The Expat Chat is all about travel and the expat life, and how people have done it – how they’ve changed everything and gone off to live in another country. And how they’ve made it work. And why they like it.
Tony Argyle is the gent behind the chat, the cozy Australian voice that leads expats into their past to see why they decided to make the change, and then he goes over the basics about why and where and how they made it work.
Tony recently interviewed me for the Expat Chat in an episode called The New Colombia- Life after Drugs (which refers, not to my past life, but to Colombia as it emerges from its drug-dominated reputation).
So what did this expat chat about on the Expat Chat?
- How Colombia has changed (yes, we’ll mention Pablo Escobar and Colombia’s shady past)
- How the violence in the country can still affect expats
- Why I refused to visit Bogota the first time my husband invited me
- Where I’m from and why I moved to South America nearly 20 years ago
- How I prepared for my move to Bogota
- How I feel about being an expat in Bogota.
- How belonging to an English language congregation helped me adapt to my new country.
- The best things about living in Bogota
- My concerns about finding work as an expat
- And, of course, I have to talk about traffic in Bogota
- How to save money in Colombia
- What to do if you don’t speak Spanish in Colombia.
- What I miss the most from the United States
- How moving to South America has changed my life.
- Recommendations for people that want to move: attitudes that can help
Then Tony talks about what he learned from interviewing me (this part includes his impressions on Bogota, transportation, healthcare. Of course, he also mentioned crime, something to consider when visiting (or moving to) any large city.
Listen to the interview on the Expat Chat. Please excuse the shaky connection at times, since it was a long distance interview – Colombia to Australia! You’ll even hear my toy Poodle, Ivy, contributing to the background noise.
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