The top 10 reasons to visit Puerto Aventuras, Mexico

     

Not that anyone really needs more reasons to visit a tropical paradise like Puerto Aventuras or the Mayan Riviera but I'd like to give you some ....

1. Better mental health – Everyone needs a holiday! When you combine sunshine, relaxation, yoga on the beach, watching the boats go by and taking the time to read good book under a palm tree with your feet in the sand your mental health becomes stronger by the second.

2. Better physical health – any of the following is quite good exercise: walking a few uneven sidewalks, occasionally falling into the hole left uncovered and needing to climb back out, dodging bicycles on the pedestrian path, dodging pedestrians on the bicycle path, swimming in really cold cenotes (needing to raise your body temperature burns calories), body surfing the waves in that gorgeous ocean and don’t forget swimming with the dolphins.

3. You will never wonder “what if …” – what if you hadn’t visited here and you missed out on something? You would miss drinking your fruit punch out of a coconut or pineapple for one thing. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to die wondering what that was like.

4. It provides satisfaction – you can check it off as something you wanted to do in your lifetime. Checking things off a list is hugely satisfying. Out of curiosity, what’s next? Wrestling crocks in the Amazon?

5. It gives you energy – visiting Puerto Aventuras and the Mayan Riviera can give you more energy than you have ever known. In fact it gives you so much energy that you must take frequent hammock breaks to decide what to do with all this new found energy.

6. You can party any time you want for any reason! The fact that today is Thursday works… or that you saw a butterfly, a parrot fly by, an iguana, a dolphin, or a sea turtle.

7. It will keep your skin more youthful – the slight humidity is to thank for that. The cosmetics companies are still trying to find a way to bottle it. We get it for free.

8. The food – mouth watering shrimp tacos, shrimp burritos, shrimp sautéed in garlic butter, shrimp ceviche, and shrimp with avocado. I don’t know why but I am suddenly dying to eat some shrimp. It is a good thing I live here. By the way, you can substitute mouth watering pork, beef, chicken, fish or beans in any of those dishes.

9. It’s fun – you can’t doubt that after reading numbers one to eight. Plus you have many famous ruins to visit nearby like Tulum, Coba and one of the new 7 Wonders of the World – Chitzen Itza. You can swim, snorkel, dive and frolic in cenotes (fresh water caves). Play in Xcaret, Xelha or Xplore adventure parks, swim with the dolphins and zipline through the jungle!

10. The bonus is …you can have fun learning Spanish in 3 days! Then you can practice during your vacation. The locals will love it and you. You’ll go home with a tan and be smarter! Now that’s win/win.

Puerto Aventuras in on the Caribbean coast of Mexico and is a one hour drive from the Cancun airport. Hasta Pronto! NexT Spanish Class is Nov. 26, 27, and 28th.

May you enjoy the adventure of life every day!
Suzanne Marie Bandick
www.OnlyinMexicoYouSay.com

Fun at the English Speaking Rotary Club in Playa del Carmen

From our first ever meeting 7 weeks ago

There is a new group in town offering fun, fellowship, good food and the opportunity to help our community. We now have an English Speaking Rotary Club in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Extranjeros, it is our opportunity to give back to our wonderful host country.

Playa, by the way, already has a very active Spanish Speaking Rotary who celebrates 20 years of service this year and they are welcoming our new little group very warmly.



So what would it take to change the world? Rotary's 1.2 million members worldwide believe it starts with a commitment to Service Above Self.

What is Rotary? Rotary’s main objective is service — in the community, in the workplace, and around the globe. There are more than 34,000 Rotary clubs in nearly every country in the world. Rotary clubs are open to people of all cultures and ethnicities and are not affiliated with any political or religious organizations.

Shawn and I have joined and we have met many, many wonderful new friends. That’s an added bonus to Rotary membership. We have already completed our first fundraiser - we took donations of used items to the Andale Bazaar last month. What can we do next? Do you have ideas? We are always open to more fundraising ideas as well as community projects.

Well you have to start somewhere.
Wait until next year!

Please join us any time to see what we are all about. Come even if you are in town for just a short while as who knows the connections and new ideas we will both come away with?

We meet every Tuesday for lunch at 12:30 at Wah Wah’s beach bar on the beach at 2nd street. Lunch is only 120 pesos and includes pitchers of iced tea. Everyone is welcome.

See you soon.



Enjoy the Adventure!
Make it an Outstanding Day! Suzanne

Suzanne Marie Bandick
http://spanish.onlyinmexicoyousay.com
www.OnlyinMexicoYouSay.com

Funny Spanish Classes

We just finished another Spanish Class. It is always a lot of fun ... and always different. We had a lot of laughter in the class - well, what better way to learn?

One student came to me after day 2 and said "I like to be funny and say funny things and I could never see myself (even after 3 years in Mexico) as being able to do that in Spanish ... and now I do." Yea! Personally I think we had more than one comedian in the room. One fellow would pick a word he liked in the 4005 words we already know section and try to make a sentence around that word ... so he ended up taking milk to the beach in his sentence. In another he was in a parade to the milk factory. The sentences started to play off other funny sentences made.

For me, one of the greatest joys in my own Spanish language confidence is being able to show my personality in my Spanish sentences. I think this class definitely got that! Our Spanish pronunciation coach, Memo, said he really enjoyed himself and we kept him on his toes.

No one said we had to be conventional!

The morning of day 3 ... one student said he was actually able to have a conversation and understand a taxi driver....another said he went with friends to a restaurant where none of the staff spoke English and he started by telling them he was learning Spanish and he used some of the polite phrases/ words he had learned in class and he felt they treated him like a best friend and introduced him to the family and the cook! Another received a call from the Mexican phone company and for the first time ever was able to understand what they said and communicate with them.

I feel wonderful empowering people in my adopted country of Mexico! Estoy Feliz!

Enjoy the Adventure!
Make it an Outstanding Day! Suzanne

Suzanne Marie Bandick
http://spanish.onlyinmexicoyousay.com
www.OnlyinMexicoYouSay.com

Mexico – Visiting? Moving? Tips.

Are you planning to visit or move to Mexico? The following are my handy dandy quickie tips for newbies in Mexico.

-Don’t bother asking why! Trying to understand many of the things here will only drive you slowly nuts. Just accept that people think and do things differently here and that is what makes it such a special place.

-It is still not recommended to flush toilet paper in many places in Mexico as the plumbing system cannot handle it. In modern buildings you usually don't need to worry about this.

- All produce should be washed in a disinfecting solution and tap water. The disinfecting solution is readily available anywhere. Frankly no matter where you live I would recommend this. Just wash all your produce when you bring it home and you never have to think of it again. Yes, restaurants follow this procedure too.

- There is a class system in place in Mexico. This does not mean you have to be rude or impolite to anyone but it does mean if you are paying to have something done you better act like the boss or your worker can lose respect for you. I am firm and decisive to get the job done and always polite and this seems to be a good combo.

- Yes we use bottled water in Mexico for drinking and most cooking related activities. Restaurants use it too.

- It gets hot in Mexico in the summer. Drink lots of water ... and no, margaritas and beer do not count. However, they also should be enjoyed ... just don't forget the water.

- Expect things to happen more slowly in Mexico. Expect everything to happen much more slowly! That is what we love about it because we can move more slowly too.

- Expect people to be friendly and helpful and they will be. Especially if that is what you have shown them.

- Expect things to be different and remember the first point – don’t ask why.

You can post some more for us too!

Enjoy the Adventure! Suzanne
Suzanne Marie Bandick

P.S. My book: Only in Mexico You Say? The Humorous Side of Living in Mexico is available on my site http://www.onlyinmexicoyousay.com/

Learn Spanish in 3 days in a fun and easy way with frequency modulation rapid learning techniques. http://spanish.onlyinmexicoyousay.com/

Would you like help to visit or live in Mexico? Visit http://www.liveyourdreamscoaching.com/

Would you love to learn Spanish?

I have found another new way to empower you .......

So would you love to learn Spanish???

You could do what we did and pack your family up, move yourselves to a Spanish speaking country and start learning by emersion. For some people that might work, for us it did not. After ten years of living in Mexico we still found ourselves frustrated and uncomfortable with the language.

It was then that we heard of Gary and Merri Scott teaching Spanish in only three days! We signed up immediately and joined many other enthusiastic students who arrived to take Gary and Merri Scott’s Super learning plus Spanish course. Merri had been fortunate enough to be one of only 12 people taught this learning method by Dr. Georgi  Lozanov  back in the 1960’s. At least three bestselling books, Superlearning, the Mozart Effect and Superlearning 2000 have revealed insights about how we can learn and think more powerfully based on systems drawn from the Bulgarian, Dr. Georgi Lozanov.

Now we have been fortunate enough to be trained as instructors by Merri and Gary so we can help others, like you learn Spanish in just three days.

This course is about learning to learn in a different way. We have all seen children who don’t fit into the traditional learning mold at school.  Sometimes those children find the way that works for them and others fall between the cracks.  How many of you know people like that, I do and I felt the traditional way of teaching a language by memorization did not work for me. When I attended this class I was astonished to see students with no prior knowledge of the Spanish language having fun learning and making sentences after just one day of instruction.

The scientific backing for this method of learning is plentiful. This seminar uses frequency modulation (in music and a number of other ways) to integrate brain waves so the process of absorbing, processing and recalling information is vastly accelerated.  This brings forth the three C’s:  Calm, Clarity and Coherence.

The only thing you need to have for this course is an open mind, and a complete grasp of the English language, as the course will teach you to easily understand the parallels in the English and Spanish languages. Once you unlock these simple rules you will find you already know over 4000 Spanish words! This is not about memorizing (that is where I had challenges) it’s about learning a few basic rules that will allow you to easily know the Spanish word simply because you already know the English word.

Every class has all the explanations in English so you know exactly what you are learning as well as a Spanish coach who has grown up speaking Spanish so you get the true Spanish pronunciation.
So if you have ever thought you would love to learn Spanish the choice is yours ...do it the hard way (ten years of emersion) or give it three days of fun learning skills that will help you learn and retain information easier in every part of your life.

Perhaps you have tried a home study program at some point that cost $400 or even $600 and gotten only limited results... sometimes because you could not even find time to do it! I know we have all been there.

So how about a program that will enhance your learning abilities in every part of your life as well as teaching you how to speak Spanish in only 3 days?  Why not come have fun and try something new and exciting?

Normally the classes are priced at $699 a person $899 a couple. But right now as an introductory offer we are offering this empowering class for only $399 a person or $499 a couple.

The next class for Playa del Carmen/Puerto Aventuras is April 27, 28, and 29th. 9 AM - 4 PM.
You can contact me for details and to get registered today.

Make every day an adventure!

Suzanne Marie Bandick

www.OnlyinMexicoYouSay.com

Living in Puerto Aventuras now!

Did you miss me? It would appear I have not written in awhile. For those with inquiring minds .... I took a break. My husband and I still live in Mexico although we sold our beautiful house in Playa del Carmen last fall and have moved into a pretty awesome condo in Puerto Aventuras ( about 15 minutes further south).

We moved our kids, now 19 and 21 back to BC, Canada this last summer as they wanted to experience Canadian culture and pursue jobs there. It is safe to say they did experience culture shock living in Canada after living in Mexico for the last 11 years of their life. That will be another blog.

Shawn and I are enjoying our renewed honeymoon tremendously and we love our new condo. Yes, this is a picture from our living room. No open invitations to visit at this point as I think we have had non stop company since December. I have a lot to fill you in on but more another day.

Let each day be an adventure.
Make it an Outstanding Day!
Suzanne Marie Bandick
www.OnlyinMexicoYouSay.com

Chilling out in Mexico

Mexico is a fantastic place to lay back, chill out and enjoy life. Why? I think it is the mixture of people’s attitudes, the culture as a whole, the warm temperatures, and the surroundings ... I can certainly attest to the chill out mode first hand as I haven’t even been writing blogs lately!

(Yes, that is me in the picture in Bacalar. What a life eh?) What day is it anyway? Actually I jest; I still have one son in school and I do have several life coaching clients so I do usually keep track of the days.

The point I have been pondering lately is how often do we allow ourselves to get caught up in one of life’s ever evolving dramas and then get all stressed out? Maybe none of the stress is necessary. It surely all works out in the end.

It is a choice. It is all a choice. It is much like my decision to move to Mexico in the first place. What I will always remember is that I moved to Mexico to enjoy a different way of life ... a different view of life ... and to embrace something new. No matter where we live, creating stress is optional.

The Mexican word mañana can be interpreted in many different ways. In my life it makes me remember that rarely is anything so important that I have to spoil my current moment to jump up and do it - later will be just fine. Mañana you say? Why argue with something that works? Embrace it. It’s a choice.

Only in Mexico you say?

Enjoy life's adventures!

With great love, Suzanne

Suzanne Marie Bandick
Live your Dreams Life Coach

P.S. My ebook: Only in Mexico You Say? The Humorous Side of Living in Mexico is available now on my site http://www.onlyinmexicoyousay.com/.

Would you like help to visit or live in Mexico? Visit http://www.liveyourdreamscoaching.com/.

My husband's Playa del Carmen Real Estate office – http://www.onestopmc.com/.