Transcript of Premium Bonus 044 - Transcript

Charlie:
Hello and welcome to another episode of the British English podcast. I'm your host, Charlie Baxter, and today we have a delightful conversation with a teacher called Tristan that I look forward to sharing with you. But before we jump into the conversation, imagine this. We start in the cobbled streets of London, fly over the Atlantic, touch down amid the lush greenery of Costa Rica, then zip across the globe to the quaint winding streets of France. Quite a journey, isn't it? Well, our guest, Tristan, for this episode has lived this exact adventure and many more, I'm sure. He started in the UK and then navigated his way through Costa Rica and has recently moved to live on a farm in France, we'll be exploring his journey, seeing how his British identity has influenced his experiences and will be revealing the exciting, the challenging and potentially rather amusing moments along the way. From fish and chips and a cup of tea to Gallo Pinto erm and then I guess a long piece of bread called a baguette. It's going to be a cultural blend you won't want to miss. So stick around as we're about to embark on an interesting cultural journey together, learning how today's guest has navigated it all. So please put your hands together. You don't need to literally clap, especially if you're on a bus or anything like that. That would look a bit weird. Metaphorically, put your hands together and raise the roof for today's podcast guest, Tristan. All right. Let's get into the conversation. All right. Thank you, Tristan, for taking the time to speak with me about your recent move and your, well, your life, really. How are you doing today?

Tristan:
Bonjour, Charlie. Thank you for having me. I am calling you from the French countryside of Brittany on the west coast of France. And thank you. Thank you for having me. This is my first ever podcast, so it's a new experience for me.

Charlie:
Oh, I'm very honoured to be your first. You're in Brittany, right? Lovely. Did you say to me, we will get into the France side of your life in a little bit more detail later on. But very quickly, did I get it wrong that you're taking over a farm? Is that completely wrong?

Tristan:
Not necessarily taking over. Basically, I've moved to a farm, which is my girlfriend's family farm, and it's not an active farm in the sense that there's no animals. But she has a lot of land which she rents to other farmers. We are pretty much surrounded by a lot of fields as far as I can see, really. It's just like cornfields, which is beautiful, of course.

Charlie:
That's very nice. I've got a photo in my mind right now of me. We're not going to talk about me too much, but I did a cycle trip down the west coast of France when I was 22, and we had a tent on our, in our panniers. And we would camp every night illegally in different farm fields. And I've got an exact image of that kind of farm setting outside of the tent. When you wake up in the morning, it's a glorious, glorious view, very peaceful, and it just screams, "Take me to the bakery and get me a baguette". Did you start?

Tristan:
Yeah. Or a pan au chocolate.

Charlie:
Oh yeah. We used to eat a lot of them.

Tristan:
I haven't really had the chance. [really?] Yeah, of course. [really?] Not yet. Not yet. I haven't had the chance to to go to the patisserie this morning. Although, of course I've had a nice cup of French French coffee. Not quite the same as Costa Rica though, but we'll get into that, I'm sure. But yeah, actually, when you were mentioning about camping, we we have a field that actually we rent out to people that that pass through and we have a lot of interesting people that kind of well last night, for example. German guy who's doing a tour of of Europe, massive tour by himself on his motorbike, just came and stayed for one night in his tent. Kind of even though you're quite rural here you meet a lot of travellers that pass through.

Charlie:
Oh that is nice and you get to talk to them?

Tristan:
Yeah. I mean, if you want to, obviously you can just say, "all right, well, there's the field. Yeah. Do what you need to do." Or obviously you could start talking to them for sure.

Charlie:
Oh, fantastic. Okay. That's where you are at the moment. And we'll circle back to that towards the end of the conversation. [Yeah] But, let's go with telling the audience a little bit about yourself and what made you decide to pack your bags to Costa Rica to begin with.

Tristan:
I was born and raised in north west London in an area close to Wembley Stadium, which is our national stadium. And I was working in a pretty standard 9 to 5 job in a boring, pretty office setting. And that was five years ago. And I realised, okay, do I want to do this for the rest of my life or should I try and find something else?

Charlie:
What was what was the job?

Tristan:
It's interesting actually. I mean, I said it was mundane or boring, but I was a probation officer.

Charlie:
Oh, right.

Tristan:
Wow. Yeah. Should I explain what that is? Yes.

Charlie:
Yes, definitely.

Tristan:
Maybe some people have seen it in films like American films. They call it like a parole officer. I think we call it probation. So it's government service. You assist ex-convicts or criminals, I should say not convicts, but criminals who are released from prison or receive some type of, let's say, punishment or sentence for a crime. That's the traditional job. But I was working in a magistrate's court. So in England we have two types of courts. We have magistrates and we have the Crown Court and magistrates usually deal with lesser crimes. Crown courts usually deal with very, very serious ones. I was in this Magistrates Court for about 2 or 3 years interviewing people before they would go into court and I would have to deliver a report to the judge. So I would have to stand up in court and basically say, well, this person has a lot of problems or maybe he doesn't have any problems and you know, you can give him a break, you know, just give him a fine. But obviously, there are guidelines you have to follow. And that was difficult for me because I'm not a great public speaker. It was really hard for me to get used to speaking in front of the public. And, you know, some things that I could say would would influence whether or not someone went to prison.

Charlie:
Wow, that does not help the nerves, does it?

Tristan:
No, exactly. And I never really suggested prison for anyone because I didn't want to kind of have that come back on me. Someone come and find me after they've been released from prison.

Charlie:
Yeah. So your identity isn't hidden, is it?

Tristan:
No, it's not. No. Your name is on the report. So it's a big responsibility. But, you know, day-to-day tasks were pretty boring after a while. And I was in the office one morning and I decided, all right, I need to travel. You know, I'm 25. I was 25 years old.

Charlie:
Sorry to interrupt, but 25, that's still quite young to be given that responsibility. Was it the normal age for people in your position?

Tristan:
I was one of the definitely I was the youngest at the time. I started in an administration position and then I was kind of promoted. Yeah, I think it was relatively, not unheard of, but, um, I didn't pave the way for, for the younger generation of probation officers. But I, I after that I realised that they started accepting more younger people. So, I don't know, maybe I did, maybe I did. Now there's a whole new generation of probation officers thanks to me.

Charlie:
Well, that's something that you can be confident in knowing all the way through your life, perhaps. Yeah. What was the route to that? You said administration. So you were you just decided to take that role out of the blue before like you went from.

Tristan:
Yeah, I kind of just found it as basically I came out of university and I found whatever job that I could really get at that time. Like, like a lot of people. And this was in the probation service. And then eventually, after a year or two working in the administration, I, I managed to go up to a certain level of probation officer. And yeah, from that, like obviously they train you a little bit more. Of course, I have a background in psychology. My degree is in psychology. That was quite useful. You know, when interviewing people, you're in a room with someone. Some of these people are quite dangerous. They have a lot of serious problems. They can be, you know, mood changes in a few seconds. Depending on what questions you ask. So you have to be very sensitive and careful with what you say to these people. And yeah, I enjoyed parts of it, but after a while I think I was more tired of the rat race of London. The kind of commuting on the tube every day. People kind of a bit miserable in the morning. No one looking at each other just on their mobiles. And I was looking for something different.

Charlie:
Yeah. Nice.

Tristan:
I decided basically, okay, what can I do that allows me to travel? And I started researching TEFL schools around the world. So a TEFL school obviously is a school which teaches people to teach English as a foreign language. And I don't know about you, but Central America was one of those places we didn't hear much about growing up in England.

Charlie:
That's true. I heard about obviously North America and South America. But yeah, Central America was sort of glazed over. They didn't really focus on it. That's true. Yeah.

Tristan:
Like, I mean, you hear about Mexico, of course, people travel to, you know, Tulum and Playa Carmen, I think it's.

Charlie:
Called I Heard somebody say that Mexico might be North America is. Is Mexico North America?

Tristan:
I think it's considered a central as far as I'm aware. Maybe I'm wrong, but no, because, as you know, like the typical backpacker, the typical British backpacker usually goes to South East Asia or maybe like what you did and went to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, those kind of that kind of area of the world, South America, of course, but not so much central. I had done a lot of Southeast Asia and a bit of South America. I decided, "All right, let's go somewhere, which is a bit different". And I found two tefl schools, one in Guatemala and one in Costa Rica. And I finally decided on Costa Rica because I love the beach. And this place was literally on a in a little village on the Pacific coast. And it was beautiful. And I stayed there for four years.

Charlie:
Wow, really cool.

Tristan:
Yeah.

Charlie:
So they there were images of this beach that you could see in England when you had to decide between Honduras and Costa Rica.

Tristan:
[Oh, sorry] Guatemala and Costa Rica. Yeah, Honduras is a little bit more risky. I don't think there's any TEFL schools in Costa Rica, in Honduras.

Charlie:
That's Central America, isn't it? Or am I off again? Yeah.

Tristan:
It is. It is. Correct. Yeah. We have. So at the top you have Mexico, then you go down, it's Guatemala, Then you have like Belize and Honduras, El Salvador, then you have Costa Rica and Panama.

Charlie:
Yeah, that makes sense.

Tristan:
And and so basically. Yes, I sorry, your question.

Charlie:
I was wondering if you had the images in front of you to be able to choose between the two. Guatemala and Costa Rica.

Tristan:
Yeah, I think they on those websites, they have a lot of kind of images which try and incentivise you to to join the school. I was based in Willesden, which I don't know if you know much about Willesden, but it's a pretty rundown area of London. So I was in this office in Willesden. It was a rainy day and I was looking outside the window and I was thinking, Wow, okay, this looks this beach in Costa Rica looks a little bit better than where I am right now. I packed my bags.

Charlie:
How quickly did that happen? Because did you have to go through like a certificate to get a TEFL qualification before or you did it when you were there?

Tristan:
There's many options to get a Tefl certificate. You could either do an online course, which a lot of people do, or you could physically go to a school. It doesn't have to be in a foreign country. It could be in England if I wanted to stay in England, but I preferred to do it in a physical place because you have that experience of face-to-face teaching in a classroom. And so it wasn't immediately, I kind of planned it for a couple of months and gave myself some time to really think about it. And because it's an investment, it's not a cheap course to do. No. And I yeah, I didn't know if I could see myself being a teacher because I thought back to when I was in English class at high school, I imagined myself being an English teacher. You know, it would. It's a joke really. Some of my friends still laugh at me when I say I'm an English teacher.

Charlie:
The street cred as an English teacher, especially like an English as a foreign language teacher in the UK with British people isn't great, is it? We don't really score highly.

Tristan:
I haven't heard any like negative things about it, but yes, I mean, I guess it's I guess it's viewed more of a supplement job. Yeah. Like, you know, people do it in addition to another job or perhaps just to keep funding their travel.

Charlie:
Yes.

Tristan:
Or just to have like a voluntary experience abroad.

Charlie:
That's true. Yeah. Voluntary year out like a sabbatical or people tend to think you do it after university to get some travel experience, which I mean both of us kind of used it for that reason to leave the UK and have a bit of sun and some travel and some life experience because I met a lot of people in that moment of moving to another country and I don't think any of them are still doing it. Probably about 30 of them, I don't think any of them are. So if I was to meet up with them and say I'm still doing it, they would be like, "Oh, wow, okay." But yeah, it's it's the way it goes sometimes, isn't it? Did you see yourself continuing this far on with teaching English even back then? Do you think you saw that?

Tristan:
No, definitely not. I didn't realise the opportunity that teaching online would give me. When I imagined doing TEFL school. I only imagined working in a physical school like teaching 30 people in a small classroom in somewhere in Central America. And that's what I did for the first couple of months. I found a local project which was run by a local church. It was a volunteer program and it was hard. It was hard. You know, I was in this sweaty classroom with no air conditioning. The students were really nice because, you know, we're going to get into Costa Rican culture and, you know, they are lovely people and very friendly but slightly differently behaved than, I don't know than English students. [Yeah?] I don't know because I haven't had experience teaching in an English school. Difficult for me to compare, but a lot of it was classroom management getting people to shut up basically, and stop talking. And that's what I didn't like about.

Charlie:
Right, that was tricky in Costa Rica. So you're thinking that as a student when you were in the UK, your classroom time were more inclined to be quiet quicker?

Tristan:
I think at the age group that I was teaching, which was by that age, which was about 17 to 21.

Charlie:
Oh gosh. That's. Tricky.

Tristan:
Yeah, actually, yeah. A lot of them came from very poor backgrounds, [right] Costa Rica has quite a young pregnancy age. [right] Like the average age I think is I don't know, is very, very young. It's somewhere like 18 or 19. So a lot of the students I was teaching were pregnant or either had a lot of kids already. I was expecting them to be maybe a bit more motivated to kind of learn English for their own kind of development and future. But I don't know, it was a program. I don't think they were forced to do it. Oh no they were they were sorry, they received benefits if they did the program. So that might be why, you know, some of them didn't really want to be there. That makes sense. [right]

Charlie:
Is there a phrase called Pura Vida or Pura?

Tristan:
Pura vida. Yeah, Pura Vida, which. Which basically translates as pure life. Okay. And it's a it's a philosophy. It's a way of living. It's essentially meaning take things easy and enjoy life and take it slow, you know, relax, chill out. Which if you go to Costa Rica, you will see that printed everywhere on t-shirts, usually with a picture of a sloth because Costa Rica is famous for this animal.

Charlie:
Oh, I see.

Tristan:
Yeah. Because what I knew about Costa Rica before was really from David Attenborough documentaries, watching, watching sloths, and really kind of the sloth ties in with the kind of culture and the mentality of 'slow', you know, take things easy. Pura Vida.

Charlie:
I know it's not obviously too near, but I went to Belize and I remember on some of the islands their phrase, I mean, it wasn't as poetic or Spanish, but it was just 'go slow'. That was their motto. [Okay] 'Go slow'. Kind of just that, that was it. And if you were cycling too fast, they'd be like, "Go slow, man. Go slow." "Are you a traffic warden?" "No, no, no. Just philosophy in life. Go slow. Go slow." Yeah. How did you find that? Given that, I would argue that our motto is quite different in the UK, what would you say is our motto if you had to?

Tristan:
hahaha

Charlie:
Complain. But be quick about it!

Tristan:
Go fast, go fast. [Yeah] No, it is very different in terms of, let's say, London because I grew up in London. I really don't know what it's like outside of London. It's difficult for me to say, but people rush. People are rushing to the next place, work home pub maybe, and they're always rushing. And that was hard for me. To to get to change and to get used to the slowness of Costa Rica. Now, I think one of the reasons it is slow is because of the temperature. You know, it's 35 degrees every day. You can't run, you can't rush. Otherwise, you need to take a shower every every five minutes. You're just sweating.

Charlie:
Yeah, but that must have been hard because time is almost like a currency. You've come from a place that time equals money. Almost.

Tristan:
Exactly that. That is true.

Charlie:
And now, yeah, you've got to be mindful of not sweating too much too quickly.

Tristan:
Yeah, I think the temperature and the climate has a big factor in the lifestyle. So basically people would wake up at 5 a.m. and that's pretty a normal time for people to wake up 5 or 6 and they get stuff done in the morning. That's when they're like productive because of the temperature.

Charlie:
I see. Okay.

Tristan:
And nothing gets done between like 11 and five during the day. Like shops are still open. You know, everything's still open. But if you go out, you'll just see less people. People will just be sitting under a tree, chilling, you know, waiting in the shade, waiting for the sun to to kind of cool off. And then things get done in the evening. I would often hear, like construction workers start banging at like 8 or 9 p.m. and I'm like, whoa, that's illegal. That's illegal to do that in the UK.

Charlie:
Yeah. Oh, gosh, that's a huge culture shock.

Tristan:
Yeah, it was.

Charlie:
And what time would they finish?

Tristan:
No, they wouldn't do it like crazy late because a lot of people would kind of, it would be quiet at about ten, 10:30. My neighbourhood, quite a lively neighbourhood. A lot of wild animals, dogs that kind of just ran around and horses that kind of had no owners.

Charlie:
What? Horses that had no owners. I've seen the dogs like street dogs, but not are they street horses?

Tristan:
They're kind of like street horses. I mean, they were beach horses. They would run in packs across the beach and it was beautiful. Like, just imagine a group of horses just running free across the beach. [That is great] Yeah, it is wonderful. Obviously, they probably had an owner, but it was a small town, so they were kind of like, "All right, you go and do whatever you want and go and graze in a different place and then I'll come and find you later."

Charlie:
Yeah, I mentioned the Pura Vida lifestyle because you were talking. [Pura Vida, yeah]. Because they because you were saying in the class you felt like they should have a little bit more motivation to develop their own English skills. But would you say that maybe their focus is their priorities lie within family and enjoyment over work?

Tristan:
Definitely. The society is quite collectivist. Is that the right word? Collectivist? [Yeah] More of a collectivist society than an individualistic society. I would say that's a big difference between the UK and Costa Rica. There is a large importance on family and and sharing. And so, yes, like a lot of the expectation maybe for younger people is different in Costa Rica. I don't know, maybe the ambition is a bit different. It's not so materialistic. It's more about kind of like the simple life basics, you know, having a family, providing for your family, but but not, you know, not trying to earn mega, mega bucks. [Yeah] But it depends on the individual, of course.

Charlie:
Yes. Always, always. But it's a hard one to get your head around coming from where we come from because we're I mean, it's not like America quite like chasing the dollar all the time, in my opinion, for some people. But we're definitely encouraged to push hard with our career, primarily, and then that will support a family in the future. But it's completely the almost it sounds like the reverse in priorities.

Tristan:
I think they do obviously have ambition to provide like anyone would, but like you said, like in the UK and from my group of friends, I could see that a lot of people were chasing a beautiful house or a beautiful car or a lot of materialistic things that they believed would make them happy. But in reality all they needed was a nice job, good family and the basics in life, you know, food, shelter. And that's what I think a lot of people in Costa Rica achieve very well. And that's why it's one of the happiest places to live in the world. And it's been voted like it's always maybe not top now anymore, but maybe second or third on the list of happiest places to live. [Right] And I don't know if you've ever heard of blue zones. [No] A blue zone. There's about 6 or 7 blue zones in the world. [Right] And basically a blue zone is where people live longer and they have a higher age expectancy. So I believe that one of the other areas is California, Sardinia. In Italy, there's a place in Japan, one island in Greece, I think, and one area of Costa Rica, which is actually the area I was living in. And you can only get, let's say, this status of being a blue zone if you match certain requirements, being that they have a high level or a good level of diet, you know, nutrition, low levels of stress, good sense of community, these types of factors all tie in to actually living longer. It's proven, you know, scientifically proven. And and that was really interesting to see that. [Yeah] In effect.

Charlie:
Blye zone - I've never heard of that. Yeah. So it's not just getting a blue pill if you're living there and it gives you a longer life.

Tristan:
Not quite.

Charlie:
Those are nice attributes to towards getting blue zone, getting blue-zoned, maybe.

Tristan:
Blue zoned. Yeah.

Charlie:
I was thinking of a tale that I was told when I was 22 when I came out of university. Apologies if you've heard it and I'll butcher it, but hopefully the moral of the story will still be in place. An American goes down to or a resident of the United States goes down to let's say, Central America.

Tristan:
A gringo.

Charlie:
Yes, exactly. A gringo goes on holiday and he goes to a fishing market and then he asks a guy to take him out on his fishing boat. And he goes out and he spends all day and he catches one fish, but he's in the sunshine having a beautiful time. And then the American says, Why don't you scale this up? Why don't you create your own fishing company? And the guy's just relaxed sitting there and saying, why? And he says, Well, you know, if you scale it up, then you could have your own team of fishermen. And then before you know it, you could be sitting and doing what you want. What would you want to do? And he said, I want to go and fish every day and just come back and have my fish with my family. That would be my ideal and that's what I've got. And he's like, Oh yeah. All right, well, well done. There's an interesting confusion that we've almost got.

Tristan:
Yeah, it perfectly summarises what I guess I was just saying. It's not like there's a lack of ambition. It's just like finding that that balance in your life of of happiness. Why push yourself if you've already got everything you need, the basics in life. And that was one of my motivations for leaving London because, like I said, you know, I felt like I was chasing a career, chasing to find a mortgage, you know, all of these things, which is great. Of course, you know, I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but I felt like before the age of 30, I didn't really need those things. And just trying to find a bit of a simple balance in life was more important.

Charlie:
And do you think you found it?

Tristan:
Yes, I definitely experienced the Pura Vida. And like we were saying, you know, at the beginning was walking very, very fast down the street or cycling down the street very quickly. And I would get a lot of people looking at me like, "Why are you rushing?"

Charlie:
That's such a life lesson.

Tristan:
And I felt really like, Yeah, yeah, it is. And I remember one of my friends from England came to visit me, and and he was walking fast and I was like, bro. "Pura Vida, take it slow."

Charlie:
Did he get what you meant?

Tristan:
Yeah. And he was like, You know what? You're right. You're really right. And I think that's people might learn when they come to Costa Rica. Obviously, people come for the nature. It's stunning. It's lush, you know, it's just green. And I don't know if I'm absolutely correct in this fact, but I think they contribute 6% of the world's biodiversity.

Charlie:
Which at what percentage did you say?

Tristan:
6% of the world's only biodiversity.

Charlie:
A small geographic area. That's impressive.

Tristan:
It's a very small area. And it only has a population of 5 million.

Charlie:
Right. Yeah, I have heard that their biodiversity is insane. So that that makes sense.

Tristan:
Another interesting fact is they abolished the army in 1949.

Charlie:
Ah. So they've got no army.

Tristan:
No army, which is really bizarre, especially like that happened soon after World War Two. So I guess everyone was on high alert and they have reinvested a lot of the military budget into education and health care. And you can really see that in the country. Everyone, I'm sure we'll get onto this in the next section, but they speak very good English because the education system is pretty good in comparison, let's say, to other countries in Central America.

Charlie:
Actually, thinking about it, my first Spanish teacher online was a Costa Rican and she had very good English. Okay. When I went to Chile, I had quite a big bubble of English-speaking teachers that I socialised with. I lived with a Chilean, so I was able to get that kind of local experience in my apartment and he would invite me to barbecues and things like that. Did you get much experience with locals yourself?

Tristan:
Yes. At the beginning, I would say I tried to integrate as much as I could and immerse myself in the language, but I feel a little bit guilty actually, that after four years of living there that my Spanish is not a higher level. I would say that it's probably B1. Still, I slightly blame the fact that I'm an English teacher because I spent most of my time speaking English online. Therefore, for my job I didn't really need to interact with with local people too much. Also, the town where I lived was very full of expatriates, a lot of gringos, Americans and a lot of Europeans, but not so many British. I was thinking I was one of two British people living in that town and the other person was actually 20 minutes down the road from where I lived. It was very bizarre, like we knew exactly the area where we, you know, we'd been to the same pub. It was very strange. [That is weird] Yeah. So to answer your question, it was I tried to integrate the beginning when I was involved in a lot of volunteer projects, but when I started teaching online and living on the beach, people spoke English very well. Tourism is a big factor in that town. So of course a lot of local people speak very well. I can, in terms of like going to a restaurant and doing all those things where you need to communicate in the local language, I could do that very easily. But when you actually sit down and have a conversation with someone, I think I would still sometimes struggle, which is a shame. And it's a lesson that I've learnt and I hope that I don't repeat that now that I'm in France.

Charlie:
It's something that I think you might have to be endlessly strict on yourself with if it's possible. We always, as humans, I think we tend to take the shortcut, take the easy route, and if the easy route is there, then it's, yeah, it's hard to not take it. I wish you luck with that challenge that you put yourself in.

Tristan:
One of the interesting things is that I think I actually learned more French in Costa Rica than Spanish.

Charlie:
How? Oh because the motivation to move to France was high.

Tristan:
Actually. So about two years into my experience there, I met my girlfriend who's from France, which is why I live now in France, and there was a large French expat community in that town, like, really, really dominating. They owned most of the businesses. Actually, I called them the French mafia when I was there. They didn't like that too much.

Charlie:
Hopefully that. Yeah, I can imagine.

Tristan:
Let's hope they weren't.

Charlie:
An English guy calling them French mafia. They're not going to take very well to me. But eventually they you know, they called me roast beef at the beginning, which is I don't know if you've heard that before. Like, that's the the like the slur that French people call English people 'roast beef'.

Charlie:
Can you remind me why?

Tristan:
I think it's to do with like the history of obviously British people loving roast beef. [Okay] It comes from a very I don't know. I think it's quite an old story. I'm not going to pretend like I know, but we obviously call the French. Well, we used to. I don't think anyone does it anymore, but they call them 'frogs' or 'frogs legs'. [Yeah] It's just a stereotype based on the food that we eat. Did you find it?

Charlie:
Yeah, I'm just searching it. I think it's basically what you said during this period in the 18th century, during the, you know, the real the real beef we had between each other. Roast beef was a popular and staple dish in England. The French started calling the English roast beef as a kind of jest, associating them with their traditional food. This term is somewhat similar to how the French are sometimes referred to as frogs due to the stereotypical association with eating frogs legs. Yeah, pretty much exactly what you said.

Tristan:
Or nails, I guess. You know, we don't say snails, but. But I would associate snails more with with France than frogs.

Charlie:
Yeah. I've had snails and the only time I had them was in France. Yeah. Have you had snails? Have you had frogs legs?

Tristan:
No, I haven't had either. I'm looking forward to that experience. [Okay] If I ever get the chance. [Yeah] yeah, [yeah] yeah.

Charlie:
Let's go back a little bit.

Tristan:
Yeah, we're getting sidetracked.

Charlie:
I think we covered all of this very naturally, but was there anything else that you felt like as a habit, as a British person you had to ditch or tweak? Being in Costa Rica, other than what we've talked about?

Tristan:
Not so much, I don't think. Maybe yeah just in terms of like it's not really a habit, but to get used to the fact that the seasons, the daylight savings, there wasn't any daylight savings. So basically Costa Rica is just above the equator in the centre. Can you say the centre of the hemisphere? Does that make sense?

Charlie:
Southern Hemisphere. It's just above the equator in the northern hemisphere, maybe.

Tristan:
Exactly right. So the time of sunset and the time of sunrise does not really change throughout the year.

Charlie:
That's strange for us.

Tristan:
Exactly, because now that I'm living in France, like for the last three weeks, I'm finishing work at like 10 p.m. and it's still light. And I'm like, What? What is going on? It's like very disorientating for me. That was hard to adjust to and it feels like the days are much shorter, so you do have to wake up early and staying hydrated, I guess, you know, you just sweat so much to drink tons of water each day just to get through the day.

Charlie:
Now that you're in France, obviously it's a bit hotter when you've moved, but are you enjoying not needing to drink as much?

Tristan:
It's actually like the perfect time for me to move because I'm not. So it's not such a culture shock in terms of, well, not culture shock, but weather shock. Yeah, climate shock, we could say. Yeah. So that was the actual motivation for moving in the summer, the European summer. Also because I brought a cat back from Costa Rica.

Charlie:
We have come to the end of part one, so feel free to take a break from your listening practice, but if you're happy to keep going, then we're now moving on to part two of this episode. Thanks so much for being a premium or Academy member and enjoy the rest of the show.

Tristan:
I stole a cat. A wild cat.

Charlie:
Really? A wild cat.

Tristan:
And. Yeah, a puma. No, this cat adopted us when we moved into this house. We didn't adopt him. He literally was just. "Okay, you're my new owners."

Charlie:
Feed me.

Tristan:
Yeah, exactly. Like cats are. Pretty much. And, yeah, we bought him back and we decided, okay, like, it's going to be too much if we move in the middle of December, he's just going to freak out. He's adjusting very well, actually.

Charlie:
That's good.

Tristan:
So that was another motivation for coming back.

Charlie:
Yeah, that's nice.

Tristan:
But no, in terms of ditching habits, no, not too many other things, actually. Sorry, my language did change. I don't know if you want to talk about this in the next section, but I started adopting more American words and kind of ditching a lot of a lot of British ones just to fit in a little bit more to.

Charlie:
To fit in with the Americans that were there and the Costa Ricans that were speaking English that probably learned American English?

Tristan:
Exactly. Because their, you know, their school system was more directed towards American English and just being surrounded by a lot of Americans, you know, you just kind of adapt. And I lost you know, a lot of people said to me, you don't sound very British, which I took quite you know, that was quite an offence, really for me. I was like, it was a bit offended. Yeah, I was like, Really? And then I would be like, "All right, mate, I don't know what you're talking about." Like switch. I would like, increase the the Cockney slang. Yeah.

Charlie:
What were you saying? Things like water for water?

Tristan:
Not the accent. No, I could never go that extreme, but I would say gas instead of petrol.

Charlie:
Okay. Yeah. I mean, they're not going to really follow what you're talking about or they're going to think you're trying to stick out inappropriately to say petrol. Yeah. Yeah.

Tristan:
Rubbish. A lot of people get confused about like, "what is rubbish?" [Yeah] So it's like garbage or trash they prefer.

Charlie:
Yes.

Tristan:
I think. And even that's something that I still continue now. I still say gas instead of petrol and I went home to London a couple of times. And I said, you know, to my family, "I'm just going to go to the gas station" [Oh, no] They were like "What? What's wrong with you?"

Charlie:
Yeah, interesting because I think when we move out of the country. I don't know if I'm completely making this up, but I think there's this sort of association with American words that we hear in movies like gas and maybe Trash, I don't know. But we kind of think it's kind of cool. And then when we come back to the UK and we accidentally say it, we get ridiculed for not being British and being pretending like we're not who we are.

Tristan:
Definitely. Definitely. And it sounds weird when you say it for the first time. When I said it for the first time, I was like, Ooh. Like I was like kind of like, had a shiver. It was like, Oh, that seems weird. But then it gets it becomes normal. You get used to it. Of course.

Charlie:
Yeah, "I'm taking the trash out."

Tristan:
It's just adapting to your environment, really.

Charlie:
Exactly. You had to do a few things to fit in. Go slow. Drink more water and sound a bit more American.

Tristan:
Yeah, definitely. That's the top three.

Charlie:
Okay, let's move on to life as an English speaker in Costa Rica. So you did mention that they have very good English, but did you hit any road bumps in Costa Rica, given that they predominantly speak Spanish, especially at the beginning when you were finding your feet?

Tristan:
I mean, it was a completely new language for me. I didn't speak any Spanish before moving to Costa Rica. And naively, I started learning like Spanish on Duolingo before I arrived, thinking that Spanish, Spain-Spanish would be the same, but it's not. Maybe you've experienced that in Chile.

Charlie:
It's so funny. I feel like our lives are very, very similar because you moved in when you were 25, didn't you? [Yes.] Yeah.

Tristan:
Yes. Correct.

Charlie:
Yeah, I was 24. 25. Yeah. And yeah, very similar scenario as to why you moved as well. So yeah, I was on Duolingo at the beginning and yeah, I quickly learned that it was pointless. [Yeah] That was a struggle for you?

Tristan:
Yeah, it was because I think I was like at the beginning, like going around town saying like, oh, "Que tal, que tal?" Which is another way of saying like, how are you? Or like, everything's okay, which is very, very Spanish. And they don't use it in Costa Rica. And I got a few looks and yeah, I realised that Costa Rica had its own kind of not version of Spanish dialect really, but every country in Latin America has its own kind of, yeah, [Phrases] version of Spanish. [Yeah] Yeah, phrases. For me, it's a bit simplified, like it's easier to learn, I think, than Spain Spanish.

Charlie:
Yeah. I mean, at the beginning with the conjugating, there's one less the 'vosotros' that doesn't need to be thought about so much at all really. But the so "Que tal?". So what is it? Como estas.

Tristan:
Or todo bien.

Charlie:
Todo bien.

Tristan:
It's like more of an informal way of saying, you know, how are you? Everything good? One thing that I noticed as well was that they use 'usted' a lot. And that's like a way of saying you and it's very formal in in Spain to use usted. But in Costa Rica it was like normal. Right. And that took me a long time to kind of adjust to to get used to saying that. People are very warm. You know, I think I talked about like people being very friendly. So a lot of people said, like Mi amor, at the end of every sentence, which means my love mi amor[okay]. Kind of like they had a very romantic way of speaking. It was obviously it's not meant romantically, but it's like when you go to the north of England there like. "You all right, love?" You know.

Charlie:
I see.

Tristan:
It's a bit more warm, a bit more friendly.

Charlie:
Or in the market. £2. Two punnets of strawberries for a pound, darling. Come on, darling. All right. Yeah. Come on over.

Tristan:
Yeah, exactly.

Charlie:
Okay. They said that they love you a lot. That's nice. Quite nice.

Tristan:
Yeah. It's just another way of saying love or. Yeah, like you said, darling. [Yeah] That's quite a good translation.

Charlie:
Were there any parts of English or British culture that the locals in Costa Rica seemed to really like?

Tristan:
The Premier League.

Charlie:
Yeah. You know what? Whenever I'd get in a taxi, they would always acknowledge that I'm British, and then they'd shout their favourite team at me.

Tristan:
Yeah, I think they don't have like obviously in France now, you know, I get a lot of comments about Brexit or royal family, you know, those kind of kind of things. But in Costa Rica they didn't really know much about like the history of the UK. I mean, for them it's very pretty far away. They know more about America, they have more connections with America probably because obviously their tourist industry is dominated by Americans. But one thing they like you said, the taxi drivers like as soon as you say you're British, they're like, Oh, Chelsea, man, United, what team? But I don't know if you know much about football, but one of their biggest players and legends is Keylor Navas.

Charlie:
Okay.

Tristan:
He's a goalkeeper that used to play for Real Madrid, and he's a legend. Like he's probably one of the best players they've ever produced, and he's still playing right now and he's playing for Nottingham Forest in the Premier League. [Okay] So there's been a big like increase in, in like people following English football.

Charlie:
Yes.

Tristan:
And so yeah.

Charlie:
You'd make friends if you say you support Nottingham Forest I assume. Yeah. Did you start saying that?

Tristan:
No I didn't. To be honest with you, I'm actually a big follower of Italian football. My father is Italian and he raised me on on Sarria, which is, you know, the Italian league. But I do follow Chelsea. Okay. Yeah. Guilty pleasure.

Charlie:
Used to go down down to Stamford Bridge in West London.

Charlie:
Very strange. Another similarity we have. I wasn't a huge football fan, but my uncle used to always take me to Stamford Bridge and get me a Chelsea shirt. Not every time. Of course. That would be spoilt. Okay. So nice. So football. They like the football. Anything else they like anything?

Tristan:
Yeah, I would say. Well not similarities. Well not things that they associate too much with with Britain. But one thing I wanted to say was they have a phrase in Costa Rica, which is "Ahorita, ahorita", which translates as now, soon or later. It's a bit difficult for us culturally to understand this because say, for example, like, I have a problem with my washing machine and this actually happened very often and I would call like a technician to come out and fix it and I would be like, okay, when can you come? And he would be like, "Ahorita, sí, ahorita". And I would be like, "Okay, that means now" "Err sí. Yeah. Ahorita." He didn't come for like five hours, you know, it was, it was crazy because they have this like it's, you know, it's the lifestyle. Obviously, you take things slow. People are quite late most of the time in England we're quite punctual.

Charlie:
In comparison, I would imagine. Yes. [Yeah] In comparison to Germans, maybe not. But yes, I think we would win [or the Japanese] Oh, Japanese, yes. Okay. So we're quite punctual in comparison. And they would say "Ahorita" So now, soon or later.

Tristan:
Yeah. Which could mean two minutes, ten minutes or tomorrow. You know, it's. It's really impossible.

Charlie:
I'll get to it at some point. I'll get to it.

Tristan:
Exactly. Which is why, like any kind of, I guess builder or person or technician or plumber or electrician it's like their favourite word because they can just delay doing the task for several days just by saying Ahorita.

Charlie:
Did you start to adopt that yourself? Or you found it very frustrating all the way through the whole experience that you were there.

Tristan:
I couldn't ditch my habit of being a very punctual Brit, right?

Charlie:
Which would probably.

Tristan:
I didn't adopt that phrase.

Charlie:
Yeah, that would probably make it more frustrating for you because you kept to your end of the agreement. You're like, "I'm here, I'm on time. Where are you?"

Tristan:
Exactly. Exactly. That is something that is like ingrained in my DNA. I can't get rid of that. Yeah, impossible for me.

Charlie:
Yeah. Fair enough. Four years there, you met your partner two years in, she's French, and now you're in France. Was the move mutual? Do you have an excited feeling towards this move, or was it - she was like, "I'm going back. Do you want to come?", kind of thing? How did that work out?

Tristan:
I think we both reached a point in Costa Rica where we'd felt like we'd experienced a lot. And I don't know about you, but when you travel and you live in a different country, when you stop appreciating some of the things, that's when it's the time to move on. For example, you know, I was in South East Asia for several months and visiting all these beautiful temples and eventually, you know, I get to some temples and I'm like, well, okay, it's just another temple.

Charlie:
I see what you mean.

Tristan:
And you're just. Like, okay, now it's time to go home because I'm not appreciating it as much as I should.

Charlie:
Yeah, the novelty has worn off. We had I mean, we we did 3 or 4 moves and each one was no longer than 3 or 4 years. And I tended to think that the first year is just so exciting. Everything's new. Second year you're settling in a little bit and the third year you kind of get to those things that you neglected and then it almost feels like you've completed the experience after the third year, in my opinion. Get what you mean. I get what you mean. Come to an end. It felt a natural end. And so France was an easy move for you in terms of not going back to the UK. You wanted to go to France.

Tristan:
Not an easy move because with a British passport I can only stay here for for three months. I've got a little bit of an issue to sort in terms of my my status here in this country.

Charlie:
Right.

Tristan:
Luckily, I'm in a situation where I can get dual nationality. For my Italian heritage.

Charlie:
Aha.

Tristan:
But I was in Italy recently and as a joke, a lot of people were saying, "all right, show me your documents. Are you legally allowed to be here?" It's very weird. As a British person. All your life you travel to Europe and and then suddenly, like the doors closed, it feels like, you know, we're not allowed to be here. [Yeah] It's very weird.

Charlie:
Yeah. You're probably one of the newest, not newest, but you know, an early-on relationship to experience this Brexit rejection of being able to live in mainland Europe. Yeah, that's good that you've got the Italian option. Are you going to do that?

Tristan:
Yeah. So luckily enough, I can. If I didn't have that option, then we would probably fast-track the wedding. Okay, we are engaged. [But congratulations] Don't plan on getting married like, thank you, anytime soon. Congratulations for you as well.

Charlie:
Thank you.

Tristan:
Are you married or are you engaged?

Charlie:
We're soon to be married August the 26th. So yeah. Two months and a bit.

Tristan:
Ah my birthday.

Charlie:
Oh, your birthday.

Tristan:
Fantastic. Yeah. August 26th. Exactly.

Charlie:
Okay.

Tristan:
So, yeah, I think naturally came to an end. The circle felt completed. I should also mention, you know, I've painted Costa Rica in a very positive light, as I should. It's a fantastic country, but of course, it's not always Paradise. And one of the downsides was that it rained for six months of the year.

Charlie:
Oh, did it?

Tristan:
Oh, yeah. I mean, a tropical climate.

Charlie:
Yeah.

Tristan:
It's wet.

Charlie:
It's humid. Is it constant rain or is it just like an hour shower a day?

Tristan:
Sometimes you had a week of constant rain. Yeah. [Wow] And one of the funny things was like if it rained, really rained and the rivers overflowed like you could find crocodiles in the street.

Charlie:
No.

Tristan:
Yeah.

Charlie:
What?

Tristan:
Yeah, I know. I saw a few things. Like I never saw it personally, but, I mean, there's plenty of crocodiles there. Yeah. We didn't touch too much on the animals, but.

Charlie:
Yeah, we didn't actually.

Tristan:
My alarm clock was the howler monkeys.

Charlie:
Oh, yeah. I remember you saying when we first met. Actually, yeah. The howler monkeys. They go on your roof?

Tristan:
They go on the roof and they literally like, I think they're the second loudest mammal in the. The second loudest mammal. Yeah. I don't know if they're the first or second, but they are bloody loud and that wakes you up and the first time you hear it when you're there, it's like a shock because it's such a strange noise. It's so bizarre.

Charlie:
I won't get you to imitate it. Goodness me.

Tristan:
No, no.

Charlie:
Yeah, that was something for me. In Australia, the birds were just so much louder, like really, really loud. And they would start at 5 or 6 in the morning. Howler Monkeys. Would they start at that time?

Tristan:
Usually in the morning. And I was in quite a rural area as well, so tons of cockerels as well. It was just like it was just loud in terms of, yeah, you would always hear some type of animal. A lot of dogs unfortunately barking. Doing classes for me was quite tough working from home because they would always be some kind of noise. One of the funniest things was maybe you saw this in Latin America, but they people drive around selling vegetables and fruit. So, like, vendors will just like kind of pack their trucks full of food and then they will have a big speaker on the top of the truck and a microphone, and they would just be shouting like "fresh mangoes or fresh papaya. Come and get your fresh papaya like $2", you know. And I was trying to do English classes and my students could just hear this in the background. And they were playing reggaeton at the same time, like blasting reggaeton music.

Charlie:
We have come to the end of part two now. So again, feel free to pause the episode to take a break from your listening practice and come back to the last part when you're ready. All right. So moving on to part three now. Enjoy. Gosh, it's like an ice cream vendor. Ice cream van. Ice cream van on steroids.

Tristan:
Yeah. Ice cream van.

Charlie:
But a healthy one, at least.

Tristan:
Yeah, definitely. That was that was another benefit. Obviously, the fresh fruit. Costa Rica is one of the biggest exporters of bananas and pineapples in the world.

Charlie:
Okay, So you had an abundance of that.

Tristan:
Bananas.

Charlie:
And I assume fairly affordable.

Tristan:
Yeah, They just tasted fresh, like almost free, like the bananas were almost free. It was ridiculous. Like, I think the equivalent of like £0.03 in the UK and mango trees everywhere, like you would just during mango season. You would go for a walk and just pick a mango off a tree.

Charlie:
Oh, that's really nice. Yeah. [Yeah] What about the coffee? Because I know that when I went to Colombia, I was assuming that the cafe culture would be incredible, but there wasn't loads of coffee shops there were some and there were some really good ones. But I was surprised, considering the global status that it has as coffee bean exporter. And then I realised, well, they're exporting it so much that they don't really keep it within. They obviously have enough, but you know what I mean. So with you, was it like that because Costa Rica exports a fair amount of coffee, I think.

Tristan:
Yeah, it's one of the biggest exporters as well of coffee and chocolate as well.

Charlie:
Mhm.

Tristan:
It's true. Like I think that if you look into the history of of coffee was a very European market and there was a boom in Europe of demand for coffee. And I think that coffee culture really came from Europe, but obviously it was grown and imported from Latin America. So yeah, they didn't have like amazing coffee shops or anything like that. That's definitely more of a European thing. But the, the coffee plantations, the farms, beautiful, like, you know, the way that they do it. Yeah. Have you ever been to a coffee farm?

Charlie:
I was just trying to think. I don't think I have. No.

Tristan:
It's really interesting. It's just the whole process is really interesting how they roast the beans, how they get the final product and the different flavours and the aromas, and then you can sample them. It's really, really interesting.

Charlie:
Yeah, I'd love to go. I think I saw one in Bali, but it was like the natural coffee that the there's a rodent that eats it and then poos it out and then they actually use that. Yeah, it's quite a delicacy.

Tristan:
They use it for what?

Charlie:
That's the actual bean now. So they digestion actually creates this sweetness or bitterness maybe to the bean. It's incredible to think of as the first time you hear it. It's like vomit kind of thing, but they really take it seriously. Yeah, quite treasured out there. But yeah, it wasn't like a big process like you're probably seeing. Okay, let's go to France. You move to France. You took the cat and you're in the farm. How long have you been there now?

Tristan:
It's been a bit of a crazy three weeks, so it's been in total three weeks. During that time I took a short trip to visit some family in Italy, so in total only two weeks, which is why it's really hard for me to kind of say a lot about France. And obviously I'm in a rural area, so I feel quite secluded. It's beautiful for that reason, but at the same time, like I need I'm getting I think I'm going to buy a car soon. [Yeah] Because without a car, like it's just impossible to stay connected with the world and.

Charlie:
How are you being received by French people as a Brit?

Tristan:
Pretty well. Took a car carpool recently. I don't. I've never used that in England before. Have you used a [Is it BlaBlaCar?] Carpool service? Yeah, it's BlaBlaCar. Yeah. Does that exist in England? [Yeah I've actually done it before]

Charlie:
It does. It's very popular in Germany. And when we were going from the south to the north of Germany, we did it ourselves, we hosted. And I think it's quite funny because you have to state whether you're 'blah', 'blah, blah' or 'blah, blah, blah', meaning how talkative you are. Did you see that, that status?

Tristan:
I didn't know that actually. That's actually quite cool. That might be why they came up with that name.

Charlie:
Yeah.

Tristan:
So I took it for the first time and I was very, you know, a little bit nervous to be in a car with basically just French speakers. And although my French is decent, it just I'd been on a long trip and I just jumped in a car with three strangers that spoke French. And immediately I like apologised for my bad French. Like it's like the first thing that I said. I was like, you know, really sorry, but I'm, I'm English, my French is not great. And they kind of just let me kind of left, left me alone for most of the journey, right? It was difficult for me to get engaged and involved in the conversation because they were talking very quickly. But there was no like animosity. Like, you know, they were like, oh, you know, welcome. It's maybe this area - Brittany - It's a popular tourist area, but yeah, maybe a lot of Brits move here. I'm not quite sure. I think there's an expat community here.

Charlie:
Yeah, but the French is going all right?

Tristan:
Yeah. It's not bad. Yeah. Like I said, I had a bit of a warm-up, let's say, in Costa Rica, because I was surrounded by this this expat community of French. So my listening skills and so my listening skills were great. And now that I'm putting it into practice, but it's bad because I'm limited with, with the amount of people, the interaction I have on a daily basis working from home on a secluded farm. [Yeah] So mostly with my girlfriend's family, which is great. You know, I still get to practice. [Yeah] But but I went to a golf club recently. I don't play golf, but we just went to this place and.

Charlie:
Can I just pause you there, Tristan? Yeah, sure. I know why. But for the listeners, why did you just state that after the. I don't. You said I went to the golf club. I don't play golf. Why did you state that?

Tristan:
Because. Yeah, maybe because we associate golf with upper class, maybe like more posh people.

Charlie:
And so you don't want to be considered that class.

Tristan:
Yeah, that's interesting. You're getting into, like, my psychology now for like, this is a counselling session.

Charlie:
No, but it's just interesting, like because an outsider might, (don't think they would think this) but just want to be extra clear - It's not about the higher the better. And a lot of people want to make it clear what class they are and they're very proud of it. And I think you're almost suggesting there that you don't want to be labelled something that you feel like you're not or you're passionate about not being that version of it.

Tristan:
Yeah, it's true. No, it is a very good point. I think that we associate golf with middle class, upper class, and it's not like I don't want to associate with that. But. But it's not my it's not my thing. I don't know. It's just like it's like this golf club was very, very posh and it's definitely not my thing. Like I was there and I felt really out of place, right? Like the dress code, they were all wearing, like everyone was wearing either white or blue shirts. And I was like there with my cheap Costa Rican supermarket sunglasses that I bought for like a euro. And I felt really out of place. That's true. You know, like I associate myself with more of, like, a football lad in class. Yeah, I think that's true, actually. It's a very good point.

Charlie:
Yeah.

Tristan:
I went to this golf club and then this woman was just like, You have a British accent when you speak. And yeah, I didn't know what to think about that. Like, is that a good thing? You know? Should I be proud of that?

Charlie:
Oh, sorry. When you're speaking French?

Tristan:
Exactly. Yeah, when I'm speaking French.

Charlie:
Okay.

Tristan:
And I don't know, maybe British people, when they try and learn another language, they really try hard to remove that accent. I don't. I didn't even realise I'm doing it. Of course, you don't realise.

Charlie:
Yeah, that's a big thing for me with with learning Spanish. I really don't want to sound British. And I tried to make that point with an English learner because she was saying you should never market it as 'sound like a native' because English is a global language. It's a lingua franca for many people. So it should be an identity in many ways can be each person's identity and it doesn't have to be British, which is right. But at the same time, for me, learning Spanish, I want to sound like a local Spanish speaker. Confusing for me for that part. And I can imagine for you, you don't want to sound British when you're trying to speak French.

Tristan:
I think it's true for every language learner doesn't matter where they're from, they kind of want to remove their native accent whilst they're speaking a different language. That gives me motivation. It gives me a little bit of a push to say, All right, well, one day, you know, someone might not realise that I'm British when I'm speaking. Speaking French.

Tristan:
That's the target, I guess.

Charlie:
Don't know if this is compliment or not, but I think you could get away with looking French.

Tristan:
Yeah, I mean, I've been told because I have Italian heritage, I kind of a lot of people say, you know, "where are you from?" I definitely don't have a British typical British face, let's say, if there is such a thing. I dunno.

Charlie:
Yeah.

Tristan:
But for example, when I went to Colombia, I went to a really rough football match. I was completely alone and I was in like one of the, like the the hooligan areas. [wow, brave] And I thought that this is going to be tough. Yeah, I thought this is going to because I love travelling and going to all of these different football matches all over the world and I thought, this is going to be I'm going to stand out. You know, they're going to say, "Oh, get, get out of here. You know, you're not from here." But no, like I kind of looked around and I was like, Oh, "I kind of fit in a little bit here. I could be Colombian."

Charlie:
Nice.

Tristan:
So I'm a bit of a chameleon. Really?

Charlie:
Yeah.

Tristan:
Yeah. Not Costa Rican, though. Well, maybe.

Charlie:
Are chameleons in Costa Rica. Is that another animal?

Tristan:
Yes, I think so. I think so. I think they have chameleons. I'm not sure. Iguanas? No. Iguana is the big one. [Iguanas] Basically, there were these massive iguanas that would just sit in the middle of the road. They're like little dinosaurs, you know, they're massive. One other thing I wanted to mention, actually, actually two other things, right, is that basically one of the shocks for me was seeing machetes everywhere.

Charlie:
Oh, chopping down bananas. And..

Tristan:
It's just like it's a tool. It's just a very common tool that local people use because the vegetation is so dense. [Yeah] Especially during the rainy season. They would need to use machetes to clear the path to chop down trees, whatever. But if you go to some areas, you would see like children walking along with machetes.

Charlie:
Wow.

Charlie:
And open-toed shoes as well.

Tristan:
Yeah, well, I didn't wear shoes for like four years.

Charlie:
Really? No shoes at all?

Tristan:
Yeah.

Charlie:
Not even flip-flops?

Tristan:
Flip flops yes. But like, a lot of the time, people would just go barefoot.

Charlie:
Gosh, did your under sole or the sole of your foot get very thick and coarse?

Tristan:
Yeah, it hardened. Definitely hardened. Yeah. I think one of the beautiful things also was that Costa Rica is a very clean country. They look after their country. So there wasn't a fear of like stepping on glass or rubbish or pretty especially in the rural countryside. It's very, very clean. So yeah, like machetes was one of the things I was kind of surprised about and one of my favourite things. Sorry if I'm going on.

Charlie:
No, I love it.

Tristan:
But basically like the supermarkets were incredible because okay, one thing in the UK we have so much choice. Like one thing I learned to appreciate was the selection that we have and the variety that we have in the UK. You know, we have everything we want right from all over the world, the supermarkets and the food in Costa Rica, you know, it's quite limited. You pay a lot of money for anything that's imported, but like the shopping experience was hilarious sometimes because similar to the vendors that come around the road, like I explained, that sell the fruit and veg, they would play like loud, loud music in the supermarkets. Someone would just have like one of the cashiers would be in control of Spotify, and depending on their mood, they would just play like salsa or other types of like really kind of cool Latin music. Yeah, a lot of the workers would finish, like construction workers or farmers. They would finish a long day of work and they would go to the supermarket. Buy some beer and just sit outside the supermarket.

Charlie:
Oh, and that was the music.

Tristan:
So it would turn into a bar. Yeah, it would turn into, like, a pretty, you know, a decent bar. And. Yeah, it was just like if you went there at 6 p.m., you would just see so many people standing outside the supermarket drinking beer and listening to reggaeton.

Charlie:
Because you get cheap beer at the supermarket.

Tristan:
Yeah. Yeah. It's cheaper. Cheaper, definitely.

Charlie:
Funny, you know. "What did you do last night?" "I went to the supermarket" "Oh, was it a big one?" "Oh, you can say that"

Speaker3:
Gosh, that's really strange.

Tristan:
That was the pre-drinks. The pre-drinks was always outside the supermarket, which I think people do in the UK, like outside the corner shop or the off-licence.

Charlie:
I think when you're 16. But you know, once you can actually get a beer.

Tristan:
What do you mean? I still do that.

Tristan:
Yeah, I'm going to do that next week when I go back. Just stand outside with a with a bottle of whisky.

Charlie:
I'll come and spot you.

Charlie:
Right. Yeah. That's a that's a fascinating one. I've not heard that at all. In all my travels! I actually need to go in a couple of minutes. But did you say there was another thing you said "There's two more things I want to say."

Tristan:
No, sorry. I'm going. I keep going back to Costa Rica. But in terms of France, like because I know you wanted to talk more about France. Like one funny thing is that, like in my girlfriend's house, they have a drawer in the freezer, which is like full of baguettes and like, it's a magical drawer because no matter how many baguettes I eat, like, it always seems to just refill by itself. And I have no idea who is putting those baguettes in the drawer.

Charlie:
And don't ask, don't ruin it.

Charlie:
Just keep it in an infinity drawer of baguettes.

Tristan:
Yeah, it's incredible. I'm definitely going to get fat here from bread and cheese.

Charlie:
Yeah, but that's what what confuses me, because I don't think of French people as overly fat. Like Brits are way worse.

Tristan:
Yeah, true. You know, I'd say a more higher fat diet considering all the the sliced meats and paté. Maybe is bad for you? I'm not sure.

Charlie:
I imagine too much of anything is bad for you especially. Yeah Paté, but yeah, I guess it's maybe the frozen meals and the processed foods that we consume. Fast food and fast food. Yeah, they're more authentic, basic ingredients that are more natural and easier to digest. I guess so, yeah. Keep the baguettes going, but maybe a little bit of protein as well.

Charlie:
Yeah, a bit of frogs legs.

Charlie:
Frogs legs and snails.

Tristan:
Yeah. And snails of course.

Tristan:
Need to go and catch some this afternoon.

Charlie:
Yeah.

Charlie:
Gosh that's the easiest hunt, isn't it? Like you don't have to be quick.

Tristan:
During the when it's raining right. I mean it's quite dry now in France. I don't know how easy they would be to find.

Charlie:
Yeah. [Yeah] But like, as as a, like a thing to catch. It's not exactly like you've got to be quick.

Tristan:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah, of course. You just have to know where to look.

Charlie:
I loved this. Absolutely loved this. I feel like if you would be willing, maybe after a few more experiences in France, we could talk more about your, your culture shocks and your habits that you've picked up in France other than, you know, habituating towards the baguette drawer in the freezer.

Tristan:
It would be a pleasure. No, it's been it's been really, really fun. Cool. Yeah. My first my first podcast experience. Really cool. Yeah. Thanks a lot.

Charlie:
Very impressive. Thank you very much, Tristan. I'll put some links to some things in the show notes and let everyone know in the outro after this where to go. But yeah, it was a pleasure and I look forward to having you back on the show soon. Bye bye, everybody. And well done for getting to the end of this extended podcast. Thank you, Tristan. Well, there we have it, guys. The end of that conversation with Tristan. Quite a journey from the UK to Costa Rica and on to France. I particularly enjoyed the supermarkets and how they would become the pre-drinks for the evening because of the people on the checkout tills being able to operate the sound system in the supermarket. Love that, love hearing that. And I was astonished that Tristan really almost didn't wear shoes for four years. Incredible. And again, the pace of life, the priorities in life as well. You know, the West typically, I say the West, but it's you know, the West is a very ambiguous term nowadays. How could I label it? The countries that associate themselves heavily with capitalism really push hard on progressing as fast as possible in your career to chase a better salary, a better life, supposedly, and being able to afford all these materialistic things. But do we need them? That's a very good question that has been raised in this episode. It seems that typically people within Costa Rica have a very different way of life, and perhaps it's the way that we should be looking towards things calming down, slowing down and being less frantic, taking in the important things in life, family, relationships, and enjoying yourself.

Charlie:
I would like a lot more of that. I don't know if I want howler monkeys waking me up at the crack of dawn. I think I could go without that. But yeah, very interesting. Thank you, Tristan, for sharing your experiences and insights with us. As always. We'll be back with another exciting episode of the British English podcast very soon. So whether you're based in the UK, Costa Rica, France or anywhere else in the world, stay tuned. We don't need to say stay tuned. It's not a bloody radio station. Stay subscribed, keep following. You know what you've gotta do. Just, you know, do that. But yes, time to say goodbye. Finally, I'm your host, Charlie Baxter, signing off. Until next time, pura vida! Can I say that? I don't know if that makes sense, but yeah. Have a more relaxed attitude towards life, no matter the circumstance. I Like it. All right. See you next time, guys. There we go. The end of part three, meaning the end of the episode. Well done for getting through the entirety of it. Make sure you use all of the resources available to you in your membership. Thanks once again for supporting the show and I look forward to seeing you next time on the British English podcast.