Serenity Pearlman is an 11 year old originally from California, who is now living in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain’s Canary Islands.
Joining us is Serenity’s dad, Shane. Who is the CEO of Modern Tribe, a fully remote digital agency with team members all over the world. They’ve worked with some of the biggest brands in the world, like Nike, Microsoft, and Harvard University.
In this episode we discuss:
- The difference between being a “digital nomad” versus actually settling into a new home in a foreign land
- What Serenity’s life is like as a kid growing up in the Canary Islands
- Why Serenity started blogging about her adventures around Gran Canaria
- Why Shane (and Serenity’s mom) want their kids to have the experience of growing up outside the United States
Links:
- Serenity’s Blog: Traveling with Serenity
Listen and Subscribe on:
Transcript
Neville Mehra
This is a very special episode of never normal. I have two guests. Serenity Pearlman is an 11 year old originally from California, who is now blogging about her life living in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Joining us is Serenity’s dad, Shane. Shane is the CEO of Modern Tribe, a fully remote digital agency, with team members all over the world. I’m a new dad of this that you’ve been at this for a little over a decade now. And both of us prior to that were sort of more nomadic, you know, traveling around, I think there’s sort of an impression that it’s like, almost like a hedonistic thing to do a kind of like a, you know, a single man’s game, obviously, women travel too, but like, there’s this impression that it’s, you know, like, you’re a guy, you’re maybe like a backpack or you know, you’re traveling around the world. And it’s like a phase that you need to go through, and then get it out of your system. And usually, like, especially in the old days, right, if you were traveling and working, maybe you like you know, did a few shifts at the youth hostel or you were a bartender or you like, you know, help people learn to scuba diver. And so with your company with modern tribe, right, you’ve you not only remote yourself, and being able to work from anywhere, but you hire people who are remote, you’re kind of helping write the book, so to speak, on remote work. And then I mean, I think you and I are both advocates for remote work and the movement and you know, we kind of go to the same conferences and things. So that’s all again, from like a business perspective, but you’re going through it now, you know, as a family, man, and you’ve made this work. And that’s what I think is so interesting, because I you know, I don’t think you’re just sort of some, you know, weirdo who wants to live in different places and work remotely. I think you’re really just a few years ahead of what I expect will be a wave of people doing something similar, right? With the pandemic, we’ve had a lot of companies go either remote first, or at least become more accepting of remote work. And we’re seeing more and more like office workers who are able to do their work from anywhere.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, I think it’s really important to separate between the Nomad culture and community and location independence, there is overlap. And there’s a lot of value in both communities. Like my wife, my wife doesn’t understand what I get frustrated when somebody tries to call me a nomad. And I’m like, I’m not we don’t move. We live here. We’re embedded. She Exactly. You just pay taxes, we go to school, we just do more than where she was born. And so for me, like the value of remote work has always been the idea that I could work from anywhere, not because I want to shift and move and explore constantly. that’s never been my personal drive. I’ve always been more interested in the idea that then we can go to a place and stay there for for a real period of time to the point where we break through the cyclical tourism barrier. You know, like I definitely call us at a minimum short term residents,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
if not long term residents, like we usually lay route. I’m in Valencia in Spain and you are in Spain also, but not on the continent of Europe. Where are you today?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
We’re in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the little Canary Islands, they are closer to Africa and Spain, but they’re still in Spain still
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
in Spain. Very cool. And you are 11 still today get
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
that right. Yeah.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I turn 12 in two months.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Now we’re almost and how long have you lived in Las Palmas? Now?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I moved to a little tiny maybe a month or two a few months after my ninth birthday. So I’ve been here for almost three years.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah. Two, two and a half coming on? Coming on three years soon. Yeah.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Two and a half years. Wow. And you moved from from the states from California? Was it
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
from Santa Cruz? Or capitola?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, California, which is where the for people who have no idea where Santa Cruz is?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
It’s in the northern part. Yep. near your San Francisco. Yeah. New Cisco and through much colder. They’re
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
almost three years. That’s a long time. But I imagine you still remember life back in California. Well, let me ask this to you. What do you feel is a kind of the biggest difference from living in California to where you live now in Las Palmas.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
There are a few big difference number one is it’s really hot here. And light, only a tiny bit after December and I’m in the sun dress. Also you speak Spanish here. That’s true. That’s a big difference. And it’s a private school or public
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
school to private school. That was a big difference.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
And I’m now learning four languages. Instead of one Oh,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
okay, so English is your native language obviously. Of course you’re learning Spanish. And two more.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yes, I’m learning French that’s family’s French and I’m learning Chinese. Oh,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
wow, that’s really cool. And in school do you speak mostly English with your teachers and classmates are mostly Spanish or how does it work?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
So the normal classes such as math, lingual, computer class, and stuff are splits in between English and Spanish. Like in Spanish I have. I have math like language, music, and computers and English. I have robotics, which is like Legos. But with robot parts,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
you get to take a robotics class. Yes,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
we definitely didn’t have robotics class when I was a kid. That’s awesome. jealous. So So classes are in a mix of English and Spanish, depending on the class. But it’s not only the language classes.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Exactly. So every year they elect which classes in English, which classes in Spanish, so for a year, you might take biology and Spanish and math in English, and then it’ll switch the following year, the
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
three years I’ve been, we’ve always had I always had math and language, Spanish,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
okay.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
And I’ve always had robotics, I’ve only had two or three years I was here. But that’s always been an English computer classes changed with the teachers. It only changes if you change the teachers Got it? Because they either have most they either have an English or in Spanish. That makes sense. I only have one feature who sometimes speaks both in our class,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
or all the schools maybe I don’t know if you know this, but are all the schools in Las Palmas, like what you described? Or is that something special at the school you go to?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Well, I know that not all schools learn Chinese. And you can either choose French or German. I think there are a few public or private schools, but I think they all were uniform. And
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
that’s a big difference. The schools here wear uniforms public or private. Were in California. That definitely wasn’t true. No,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I never wore a uniform. Yeah.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
What do you think? Do you like to like not having to worry about what clothes to wear for the day? Or? Or do you miss having the ability to wear whatever you want?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Sometimes some I like that I can either choose to be warmer or colder. Here. It’s more difficult when it gets colder cuz we have a dress uniform. Or if you could code you wear tights, which are very warm.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
And what about your classmates? Are they mostly students from other countries like yourself? Or are they people who grew up in Las Palmas? Or is it a mix?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Well, most of the people there go are at least from Spain. I think there’s one Willie from Valencia, and I think a few from Missouri. But most of them are from here. I think there was a one one of girls that was a year older when I was in fourth grade that I knew that was from England, I think, but I was but I only saw her like a few times. Right? But that’s the exception. Most
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
almost all the kids are local kids or a couple of Spanish lords.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Wow. And so how is that for you moving to a new country and it sounds like you’re interested and learning a lot of languages. But usually it’s a little bit hard when you first start I mean, I live in Spain now too, and I haven’t learned a lot of Spanish yet. And for me it’s it’s hard to make friends with people if they don’t speak English, because I just only have so many words in Spanish and it’s hard to make a full conversation. How is the process for you of making friends? Did you find it easy or difficult? Or did it get easier?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Well, when I first moved here, I remember the teacher told a few of the girls to like introduced me and I’m still friends with them. And I think here I became friends with a few more girls that were mostly because of like books and stuff that they share the same interests from class
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
do most of your friends speak English?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Most of them do there are a few that don’t though they aren’t like First they aren’t nationally English there are most of them are nationally Spanish. There are a few kids I know that there are two friends I have that are from that are their father’s from England and I have a few others that speak English that have a parent from an English speaking country. But besides that, I only have a few friends that don’t say even a low English like a friend your rooty. That’s true. That’s because that her older sisters, my parents, friends,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
when you’re speaking with your friends, do you normally speak in English or Spanish? Or do you just switch back and forth depending on who’s in the conversation?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
It’s more back and forth. It’s just how we start sometimes we end up speaking in English. Sometimes I joined them when they’re already speaking Spanish. I was on your call you friends yesterday. And since there were three of us, they were most they we were speaking speaking mix.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
But I think a lot of people would imagine like you live in Gran Canaria. It’s a relatively small island and you’ve already been there for a few years now. I would if I was like as a parent, if I was moving there and even for myself, I would worry that we would like get by route or run out of things to do has that hasn’t happened to you? Do you feel that way at
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
all? Yesterday went to this entire part of the island I’ve never been before in three years. And we went on new heights like every week that I never been before. It’s actually kind of big and there are a lot of places you go to and pretty big. And it’s a pretty big city like they have I’ve seen delay. They’ll tell amazement, Parks but they have a waterpark. Yeah, they have water parks, they have some fun game parks. And then they have so many hiking places. We just want to place more guns, and I just found a place yesterday that was like with a waterfall and co jumping era I’d never been Wow,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
that was pretty cool. I mean, the thing that quarantine really taught us you need, well, yeah, if you’re gonna get trapped in an environment for two months, you need a rooftop. And now we have an entire room now ever if we solve that problem, but I think the thing that quarantine really made us realize was very few people take the time to be an explorer, a tourist in their own in their own neighborhood. And if you pause long enough to look around, usually there’s a ton to discover. No, I
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
agree. I mean, the whole quarantine experience, I think it’s just made us realize how much we take for granted the ability to just walk outside and just enjoy, you know, not something that’s necessarily like a waterfall is really cool. But it doesn’t even have to be a waterfall. You know, just going for a walk like down the street or on the beach nearby or something like that is something that we always just assumed like you can do at any time so it doesn’t feel that like precious or whatever. And then once it was taken away, yeah, even just being able to go on the roof and see the sun was was something special for a while there. And just for context for anyone listening like we’re both in Spain in different places. But we had I think it was one of the if not the strictest lockdown in the world for a good two and a bit months, right last year between I think it was around April, May. I think it finally ended in June. But you basically couldn’t go outside, like grocery stores, doctors and maybe to walk the dog and that was it. Otherwise, like you couldn’t just go for a walk if you wanted to
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
quarantine for us started literally a week before my birthday. It was two days before my friends and she’d already planned anything.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
It was mid March. And as an adult, you could go outside but kids kids were literally not allowed to leave the apartment. So neither Neither of my kids touched the ground for seven and a half weeks
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
you learned to write in front of the beach, but they opened it for adults and close it for kids.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
When they open the quarantine they said okay, oh adults can go into the water. But kids are not allowed to there were many tears. I remember when that happened. And it’s and it’s so frustrating and strange to but we’ve all the medical stuff for another conversation. And it seems like from reading your blog, you’ve been sort of making up for that seven weeks by going out and exploring even more now it seems like though that you’ve explored a good amount of the island. It sounds like there’s still more and more to do and more fun things but like how do you find those the places that you get to go to who gets to choose the adventures each week or every few weeks?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Sometimes you can say like, I want to go on a hike or I want to go to the beach. And then I think you guys Search it up.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
There’s a lot of googling involved. And we ask friends, I mean, you do this to like every time we have friends we’re like, Hey, where should we go that we haven’t been to? And people like Well, have you been? Have you done this? Have you tried that? And so we have a very long list of my phone that’s been growing.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I have one friend who She even said one day I don’t know where it is and we should go with her sometime.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Sophia Sophia said we should go back
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
to this national park thing. Oh, that’d be fun. He said it somewhere in my Gmail somewhere.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
ventures have to be the mountains like you and I have a plan around ice cream. What is it?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
We’re gonna try all the ice cream places and and we’re going to and write them.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Go and test every ice cream shop on the beach and decide which is the best one.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I look forward to the review blog post whenever that comes out.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, there’s this Tonya Hall, which is really good. We know because there’s literally a line all the way around the street. I’ve never ever went there because it’s too long. There was literally one time I went that night when it was like it was like almost not eight. Yeah, but we still got ice cream because there’s no line and
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
tell me a little bit more. I keep mentioning your blog for people listening. I’ll make sure to put a link to it in the show notes. It’s traveling with serenity calm, right. And how did you start the blog? When did you start the blog? Tell us more about it?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Well, the first part to start the clock is that I really wanted a phone and that’s it. I had to buy it all by myself. So I tried to get money somehow. And I really like traveling and I like riding and we looked up try to start that. And we found it’s wordpress.com he put a few $100 incident to get it and get the big background and stuff started. And then we just started writing it.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, we noticed there was there was when we tried to go out and find things to do we noticed there wasn’t an Guide to the Canary Islands that took kids into account. Yeah,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
there was one that was like dad stepped in it. There’s not one written by kids.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, there was nothing that like audit you spend, at least I spent a lot of energy when we’re exploring, trying to figure out whether or not this would be a good activity for a kid. Yeah, serenity was like, Well, I can answer that question.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, yeah. It’s
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
so interesting to hear it from your perspective to, again, to the point of why I was excited to have this conversation because yeah, we always hear like, you know, parents say such and such, you know, maybe it’s okay for kids, or there’s just no mention of kids. And I think it’s really cool. Just to hear it straight from you.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah. Like we went to the charcoal. Yesterday, that was like a pretty waterfall and we went with some kids, there was this one part? That was a little hard for them to go out. So we went, but I still don’t feel like they really miss out because it was freezing. And so john couldn’t go in anyway.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
That’s true. I mean, we were trying to decide where to a group of kids from sojourns first grade class, and we wanted to go on a hike. And all of us were trying to figure out, can you do this hike with a six year old
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
and a two year old?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Right, and just finding that information was almost impossible? turns out most of the hike was a two year old, but the last five minutes of the hike, there’s just no way
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
you can do it. If you’re in if you’re adventurous. Let’s try to do it. But so juniors climbed right up because we hike a lot.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah. And I’m more comfortable with with the degree of risk.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, and especially if it’s if you’re there, and it’s your kid, I think it’s a little different than like a big group. And you know, but I still think that’s, that’s just really interesting that you have a chance to explore the island and then sort of tell the world about it. My feeling has always been that Gran Canaria, and the Canary Islands in general are just underrated, especially coming from America. Like I traveled a lot before visiting the Canary Islands the first time and I never really remember anybody telling me like, hey, there’s these really cool islands off the coast of Africa, where it’s like, really nice to live and beautiful weather. And it was something I discovered much later.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, I, the only people in America who even knew what it was, is people who we told Yeah, like, no one knew what it was. You don’t you can only get here from Madrid and Spain. Yeah. And like, you know, in Europe, and I don’t think anyone else knew about
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
it.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, it was tiny. And if you saw them, you think they’re from Africa.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Right. But do you feel like in a place in the world that isn’t very developed and doesn’t have very much money and is unsafe
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
now?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
No at all? What is it? How is it pretty different from where you are in California? Or is it more fairly similar?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Well, in California, where we left, they lived in a smaller town like area that’s outside of the big city area.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
So where you live now is more of a city than than where you lived before.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, well, yeah. We lived in a small beach town. And now now this is a big city. This is the first time she’s ever
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
lived in a city. And before you we talked about you living in California, before moving to Las Palmas had you lived anywhere else, because I know you traveled quite a bit as a family went
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
to a few places. I went to Barbados.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, we stayed in Barbados for a while. Oh, let’s see my long. No, it was like, I think you were there four or five weeks.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I was there. I was about five weeks. That’s about a month now. About about a month and a half in Barbados. We’ve traveled to a lot of places we went to Japan for a few weeks still.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, for about three weeks.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Japan is one of my favorite countries in the world. What was that like?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Well, I was seven I know that one of the main things I remember is waking up super late going finding out their giant fish markets open that one in the morning.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
What about my favorite part? Was you in the deer? Do you remember the deer and not Yeah, there
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
was like oh, you went to Nara the bowing deer
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
around there? There was also we went to Disneyland I think I fell asleep there and I woke up and they were like the Disney Princess floats going past
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Oh great.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I know flowing boats with fireworks Yeah,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
they had that snow crab pizza because yeah, Disney had local food and I stuck my my son is still talks about the weird pizza weird by our American standards things in Japan but I think that’s part of what makes travel so fun is to see weird and different places and just It doesn’t mean that something’s necessarily like better here or there but just to see some other options. I really like that just like you want to try all the ice cream places I like trying all the countries
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
is the food the food pretty similar here sasser is different.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Let’s see the con food is pretty different. Yeah, like food here. Let’s see Papa scomo like was like potato with this little sauce. Yeah, seafood.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, there’s a lot of seafood you do. You live on an island.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
There’s still a lot of seafood. I like sushi but the mussels can get low boring sometimes.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yo understood.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
We went to an abalone farm the months ago and we posted the video about that article about them turtles and we saw all these alimonies and I got the hold them and they were the babies were moving
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
moving around their hands
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
and I saw your post about the about the turtles that was that seemed really cool how does it work so like when you go to visit a new place do you like to sort of like take notes when you’re there or like how does a family adventure turn into a blog post Do you have like a process for doing that
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
well for when we go on like hikes it’s just mostly what we remember take pictures up to like back to the abalone and turtle one. Those were notes because it was research that she was telling that my grandma sprint girl grishko she just was was telling us about and I remembered that there that the turtles I literally had to remember everything myself because he only wrote one note. It was like it was don’t touch they bite. And I was literally touching that
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
real distracting. Because they let us like, right let me get
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
in the tank and touch the turtles. Talk to me about the turtles.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
They let you help with the sick turtle.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, there’s one turtle put this affected often and clean it
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
out a hook in it. And when you post your blog posts, so you mentioned I mean a few questions. You mentioned that you started the blog so that you could get a phone. So what what do you need to what do you need to do to get the phone? How do you how do you Achievement unlocked? Right? Like how do you get to the phone?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
You just very first invoice.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, I get sponsors from around here. And for me writing what they want. I have a sponsor for my grandparents.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yes. I’m grandma’s sponsor to science article every month, the
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
gubbio.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
And Colleen, the tourism people hear
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
the word tourism when
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
you got the board of tourism to sponsor your blog. Sure did. That’s awesome. That’s really cool.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Thank you to natrual for all your help open that up as really, really kind of you brother. So what is the visa want you to do?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
They want me to write one article? No. Article per week. Yeah, they get 10 new URLs a week.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yep. 10 euros for every article about drunkenness. Yeah.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Wow. That’s really cool. Yeah, it sounds like you’re you’re becoming sort of like an ambassador for the island with all of the interesting things that you share. I think next time I go to Gran Canaria, like. I mean, I’ve been I think, maybe four times now. And so I’ve seen a lot of the sort of like famous common stuff, especially around Las Palmas, and like the north of the island, but reading your blog posts, I’ve seen a bunch of things that as you said, like I didn’t know about the day we’re there. So I think that will be the first place that I check online to figure out like, oh, cool things. Should I try this time that I haven’t done before?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, I remember there are a few times you make plans for something like there’s this Angry Bird like kids little amusement area when it has this giant kid playground, there’s many balls, then there’s like this little moving theater that goes in when the seats move like it looks like you’re going through something and something and I remember we tried to plan it for the summer. Okay, for the spring vacation and then like five months, I mean, ever got to do it. Yeah.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
workouts. Sometimes. Yeah. Yeah.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
So we’re still trying to do it, but it’s it but it’s, it’s it’s like a kids Park. It’s close now. So we have
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, there’s a there’s a bio park here in Valencia. That’s kind of like a zoo. But it’s a little different. Because the animals they can’t like run away. They’re not, you know, just totally free to escape. But the way they set it up, they’re not like in little cages. It’s more like you the people walking through are kind of like in a separated path. And the animals have like more free space more like their normal where they would live in nature. And it sounds really exciting. And we’ve been planning to go for a year but between like quarantine and like bad weather that it’s like super busy the day when it’s nice out and just somehow it hasn’t worked yet, so I know what you mean that like, but it’s good to have a lot of different places in mind. And sometimes a few of them don’t work out.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
So how close are you? Yeah,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
a few months more.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, a couple more months here. You’ve got you’ve earned about 200 euros so
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
far. When I when I was a kid the options for earning money on the side were and this isn’t gonna help you in Gran Canaria, but we would get really excited if it would snow a lot because all of a sudden everyone’s driveway was covered in snow and if you woke up early enough you could like grab a shovel and go to your neighbor’s house big I’ll clean all this snow from your driveway for $10 or $20 or whatever it was.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
It was like
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
it’s an apartment.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
work you can add it doesn’t snow too often.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
If I help you clean the windows which
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
our deal is you couldn’t earn the money for me.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I think that’s a good deal.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
No, no Not one bucket of money.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
No, you’re not. Yeah.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
But you got your friends money.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
It’s been really cool. Neville because to me, this is sort of like, you know, there’s very few schools that teach you how to run a business.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I found out some stuff about my dad, I didn’t know he taught kindergarten. I learned that this morning. That’s true.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
before you were born, yeah,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
so by the time you were a kindergarten teacher,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
by the time I was a kindergarten teacher for about six
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
months, his Gran Canaria is Las Palmas home now Is that it? Did you did you sort of move there with an open ended kind of, let’s see how it goes and see if the kids like it and stay for as long as they do. Or, like where I grew up in Washington. A lot of times people would move to the city for three years at a time or something like that, because they would get a an embassy appointment or like a contract with the World Bank or something.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Well, when he first moved, I remember I got like, more times, it seems, yeah, we
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
moved with a one year plan. Yeah, we
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
moved about one to two years. And then I wanted it to be three years. And now we’re not sure right. Now,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
one of the main things I want to say for sixth grade was because they were going to be too big field trips and pits in sixth grade when in fifth grade, we’re supposed to go to a villa and we’re supposed to go to England. And because of quarantine, we didn’t get to do either. So, but I’m still gonna stay longer now because one of the thing I like about here is you can see
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
under the water, yeah, you can see how the water is super clear and Gran Canaria. Yeah, you can. Like even though it’s like a city beach right there. You can snorkel just right off the right off the Paseo.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
So. So do you still consider yourself a nomad? No,
Neville
it’s a good question. I think it’s I think there’s a bit of “once a Nomad always a nomad”, but I haven’t even left the country in over a year now. So at some point, at some point, it becomes difficult to describe oneself as nomadic if they’re not moving around. But you brought up an interesting point to sort of like where all the labels converge, and all of that. And I think for me, I haven’t really ever put down roots in the same way in another place of like, you know, fully integrating with the community. I’ve always been sort of like, one foot back home and one foot wherever I am right now. Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s part of, you know, my whole interest in having this conversation also is like, as we were just talking about, there’s this understanding that like, you know, you can live that way for a certain amount of time. And then once you have kids, or once you want to have a family or do something serious or whatever, then Okay, all that goes away. And I don’t think it’s practical to be, you know, changing countries every few days or weeks or even months with a family. But then again, there’s your RV friends, there’s plenty of other people who do stuff like that. So
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
there is a magic to help kids when you live in another country. Yours is too young at this moment for your kids social Nexus, what that means. So a lot of our friends, how did we meet them serenity
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
from the expat group
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
or parents at your school? Yeah. What you tend to find is there’s a commonality that comes to having kids things like schedules. I mean, you got a baby man, they dominate life.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Trying to connect with single friends or friends who don’t have kids who don’t understand pattern is so hard. You mentioned that you originally moved to Las Palmas with a shorter timeframe in mind and you’ve kind of extended it out a bit. Did you have a next home in mind after that? Was there somewhere particular you wanted to or that you still think about going on?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
We have gone back home to California might have gone
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
back to California? That was an option.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I didn’t know about any other options?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Well, so we never come here. Like we like Puerto Rico. We like the nose. There are mosquitoes. It’s
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
not as many That’s true. That is a big deal.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah, this is why I have a fan in my room now.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yeah. But um, no. To be fair, we were we weren’t looking. We were looking for a place to solve some parenting challenges. We did not assault.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Like what?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
We wanted you to understand that there are
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
he wanted me to learn Spanish. I wanted
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
you to learn Spanish and we knew that wasn’t gonna happen unless you were immersed.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
You can learn Spanish in California.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I have to I have one friend, oddly enough, who are fans who part of her family’s Mexican. Yeah, but she still knows less than me. Right?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Unless you’re truly immersed. I think there’s a difference in the impact in your brain. That wasn’t the total priority. But that was a very important one. To me. What was most important is that you understand that there is more than one view and more than one truth in the world. Like right now. I
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
have very big with that on math.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Yes, that’s right mom. Mom
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
before to try to explain everything to me even though I already understand that
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
that is that is a challenge. It’s always hard when your parent or your teacher. But right now I feel like the United States and has probably for the last 15 years has a real problem and that everybody is determined that only their version of the truth is the only truth What kinds their view on politics, on marriage on finances? Well, that’s the thing. Everybody has different ideas. Some people think some people shouldn’t get married some things, others some things everybody can do. That is actually only true in some places and not another. What
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
do you think?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
What do I think I think adults should be consenting adults should be able to live their life the way they want. That’s my opinion. By my point, and what was really important to me is, Julie and I were trying to figure out, how do you intrinsically help somebody grow up understanding that different perspectives is good, not bad, and we could think of doing that is to have the experience of being an outsider. And I have that experience of seeing a completely different way to live that’s equally valid, and then have the judge them back and forth and be like, well, if, if this is true in California, and a completely different thing is true in Spain, but they’re both true. How does that work? Well, your brain starts to realize, okay, it’s okay for there to be different truths. And that’s not, that’s not something I need to like, put on like a duck dynasty costume and charge via capital,
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
or what you just scribing is sort of like a recurring conversation on this show. And in my life in general, and it’s something that I grew up with, it’s so early on that I didn’t even realize it was a thing until much later. And when I think back now, it’s all clear in hindsight, right? So when I think back now, a lot of my friends growing up were immigrants. And I think part of the reason is because we got along for that reason, because both my parents were immigrants, and I never like, I didn’t identify as that I never sought that out. But what happened was just like, you know, my mom is from one country, and my dad is from a different country. And so and I live grew up in the US. And so it was always like the, you know, there’s just like, for you. Now, serenity is like, you know, in America, we did it this way, in, in Spain, or in Gran Canaria, people do it another way. And I’m sure if you went to Japan or somewhere else, you could find a third way. And then a fourth way of doing even a simple thing, like, you know, how they make their food, for example, or which side of the road they drive on, or something more complicated, like politics or something like that. And
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
it can be something where uniforms are not
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
right, right? You wear uniforms or not, or how many languages they suggest you learn at school, or what age you start school. Right, like
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
both. It can be good, like to wear uniforms, for instance, you don’t have to worry about what you wear. It’s not where I can finally wear rain boots and jump in puddles like I can’t
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
do with these clothes. And I think what you’re describing is exactly the benefit of what dad was just talking about. And that’s, it’s the idea that like, it’s not that there’s one correct way. So okay, let’s travel to every country in the world to figure out which is the one way that’s good. It’s like, Oh, yeah, there’s something good about this version. And there’s something good about that version. And if the more of them that you get a chance to be exposed to you can sort of pick and choose what you like, and what works best for you.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
What I basically mean is the if you know, like, sometimes you see a situation and you see a kid that’s having a hard time fitting in, right? Have you ever seen that? Do you feel a little more sympathy towards them? Now that you’ve had this experience of living here, and you know what it’s like to not always fit in with the group?
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
I sometimes I remember that. Right before we left. That’s my teacher assigned to me to help two students, one student, which he come from France, and he didn’t speak an ounce of English. And he only learned a bit. Yeah. And there was another one who was my friend before but she had more problems learning and she was in the special needs class. And I’d actually already known her from junior guards and from dancing, but I helped her along and she became in our friend group now. Like during patio and stuff that’s awesome. Or playground or recess, whatever you call it. Yeah, it’s America was recess here. It’s patio and it’s some people call it playground.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
That’s funny. I didn’t know that.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
But that grows your heart. Like that’s my goal.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Thank you for your time.
Serenity and Shane Pearlman
Really appreciate it. Yeah.