Born in Europe but my mother stupidly decided she wanted me to have the American dream with a picket fence and 2 dogs, so she brought me to Phoenix of all places.

Well, I made it out in my twenties and have been living across Europe for the past 10 years. Out of the places I've lived (Germany, Portugal, Ukraine, and now the Netherlands), I would choose Ukraine if not for Putin and his fucking war.

I'm actually visiting America right now for the first time in 8 years and holy shit I do not feel comfortable here any more. I hate the Netherlands but I realize I prefer it 100x to America. I actually finished my work early, came to the least American part, Puerto Rico, and I'm going home 5 ahead of schedule. See ya America, hoping never to set foot here again.

American in the Netherlands: Woke up at 9 without my alarm, had coffee and a joint. No work today because I got put on burnout leave.

12: Had lunch, scheduled some appointments.
2pm: rode to supermarket and then the beach to have some champagne, joints, and make some music on my portable groovebox. I'll be here till sunset.

Might stop at my local pub for a beer and dinner afterwards.

No friends because NL is lonely as hell((

But yes, life is much better in Europe, even in the Netherlands ( I just personally don't really care for it)

If, after having been in someone's presence, you feel like you've lost a quart of plasma - avoid that presence.

William S. Burroughs

That goes for online communities too.

I'm an American living in Europe for almost 10 years and haven't been stateside since like 2018. I've been homesick a lot recently, but I'm trying to come to terms that there's a real chance I'm never going back.

I'm a recruiter, this is 100% their default rejection template. It's pretty standard, but at least they let you know! I've been looking for a new role lately and you're lucky to get that DQ email and not just ghosted.

You're kinda wrong man. There's a bunch of counties where dollars are essentially the main currency. I go to Lebanon often and yeah, USD is the main currency, esp after the financial crisis a few years ago. There's also Ecuador where USD is the actual official currency.

I'm convinced my old company was complicit in this to some degree. It was a start up with absolutely silly funding for a bunch of products (b2c and b2b) that were aimed to hoover up personal information under the guise of gaming.

For some reason we were told to start an office in Tel Aviv and to specifically hire devs from unit 8200.

I think they flagged me as a gun nut enthusiast because my feed is literally nothing but gun videos. I am American but live in Europe; one of the reasons I moved here is because of the lack of guns!

Because we have this little thing called E M P A T H Y

I've been hearing about lab grown teeth for decades at this point. Cool to hear progress regardless though

And that quite a lot of Ukrainians support Israel and don't see the similarities between their struggle and the Palestinian's — I don't get it.

E: and to the down voters, I am Ukrainian diaspora and lived in Kyiv until the war and visit regularly. I have these conversations frequently when I'm there.

Probably what led me to being vegan. I can't stand the hypocrisy of some animals deserving compassion and others not. I also work for a company in sustainability/energy transition, and the amount of people who "care" about sustainability and the environment and yet still drool when they see a steak is too high.

I'm vegan, btw.

This is what it's like going to any event in the Netherlands.

No no no, don't you see? The growth MUST continue... Or else

I did not expect to be living in the Zoids universe, but here we are.

Departing Kyiv, with the main Roshen factory (ex president Poroshenko's candy company) still displaying the damage left by a Shahed drone

Up to 2 years, apparently. It was a huge shock to me too; I'm still coming to grips with it? Honestly, I didn't want to take it but my boss strongly urged me to talk to the company doc and here we are.

I'm still working, just reduced hours.