Sound Advice

Saturday evening was our official going away party for our friends, which was lovely. It was nice to see people and get caught up. Many of our friends stayed in touch through us, so many were happy to have an occasion to get caught up with each other as well as bid us farewell. I teared up a few times saying farewell to good friends - but overall tried not to hug anyone too hard or linger too long on wondering if we would see them again - either in Oaxaca, Toronto, or elsewhere.

When two of our friends left, I shared with them that they had given us some of the best advice we ever had received about immigrating to another country. They both immigrated to Canada not so long ago, and told us that they made the mistake of treating the first 6 months they were here like a vacation. This piece of advice really resonated with us - how rich do you think you are when on vacation?

Some other great advice we received:

• Buy a sombrero as wide as your hips to make sure you stay shaded
• There is always a spare room available at a friends place to come back and visit
• You will eventually be stopped and asked for money - 17 years of good fortune in this area has to dry up sometime
• Just because some people eat it, does not mean you should eat it
• As we were downsizing and getting rid of our belongings, a friend told us that if we had things that held a memory but we did not want to get rid of them, to take a picture of the item and then donate it. the picture would bring back the memory just as fondly and sweetly as the actual article, but it was a whole lot easier to pack

I am sure there are more that escape me right now, but I thought I'd get these down to encourage you to consider other gems that should make up this collection.