Special thanks to Dan for tipping us off on this great YouTube video which I think we can all very much relate to:
We salute the creator!
Category Archives: Entertaining
Atacama: A Vacation within a vacation within a vacation
First…
we packed up our apartment in San Francisco, put most of our stuff in storage and went to Buenos Aires.
Then…
after ~4 months we left a couple of bags with a friend in Buenos Aires and went to Santiago.
Then…
after ~1 month we left a couple of bags with friends in Santiago and headed up to San Pedro de Atacama. We’ll be here for ~5 days.
Like a dream within a dream within a dream…
this is a vacation within a vacation within a vacation. We can only hope that the ‘kicks’ are timed correctly and we will be able to return to Santiago and then Buenos Aires and then the US with all of our things and ourselves intact. If anything goes wrong we could become lost in vacation limbo forever. Obviously, this would be horrible.
We have to be careful.
We can only hope that our subconscious doesn’t create evil projections that are able to catch us and throw us out of our vacation early. To avoid them we will have to choose a new and exotic destination every day. We will go to crazy places like the Valle de la Luna, Los Geysers del Tatio, Las Lagunas Altiplanicos and others. If things get desperate, we may even go so far as to go sandboarding in the desert and/or cross the somewhat unpredictable and recently unstable border into Bolivia. Hopefully these crazy environments and activities will be enough to confuse our subconscious and keep us safe.
Time moves much slower here than in reality.
Because we have total freedom to choose what we want to do in each moment, every day spent in a normal vacation is worth 10 days of life at home (just add up how many hours you spend enjoying what you want to do vs. doing what you are supposed to do in a normal 10 day period in reality and you’ll see what I mean). Many theorize that this time distortion compounds with each additional layer of vacation abstraction–each day on a second level vacation is worth 100 days of enjoyment in your normal life; each day on a third level, 1,000. We’ll be here for ~5 days on this third level vacation which means that for us it will be the equivalent of 5,000 days worth of normal life enjoyment. You will hardly realize that we were gone, but for us, we will have experienced ~14 years of enjoyment here in the arid high-altitude desert of Atacama. If, upon reading this, you are now depressed by how little you enjoy your normal life, consider joining us–there is still room on our afternoon tour.
Unfortunately we do not have any spinny tops.
When we return… if we return… we will have no way of knowing whether or not we are back in reality or are in yet another layer of vacation. It’s entirely possible that we will spend the rest of our lives unsure whether we are on vacation or not. We are okay with this. If we do end up in vacation limbo, please consider joining us, but under no circumstances should you attempt to rescue us.
By the way…
If the last 6 months have just been a dream and rather than traveling in South America we’ve actually just been sleeping in a conference room using our laptops as pillows while making slides for a big presentation tomorrow… Please don’t wake us up; we will be cranky.
p.s. If you haven’t seen the movie “Inception” go see it. Then this will make (at least some) sense.
If I were to write a management book about career “option value” . . .
I know a lot of people that are working very, very hard in jobs that they don’t have any particular passion for (and in many cases dislike quite a bit) in order to have greater “option value.” I was one of them; I spent the majority of the last 10 years building option value.
As we come closer to the time we originally thought we’d end this Career Break, I’ve started to think about the future and my career again. I’ve started to think about “option value” – how much I’ve accumulated and what I should do with it. If I were to write a management book about option value it would look something like the following.
It will not apply to everyone.
Sometimes “option value” is about building a great resume…
It starts young. You don’t even know it’s happening. All you know is that you have to work very hard in high school to get into the right university. You don’t question it, you just know it’s what you’re supposed to do. Everyone knows it–and those that disagree just have wrong-minded priorities (e.g., fun). You know better.
Once in college, you have to make sure you choose the right major, get the right grades, do the right internships and demonstrate the right leadership qualities in order to get the right job after graduation. If you are in pursuit of option value, determining which job is the “right” one involves very little reflection upon what you enjoy doing or what makes you happy; instead, it requires seeking out the jobs that are hardest to get, the hardest to do and the most likely to consume the vast majority of your waking hours. This is obvious.
Of course, this job is just the first such job; the whole reason you worked so hard to get it is so that you would be qualified for the next job. That’s the “option value.” There is always a next job/accomplishment/promotion/whatever–otherwise, why would you be working so hard at the current job which you barely even like? If you weren’t doing it in order to get the next job, it would be a little crazy, wouldn’t it?
Each new job will likely be harder than the last. If you’re focused on pursuing “option value,” you will likely inadvertently have become convinced that any job that would be hard and/or painful is automatically worthwhile and important; also, you’ll likely believe that any job that looks easy and/or fun is almost certainly frivolous and a waste of time. Obviously, this makes sense, even though it is sometimes hard to explain to others in a way that they can understand–fear not, this is likely due to their wrong-minded priorities (e.g., happiness).
This logic will force you to continually seek out the path of greatest resistance and push yourself as hard as you can to get “there.” The destination is irrelevant; it’s the very fact that there is resistance that makes it seem worthwhile. In other categories of your life you likely don’t have the same confusion–for example, you may fully agree that walking through an open doorway is a much better idea than trying to walk through a brick wall–but for some reason this logic gets reversed in regards to your career. We’ll refer to this as “Brick Wall Syndrome, ” or simply BWS.
Watch out for "Irritable Brick Wall Syndrome", that's even worse.
Most people fail or drop out at some point in this process–which is understandable, as it requires near-perfection as well as a fair degree of luck to navigate the course. The longer you go without a failure, the greater the pressure to be perfect all the time and the more (it feels) you have to lose. Unfortunately, being perfect gets harder and harder. The further up this ladder you climb, the more years and vitality it extracts from you and the harder it is to remember what you were doing it for to begin with. On a positive note, with each new accomplishment you earn an entirely new set of options for the future. After 5 years of this intensity you have quite a bit of “option value;” after 10 you could do almost anything. Imagine if you did it for 20 years – someday you’ll be able to do all of those things you always wanted to do – not today, but someday . . .
Sometimes it’s about accumulating money and/or stuff…
This often looks similar to the scenario above. It often layers on top of the scenario above. Having money has real benefits:
- You can afford to buy products and services that free up time (e.g., car, take-out dinners, Roomba). There are lots of things you can do with more time. Things like looking for more brick walls.
- You can spend money on stuff to reward yourself for your accomplishments and to prove to others that you are “succeeding” (e.g., houses, watches, monster trucks). Unfortunately, spending it on these things along the way requires earning even more to pay for them. That said, the value of owning a monster truck should not be underestimated.
- You can even save money so that someday you won’t have to work so hard and you can finally afford to go out and do all of those things you always wanted to do. I guess.
While it is not entirely the same thing, there is no denying that more money = more “option value.” And, you can always have more; someone else always does (we refer to them as “jerks”).
Options don’t kill people, people kill people…
There is absolutely a place for pursuing “option value” and many benefits can come from it. It can indeed get you where you want to go. . . as long as you know where that is. The thing is, you don’t really need 1,000 options, you probably only really want 5. And if you only really want 5, why spend so much time building the other 995? The trick is figuring out which 5 you want and minimizing the amount of time spent accumulating those you don’t care about.
For example, let’s say I want to go on an island vacation. It would probably make sense for me to figure out which island I want to go to, buy a ticket and go. Right? Alternatively, I could put off reflecting on where exactly to go and instead work really hard for several years to save up enough money to buy tickets to 20 different island destinations (just in case the first one doesn’t turn out to be perfect). I still won’t have gone to any islands over these years, but I will now have several to choose from and at least I won’t be sunburnt. Note: I tried really hard to come up with a funnier example for this analogy. I failed (see below, failure can be a good thing).
Pursuing options merely for the sake of having more options is not often a recipe for long-term happiness. It’s all too easy to get caught up in this cycle–especially when you are working so hard to get to the next set of options that you don’t allow yourself time to reflect upon where you are headed or what is on top of the particular ladder you are climbing–be careful, it could be an angry mongoose.
Worse, it could be a giant mongoose. BWS sucks.
One way to break the cycle…
Seek out failure. Failing early is better. Anything is better than running into an angry mongoose on top of a ladder. It’s much easier to succeed if you’re already a failure–and much harder to avoid failing if you are exclusively a succeeder. Most happy people I know have had significant failures. Few happy people that I know are pursuing options for the sake of options (though, they may have monster trucks someday so you should still be friends with them just in case).
Failure teaches you that it’s ok to fail (if this seems obvious, great–if not, be careful, you may be suffering from BWS). Failure often leads to new perspective and a more open mind regarding what “success” can look like. Indeed, failing at what you think you are “supposed to” do may open the door to pursuing what you actually “want to” do. Weird.
Don’t spend all of your time and energy getting stressed about avoiding/fearing failure (a prime symptom of BWS). Instead, embrace it–it can be more fun that you might think.
Now what?
If you’re working hard on something you don’t love in order to build “option value,” always know why you are doing it and how you plan to “cash in” on those options. You get to choose why and how, but choose. Choose something that inspires you and work specifically towards it. It doesn’t matter what you pick (e.g., travel, time with family, volunteering, ninja training course, etc.). There is no right answer and you can (and should) change it as many times as you want. The important thing is picking something specific rather than just marching forward without a destination–if you don’t choose, the angry mongeese will choose for you and you definitely aren’t going to like what they choose (it will probably be something scary, they eat snakes).
With them in charge, what could go wrong?? (Note: I am fairly confident that the $2 I paid for this photo is the best $2 I have ever spent)
Once you pick something that inspires you, it’s time to ask yourself when. How much ‘option value’ and which options do you need to pull it off? How much money? Be specific. You might be surprised. You might have more than you need already. It might be time to cash in–you can always create more options later. Plus, who knows what new ones you’ll find along the way…
Maybe you'll be able to pull this off
Wasn’t that a nice inspirational note to end on?
Note: The author makes no claim whatsoever to have figured anything important out or to have anything worthwhile to say about this or any other topic. He writes things like this merely for entertainment purposes–mostly his own. You should definitely not construe this as advice or take action based on it–you could end up unemployed in Chile.
Update: If you liked this, you may enjoy Chapter 2: Perfectionists should kick themselves in the head (perfectly)
A graffiti photo-tour of Valparaiso, Chile
There is graffiti everywhere in the coastal Chilean town of Valparaiso and it is incredible. It’s always changing, but below are some of our favorites from July of 2010 (click on one for a slide show with larger images)
Pretty crazy isn’t it? Even more in our Valparaiso graffiti photo gallery
Graffiti–art or vandalism? Please discuss…
Kayak.com does more than you might think
You may have noticed that in the last couple of weeks we added a Kayak.com flight search box to our sidebar (over on the right). You may have wondered why. “Why would they do this?” you might have said to yourself. You may be saying it to yourself even now. Fear not, I am here to answer that question for you.
We decided to become affiliate advertisers for Kayak.com for 3 reasons:
1) Travel is awesome. Everyone should do it more often.
2) Kayak.com is one of the very best tools out there for finding ways to travel cheaply (if anyone out there doesn’t already know about Kayak.com, it compares fares against virtually every airline and aggregator (e.g., Expedia, Travelocity, etc.) and helps you find the very cheapest/fastest/best way to travel.
3) We don’t want to have to get real jobs anytime soon. Someday we’re hoping to make some money off of this blog, and if you access Kayak.com through us, we will! Wouldn’t that be great? To be sure, we won’t make much money, but empanadas are cheap (another reason why everyone should travel).
But wait, there’s more!!
I only recently learned about this feature and it blew my mind. It may blow your mind too. You should sit down.
Have you ever been sitting around thinking to yourself:
“I really need a vacation… I wonder where I should go?”
or
“I finally have a free weekend, maybe I can plan a trip!”
or
“I only have $300 to spend, I wonder if there is anywhere I could go for that much…”
Kayak.com can answer these questions very quickly for you. Check out this link: Kayak: Where can I go from San Francisco in Fall of 2010 for under $1200?
This feature allows you to tell it your origin city, your price range and your time of the year and it will tell you on average what it would cost you to go anywhere in the world within that price range at that time of year. If you want to, you can even include activities (e.g.,where can I go skiing from Chicago in Jan for <$500). Instead of skiing, you could also tell it beach or a temperature range or a few other things. Seriously, this is cool.
In my opinion, this feature is under-marketed… I had never heard of it before I randomly stumbled upon it. It’s extremely useful for preliminary trip planning to spur ideas when you know you have some time off at some point, but aren’t sure where to go AND also very useful for last minute travel when you suddenly have a few days and just want to get away.
Let’s review what we’ve learned
1) Kayak.com is awesome
2) Kayak.com is even awesomer than you may have thought
3) You don’t want Ryan and Jen to have to get jobs; you want them to eat more empanadas. To enable this goal, when planning or booking travel you should consider starting with the Kayak.com flight search box here on Consulting Rehab.
Word?
Cafe con piernas = Coffee, with legs
Buckle up, this one is going to be interesting…
Cafe con piernas: The background
So I was in Santiago for a few days back in 2002 and I vaguely remember going on a city tour with a tour guide that told us that there are topless coffee shops here–e.g., coffee shops in which the women serving the coffee are topless. After telling us this he kind of laughed, so I laughed and assumed he was either making it up or that there was like one shop in the entire city and it was a complete oddity similar to this one in Maine (which sadly burnt down a few months after opening). I was wrong.
What we’ve learned over the past week or so is that this is actually a bit of a cultural phenomenon here in Chile and has been for almost 50 years. It’s called ‘cafe con piernas’ which means ‘coffee with legs’ and does not refer to an extra caffeine boost. It started with a place called Haiti (which still has many locations around downtown). At the time, the downtown area was full of almost entirely men coming to work (apparently the women usually stayed home) and the idea was to provide them some entertainment during the work day. So, Haiti opened some coffee bars and had the women wear provocative clothing. Unsurprisingly, this worked out pretty well and more and more similar shops kept opening.
In the mid/late 90s another coffee shop decided to differentiate itself by featuring what they called the “Millionaire Minute” which was a 60-second period during which all of the women would fully remove their tops. Again, unsurprisingly, this innovation was largely well received by the clientele and was the catalyst for a whole new level of cafe con piernas experiences. As you will see in a few paragraphs, I do not use the phrase ‘a whole new level’ lightly…
Cafe con piernas: The news report/video
I think that before I give you the details of our personal experience with cafe con piernas….
…
…
(sorry, just had a flashback)
Right, before I give you the details of our personal experience with cafe con piernas, it might be best if you watched the following video about it produced by a news agency in London in 2007 (it was aired on network TV, so should be safe for work):
Cafe con piernas news report (sadly, they have disabled embedding, so you will have to watch it on YouTube)
Ok, can’t put it off any longer. On to our personal experiences…
The misadventures of Ryan and Jen – Chapter 1: The beginning
As we were exploring our new neighborhood over the last week, we noticed a very large number storefronts with big signs stating that they were ‘cafes.’ We were like, “Jackpot, so many cool looking places to get coffee!” As we continued to explore, we noticed that many of them had either blacked out or, more commonly, mirrored windows (meaning, the kind that you only see your reflection if you try to look in)–this seemed odd…
Looks pretty normal... except for the mirrored glass and the small sign that says "se necesita señorita" which other than being a neat rhyme, means something like "we need chicks" (all of them have this sign, which for awhile seemed like a solid job prospect for Jen...)
Later, we were walking around downtown and ran into a couple of other coffee shops called Haiti (the aforementioned original cafe con piernas institution) and Caribe. These have normal windows and are usually pretty crowded.
Looks perfectly normal from the outside
Unfortunately, this picture doesn’t capture it, but you can usually see the serving women from the street and they are all wearing very short, very tight dresses. Also, the area behind the coffee bar is raised up about a foot in order to maximize the view. Seeing this triggered the memory of the ‘topless coffee bar’ comment from the tour guide during my first trip here back in 2002, so we started doing some Google research and began to learn all about cafe con piernas (including the video above and some links below).
Upon reading about these shops, you may be surprised to hear (I certainly was) how excited my lovely wife Jen became about investigating them first-hand. After watching the video, she was all excited to go check one out first thing the next morning, saying it was “a cultural experience”. If you haven’t yet watched the video (seriously, watch it) an important and likely somewhat obvious fact to know is that the shops with mirrored glass are a bit more… shall we say, progressive than Haiti and Caribe–these two are considered to be the tamest of them. Another fact you should know before I proceed is that all of these shops offer standing room only–no chairs, you drink your coffee while standing at the bar.
I suggested that we go to one of the tame ones, but Jen was having none of that. Here is a direct quote from her: “if I’m going to have to stand up to drink my coffee, I better get some ‘boob-age’.” Seriously, that’s what she said. There were other choice quotes from her as well, but I’ll save them for later; suffice to say, she was very excited–even more so than usual. I think that now, in retrospect, she deeply, deeply regrets taking this stance…
The misadventures of Ryan and Jen – Chapter 2: First attempt
There are literally 5-10 of the mirrored glass-type establishments within a few blocks of our apartment (I told you it was a good neighborhood!), and given that you can’t see inside, we weren’t sure how to go about choosing one. Luckily, my Harvard-educated wife concocted a plan; the plan was to loiter across the street from a few of them and choose the one had the most in/out traffic (we certainly did not want to be the only ones in there). It was a reasonable plan, but as we were camped out across the street from a few trying to look inconspicuous, Jen’s excitement turned into nervousness that she would be rejected because she is female. Then after 5 minutes of not seeing anyone go in or out, the nervousness escalated. We decided that we would wait until we talked to some locals and got some advice on where to go. If one wanted to say this in another way, one would say that we chickened out.
That afternoon we went on a bicycle tour of the city (which was cool), and Jen excitedly asked our guide about cafe con piernas. Understandably, he laughed. Then, he explained that there are PG, R and X rated ones and that if we wanted to learn more about them (including how to tell which was which), we should go on one of their other tours–seriously, this is a big enough thing here that it is included in city tour itineraries. He explained that here in Santiago it is often somewhat cold, so everyone wears layers and is completely covered up most of the time; in his opinion, the girls in cafe con piernas venues are merely wearing the sorts of things that women might wear on the street in a place like Rio de Janiero and that it is very popular here because it’s so rarely seen. Makes sense. The other thing he told us was that it should be completely fine for her to go into them–I later learned that that was all she needed to hear…
The misadventures of Ryan and Jen – Chapter 3: Oops!
The following day I assumed that Jen’s excitement would have blown over. Again, I was wrong. We got out of bed and she was almost jumping up and down when she said, “Wanna go get some coffee???” I said, “Really? Still?”
Her: “Yes! He said I could go!!”
Me: “Ok…”
We decided to attempt the same plan. We first camped outside of this fine looking venue for ~5 minutes:
We couldn't tell for sure what those pictures were on either end of the sign, but we were pretty sure this place was classy
We saw one person go in, but in general we didn’t love the vibe, so we ultimately decided to keep walking. About a block away we encountered this place:
We have a winner
We stood outside, casing the place, for 5 minutes or so while I repeatedly asked Jen if she was sure she wanted to do this and she repeatedly answered in the affirmative. Eventually we saw a few men go in so we sucked it up and went for it.
Oh boy.
Seriously, this is challenging to write. Taking pictures was the furthest thing from our mind (and likely would have resulted in us being beaten out back by a guy named whatever the Chilean equivalent of Biff is), so I’ll do my best to detail the experience in words (which will force me to relive this highly traumatic experience quite vividly–hope you appreciate this!)
The room was about the size of a bedroom. The coffee machines/baristas were off in the back. There was a narrow standing bar in the middle and then a counter along the walls where you could put your coffee; otherwise, wide open space. There was fairly loud techno music playing and it was dark-ish, but certainly light enough to see the staff… Also, all of the walls were mirrored (and possibly the floor/ceiling too, though I don’t remember). Equally weird was how easy it was to see out the front windows to the people on the street.
We were immediately greeted by a woman wearing the standardized uniform–5 inch heels, g-string/thong and very revealing bra; that’s all. She kissed us both on the cheek somewhat provocatively and then asked what we would like. She did not seem at all disturbed by Jen’s presence–nor did the other patrons despite what they were doing. We ordered 2 coffees. She told us that it would cost 2,000 pesos so I gave her 2,000 (this is more or less the normal price for coffee). Then she asked if we might want to give her a little something extra for her. Jen gave her another 2,000.
She went off to retrieve our coffee and we nervously looked around–which was pretty easy given all of the mirrors and the fact that we had situated ourselves at the stand-up bar in the middle. This few minutes that we had to ourselves taking in the scenery and wondering what would happen to us when she returned with our coffee was a special time for us. It probably always will be. Whether we want it to be or not.
At the time we were there (~11am) the staff consisted of ~5 girls all dressed the same and there were maybe 3 male customers–each there on their own, and each ‘enjoying’ his time with one of the staff. We had read a few accounts of other experiences at such places and had heard of one which said that the girls were unattractive, overweight and groped the customers left and right. We heard another account in which the people said that the girls were very attractive but seemed completely disinterested in the customers. In the 2 by 2 of x-rated cafe con piernas venues, Cafe Rio is definitely in the “winning” quadrant–very attractive girls, lots and lots of groping.
Note: Consulting Rehab does not necessarily condone or endorse the views of this 2by2
In fact, the word ‘groping’ really doesn’t describe the kinds of things that we saw reflected in the mirrors. The other girls were definitely ‘dancing’ with the other customers–keep in mind, there are no chairs, so it was sort of a standing lap dance. Some of the customers definitely had their hands all over (and under) the skimpy outfits of their dedicated girl. And, we also saw one girl kneeling down in front of a guy for a couple of minutes appearing to provide a special service. Truly, experiencing things like this with your wife is the bedrock of a strong marriage.
Soon, our señorita came back with our coffee and stood about 2 inches away from Jen, making it clear that she would be our companion until we left. I’m not a religious person, but I have thanked god more than once in the last couple of days that she chose to stand next to Jen and not me. Not really having a roadmap for situations like this, Jen struck up a conversation with her. We learned that she moved here 2 years ago from Peru and her 6-year-old son lives back in Peru with her mother. She’s worked at the bar the whole time and makes money to send home and to be able to go visit. She also told us that the most crowded time of day was at 1pm, right around lunch break (keep in mind, these places are closed at night and don’t serve alcohol). It was actually a very nice conversation and we would have truly enjoyed getting to know her if not for the dry humping (and more) happening a few feet away.
I don’t think I’ve ever drunk a coffee so quickly. We were out within 10 minutes. Jen was no longer excited. We’re pretty sure we had stumbled into one of the hardest core ones based on what we’ve read and it felt more like being in a brothel or extremely hands-on strip club than a coffee shop. Suffice to say that we were a bit messed up for the next few hours.
2 hours later we walked by again to get a picture of the front -- Jen's face looked like this for most of the day
It was about 1pm when we walked by the second time and we saw 7+ men walk in within 2 minutes… curious how it works when the clients outnumber the staff… not curious enough to go back. Interestingly, there definitely does not seem to be any sort of social stigma associated with walking in and out of these places… many of them are on busy pedestrian streets and we’ve seen people coming in and out of them quite a bit.
After this experience, despite our need to find an income, we decided that it was no longer a viable option for Jen to become one of the señoritas that they necesita.
The misadventures of Ryan and Jen – Chapter 4: Our tamer experience at Cafe Caribe
Because we had already done the hard part and gone into a hardcore one, we decided to try one of the tamer ones the next day to complete our research. It was a world of difference. There were men there, but also women and while the servers were definitely wearing tight dresses, it wasn’t that big of a deal.
I fake tried to take a picture of Jen to get one of the staff, but she was wise to us and mostly escaped. There are better pictures in the links below
This was basically just a normal coffee shop. In fact, I’d argue that the fact that you had to stand up to drink your coffee was weirder than the outfits the staff were wearing. This was actually kind of a fun and different cultural experience–night and day from our Cafe Rio experience.
The misadventures of Ryan and Jen – Epilogue
It’s been a few days now and we’ve mostly recovered from our experience, but as I said, our 10 minutes in Cafe Rio will always be a special time for us. Writing this has been cathartic. Let us never speak of it again.
Cafe con piernas: Our advice
If you are a tourist here in Santiago and want to be able to say you went to cafe con piernas (and it is worth checking out), go to Cafe Caribe or Haiti. If you are looking for a coffee and some dry humping (or more, did I mention there was a staircase in the back that likely lead to someplace a little quieter…), try Cafe Rio. Beware of the other mirrored glass establishments, you certainly wouldn’t want to end up in the unattractive/aggressive groping quadrant of the cafe con piernas 2 by 2.
Cafe con piernas: Other interesting links
- A female expat’s experience and perspective on cafe con piernas: http://eatwineblog.com/2010/03/26/coffee-with-legs-santiago-style/
- Another blog with some interesting thoughts on the sexism of it as well as some conversations with an owner and a bit on the economics: http://www.chipsites.com/chile-travel/fun-activities-cafe-con-piernas.html
- A food blog’s perspective: http://www.seriouseats.com/2008/04/snapshots-from-chile-cafe-con-piernas.html
- Additional perspective from the Travel Tart: http://www.thetraveltart.com/starbucks-coffee/
How to learn Spanish (Part 2): Self-study tools
In our last post on learning Spanish, we covered the resources that are best used when studying in-country: group classes, private lessons and language exchange. This one focuses on all of the other tools that we tried – stuff like workbooks, computer programs and good ole flashcards. Here’s what we think:
COMPUTER PROGRAMS (we used Fluenz Spanish)
What it is: An interactive computer program with multiple levels to teach you the language. The two biggest that we came across are Rosetta Stone, which uses a method similar to how a child learns to speak – showing pictures and offering creative exercises to help you build a vocab and a more intuitive understanding of how to use the language (even though you may not know why as it doesn’t explain anything) and Fluenz Spanish, which functions more similarly to a class that incorporates dialogues, matching and other exercises. Both cost ~US$600 for levels 1-5. After reading lots of reviews, playing with demos and talking to people who have used them both we decided to go with Fluenz Spanish for the more diverse teaching approach and our desire to understand why, not just what. We’re very pleased with our decision.
Meet Sonia, our online Spanish teacher
Pros: The content is designed around modern travel needs–e.g., you’ll learn how to ask about buying a cellphone SIM card and getting airline tickets rather than random stuff about dogs and trees–this makes it immediately useful for a traveler. They do a great job of introducing new concepts in a 5-10 minute lecture environment and then giving you a set of exercises that drill it into you in a way that makes it very difficult to forget. At times the ‘work-outs’ feel tedious, but the repetition really helps you to retain. We found the explanations to be extremely helpful rather than the Rosetta Stone approach which never explains anything (using the philosophy that it’s better to learn a new language like you learned your first language–in a state of constant confusion). We preferred to use what we’ve learned about communication and grammar overall to accelerate our Spanish learning rather than starting from scratch, though there are pros and cons to this approach and it’s likely not right for everyone.
Cons: Relatively expensive, and it’s only going to teach you what they’ve already programmed in – not customized (not a critique of Fluenz, just a limitation of software vs. a live teacher). Also, uses a neutral Spanish so won’t teach you country-specific vocab or grammatical constructs (e.g., use of “vos” instead of “tu” in Argentina). Some might call this last one a “pro” . . . Also, even if you go all the way through the end of level 5, you’ll be able to get by while traveling in a Spanish speaking country, but you definitely won’t be fluent; Even in level 5, you still won’t have encountered the subjunctive and the subjunctive is a bitch.
The verdict: We chose Fluenz because of its focus on teaching you useful, immediately applicable Spanish. The lessons are extremely thorough, and you start learning things you can use when visiting/living in Spanish-speaking countries immediately (e.g., how to order at a cafe, how to take a cab, etc.). Each lesson is based on a dialog in one of these situations, which you then review in detail (pretty much word by word) with the program host, Sonia. Then you go through various matching, listening, reading and writing exercises to practice both new words and new grammatical structures that were introduced. We found this method extremely useful for understanding structures inside and out. The explanations are thorough and detailed, and once we’d seen something used in our Fluenz lesson, we were immediately able to incorporate it into our speaking. There’s definitely some overlap between the role played by Fluenz and that of taking lessons (group or private), but we thought this was a good way to supplement and reinforce what we were learning in class. Highly recommended.
AUDIO TAPES/MP3s
What it is: Tapes or audio files that teach lessons using a methodology similar to that of computer programs. The one we used was “Learning Spanish Like Crazy“, which costs ~US$100 for the digital file version. They are comprised of different lessons that introduce new words and grammatical structures, and use a lot of repeating words and phrases to teach.
Yeah, he looks gangster, but the owl's actually a decent Spanish teacher
Pros: Great way to get exposure during downtime when you couldn’t otherwise study – walking, driving, on the bus (although your seatmates might give you strange looks if you’re following the “repeat after me” instructions).
Cons: Most tapes are limited to certain situations – better for giving you some basic functionality than really teaching you to speak fluently.
The verdict: These are good for practicing pronunciation and getting used to hearing and understanding native speakers of the language (especially if you’re in a non-Spanish speaking country) but don’t come close to interacting with people in Spanish (e.g., through group class or private lesson). Since they’re audio only, they obviously aren’t going to help you read and write, but they can be good for learning how to have basic conversations.
MOBILE DICTIONARY
What it is: A dictionary app you can download to your mobile device. We used Ultralingua ($20 in itunes app store), which included a regular dictionary as well as a verb conjugation tool that would give you the conjugation of any verb for every tense.
Yeah, you've got to memorize all 500 conjugations of every single verb eventually, but until then . . .
Pros: Very quick way to find a word – good for use in class, when talking to people, etc. The verb conjugation tool is AWESOME!!!!.
Cons: Uses neutral Spanish so won’t have some words or may give you a word they don’t use in the country you’re in. Conjugation tool doesn’t have “vos” so you’re on your own for that one.
The verdict: This was a fabulous find and a very useful tool for us – from when we first got here and needed to decipher menus at restaurants to later on reading the newspaper in cafes and trying to understand real-time what our teachers said in class when they used a new word. The verb conjugation tool was invaluable, especially when it feels like you’re learning a new tense every week and it’s hard to keep them straight. It also included common phrases using each word, which, while not as thorough as those in our paper dictionary, were still very useful.
FLASHCARDS
What it is: Old-school index cards or the new-school computer version. We used one called Anki – allows you to enter values for both sides of the card and then varies how often it shows each card to you based on the difficulty rating you give it). Anki can be downloaded free, along with whatever flashcard sets other users have shared online – we didn’t find a great set of pre-made cards online so ended up making our own.
You can choose how many cards to review in a session and it will keep showing you the ones you mess up until you get them right (or lie about it)
Pros: Helpful for memorizing new vocabulary (depending on your learning style). Paper cards allow you to practice during downtime (commuting, standing in line, etc.).
Cons: Takes a long time to make the flashcards before you can even start using them (both with Anki and with paper cards). When you’re studying intensively and being introduced to lots of new words each day, it’s hard to keep up with flashcards, even just for your short-list of most useful words.
The verdict: We used these more when we first started studying but found that the amount of time it took to make the new cards, and then to run through all of them, wasn’t worth the effort (took us longer to make Anki cards than traditional index cards). Once in a while, when we had to learn a new set of vocab for a specific subject for discussion in class, we’d make and study flashcards but generally found the time could be better spent on other study methods.
WORKBOOKS
What it is: Kinda like being back in high school – they walk you through a lesson that teaches a concept/grammatical construct/verb tense and then give you exercises (with answers in the back!) to practice using them. We used the “Practice Makes Perfect” series by Dorothy Richmond ($12-13 each) – we have “Spanish Verb Tenses”, “Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions” and “Complete Spanish Grammar” (think this last one is more or less a condensed version of the first two). Based on the examples/sentences in the book, this series seems to be targeted toward US college students – lots of exercise questions about dorms and the cafeteria.
Pros: Very useful for English explanation of Spanish grammatical constructs – most intensive Spanish classes are taught completely in Spanish, and sometimes it’s just nice to be able to have stuff explained in English . . . especially if it’s something that doesn’t exist in English (subjunctive, I’m talking about you). Useful to practice using each new construct in the exercises.
Cons: Relies a fair amount on translation, which our Spanish teachers here HATE. The idea is that if you’re always translating everything, you’re never going to speak very fluidly – apparently this method (relying on translation) is very contentious in the language-teaching world.
The verdict: We thought these were a great supplement to our classes. For Ryan, they were good for reviewing the difference between direct and indirect object pronouns (annoyingly similar) and for me, it was really helpful to have someone explain to me in English when to use the imperfect vs. the indefinite past tense.
CONSUMING SPANISH MEDIA
What it is: I know, that sounds really consultant-y. Basically, just reading stuff (the newspaper, magazines, books, whatever really) and watching TV/news/movies in Spanish. There are numerous books written for Spanish-speaking students in school to study grammar/comprehension (remember SAT prep?) that are also good for Spanish language learners.
This one's fun - it's the opposition paper so always has lots of lovely things to say about Cristina (la presidenta)
Pros: Great for getting more exposure to the language in a non-controlled environment (e.g., class). Good for learning new vocab. Can be a confidence boost (if you understand).
Cons: On the other hand, can be a real downer if you don’t understand what you’re reading/hearing.
The verdict: We found mixing some reading in was great for us – one of my favorites is reading the local paper in a cafe. When I first started, I felt like I had to look up every 5th word, but after a while I was able to understand much more and had learned a lot of new vocab. I also gained a better understanding of more complex sentence structures that they weren’t teaching in class. On the other hand, we don’t feel like we get a lot out of watching TV and movies. We’d get bits and pieces but generally struggled to understand. This would have been a lot more useful if we’d had Spanish subtitles in addition to the speaking . . . but couldn’t get the closed-captioning to work on our TV.
POST-IT NOTE LABELS
What it is: Sticking a Post-It note on everything in your house marked with the Spanish word for the object.
Pros: Good for learning vocab of stuff in your house.
Cons: Only good for learning vocab of stuff in your house . . . and you have yellow notes everywhere you look.
The verdict: Fine for a week or so, but then (1) hopefully you’ve memorized the vocab and (2) the Post-Its get really irritating.
WRITING STUFF IN SPANISH
What it is: Pretty self-explanatory – some examples are keeping a daily journal, writing a story, noting down the random sentences that run through your head.
Pros: Good for incorporating new vocab, practicing using various grammatical constructs. Also really helpful for clarifying questions about how something works – I often found it was easiest to communicate my question by illustrating it and highlighting the area I was uncertain about – e.g., writing down a sentence three different ways (desde, desde hace, hace).
Cons: Need a teacher/tutor to correct them for you and explain what’s correct and why. Can feel tedious and requires a fair amount of self-discipline to do regularly.
The verdict: This was great for getting the most out of class and making sure we were understanding things clearly. It was also good practice to use the stuff we were learning in class and incorporate into our vocab.
So, that’s the scoop on what we used. Of all the different resources that we tried, our top 5 are:
- Group classes (beginner stage)
- Private tutor (intermediate to advanced)
- Ultralingua
- Fluenz
- Workbooks
Any other good tips/tools out there? Let us know, and enjoy your adventure of learning Spanish!!!
How to learn Spanish (Part 1)
When we arrived in Buenos Aires, Ryan knew a fair amount of Spanish from studying in high school and college but hadn’t spoken in ages, and I didn’t know more than what’s on a Mexican restaurant menu. Now, after ~3 months of class, we both speak decently and can get around just fine. Our conversations about politics and current news are a bit choppy sometimes, but we’re pretty excited to be able to have those conversations at all!
Through our quest to learn Spanish, we’ve tried a number of different resources, including:
- Group/private classes
- Fluenz (a computer program somewhat similar to Rosetta Stone)
- Traditional and electronic dictionaries
- Workbooks
- Computerized flashcards
- Lots of other stuff
In this post, we’ve covered our thoughts on classes and other interactive learning methods (stuff that’s most useful while you’re living in a Spanish-speaking country). In our next post on this topic, we’ll tell you what we think of a bunch of self-study resources that we’ve used.
GROUP CLASS
What it is: We’re not sure about other places, but in Buenos Aires, this generally means attending ~20 hours of class a week in a group of 4-7 students. Prices generally range $150-200 per week.
A class at Vamos Spanish in Buenos Aires
Pros: Lots of exposure to Spanish, relatively low cost per hour, opportunity to meet other students. Great way to learn grammatical structures and new vocab (particularly at more beginner/intermediate levels).
Cons: Can be lots of volatility in other students in the class (compatibility of learning style and level, weekly turnover of students), less time to practice speaking, not customized to your needs.
The verdict: We chose Vamos Spanish in Palermo as our school. We found that group classes were most effective at the beginner level, and it became more difficult to get as much out of classes at the more advanced levels. First, there are just a lot more beginners than advanced students, so you’re more likely to be in a class with compatible classmates who are learning the same things as you and have more or less the same speaking ability. At the more advanced levels, it’s more difficult to find compatible classmates, as the students have often studied different things and have different strengths – for example, one might be a very fluid speaker but mess up their subjunctive verb usage, while another speaks more or less correctly but lacks the fluidity and vocabulary of the other student. May not sound like a big deal, but this can be really frustrating for both students. Also, at the more advanced levels, typically what you need to work on is speaking, which is not what a group class is optimizing for (see notes on private lessons below).
A few words on class size: At first, the typical class max of 6-7 students sounded really small, but we soon realized that there’s a big difference between a class with 3-4 students and one with 6 or 7. We were lucky enough during our first few weeks of studying to be in very small classes (1-3 students). When our school unexpectedly tripled in size one week, we also got to experience classes with 6 students, and they felt completely different. In a larger class, the teacher is teaching the materials but can’t necessarily give individualized attention to make sure everybody understands. The larger classes focused more on doing exercises in small groups and less on talking – simple math: more people in the same amount of time means everybody gets to talk less. Friends at other schools have experienced the same – any more than ~5 students and it starts to feel more like a lecture and less like an interactive class.
PRIVATE LESSONS
What it is: One-on-one lessons with a private tutor. These can be arranged through Spanish school with one of the regular teachers (we’ve seen prices of ~$US25/hour) or through someone who only does private tutoring ($US10-15/hour generally). Private tutors may have training or not, while teachers at the Spanish schools generally have to have some sort of training to teach.
Pros: Customized, one-on-one attention, lots of practice speaking, don’t have to worry about whether other students are compatible with your skill level and learning style.
Cons: Generally fewer hours of exposure to Spanish for the same price (since privates are more expensive), no space-out time since you’re the only one in the class.
The verdict: We started supplementing our group classes with private tutoring after about a month and a half and found that this was a great way to (1) get practice speaking (which was our primary goal in studying Spanish) and (2) get focused help/practice on the specific things we were messing up. We felt that we needed more practice using the things we were learning in our group classes in order to be able to more quickly incorporate them into our speaking – something you can’t really do in a group class, since you’re sharing that time block with multiple other students who also want their chance to speak. And at the more advanced levels for the reasons mentioned above, a group class can become less effective. We both saw our speaking ability improve significantly by working one-on-one with a tutor and think we would shift the mix of our study time toward this method (and away from group classes) in the future.
LANGUAGE EXCHANGE
What it is: Meeting with native Spanish speakers who want to practice English (or your native language) and spending half the time talking in each language. These can be group events (our Spanish school hosted one each week; most groups charge small fee) or one-on-one (generally free).
Group language exchange, or intercambio
Pros: Opportunity to practice speaking and meet native speakers.
Cons: Language partners aren’t trained teachers so may not correct you or teach you “correct” Spanish. More notably with group exchanges, you can tend to have the same conversation over and over (where you’re from and why you wanted to learn Spanish, etc.).
The verdict: We had high hopes for this one but didn’t end up using it much. The group exchanges we tried had an imbalance of English vs. Spanish speakers, and we found that group chats were dominated by the most advanced speakers, so beginners/intermediates didn’t get to do much more than listen in. We didn’t try one-on-ones, partly because finding a language buddy seemed hard and we are lazy.
PART 1 SUMMARY
Overall, these are all useful methods to learn Spanish and the best way to take advantage of living in or visiting a Spanish-speaking country for an extended period of time. For us, the mix shifted over time – heavier on group classes in the beginning and more private lessons as we have become more advanced.
We’ll post again soon about the different tools we used for self-study – hope this is useful!
World Cup Game 4: Argentina 3, Mexico 1
Those are all cakes, I think this speaks for itself
As the premier source for Worldcup 2010 information, we know that many of you have been eagerly awaiting a post from us on the outstanding Round of 16 game featuring Argentina early today; well, buckle-up, cuz here we go…
It's game time in Buenos Aires
I have to say that the during the first 15 minutes or so, we were a little worried… Mexico looked pretty good and the level of play was extremely intense–far more intense than the US/Ghana or England/Germany game seemed to be to our highly (un)trained eyes. After that, to summarize, Argentina crushed them.
We were proud to wear our jerseys and excited that the team was back in their home jerseys (and, a little drunk)
We’ve written before about #10, Messi, and mentioned how he seems to be more or less unstoppable when he has the ball. We are not soccer strategists, but it has occurred to us that if we were playing against Argentina (which is unlikely), and wanted to win so badly that we were willing to forget about sportsmanship, our strategy would be to injure Messi as early in the game as possible. It appeared that this strategy may have occurred to Mexico as well–they didn’t injure him, but they were able to more or less shut him down by having 2-3 guys jump on him every time the ball came near him. The bad news for Mexico and the rest of the remaining teams is that it turns out there are some other guys on the Argentina team that also know how to play.
The energy of the crowd and frankly the entire city/country when a game is on is incredible.
This is what the crowd looks like for a goal
...and, this is what it looks like when the game ends; the whole kitchen staff came out and started a parade. It was awesome.
It’s even more exciting with sound so we took some video at the end of the game, which in no way captures the experience, but is still pretty cool:
In case you missed the game because you have ridiculous priorities in life, actual game highlights are here:
Next up is Germany on Saturday. We already have our reservation to go back to this same place.
If you haven’t seen this…
You should watch it. It’s from 2008, so slightly out of date, but still well worth watching.
Click the read link for the video…
If you are a consultant, I will be very impressed if you can work any of this data into a presentation…