ENGLISH LISTENING PRACTICE 🎧 THE TIME WHEN WE NEARLY MOVED TO NEW YORK 🗽

Hello this is Jack from tofluency.com.

Welcome to this english lesson where I'm

going to tell the story about the time

we nearly moved to New York. And be sure

to click the link in the description

that will take you to the lesson notes

there are going to be new words and

phrases, grammar explanations, and a

couple of extra bonuses too, so, the link

to that is in the description. In

September 2010, my wife and I moved in

with my parents in France, so, we had just

been in Spain; we just spent a couple of

years teaching and living in Spain - I had

just got my visa for America and we had

about two or three months before our

flight to the US, so, we decided to move

in with my parents and just to take it easy

for a while. Our plan was to move to New

York City early in the new year so I was

going to get a job in a language school

or try to find a job in a language

school my wife was going to go back to

school and to get her teaching

certificate. We started researching the

different areas of New York and thinking

about where we were going to live and we

decided that Brooklyn was going to be

the place for us. But before that we had

two or three months in France and my

parents live in this really quiet

village and there's hardly anything

going on. I think there's one bar in the

village which isn't there anymore and it

didn't ever seem to be open when we were

there. So, in terms of excitement it

wasn't that great but it was beautiful

and we actually enjoyed how quiet it was;

we enjoyed the peace and quiet

especially after living in Spain for two

years where everything seemed to be

really noisy. And one of our favorite

things to do during those two months was

to walk through this farm to a local

bakery - or in French the petisserie - and it was

on one of these walks when we started

doubt moving to New York; we started to

think that maybe this wasn't going to be

the best thing for us and before we had

made that decision; before we were set on

New York. we actually had a short list of

different places including

Portland in Oregon. Austin, Texas. And

Asheville, North Carolina. In fact.

Asheville was our number one choice for

a couple of years before we made the

change to New York. And we started to

weigh up our options again - we started to

think about whether New York or

Asheville would be the place for us. On

one hand, we had New York - the big city - it

was exciting, it was full of people, there

was so much to do there and for me, it's

probably one of the best cities in the

world. On the other hand, we had Asheville

which is a small town but based around

outdoor adventures and community. And a

couple of weeks before we were about to

move to New York we went on another one

of these walks and I remember when we

decided that Asheville was going to be

the place for us - we just felt like we

wanted to move to a smaller city - a place

where we could put down roots - a place

where we could afford housing; a place

where we wanted to start a family. So, we

took the flight to America, spent a few

days with my wife's family, packed the

car full of everything we had, including

our dog, and we drove down to Asheville.

And that was over six years ago now and

we just feel like we made the best

decision - we love it here. We love

everything about Asheville and we've

really created a good community - we've

really made some great friends. But

from time to time, I think about how

life would be different if we had moved

to New York and it's just funny to think

about this; about how you make a decision

and how your life changes because of

that decision and to think about what

would be different if you had made a

different decision instead. And it made

me realize that there's no perfect place,

you know, if you move to the country it's

peaceful; it's quiet but you don't have

that excitement of a city, whereas, if you

move to a big city you have that

excitement but it's really noisy. And

with all this in mind, I've got a

question for you: if you could move

anywhere in the world, where would you

move to and why? Which city or which town

which area would you choose

and why? I'm really looking forward to

reading your comments so please leave

one below and then once you leave a

comment, click over here. That will give

you access to the lesson notes - the

grammar and the vocabulary that I used

in this lesson and you can also get my

book for free too. So, thank you for

watching this lesson, I hope it has given

you some good listening practice and if

it has, then please like and share this

video. Thanks for watching - see you in the

next lesson