't understand what people are saying on the street um but really the emergency situation that's my biggest regret with not learning enough spanish
yet and i'd like to work on it a little bit each day is if i get an emergency situation even if i'm here in a normally english-speaking neighborhood el poblado it would be really really valuable to be able
to speak english or speak spanish to work my way through the situation with the other people say involved or around you know if there's bystanders or whatever whatever the case may be uh reason i mentioned this is not
only did it i uh hear about in another video uh but also a couple days ago i was kind of wandering around and encountered what i imagined to be a accident a minor accident nobody was hurt or else
i wouldn't bring it up but nobody was hurt from what i could tell between a motor cyclist uh kind of delivery guy a guy a ropi driver and a car and they were arguing and shouting at each other
and i don't drive in other countries that's just one of my rules is i'm not going to attempt to figure out what what what the what that looks like or what how that works it just doesn't seem like
it just doesn't seem like a good idea to me but that's something to consider like if you are somebody that does want to ride a motorbike or rent a car uh learning spanish is really going to help you
out let's say you get pulled over you know and you need to discuss with the cop what's going on and if you're you're speaking spanish you're going to have better you're gonna be able to meet him halfway much
more easily when you don't speak spanish it's you're much more gonna probably feel like okay i just gotta do whatever he says not to say you shouldn't you should always follow the laws rules regulations put your safety up
front but there are times where um you know let's say you're local and you've been living somewhere for years and some people don't do this some people actually don't learn a local language so some people will live in
mexico for 20 years and speak almost no spanish i don't recommend that i think that if you're going to stay somewhere long-term learn the language but let's say you've been living there for 10 years and by all accounts
you're local at that point but you don't speak spanish and the uh the officer pulls you over for speeding and you weren't speeding and and you feel comfortable with kind of explaining that you weren't speeding but you don't
know how to speak the language well then you might just be stuck and and uh that's that's kind of a really a frustrating situation to be in where you you can't negotiate on your own behalf it uh that's
that's where i think learning spanish should be really helpful like i said if you're getting if you're into vehicles if you're into the idea of renting a car riding a bike being able to speak spanish you get a
defender vendor if you bump somebody if somebody bumps you these types of things can make the experience just a lot smoother and a lot less stressful and open up different opportunities and possibilities for you that otherwise wouldn't be
a thing so that's kind of most of what i want to talk about when it comes to my regret and managing aside from that medellin has been wonderful it's really sunny the weather is really warm and nice the
people are friendly it does have the big city feel so some people are kind of in a hurry where they can come across a bit and brisk but i'd expect that in any city of its size that's not
really that shouldn't really be shocking to the viewers that if you're in a big city some people are going to be in a hurry it's it's just the nature of it the dynamic of it i don't let it
bother me too much so um kind of wrapping up is there anything else related to not knowing spanish that i think would be valuable and well kind of the obvious one if you're dating if you know you're a
single guy or gal and you're coming here to colombia out of interest in part to potentially meet a partner that's really going to be difficult without spanish that's really really going to be difficult about spanish making small talk
joking around flirting uh making plans to say go to a movie or go out to dinner these kinds of things are going to be really difficult without spanish and then when you get there it's like what are you
going to talk about there's been several instances where i encountered you know a woman of you know some that i'd be interested in and i wanted to you know maybe ask for her number or you know invite her
to hang out at some point but because i don't have any spanish i just have to stand there and like an idiot and and you know wish i'd put more time into that so that's another thing but to
kind of remedy all this i i like to i like to always be optimistic to the most realistic extent possible i like to address things that i can address and spanish my spanish is something i can improve and
that's something that all of you should know as well that even if you don't have spanish like right now you're you're in i presume an english-speaking country or you speak english and it's cold because it's where i'm from
in these states it's real cold you want to get out you're like man that looks really sunny and beautiful and i don't see any snow on the ground and people are walking around in t-shirts well you can learn
spanish you can improve your spanish i don't have any affiliates or partnerships right now with any spanish teaching educate or spanish learning educational opportunities but if i do i'll let you guys know i'll let you guys know i'll
put that information in the description below but this is something i want to work on i feel that i have a learning mindset and that i can improve my spanish there's a number of different options that i'm looking
into i'm most likely going to go with hiring a local person here in medellin to meet me say a couple times a week for like an hour and work on spanish together and i think that in time if
i work on my spanish that the city will continue to grow on me it's already like grown on me a lot but i think it will continue to grow on me because i will see more and more layers
of colombia i will see more and more layers of medellin i'll be able to branch out more into neighborhoods like loralis i've heard a lot of good things about loralis but laurels is definitely a spanish-speaking neighborhood and it
doesn't really seem like i'm gonna get the full picture the full experience and talk brush up on my spanish so that's something i recommend for you guys and gals if you want to come to medellin you want to
know what my biggest regret is it's not you know being a better spanish student i'm working on changing that and i'll definitely update you all with my results and how that goes and how that improves my experience and
and kind of compare what it was like when my spanish was weaker and what is it like when my spanish is a little bit stronger i don't imagine i'll ever be fluent to the extent of a native speaker
but i think i can do better than where i'm at now anyway thank you so much for watching i appreciate you taking the time to engage with my content definitely let me know what you think down in the
comments give me a thumbs up if you think there's anything that you you regret about your trip to medellin let us know too and it definitely helps to create kind of this dialogue where we're sharing ideas and oh
i agree with this or i disagree with that we kind of like move closer to the truth but anyway thank you for watching and i will see you next time
