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Paige: You're listening to “Coffee with Gringos.” I’m Paige Sutherland.
Ian: I'm Ian Kennedy.
Paige: So today is going to be a very special episode, as it will actually be our last episode of Coffee with Gringos. Me and Ian are sad to say but the road for us as ended. It is time, it's been four years for me with CWG. So many memories, so many episodes, really great guests, and it's been a ride. It's been good. Ian, it's been what two years for you?
Ian: Yeah, it's been about two years for me and it's funny because if you would have, three years ago, told me that I'd be a podcaster, I wouldn't have believed you or I would have scratched my head but it's something that I'm so glad I got involved in and we're going to have some good things to talk about today in our in our last episode. But it's a little bit of a sad play the music “wom, wom, wommmmm,” though. We’re sad to say goodbye, but all good things must come to an end, at least for Paige and as co-hosts so it'll be a fun little trip down memory lane. Some of the best and some of the funniest of our times on Coffee with Gringos.
Paige: Exactly. So, I guess to start going back, I should just go all the way back to first arriving in Santiago. I got a job at Dynamic English to be a teacher. I met the co-owner Ted and he was like, “Oh, I'm interested in starting a podcast” and I was like, “I work in audio. I've worked in radio for many, many years. I'm a journalist by trade.” And he's like, “Can you help me?” I was like, “Yeah, I have like the microphone. I have the recorder everything.” And the beauty of it was Ted just completely just said to run with it. And so, he completely just let me create the name of the podcast, create the intro, what it was about, the platform—everything. But he's been very hands-off and, in a way, that's been really nice that it's just really been from start to finish. And before and we had Mariah, which she was wonderful. She was a great host and just went back to her home state of Minnesota. And so, then we got Ian, which was great. We've had two solid years and funny enough, I was just thinking about it today is that we have been in the room together less than we have been together in the Zoom recordings.
Ian: It's so crazy. It's been such a such a ride. So yeah, my introduction to Coffee with Gringos a little bit more than a couple years ago. I was just looking for more some more money to add some more income for the month and I asked Dynamic English if there were things I could help with, things I could do. And they mentioned, “Yeah, we have this podcast called ‘Coffee with Gringos.’ We're looking for guests. How about you go on there and you can meet Paige and have your experience on the podcast.” So, I said sure. I remember going to your old apartment, we sat on the couch, we had the microphone together and I was a guest for episode number 50 talking about music. And I remember after that thinking, wow, that was really fun. And so, I remember asking “Hey, is there any way I could get involved in this myself?” And they said sure. It'd be great to have you on as a co-host.” And that's when it all started. It's been a good journey. We’ve had a lot of crazy world events happen that have changed a lot of the dynamics of the podcast as well. As you mentioned, we were doing them in person, sometimes in the studio together as well and then COVID hit. You went back to Boston lickety-split and ever since then; we've been recording remotely through Zoom. And again, it's crazy, this world we live in where we can live on different continents and still produce good quality podcasts for everybody to listen to.
Paige: And it has been, like you said, I left Chile pretty spontaneously because of the COVID pandemic and keeping this alive for the past two years has been nice to still have that connection back to Chile, because I did leave so spontaneously. It was nice to check the interviewer who's still in Santiago, just hear what's going on there and it gave me a little bit a thread back to that city that I loved living in. So, it was nice to have that go forward as I did move back. Yeah, so as Ian says, let's reminisce. So, first question—Ian, what was one of your favorite podcast episodes we've done? We've done to this date almost 170 episodes, which is crazy to think that we've done so many. I don't know how we've come up with all these topics. It's shocking. Yeah, so what is one of your favorites or one of your favorite guests or one that's memorable? Remember?
Ian: Yeah, I think there were a lot of things that were interesting for us to talk about. I really liked some of the current events that we talked about. Big moments that were going on and trying to inform people and have certain things. I also think that the best ones overall for me though were always the ones with special guests. Whether it was friends of yours who I could meet through the call and they were always really great, awesome to have on the podcasts are really nice or friends of mine, gave me a chance to chat with them and have them on and give a perspective. So yeah, I would say definitely the special guests when I think particularly of my good friend David Vaughn who came on and talk to us about his trip to Africa when he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with his friends. It was a really interesting story to hear from him all the dynamics of the story, of the truth. I don't know many people who have been to Africa in general or even that area, so it was great and enlightening to hear his story. It was great to have Nate Douglas from Louisville come on—my good friend that I met here in Santiago and just talking about Kentucky and that it's not all just Kentucky Fried Chicken—there's more to it. And other people too, it was nice to have an Andrew and Ted on just to talk about their experience with Dynamic English and give our listeners an idea of how they started the institute and how it is where it is today. And so for me, it was always just those fun interactions with our friends. What about you?
Paige: I think the most memorable ones for me, were the ones where we talked about, okay, here are the top 10 riddles or we talked about “Would You Rather” And we did all these hypotheticals and these ethical dilemmas and I'm not kidding, Ian, that gave me fodder on like so many hikes in the mountains and it was an eight-hour hike and we were just tired or bored. And I would just be like, okay, riddle time. I'm going to get some hypotheticals and we would literally, spend hours going through all these. And my friends would be like, “how do you know all these?” I'm like, “Because of CWG that we did an episode.” It'd be funny because I'd go on a hike and they would be like, “Well, what's your next thing? Do you have more riddles or hypotheticals?” I'm like, “Oh, no, I ran out of all.”
Ian: It is so great, all the little fun facts that you learn or recalled at least hypothetical or ethical questions and things like tongue twisters. Those were fun to go over and learn and, like you said, the riddles and the jokes. Yeah, these are things that without really having to think of a good topic for us to talk about, I probably wouldn't just read these up on my own. And so now, like you said, when you want to have your own thoughts, be in your own head, it's fun to think about these things or bring them up at a party or when you're with friends. So, I think it served its purpose in sort of a trivial way—not in a bad way—a trivial way to explain these things.
Paige: Yeah, I will say another this was actually pre-Ian but another one of my favorite episodes, when you could actually be in person, when I was back in Santiago, in my old apartment, it was when Mariah was a host and we were like, let's do a cooking show and we'll actually cook and so we did it on a Friday or Saturday night. We were going to cook lasagna because we're like, okay, there's steps we can do it, but it's not too crazy hard. But then we were chatting and drinking lots of wine or like I would say like two-thirds into the episode we got pretty drunk that we were recording and you could tell in the recording, we would forget the steps and it was it was actually a blast recording it but it was we were very tipsy.
Ian: Oh, that's great. Now listeners can go back and check it out and notice the slurring of the words further along in that episode. That's great.
Paige: Yeah, I mean, we had fun.
Ian: We've always had some fun moments on here and fun moments with some adult beverages, a little bit of drinking. If you recall our 100th episode, we had a fun time having a live event on Instagram with our listeners and that was really fun moment for me. I really enjoyed being able to interact with our audience actually see the names and the faces of the people that tune in and really that's why we do it. I mean, it is fun for us, we get paid to do it, but the idea is that we're engaging with listeners and you really want to have fun listening to English. And so, we were just having a couple of beers, having a good conversation, having great comments from our listeners and that was a moment for me that was like, yeah, this is great that we're doing this. It's really worthwhile. So that was that was definitely a highlight for me in my career with Coffee with Gringos there.
Paige: I know. Being a podcast where you add it, record it and it just goes out in the ether, you forget that there are all these people listening. So it's nice to actually interact with our listeners and I always get surprised when we look at some of the numbers and how many do listen from all over and it is it is pretty special when you hear that people are tuning in from all over the world and that, hopefully, we're helping people learn English because learning any language it's really tough. Switching gears, I guess any episodes that stick out to you and that maybe were a little rocky, a little bumpy, maybe not your favorite? I think for me, maybe some of them that were, I wouldn't say that they were ones that I thought were bad or I didn't like, but there were a few sometimes where I felt like I was out of my wheelhouse. It was more of the episode that you were very knowledgeable about but I didn't know anything about so whether it was something, for example, when we did an episode on “Mexit” about the royal family, I know very little about that while you know much more, I believe than I do. So, I felt like I just was like alright, sort of “You take the wheel, Paige” and all be the copilot on this one more so than other episodes where perhaps maybe I was a bit more knowledgeable or something I had a lot of interest in. So maybe one like that or maybe another one I'm thinking of is you always make fun of me because I don't know any of the current movies that are going on or movies that are up for the Oscars. So, I remember we talked about the Oscars episode and I remember you asking me before if I had seen any of the movies. I was like, “I don't even think I’ve even heard of any of these movies.” And so, it was kind of one of those alright, this is more in my wheelhouse so let me talk about it and I'll just support you on it. So, I would just say more that more so than quote-unquote “bad episodes”.
Paige: Yeah, because it's been both ways where you'll have an idea and you're like, I want to do this episode and then I have no idea what it is and it’s like “that's interesting.” Yeah, I exactly feel you. We were going to do another Oscar episode but we couldn't because Ian, again this year, did not watch Oscar nominated movies and I have to call you out big time that we're going to do a Harry Potter episode and we couldn't because Ian doesn't watch or really read Harry Potter, which is bananas at our age.
Ian: I know. I'm one of those people that somebody mentions a movie that everyone's seen and I haven't heard of it or it's a classic movie, I haven't seen it for years or the phrase I guess we're using English is I am somewhat “out of the loop” of modern things that are going on. So “living under a rock” would be another phrase. Sometimes I don't know it's going on quite as well as you do.
Paige: I think what's been great is, like you said, it’s been some of your friends, some of my friends but also people from all over the world. I mean, we've had people from a lot of countries. We’ve had Chileans, we've got people from Salvador, from Mexico, from Portugal. We've had people from Britain, from Australia, we've really had people from all over which has been really great and I learned so much during those episodes because a lot of them are just these conversations and I learned a lot about the food and the culture and traveling and all these perspectives by having all these great guests on, which I've always enjoyed. It was the best way to learn culture and to learn and get to know other people, just to sit down and actually have a conversation with them.
Ian: And so I agree totally with you. I think our listeners have learned a lot but you and I are, I can speak personally for me, I’ve learned a lot myself just from being a part of this Coffee with Gringos. So it's been a great experience to learn something new each episode as well.
Paige: Hey, Ian. Did you know besides the podcast, Dynamic English offers one-on-one classes with native teachers from all over the world?
Ian: Really? But isn't it just a bunch of grammar lessons?
Paige: Nope, it's completely discussion-based and focuses on topics the student is interested in.
Ian: That's amazing. But what if I'm not living in Chile?
Paige: No problem. Dynamic does online classes. You can be living anywhere.
Ian: Great, but I'm a little intimidated to take the class alone. Can I join with a friend?
Paige: Of course. Dynamic offers group classes of up to four. Plus, for the next month, Coffee with Gringos listeners get 10% off individual or group classes. So go online to www.dynamicenglish.cl and mention that you are a listener and get your discount.
Ian: Well, I'm sold. Sign me up.
Paige: Switching gears again. Do we have any big blooper moments where we messed up or something went wrong in any of these recordings? There's one funny blooper that came to mind that was really funny was when me and Ian were recording in person and we were having a guest as one of the cofounders of Dynamic (English), Andrew. And as we're starting the podcast, Ian starts off the podcast, like “Welcome to Coffee with Gringos, it's a very special guests on today. His name is Andrew….” And it's just funny. He’s our boss. He's funding this podcast and you actually know him from home. And then you were just like, “Oh, sorry man. What's your name?” And it was just a very honest, just funny moment and Andrew is such a nice, chill guy. He just got a laugh out of it and we all laughed it was funny.
Ian: Right. I totally forgot about that. That was a typical, what we call a “brain fart.” So, it completely slipped out of my head. I should have known it and I knew right at that moment. “Oh, no.” Yeah, you're right. That was a classic blunder on my part.
Paige: Yeah, that was funny.
Ian: I think that comes across in the recordings as well and people can tell that we're having fun while we're teaching them at the same time or offering them help. So, the best way to learn a language, I always have told my students, is to find joy and to find fun in it. Make it something that you enjoy it because if you're dreading coming to it, you're not going to stick with it. You're not going to have fun with it. So that's why we sometimes have a few drinks, we talk about whatever we want to talk about, we have special guests because that's the most fun way and most effective way to really experience another language. So, I hope that strategy or that sort of direction has also helped out our audience and they feel the same way.
Paige: And I find it funny too besides learning so much from the guests, I feel like I've learned a lot about you during this podcast because we did not know each other at all before during the podcast and we never had a meeting or anything like that. It was like I just got to know you on the radio during the podcast, so we it was funny because I think it helps because like during a lot of these recordings like I was learning things about you organically, in that moment of the recording. I was like “Oh you have night terrors or you played soccer in college or you've traveled there.” And it was interesting, because it wasn't like I was talking to my childhood friend where it was just yeah, I know that this is boring.
Ian: Yeah, we were even discovering things about each other and that's why I say it was so dynamic and fun in its own way just between us and that permeating out to our audience. It's been a really fun ride. I'm really grateful that I had the opportunity to come out to be a special guest and then become a part of this and that Dynamic English that let us just do our thing and invite on who we wanted, to have these interesting conversations and sort of have autonomy in that way. So yeah, it's been great for them to give us that opportunity as well so really appreciate what they've done.
Paige: I agree and now they really invested in it, like I said for years, just letting us keep producing episodes and like you mentioned at the top, we had COVID, had Black Lives Matter, we had the Chilean social protest, we had Ukraine-Russia right now, Afghanistan. I mean, historical event after historical event and CWG has been with it all the way.
Ian: Bringing it to the people here.
Paige: So as Ian said, it's sad to leave. This will be the end for me and Ian but it will not be the end for the podcast. There will definitely be something coming down the pipe from Dynamic English so stay tuned on the feed and of course Dynamic English is on Instagram, on YouTube, check out their website, sign up for classes and follow them. There's a lot of great stuff that they produce on there constantly. So CWG is sending off to over 170 episodes at this point. Crazy that people download and listen to us speaking. It's definitely remarkable, and I really enjoyed doing it as yeah, thanks for listening. The only way that we were able to do this is because of people like you that listen. So, thank you.
Ian: Yeah, thanks, everyone. We appreciate it. And like we said earlier, all good things must come to an end but something new will be coming down the line. So, like Paige already mentioned, stay tuned, check out all of Dynamic’s social media and their YouTube channel, great videos and stay tuned until the next great thing podcast-wise comes down the pipe.
Paige: So, let's sign off like we always do right for old times. One last time.
Ian: I guess why not?
Paige: Okay. Now, as always, thanks for listening.
Ian: We'll see you around.
Paige: Coffee with Gringos was brought to you by Dynamic English, where you can learn English simply by using it. If you're interested in taking classes or just want to learn more, go to our website at dynamicenglish.cl Thanks for listening.
Key Vocabulary, Phrases & Slang:
1. to run with something (phrasal verb): to take control and autonomy of something in order to make it a reality.
a. They just told us to take the idea and to run with it.
2. hands-off (adjective): independently without micromanaging.
a. The hands-off nature of the project was autonomous.
3. lickety-split (adjective, informal): very quickly or spontaneously.
a. She left the city lickety-split.
4. to reminisce (verb): to remember the past events of one’s life.
a. It’s nice to reminisce on all the good times we had.
5. to enlighten (verb): to give someone greater knowledge and understanding about something.
a. Having so many great guests on has been enlightening.
6. fodder (noun): material for a certain use.
a. Our conversations have given me great fodder for keeping my mind occupied.
7. trivial (adjective): of little value or importance.
a. We often talked about trivial things.
8. tipsy (adjective): slightly drunk and feeling the effects of alcohol.
a. They were feeling tipsy during the episode.
9. ether (noun): air regarded as a medium for the radio.
a. The recordings go out into the ether for everyone to hear.
10. wheelhouse (noun): area of expertise or knowledge.
a. Those subjects were out of my wheelhouse.
11. bananas (adjective, informal slang): crazy or unbelievable.
a. It is bananas that you don’t know what I’m talking about.
12. blunder (noun): mistake or error.
a. It was a blunder that he’ll never make again.