Incredible summary. 10/10.

High five from the far side of the Atlantic at 1:36am and not entirely sober ✋

Right… Well that’s some insight. Thank you . I heard a rumour that it was down to it being popular during a war where cocoa was in short supply but that makes sense too.

There is. That’s fair, and some of it was decent and that’s not to say that all American chocolate is bad because that would be stupid of course, as you say. And I’m sure there’s top notch American chocolate. Of course there is.

But, the dominant chocolate, the one that foreigners associate with the US, was shite IMO. That’s all.

And tbh I do like an oul’ mackers. I wouldn’t call McDonald’s the Hershey’s of burgers.

This is all subjective and I’m not being a cunt. I just was expecting sparkles in my mouth and I got… Hershey’s.

Try chocolate that wasn’t made in America…

I’m actually very fond of the US but the chocolate is absolute filth, sorry lads. I was so excited to try Hershey’s and holy moly was it an earth shattering disappointment.

Consistent with their more ecumenical views

I… Can’t help myself…

They’re gonna be working hard to justify that budget. Things are going to get a whole lot worse for our American friends. :(

Depends how many you’re shopping for. My nearest supermarket is about a kilometre away and if I’m going there I’ll always walk. That’s a grand distance even with a heavy shop.

I’d do 3 if I was just buying for myself but it’s at the upper limit depending on weight, especially in 30C (I presume dry heat because fuck that shit otherwise).

I saw it in a documentary but it was a good while ago so to be honest I can’t remember what the exact mechanism was or if it was just a contributing factor over longer distances. I just remember storing it away as little nugget that made sense when presented.

It’s very late here and now you have me curious so I’ll probably have a dig around in the morning.

Edit: I don’t think it’s the break thing though. Organ damage is definitely better than death if you’re being chased.

Mexico:

Canada:

Sweden:

The other advantage we have while running is that we’re not constantly slamming our intestines into our other vital organs and lungs because we’re upright.

Humans can out-distance a horse. A fucking HORSE. Incredible animal the oul’ human.

Usually, if a word is used properly, but pronounced wrong, it’s an indicator that the word was learned from reading, not from hearing

I love when I hear folks do this. It always gives me a little wholesome bump that it’s from reading.

Mmmm. I’m not sure tbh but I don’t think so. If your grandmother had an Irish passport though that might work. Worth checking if you’re considering it.

My sister lives in the UK a long time now and all her kids have an Irish passport. It’s actually a great passport to have for travel. EU is obviously wide open but most places accept it without much (or zero) effort.

Yeah he knew about ten words of Danish after over three years there before he moved to Germany. Even his lectures were in English which I was surprised at.

He has had to learn a little German but not that much and he’s there about 18 months now. The office he works in has folks from all over so they just use English.

Netherlands also in my experience basically everyone can speak perfect English.

I prefer to try to use a bit of the local language when I’m travelling myself as I find folks react well to the effort.

I’m terms of offence, it’s unlikely. I’d imagine tourists are common enough everywhere. I have reasonable French myself so I do try to use it when there so I can’t say for France specifically.

If you’ve any other questions I can pass them on to the young lad.

Almost anywhere in Europe is the answer. My son did his masters in Denmark and never learned Danish. He lives in Germany now and speaks fuck all German.

Once in the Netherlands, after losing my glasses I asked an optician if he could speak English and he was thoroughly insulted.

Britain and Ireland are both native English.

If you have an Irish grandparent you can get a passport. Lots of work here and Americans are welcome.

Otherwise work visas that turn into residency aren’t difficult to come by with sponsorship and it’s not the kind of sponsorship that makes you a slave.

Welcome to Europe, researchers!

Lots of great choices and don’t worry, you can move to France without knowing French or Denmark without knowing Danish!

Thank you. I am so, so proud. He has turned out a beautiful man. One of my best friends is in a wheelchair and hung out with us a lot when he was growing up so he saw the things he struggled with and really embraced accessibility in college (he did product design).

Here’s a funny text conversation we had earlier.

My son has been working on this for his company’s websites for the last while. He had worked on a lot of design for accessibility while in college so was happy to take on responsibility for it.

A lot of it is e.g. proper keyboard navigation and making sure it’s set up well for screen readers, colourblind folks etc.