I always thought my tastes in food, travel, reading, hobbies, etc, were very basic. Over the past few months, I've come to realise that my level of curiosity and openness is not singular but not, in fact, universal, and some people are content experiencing nothing new.

Me quito una drama de la vida y luego siempre me llega otra.

Midsommar is mid I just want a normal three day weekend.

The American corporate culture has taken something useful like Zoom meetings and turned it into a torture session where you invite more people than you would ever want into a physical meeting room to force them to sit through long meetings only to speak for "their" 2-minute update (or not at all).

Impressive if it can happen, but very sceptical that something planned by the EU itself can compete with the innovation of Google.

The precipitous drop in English-language songs in Eurovision this year must be a sign of its loss of prestige even as it remains economically significant. Most opted for national languages instead, but I think a new prestige language will emerge. Will French rise again?

One thing we do not talk about (yet) in Europe is that if you learn English, you can have any ethnicity/name/accent and people accept it. For other langs, having a non-matching name/face/accent means your language skills undervalued or ignored. You have to speak nearly error-free or not at all.

Currently job situation is giving me identity problems that will require therapy to deal with.

Looks like it's gonna be dental care summer (two wisdom teeth extractions 🥲)

Btw it doesn't matter what the answer is, if you ask someone where they're from, putting on a face of dislike or disappointment is *incredibly* rude.

The UK has pursued a single-minded policy of "reducing net migration" ever since the financial crisis. It's not limited to one party and it is always rooted in the idea that foreigners generate problems that natives don't, despite the fact that the UK has realised huge benefits due to immigration.

Sorry I was unaware that everyone in a country was supposed to be related? The greatest cities in the world have always been full of intersecting groups of people who don't know each other. They interact sometimes and great ideas emerge. Apparently Keir Starmer wants a country of inbred villages.

All societies are by definition societies of strangers. The fuck is wrong with you people.

What a terrible idea

I went to renew my passport today and because I had lived abroad before. I had to fill out a form full of biographical data about myself, my parents, everywhere I had lived in since birth... to have my right to a passport reassessed. People living abroad have to fill this out, but why me? WTF?

So far, I have done very well on practice exams for DELE, but I haven't done a practice module for writing yet... let's see what happens next.

Give me one good reason I shouldn't move to Madrid.

Just realised one wild thing about English in Europe is that most jobs don't make you show a formal language certification and it's usually judged by interview or just taken for granted, while this is less true for the native language of the country.

The Millennial in me despises to admit that sometimes calling on the phone just makes everything easier.

Ugh have to renew my passport almost a year early because the US requires passports to have at least 6 mo. of validity to enter, I always need to be able to go for family emergencies, etc, and Swedes can't be trusted to keep passports up to date and flood the offices during summer for holidays.

We go visit our puppy at the breeder every week, and I just can't stop looking at the photos

Do I have work to do? Yes. Am I instead looking up dog training and accessories for imminent puppy arrival instead? Also yes.

La errática política económica y comercial del presidente de Estados Unidos ha generado desconfianza e incertidumbre y ha supuesto un frenazo en seco a un crecimiento que era la envidia del mundo

Si paso el examen de C1 en español creo que voy a estudiar francés después.

Happy to be wrong but I'm still going with the idea that the blackout was caused by sabotage.

It is ridiculous how much easier it is to be considered a proficient English speaker by natives compared to vice versa in any other language.

Just discovering now that "Popeye" is "Popeye" in Spanish but pronounced as a Spanish word 💀

Needs to be said: rent control is incapable of achieving this.

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

Apostille has to be a scam invented by bureaucrats and notaries to get more money. It's basically a paper saying "See this first paper we issued? It's real"

EU citizenship doesn't solve everything if you were born abroad: To register our marriage in Spain, I need to provide proof of identity AND parents' names. There is a doc, available in all EU languages, that all EU countries issue for this purpose. Mine doesn't contain my parent's names 😭

The question is, who will they blame?

Journalists from Protestant countries cover the Pope's death like some sort of wildlife documentary.

Back from Easter visit to Madrid. For the first time, the husband said concretely he would really like to move back within 3-4 years. Madrid has transformed since he moved away and is truly a global and vibrant city.

I cannot imagine any other country where someone would move there, live there for 10+ years, never speak the language well enough to give an interview, but still appear on public television to deliver social criticism and expect to be taken seriously.

Slightly cringe but an accurate ode to Europe, which is not perfect, but its problems should be put into perspective and its successes much better appreciated

Completely unrelated but I definitely did a quintuple take when I saw this name.

This is actually great news for European energy prices, though

Vänta, reportern på SVTs lokala nyheter i Stockholm sa precis "Hagsätra" flera gånger med långt e-ljud. Är detta vara Stockholms e:et eller uttalas det generellt sådär?

Of all the cities I've been to in Europe, I have to say Stockholmers are hands down the worst at actually behaving like they live in a city

The thing about Europe: it's the actual land of the free now. Whatever problems Europe has - and it has plenty - it is looking pretty damn good by comparison these days. My Charlemagne this week www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

Wild to me that DEI initiatives now include thinking about the well-being of middle-class parents as if they were an underrepresented category in society.

Chasing volatility for profit is a losing game for retail investors but DAMN the banks are gonna rake in profits from arbitrage and fees

This is good mostly, but I am sad for California.

I think both companies and countries are hesitant to accept that tariffs are here to stay, but I think the sooner they accept and adjust, the better.

Don't fucking book your meeting through lunch just because you want it TODAY

This stock market is highly unserious.

Why do we never talk about the fact that a whole bunch of Northern Italians speak Italian and English with uvular R?!

BAD BUNNY IS OVERRATED SEND TWEET

My work life would genuinely be better if people just talked to me significantly less.