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Alright, in today's episode, we're going to talk about safe and unsafe cities.
So I'll talk a little bit about that topic and about how safe I've felt in the different cities that I've lived in.
And I'll talk a little bit about some unsafe situations I've encountered.
So that should be an interesting topic for today.
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Alright, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
All right, let's talk about safe and unsafe cities.
So first of all, let me talk about what a safe city is.
So what are the elements of a safe city?
Well, I think that in a safe city, You can walk around without worrying too much.
I think that's one of the main things.
So if you can feel comfortable walking around and you don't really have to think too much, that probably means that the city is fairly safe.
And, for example, if you can walk around with your phone in your hand, that's something that is indicative of a safe city.
In English, when we say that something is indicative of something else, what we're saying is that this is a sign of something else.
This signals something else.
So if you can walk around with your phone in your hand and not even think about someone possibly stealing it, then this is indicative of a fairly safe city, I would say.
Another thing would be to be able to drive without fear, without thinking that someone is going to stop you because you have a nice car and rob you and steal your car or something.
If you don't feel like that, then that's a good thing, of course.
And in a safe city, you don't need to worry too much about kidnappings or abductions.
That's something that I think is really scary for most of us, thinking that someone might abduct us and want to take us away somewhere or take one of our loved ones.
That's a horrible thought.
And so if you don't need to worry at all about that, that's fantastic, because there are some places where you do need to worry about that, where abductions actually happen quite frequently, and that's something that people actually have to keep in mind when they're walking outside.
So that's another element.
And I think in safe cities, you can more or less trust the police.
Of course, not every police officer.
And of course, the police might not be perfect.
They might do things that they shouldn't sometimes.
But in general, I think in a safe city, the police are... kind of on your side for the most part.
They're not going to try to harm you, let's say.
They're not going to try to work with the bad guys.
But in some cities and maybe in some countries, the police actually work hand in hand with the bad guys and they actually help the criminals.
So, in a safe city, you shouldn't need to worry about whether or not you can go to a police officer for help.
And one other thing that characterizes a safe city is that you shouldn't really need to alter your plans in a very big way as a tourist.
You shouldn't need to plan your whole vacation alone. around the aspect of safety.
You shouldn't have to think so much about that when you decide where you want to go, which places you might want to visit or walk to.
Of course, as a tourist, you always need to think a little bit about this, but you shouldn't need to characterize or plan your whole trip constantly thinking about this one element.
In a safe city, hopefully you don't need to do that as a tourist.
So those are some things that I thought about, things that characterize safe cities.
So I think that every city has some unsafe areas, probably, or most cities.
Maybe there are some big cities that don't have unsafe areas.
And of course, I'm talking about big cities here.
Of course, there are some really small cities or small towns that are probably really safe.
I'm not referring to that.
I'm talking more about major cities, cities that people might go to as tourists, for example.
I'm talking about those types of cities.
So let me talk about some different cities where I've lived, and I'll talk about how safe I felt in those cities and about some of the unsafe situations that I've had in each of those places.
So first of all, let me start with San Diego.
That's where I've spent the majority of my life, and I live here now, currently.
And so, in my opinion, San Diego is mostly safe when compared to other cities that I've been to around the world, around the country.
I think that San Diego is pretty safe.
Of course, there are some bad areas, that's for sure.
If you stick to the normal areas, it's pretty safe.
However, there have been some situations where I've felt a little bit unsafe.
I think the worst crime that has happened to me or my family personally was was that our car was broken into when I was a kid.
And I think this can happen anywhere.
So that's not a really big deal.
But it was the one kind of incident that we had as a family.
And so I still remember it to this day.
So I just remember that we got back to our car after my soccer game and we saw that the window was shattered and someone had taken my mom's purse.
In English, when we say that something is shattered, what we're saying is that it's broken into little pieces.
So the window was shattered.
That means that it was broken into small pieces.
So that was not very cool, of course.
But I think that's the only time that we as a family had some type of crime committed against us.
However, our neighbors had their house broken into when I was a kid.
The burglars stole many things from their house.
The word burglar in English refers to a person who breaks into someone's house to steal things.
So the burglars stole a lot from their house, but they didn't steal from our house.
I think because we had A pretty big, ferocious dog that scared the burglar away.
So that was something that happened close to us, but not to us.
And I also felt unsafe at the bus station downtown.
There are some areas of downtown San Diego where it doesn't feel safe at all.
So that's the number one place that I would avoid is kind of that part of downtown.
But if I want to take one of those long-haul buses where they take you to different cities, the station is in that area unfortunately, and i remember when my wife and i were waiting for the bus in that area, we were really nervous because the people around us seemed very strange and they were causing a little bit of trouble.
They were yelling and screaming a little bit and fighting with each other, and it wasn't a good experience.
So that area is definitely not safe, but most of San Diego is pretty safe in my opinion.
Next, let me talk a little bit about Los Angeles.
Los Angeles has a lot of unsafe areas.
There are some really nice areas, of course, but there are plenty of not nice areas.
And I lived in a very centric part of the city.
I lived very close to downtown, for example.
And I kind of always felt a little bit unsafe when I lived there.
So I would hear police sirens all the time, every day.
There were always police with their sirens on going somewhere.
And it was really common to hear helicopters overhead like maybe searching for someone or things like that.
I remember seeing a bomb squad.
That's one of those teams that has to go to see if there's some bomb somewhere so they can defuse it.
In English, we say to diffuse a bomb.
That just means to deactivate the bomb.
So I remember seeing a bomb squad.
I remember when I would go to like a McDonald's, for example one that was close to my house.
There would always be some weird person in there that was causing problems, or there would always be some incident.
And I remember that one of my roommates witnessed one person pulling a gun on another person very close to our apartment.
So that was a little bit scary to hear that.
So, we had some things to worry about, let's say.
It was definitely a place where we had to maybe be careful.
We had to be aware of our surroundings.
We had to just make sure that there were no shady people following us or whatever.
In English, when we say that someone is shady, we're saying that they are suspicious.
It looks like they might be up to something, up to some trouble or something like that.
So from my experience...
Los Angeles definitely has some unsafe areas, but of course there are many nice areas too.
All right, now let me talk about Guadalajara, which is where I spent maybe five years or so when I lived in Mexico.
So I never had any incidents that involved me personally when I lived in Guadalajara.
And I always felt pretty safe, actually.
I know that some people might disagree with me on this, but I've always felt pretty safe in Guadalajara me personally.
However, I have heard of other people that have had incidents there and people will always tell you not to walk at night after the sun goes down.
And we heard stories from neighbors of ours that they got robbed or other things when they were walking around our neighborhood at night.
So I know that there is definitely crime that happens and I would be very careful walking around at night.
However, because I never had an incident And I lived there for a long time, like five years or something like that.
Because of that, I never felt that unsafe.
I think that before you have your own incident, before something happens to you, it can be easy to kind of feel like everything's okay.
And then, when something happens to you, you start to feel like the city is unsafe.
So, because nothing ever happened to me, i always felt pretty safe and, for example, i always walked around with my phone in my hand.
That was never something that i felt like i couldn't do.
At least in my area where i lived, i always walked around with my phone in my hand and nothing happened.
However, I heard stories of other people other tourists too who walked around with their phone and someone came up and stole it.
So I know that that happens.
But again, like I said, because I never had an incident, I never felt that unsafe or I never felt in danger.
However, I remember one incident where there was a shooting that happened near our apartment.
A pretty big incident where the bad guys drove up to this sushi restaurant and went inside and started shooting some, I think, politician or something like that.
Someone who they didn't like. and that was a big thing that happened very close to our apartment.
However, I didn't see it or hear it and it didn't happen to me, so I kind of forgot about it afterwards.
But I remembered it again as I was preparing this episode.
So stuff like that can happen, especially when it comes to people wanting to do harm to other people who are their enemies, right?
There are a lot of bad people around and a lot of people involved in, of course, the drug trade and things like that.
So, of course, you always need to be careful in Mexico, in countries like that.
You never want to go places that you shouldn't be going to, or you should never get involved in things that you shouldn't be involved in.
If I don't do any of that, then I generally feel safe.
But I'm sure other people might disagree with me.
And lastly, let me talk about Tijuana, which is a city that I lived in for seven months or so.
It's the city that is on the border with San Diego on the other side of the border.
And so it's Mexico.
And I lived there in 2021 to 2022.
And for those months that I lived there, it didn't seem too bad.
People would always tell us to not go outside at night.
And Tijuana has a reputation of being a dangerous city.
So we were always on alert.
But we didn't have incidents where we were walking on the street and someone came up to us or tried to steal something from us.
So that was good.
However, we had one incident that actually kind of Made us want to leave, and we ended up leaving afterwards, not because of this, but it made us want to leave even more.
And that was that someone tried to force open our apartment door.
When I say that they tried to force it open, that just means that they tried to push it open using force to try to break in.
So I remember that I was awake, I was in the living room and someone was turning our doorknob and trying to push open the door in the morning and they tried it multiple times and it was really scary and they ended up running away when they couldn't get the door open.
But I remember thinking that was really scary that someone wanted to open our door in the morning.
It was early, of course, but still I would think that someone would want to try to wait until we're gone maybe watch us leave and then try to break in and steal things.
So it was a little scary to think that this person knew that we were probably in our apartment and still tried to open our door.
That's a scary thought, and that was something that really freaked me out.
In English, when we say that something freaks you out, this just means that it scares you.
So that really freaked me out.
And that was definitely the scariest incident that we had as a family in Mexico.
So that was something that I won't forget, probably.
But of course, nothing ended up happening to us.
So I'm very thankful for that.
And I remember that Tijuana used to be considered a very dangerous city when I was in high school.
And so it does have a reputation, a history of having a lot of danger criminality, things like that.
However, I go to Tijuana a lot nowadays, and I think as long as you Try to be safe.
You don't go out at night and things like that in general.
Hopefully you're going to be safe.
But again, you should always try to plan ahead and make sure that you're being safe in every situation.
All right.
Why don't we stop there for today?
I hope that this episode was interesting for you.
Remember that you can access my advanced episodes if you become a Listening Time family member.
So click on the link in the episode description if you're interested in that.
And if you're a Spanish or a Portuguese speaker and you want to practice your reading in English, then you can purchase my e-book, which is a collection of three short mystery stories written in English and translated into either Spanish or Portuguese.
And, of course, if you like this podcast, please give it a five-star rating and write a review and share it with anyone else you know who's learning English.
All right, thank you for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
