I've plenty of privilege that has meant I've been shielded (for now) by so many things, so at least I've personally always been treated well by pretty much everyone and I am grateful for being made feel welcome everywhere!

It's satisfying to wrap up this travel project!

The United States is going through some serious challenges, politically, economically & socially, so unfortunately I will be winding up my residence in a couple of years, since I don't know what living here will be like soon. I know it's becoming difficult for so many people.

I'll be forever asked which was my favourite, or where are the people the friendliest etc., but I don't really go through life with superlative mentalities about the places I've visited.

I can simply try to take the most positive experiences that I can and not get distracted with comparisons.

It wasn't about driving through; I've stayed in every state about a week minimum and a lot were between a month and several years.

The thing I made sure to do in EVERY state was to have genuine interactions, either by making new friends or going to events.

I heard rumours of this being a really walkable town, which as a European, you know I was sold on! I got a place on the Isthmus for the month, so I can regularly walk downtown.

Of course, I've a car too, to be able to explore the area and will do a weekend trip to North Wisconsin at some point.

There are some push factors for a foreigner in the states these days unfortunately (I've personally always felt really welcome here, but it's bigger than that), so I'm going to try and wrap up my US residency on a positive note!

2. Skype, since it's being taken offline forever on Monday!

I remember switching to online lessons with teachers via Skype in 2012. It was revolutionary! Skype was so iconic, it became a verb, like in my polyglot collaborative video "Skype me maybe": www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HZb...

Note: this word comes from Dutch, so the mnemonic would be less useful in that language because of the 'v' sound on the w. But it's a closer match in Indonesian

Me when I see I have 50 new notifications:😄

Me when I see why:🙄

I pick the one that is most memorable to help me make a better mental link to the word.

Deepseek and ChatGPT do a decent job at this, Gemini is a bit better to bring in linguistic features like word origins but the actual mnemonic is often less memorable.

During an intensive travel week, limping slowly for days and the 1st day of having to literally one-legged hop home in agony would not have worked well

Also, it would get me way too many looks, when I'm already expecting a lot of looks for being the only white guy in most places I'll be visiting