Second in a Series on Moving Overseas: Margarita Island, Venezuela

I’ve been writing about living overseas online for the past 15 years; most of my writing has been about living in Asia – an obvious location as I live in Indonesia. But, expats and potential expats these days have the world to choose from. South and Central America is one of the popular locations for both Europeans and North Americans. Today’s site is about Margarita Island, Venezuela.

Margarita Island is a Venezuelan island in the Carribean Sea. The island is known for its white sand beaches and laid-back lifestyle. The website that I’m highlighting is written by an expat who has lived on Margarita Island for over 20 years. While the layout of the website is basic at best, the information therein is first rate. The site creator is a Canadian, Dan O’Brien, and he covers all the basics that a potential expat needs to know when making a plan for a move to paradise. Dan has a little villa, bed and breakfast, and is married to a Venezuelan lady so you would expect that he has a good grasp on the local realities. One of the pluses of this site is that Dan updates it regularly. This is an important part of a site that offers information on moving overseas.

Dan has information on weather, property ownership, foreign exchange matters, starting a business or looking for work, costs of living, language, banking, hiring household help, the political situation (something that you want to keep track of these days), medical issues, and transportation. I found the information here very helpful, and it answered most of the questions that I would have before moving to a foreign country.

One of the comments that I particularly liked was Dan’s advice: “I strongly recommend that anyone considering a permanent move to Margarita Island first rent from 6 months to a year to see if living here is to your liking.” As I’ve mentioned before when discussing Bali, I’m amazed at the number of people who just move to an island location without ever having visited. It might seem like a cool, impulsive thing to do, but island living is not for everyone, and it really is advisable to try it before you move lock, stock and barrel.

So if you’re interested in moving to an island in South America, check out Dan’s site.

Life in the Tropics: Moving Overseas

I've decided to use my blogger blogs as the place for several series of blogs that I want to write about living in the tropics. I started this series over on my blog at Wordpress, but never got beyond the first blog which I am reprinting here as the beginning of this series.

Here is the first site in my series on Moving Overseas. Living in the Philippines is a site for the expat who wants to move to the Philippines, or is considering the Philippines as a potential home.

Don A. Herrington is the creator of this site. He has been living in the Philippines since 1989, and currently resides in Cebu. Don has a Filipina wife and has been around the Philippines as long as I’ve been in Indonesia. A lot of the advice he offers is similar to the advice that I offer to potential Bali expats. Some of the topics that he covers are:

• What Do You Need to visit the Philippines?
• Why Will You Want to Live, Retire, Travel or Do Business in the Philippines?
• Why Will You Love the Philippines, the Filipinas, and Filipinos?
• Do You Want to Find Romance in the Philippines?
• Do You Want An Expat’s Life with Maids, Helpers, Drivers, Eating In and Out, Amenities?
• Lifestyles – Costs – Who is Here
• Manila and the Other Places To Live
• Maids, Domestic Helpers, Nurses, Employees Eating in and Out
• What Will You Need To be in the Philippines?
• How Can You Have A Job, Business, Investments in the Philippines?
• Join Our Discussion List
• How Can You Get More first hand information, on how to Live, Retire, Travel and Do Business in the Philippines?
• How Can This Website, Free Mailing List and I Can Help You Have A Happy Life here?
• Living in the Philippine Provinces

If you’re interested in living in the Philippines, take a look at Don’s site.

John Hughes, Rest in Peace

John Hughes, the American film director/writer/producer died Thursday of what appeared to be a heart attack while taking a walk in New York City. He was 59 years old.

OK, so another death, another RIP post, what’s the point with Hughes?

Hughes was best known for his ‘80s movies about teen life in suburban America. While Hughes was my age (a year younger), his films hit the movie theaters just as my oldest son was entering his teen years, so I watched a number of the Hughes films, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, with Aaron.

The films seemed at the time to resonate with my son, but they did with me as well. Hughes, who spent part of his youth in the Chicago suburbs, as did I, set most of his movies in the Chicago area. Despite not having lived in Chicago since 1979, I still have an intensely romantic image of the city that I carry with me throughout my travels in Asia. And, even though Hughes’ films mirrored the realities of ‘80s teen angst, I could see a lot of my own ‘60s angst there (not surprising as Hughes attended school at the same time as me, and in somewhat similar sociocultural settings).

As someone who has just gone through a stroke, I’m at the stage where I notice the deaths of my peers. Hughes created some memories for me, and for that I’ll remember him and his work. Looking around the internet, there are dozens of tributes to Hughes on You Tube. He obviously affected a lot of folks. Here’s one of the tributes.

A Saturday in Sumbawa

One of the reasons that I bought a new motorcycle and brought it out to Sumbawa was so that I could get out of townsite on the weekends and do something beside sit in my little apartment watching tv, grading papers and working on the school website. Last Saturday, I went down to Rantung Beach for a swim on Saturday morning, and I had a great time. I went down today for a little swim, but the waves were really up, so I decided to take a pass.

On the way back to townsite, I decided to drive down to Tongo, but once the road got rough, I decided to come back to the apartment and finish up work on the school website. Hmm, always some work here to do.

Yesterday, two of my former students dropped by for a visit. They have been in town visiting their parents. It was great to see them and hear about what they have been up to even though I hear from them occasionally on Facebook. They are both doing great so it seems that we didn’t do too much damage to them while they were in school here. In fact, one of the girls is interested in anthropology – my main field, and the other is going to be a math major in college – my main teaching field. I love it. The girls did have a good time teasing me about my mishaps with motorbikes, forgetfulness and my sci-fi addiction.

This is week 2 of not smoking, and it still is a problem. I have this intense desire to just go out and buy a pack of cigarettes and smoke all of them. I’ve been rationalizing this by saying that I can quit smoking once I leave here and get home to Bali where I will be with Su and the kids who will be a good support group. On the other hand, I could have another stroke in the 16 more weeks that I have to work here if I start smoking again so there’s a strong motivation to not start up again. Nothing like addictive personalities.

Back From Singapore, Life Changes and a Bit of a Rest

It’s been a long week, and I’m back from the hospital to pick up from where I left off. SOS had a few problems coordinating my leaving home, but all in all, I was very pleased with the way that they handled the whole medical evacuation.

The trip back wasn’t quite as dramatic – no doctor escort, no wheelchair, no special consideration at customs and immigration – but, it was wonderful to be back on my own power. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to do any shopping in Singapore as I had just enough time to get to the airport and check-in once I was informed that I had a ticket to go home. Oh well, I’ll be back in December when I retire again, and I’m thinking of staying a few days while I get my new non-working visa.

I actually arrived back Tuesday morning, and co-taught a double biology class. By the time that I was done, I had a terrible headache and went home for the rest of the day. I came back to teach on Wednesday, but had a headache within an hour. I stopped by the clinic to see the doctor, and we discussed the headaches as well as the results of all the tests done on me in Singapore. After a long discussion, we came up with three likely causes of the headaches as it was clear from the scans and blood tests that the headaches weren’t caused by any problems with my brain: stress from trying to adapt to my new realities, a reaction to the medicines that I’m taking, or a reaction to nicotine withdrawal. The doctor told me to take the rest of the week off, and I’m on the last day of my rest period. The headaches have stopped since I’ve modified the amount of medicine that I’m taking, so that’s a good thing for me.

I’ve been thinking about the stress factor a lot during this rest period. At first I discounted it, but after a few days at home, it started to make sense to me. Lots of changes in a short period of time- turning 60, having a new granddaughter, oldest daughter turning 18, wife moving one year closer to being 50, working on my last contract, learning to live without cigarettes, and then a stroke. Yes, it does make sense to me now that I’m probably growing through a bit of stress as I enter another stage of the life cycle. Well, just going to have to deal with it.

Tomorrow back to work once again.