I have been retired for just over 8 years. At first I felt really lost. The routine of every day life was gone, so too was chatting with all my customers, fulfilling their orders and providing them with the best service. I used to love going into my office each day, turning on the computer and getting started.

Now there was a huge void.

My daughter had been telling me for years it was time to sell the business retire and do all the things that I couldn’t do while in full time work. Now that had happened, I really didn’t like it at all.

Ken had always been interested in South America. When he was young he had the vision of going down the Amazon: too old for that now but not too old to take a trip. We set about planning our adventure which took us to Oaxaca in Mexico. I know, you are thinking how dangerous going there, but really it wasn’t.

Oaxaca is about an hour’s flight from

Mexico City and is a very popular cultural area. For economy we did a home stay with a Mexican family organized through a Spanish teaching school. I had the idea I was going to learn to speak some Spanish in the three weeks we had allotted. In fact, I spent the whole time at the school learning verbs but it fired my enthusiasm to learn.

It was an absolutely wonderful experience, the people, the archaeological sites, the music, the food, all so different. Here’s a link so you can take a look if you are interested: www.oaxaca-travel.com/

Our decision to travel to Mexico set me on the path to speaking Spanish.

I’ll share those challenges with you in future Blog posts.

Janice