Thanks for stopping by AiM, hope all is well!

Made it to Acapulco! This will be my grind station for the next week. Probably more relaxing, reading, and studying than grinding, but I'll still set a goal for 20-25 hours of poker for the week. The condo also has their own little private beach, so I'll check that out a few times. Maybe not the best moment for a vacation, but w/rideshare for transportation and the condo/beach situation I actually won't be coming in contact with all that many people.

Oh and to drive home the point that the meditation routine is starting to take hold, there's this. I HATE getting up early and I had a 8:20AM rideshare to Acapulco scheduled, but instead of just sleeping in until the latest moment possible, I decided to get up early a 7AM to knock out my 20 minute meditation routine and then take care of my other stuff before leaving.

How much for this place per month if you know?

It's tough to say b/c it's on AirBNB and you never know how much of a deal you can get if you haggle on a monthly price.

I paid $390 total for 7 nights. I think it was listed at $90/night and I offered $45 and he countered w/this offer. AirBNB service fees seem like they get worse all the time as well.

The place is pretty massive though, 3 bedrooms and 3 baths w/mini-bar, large lounge area and sizable balcony, although it's a bit old. It did the job for me though as I wanted to be hanging out on the balcony 90% of the time when I wasn't at the pool, private beach, or walking the city.

Acapulco has one of my favorite climates. Low to mid 80s for highs and low 70s at night year round. It's a bit hot during the day but immaculate at night. Not really that big a fan of the city, seems obvious its' heyday is long past, although the Bay is beautiful and the beaches are nice. I'd say 6/10 for the city and 8/10 for the condo. Main advantage is that it's the closest beach to CDMX (4 hour drive), so it might be ok for a quick getaway every now and then, otherwise I prob wouldn't ever go out of my way to visit again when there are so many great beaches in Mexico.

Good to read that you're taking a little R&R at the beach....and $56/night for a 3/3 condo on the beach--nicely done! Those Airbnb service fees are a ***** though...

Sorry to hear that the Acapulco's shine has faded, though I'm sure that was no surprise to you. I guess it's got a reputation as one of those areas in Mexico with a high level of narco activity and associated violence, but since you won't be doing anything stupid or any degen partying it won't affect you.

So what's the Covid situation like in Acapulco and in CDMX? Are most shops/restaurants/resorts fully open now?

Ever been to Zihuatanejo? I've been wanting to visit there, mostly just 'cause that's where Andy in Shawshank Redemption escaped to.

Hope you enjoy the beach, send us some food porn!

Yah, I knew what to expect going in and I'd say it was right around those expectations.

As far as violence/danger level, didn't see anything out of the ordinary the entire week, although I didn't leave the tourist areas.

I was actually already on the way back when I read your post, so no food porn, but there wouldn't have been much to post anyway as I only went to 2 restuarants (tacos al pastor and a seafood place, both were good, not great). I cooked most of my meals and tried not to engage in too much risky activity considering covid. Speaking of covid, lots of things starting to open up around Mexico, but I'd say covid is still pretty rampant. In Acapulco I couldn't visit San Diego Fort, which was about the only tourist thing I wanted to do. In CDMX, lots of places open but with limited/reduced hours.

Zihua is on my radar, but there are like a million beaches in Mexico and I'd say the beaches in Oaxaca are at the top of the list. Also might do Puerto Vallarta later this year. Covid really put a damper on Mexico travel plans otherwise I probably would've done an additional 3-4 trips this year.

Hoping I'm finally coming around health-wise. I've played a handful of 2 hour sessions to start this week and haven't had the dizzy/whoozy feeling when I finish.

Of course, now a new slight issue has popped up. My ear started bothering me last night and I had trouble sleeping. Went to the doc and I guess I picked up an ear infection from the pool/beach in Acapulco, but hopefully the drops I got will clear it up soon. I can't seem to catch a break w/health lately!

With the reduction in poker hours over the past few weeks I've been focusing on betting Liga MX soccer a little bit and had a couple nice hits so I decided to treat myself.

I'm not overly materialistic when it comes to a lot of things, with my disposable income I prefer to spend the majority of it on trips or experiences or little gifts for the girlfriend. I don't even own a working watch, a car, any jewelry, and fancy clothes (apart from AE Strands). I guess my only big purchase was a Nintendo Switch last year, but apart from that, I haven't been spending much.

Anyway, growing up I liked playing basketball and always tried saving up allowance money for Jordans whenever I could. Haven't really had the need to buy basketball shoes lately, but I saw some Jordan 1 lows that looked pretty cool and something I could get some decent use out of b/c I wear a lot of red. So I splurged on these. I'm not a sneaker head at all, but they seem pretty cool to me.

The stoics wouldn't approve and I'm fully aware it's a needless purchase, but I think it's nice to have a little reward every now and then for the hard work put it on the poker/sports betting grind (well, more the study grind, but I think it's showing dividends in my results/confidence).



-Epictetus

First week with the girlfriend and dog moved in to my place has passed and I would say it was a success. Also last Sunday, my girlfriend's family (parents and younger sister) came over and I ordered wings and then we played Nintendo Switch for awhile. It was hilarious to see how much her parents were getting into the game SnipperClips. Definitely a great game for both experienced gamers and people w/0 gaming experience. They ended up staying from 4-11 PM. So it's nice to know that her family seems to accept me and the new living situation and that I get along well w/her parents. I'm looking forward to more family outings.

My other concern was with my meditation, but my girlfriend has already accepted that it's part of my routine and it hasn't been an issue. So I've officially completed a full month of meditating one hour daily! Something I probably would never have thought possible when I was struggling even maintaining 10 minutes a day. I think I thrive on structure, so when I know I have to meditate right upon waking, after a mid-day poker session, and right before bed, I can do so without hesitation.

Since I probably need to get out of Mexico for a little while before coming back to renew my visa, my girlfriend and I decided to spend the Winter in Rio for a 3-month vacay. We're both already pretty excited and have both started learning Portuguese. It's been a lot of fun, and as I've mentioned in the past, I really enjoy the process of going from a 0/10 in a language to a 7/10. It's just the fine-tuning stage going from high intermediate to full proficiency that I find tedious.

So in only 3 days I've already put in a bunch of hours on Duolingo, studied pronunciations w/the pronunciation trainer from Gabriel Wyner, and started a 5000 word vocab course on Memrise. My knowledge of French and Spanish (Portuguese is super close to Spanish) is helping a lot and I also think my brain is more used to the process. So I think after 2.5 months of prep work and then 3 months in Brazil that I might actually be able to get myself fairly close to fluency. We'll see. Optimistic target, but for now I'm riding the wave of trying something new and getting in as many hours as possible.

For poker, the goal is simply to average 4 hours a day for the rest of the year. So 40 hours for the rest of September, then 120/month for the last 3 months. The last month I've been putting in time on PLO Vision and drilling almost every conceivable preflop spot, so I'm hoping to really nail down my strategy over the coming weeks with a bit of review on close spots.

Re: girlfriend and dog moving in. Her dog is really great and has already taken to me. It's a tiny Chihuahua that probably sleeps or lies in someone's lap 20 hours a day. But then when you're ready for a walk, it gets all excited and seemingly has endless energy. He's even super eager now to jump in my lap when I get my meditation cushion ready. Probably b/c he knows it will be 20 minutes of uninterrupted rest.

The only minor concern I have with the whole moving in process is time management. For example, some days my girlfriend and I might wake up at 9 or 10, fool around for a while, eat breakfast, relax for a bit, take the dog for a walk, study a bit, I might do a 2-hour poker session, then I look up and it's already 6PM and I wonder where all the time went. I feel now that there's not enough time in the day to hang out w/the dog and gf and do all I'd like to do during the day. I suppose it's a normal feeling as going from complete freedom living alone, to having someone else around all the time (and a dog) is quite a big change. I believe I can adapt, but it will require better time management skills than I've been able to employ in the past.

Congrats on a successful first week and maintaining meditation and happiness levels friend

Wow, really : I could not imagine for the life of me learning a new language, now and perhaps never again A couple of questions, what would be a 10/10 for you? Would be simply being fluent as a local, or moreso mastering the language and reaching (the almost unreachable) literary levels? And since you are just about always speaking in Spanish with your gf (right?), don't you think you will speak as fluently as in English soon enough?

Thanks my friend.

I just enjoy the process of learning a new language, even if the next languages after Spanish are not very useful for me. It's like a hobby and I actually enjoy the hour I spend on Duolingo or learning Portuguese pronunciations.

A 10/10 I'd say is being able to understand everything going on movies, being in large groups in a bar and knowing everything that was going on, and being able to express yourself without pauses or needing to search for words, even if your vocab isn't as expansive as your native language. The literary levels would be an 11/10 imo

With Spanish, I'd say maybe in 10-15 of living in Mexico and speaking with my girlfriend, possibly I could approach the same level as in English. But I've reached a level where I'm ok with my ability to speak and understand so probably won't put any more formal study into my Spanish, just passively expanding through everyday life, and occasionally looking up words or searching for a grammar article for help.

The interesting thing is that language mastery is very fluid and you can sometimes backtrack in languages. I'd say my peak in French was a bit higher than my current Spanish level, but has since dropped since I've almost not spoken it in 3 years.

So I'd say currently:

English 10/10
Spanish 7/10
French 5/10 (peak was 7.5/10)
Portuguese 1/10

I don't think it'd take too much work to get French back to a 7/10, and hoping to have Portuguese up to like a 4 or 5/10 by the time I leave Brazil in March 2021.

Eventually I'd like to tackle Italian, since it seems like the romance languages become quite easy once you have a couple under your belt. After that, maybe German, but I couldn't see going beyond 6 b/c it would just be too difficult to learn something like Japanese or Russian w/almost 0 commonality w/my current languages. That would feel more like work than fun.

Been following your posts since the thread in the travel forum but I don't read every one from beginning to the end so might have missed something, how except duolingo do you learn these languages? I think I'm naturally talented towards learning languages and during my stay in Vietnam I figured out that speaking only one foreign language is nowhere near enough so would like to learn more on my own but idk how to tackle that (except mentioned earlier Duolingo, Memrise etc). English was natural cuz it was spoken everywhere on the internet/games etc and we had lessons in kindergarten/school but other ones? Do you have any other tips/pages/apps/methods except learning from music/tv shows etc?

Regards/GL

My early strategy when learning a language is to familiarize myself w/pronunciations, learn basic grammar, and start building a vocab base so I'm splitting my team between the pronunciation trainer found at FluentForever, doing Duolingo courses, and vocab on Memrise.

I'll probably continue like this until I've been studying a month, then I'll start working in more listening practice. I'll search for a couple beginner podcasts and watch a couple vids from the Easy Portuguese youtube channel. I'll continue growing vocab and grammar.

After about 2 months I'll probably either look for a language partner or take some classes with a Portuguese teacher to practice conversing.

Beyond that, I just try to do things I love doing anyway, but just in Portuguese. I love Netflix, so I'll search for a couple series, I like soccer, so I'll look up news on the Brazilian and Portuguese leagues and maybe watch matches in Portuguese. Reading and viewing travel blogs/vlogs on the best spots in Brazil/Portugal.

And the best way is definitely spending an extended period of time in a country that speaks your language, so the 3 months in Brazil should help me advance quite a bit in the language.

Hope that helps to give you some ideas. GL

3% which is a Brazilian Netflix series ; it is in the vein of many adolescent/strong women character leads a la 100 or whatever, but the characters are more interesting even if the story can be stale and predictable. I recommend. I would also recommend going back and watching City of God and Elite Squad and Elite Squad 2 (one of the few sequels where the latter >>>>> the original ).

I already watched all of 3% except for the newest season. I think I'll probably rewatch it soon w/Portuguese subs since I already know the story so if I miss a lot, it won't matter too much. Although tbh, I thought season 1 was very good and season 3 was pretty meh.

City of God is amazing and I'm definitely wanting to rewatch it w/Portuguese subs.

I've actually never seen either of the Elite Squads, so thanks for the rec, will definitely be checking them out.

I've heard that The Clone is excellent as well, so that's one I'd like to check out.

some of that foreign netflix content is really good, like Elite which was made in Spain

Yah, the majority of series I watch these days are foreign language series on Netflix. I liked season 1 of Elite and have seen a bunch of other Spanish series like Ingobernable, Casa de las Flores, Club de Cuervos, etc.

Agree : I enjoyed the first season but then it felt like recycled material with no direction whatsoever. Elite Squad 2 is GOAT

Hi there, just found your threat (did only read the last pages though) and its quiet interesting as I just returned to Mexico from Medellin. I was already in Playa and Mexico City last year and am now in Guadalajara.

Are you back in Mexico City yet? You still do your "Visa runs"?
For how long have you been doing it and might there be another way to stay for longer as 6 month without marrying a girl?

I will stay in G till the end of the month and thinking about which place to go next.

Puerto Vallarta - I always wanted to go but somehow the apartments on airbnb are far to expensive for what you get.

I guess I will make a short trip for some days to see if I like it and if I the locals rent out at a better price / value.

Maybe I will also return to CDMX as I need to renew my passport.

Great work with the meditation I do it everytime I wake up no matter at what time.

Keep it up.

wow. I was in Guadalajara 2015/16. Gl bros/amigos! subbed!

I heard of the apps to learn real fast. But I think talking to locals is the best way.

I stayed in PV for about a year recently, just moved to CDMX for a minute. If anybody wants any intel on PV reach out. I would highly recommend NOT staying in Centro/old town.

If anyone is around CDMX send me a DM let's link up. Havent visited a casino (yet)