EUGENE, OR—Arriving back at work after a two-week winter vacation, local marketing assistant Matthew Bueso told reporters Monday he was happy to return to the office with a fresh and rejuvenated loathing for his job. “It’s always nice to get away for a few weeks, clear my head, and come back invigorated with a newfound disgust for my place of employment and the various responsibilities of my thoroughly depressing job,” said Bueso, 38, noting that his time away had inspired him to complete mind-numbing administrative tasks, engage in idle discussions with his aggravating coworkers, and listen to bullshit inspirational speeches from his boss with a rekindled sense of anger and despair. “I’m rested, my batteries are recharged, and I’m ready to despise my entire professional life more intensely than ever before!” At press time, a revitalized Bueso was furiously balling his fists at the sound of a nearby coworker’s loud typing.
  • Ms. ArmoredThirteenEnglish
    3·
    4 days ago

    Keeping in mind I’ve only visited 1-2 towns from each place

    • Sweden, Stockholm and Visby: The language is gorgeous sounding I like listening to people talk. I like how everyone walks in the street. People are very nice. I had a sense of belonging like I had already been living there so that’s a good sign for moving.
    • Estonia, Tallinn: Holy shit I got to walk on a real castle wall. There’s a meshing of modern and medieval architecture that works stunningly it’s so amazing. Rich history everywhere.
    • Latvia, Riga: Grafitti game is on point. The art nouveau is incredible but I preferred the castles tbh. There is a very palpable tension between Latvian and Russian that put me on edge. Like if I said thank you in Latvian some people would get upset at me, but if I said thank you in Russian other people would correct me “this is LATVIA”. I bring this up as a favorite because it reminds me that visiting for a few days doesn’t mean I understand the area.
    • Netherlands, Amsterdam and The Hague: To get off the plane and out of Amsterdam skipping it entirely was super easy. New Years in The Hague was unreal like nothing I’ve ever seen. Indonesian food is very good here too. Everyone here bikes, transit flows well, the trolleys are fun to watch. I question how many people fall into the river that has almost no guardrails anywhere.
    • Sweden again, soon I’m flying north to play in the snow and work my way back to Stockholm. No reports yet but I love cold and snow so I suspect I’ll be happy there too.

    I’m going to try and swing getting there on a student visa. I need to save enough to pay for housing and tuition, I’m guessing about $30k should get me there if I also find a part time job while at school. My Swedish is incredibly basic so far but I’m getting decent at reading. A lot of it is close enough to English I can kinda get the gist of text within known contexts. Listening to it though is still well beyond me, it sounds like actual elvish it’s wild to me. I want to learn it so much though I want to be able to speak such a pretty language

    • Drusas@fedia.io
      1·
      4 days ago

      Thank you for such a detailed report! I also really enjoy the sound of Swedish and, as an American with a moderately significant background in studying languages and linguistics, find that I can somewhat follow along with it. Just a bit. I’m sure you’ll do fine with it. I would for sure be minimizing my use of Russian in the Baltics for a while, which is kind of a shame because so many people in multiple countries understand it, but I get the animosity.

      That’s really interesting about the Indonesian food in the Netherlands. I had no idea that they had a significant Indonesian population or cultural influence from there.