I'd love to learn more about the situation there. A lot of other people here would too I'm sure. Welcome to Steemit and I hope you'll share what you can (without getting yourself in trouble). That beach does look beautiful.
I'm currently about 50% through Duolingo's Spanish course to possibly move South one day. I'm a private investigator in Virginia too, so I know learning the language here will help me at the least!
There are a ton of other webpages to help you with Steemit. Here are some of the best for beginners:
https://steemd.com/ (This site is used to keep track of your voting power and other stats. You do not want to run out of voting power, and you only get so much per day. I keep my voting power around 80% for example.)
https://steem.makerwannabe.com/ (This site will tell you who follows you, who unfollows you, and who mutes you. It is great for meeting new people too. I regularly check it to see who has followed me to see if I should follow them back.)
https://steemit.chat/ (This site is the official chat webpage for Steemit. There are Discord channels too, but I usually stick to the official site. Come in to network and meet new friends. You can directly message people there too, so it makes it easier to communicate with your closest friends.)
Oh yeah, there are a lot of bots on here. If you see a cookie cutter reply, especially to your intro post, it is almost certainly a bot. Check the account's reputation. If it is low, I would recommend just ignoring them. Everything is public on Steemit, so you can go look at an account's comments and replies. Are they all the same? It's a bot.
Again, welcome, and I've followed you! If you have any questions about getting started, look me up on the chat site.