Raising Español

We\u2019re back! After our summer break we\u2019ve started recording again and are starting with five things we learned during our break as we continued our journey.

It's been almost a year since we started this podcast. Amazing how time flies! We've loved sharing our story with you along the whole way. As we looking to grow and expand the show we're going to take a break for the summer as we look into other options (Instagram, YouTube, etc.)

We hope to hear from you about what you've liked the most and that we can return soon!

¡Gracias por Escuchar!
Ben y Jennie

We continue to start off the show speaking in Spanish. Jennie’s back from Chile and ready to share about her time in Santiago and the coastline of Chile. She loved speaking in Spanish while there and has some fun experiences to share. We couldn’t fit it all in one episode so catch part 2 next week!

We also started a new community over on Patreon where you can support the show and continue our Spanish converstaions. Ciao! Gracias por escuchar!

¡Feliz Año Nuevo! We’re excited to join you in the new year and all that it will bring. This week we reflect on the year that past and our goals for 2017. We also found this hilarious article about speaking Spanglish in the San Diego reader which had us laughing mucho! ¡Gracias por Escuchar!

We hear a lot from people that they’re scared to cross the border and visit Tijuana and Baja California. In this episode we share our experiences and some research we’ve done to help understand this fear better.

It all started around 2008 when the Mexican President at the time began to fight the Tijuana Cartel to reduce violence. This lead to a weaker cartel which then lead to a turf war between the Tijuana and Sinaloa cartels. During this time there were many cases of murder and violent crimes in the border town, which scared off virtually all tourists. Even those of us that had been visiting there for years.

We spoke with several friends and acquaintances and couldn’t find anyone that had spent any fair amount of time down there that had any fear of visiting.

Ben did some research as well into the crime statistics for Mexico and he found:
Tijuana is the 22nd most crime stricken city in Mexico
Of the crime in Tijuana only 9% is violent
Tijuana has 28% less homicides than Chicago

Ben just got back from his trip to Mexico city so we sat down to hear how it went. Ben was there with his brother for his bachelor party (Despedida de Soltero) and visited many areas, the huge park Chapultepec, and enjoyed a ton of great food.

Ben stayed in Downtown near the Palacio de Las Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) which was filled with tons of people on the weekend for shopping and eating. Shopping is organized into separate areas based on the type of items (Medical supplies, Men’s Clothing, etc.) and there were lots of people trying to get you to buy their products as is typical in a busy shopping area.

Most of the time Ben was in La Roma and La Condeza area however. These areas are known as a Hipster area which means great food and drinks as well as beards and skinny jeans. At night these areas came alive with a vibrant young community that is progressing the cuisine and cocktail scene.

Beyond the hipster areas Ben and his brothers went to the “Central Park” of Mexico Ci

We’re so excited to share with you our recent trip down to Valle de Guadalupe! If you’re not familiar, this is Baja’s burgeoning wine country that sits just east of Ensenada about 1.5hrs south of San Diego.

For the drive down we took the 1D freeway which is a toll road because it is generally free of traffic and well maintained. This freeway also runs along the mostly undeveloped coastline of Baja which is beautiful.

After arriving we were blown away by how many wineries (vinicolas) and restaurants are there. Valle is home to 110 wineries and some of the best restaurants in the world. Our first stop was at Lechuza winery which was unfortunately closed due to an upcoming festival and being completely booked.

After trying a couple other wineries we discovered that during this month (Fiesta de Vendimia) most wineries are only open on Saturday and Sunday for tasting or by appointment only. Make sure to check before heading down!

For a late lunch / early dinner we were fortunate to get

¡Hola, Mucho Gusto!

We are Jennie and Ben Sullins hosts of Breaking Español the Podcast. Recording after our young son Jack goes to sleep.

We started this journey because we believe having compassion for other cultures starts with speaking their language. After a few trips to Europe and Latin America, we decided it was time to commit and actually learn a second language. Living in Southern California, Spanish was an obvious choice.

Now we are in a race to learn Spanish faster than our son as he is starting so young. We love the food, the tequila, and traveling to latin countries as often as we can to try and immerse ourselves in the culture and gain that compassion.

On the show, we chat about:
- The ups and downs of learning a new language
- Finding the time to learn - What has and hasn’t worked
- How we stay inspired to keep going
- Our experiences raising our child bilingual
- How to get past the timidness of speaking
- Traveling through Latin America - and much more…

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