Weekly thread! How was your week in the US? Answer however you'd like, or talk about the most interesting thing you saw this week.

I saw a duck with a bum leg. Seemed to be doing alright overall, hopefully it got better, poor duck.

I hope this question is not too weird (if so just tell me and I'll delete it).

As a 21 year old guy from Germany I always admired Americans. What particularly impressed me was their social skills, their outgoing/confident nature and humor.

I don't know if it's also connected with being a German but I'm generally a very shy and introverted person. I have very strong social anxiety and just when someone in public or a neighbor sees me, it creates this overwhelming anxiety because I'm so scared that I will embarrass myself and be awkward because I have very bad self esteem and don't know what to say and how to act. So most of the time I end up saying nothing and hiding myself which is very awkward or I say the bare minimum like to the grocery store cashier like only "Hello" and "Thanks, bye". I have this extreme amount of shame that's blocking me.

Germans might often generally be introverted or awkward but I'm on a whole different level.

Then Americans seem like this stark contrast which feels like the exact opposite. It feels like Americans are on a different level of confidence and extroversion than any country I know.

That makes it almost impossible for me to interact with an American as it creates this immense pressure on me (also cause English isn't my native language).

Even on a daily basis the way they're having small talks in grocery stores or talk to strangers that they're walking by seems impossible for me. And I'm afraid that if I ever would go to the US and people talk to me that I would be extremely awkward and don't say anything and wouldn't be able to smile. And I'm afraid that this might come over as rude and they think bad of me.

I really would wanna interact with an American in person cause it seems like it could be so enriching but right now that seems impossible.

I was wondering if there is anything particular that makes Americans so good at that or if they have any secret. Or maybe they're just on a different level cause they're from the best country in the world and are the best/most capable people in the world.

Cause it's my ultimate dream to be on that same level and interact with people like Americans.

Maybe it's impossible for me to get to anything near that and I will simply never be good enough.

There was talk of this Mayday sit in at the DC Mall, but for people outside the states it seems like everyone capitulated. I understand corporate media would not want to report on it, but is there anything happening on the ground where you live?

Trying out a slightly different format for the "How was your week in the US?" thread. I'm including a question in the title to spark conversation, but also feel free to comment about your week in general without answering the question.

At any rate, I saw a weird mutant dandelion that had a super wide stem and 4 heads, as seen in the picture. It's probably an omen, like a goat with 2 heads or something.

I was wondering if you only had very little money to survive with, what cheap groceries would you buy in America?

Went to a farmer's market and saw this dress smiling at me. Also got lots of plants that I need to plant so I'm going to be doing a lot of digging this weekend

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/62991105

Hey everyone!

For those that have crossed the US / Canadian border recently: what was your experience when going through US customs? Were you harassed / detained? Any tips to prepare for crossing?

My SO and I were talking earlier about having some family come up from the US to Canada to visit us. I suggested maybe they should wait a bit due to the apparent unhinged behaviour of US Customs; However, while my SO doesn't deny the stories, she believes they might be rare cases & blown out of proportion by the media. She found out that the Vancouver woman that was detained for ~2 weeks also had improper paperwork - which is often left out by the media. While the detainment duration is still totally unjustified, the initial detainment was caused by the improper paperwork.

So I'm reaching out to those that actually cross the border to see what's actually going on; as the media can be fanatical sometimes.

Thanks in advance!

Plus bonus question: What is a unique, niche little experience near you or that you've been to? There's a place near me known as the Tulip House that's in bloom atm:

https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2025/05/01/south-minneapolis-tulip-house-is-in-full-bloom-again

You can see plenty of pictures of the flowers online, so here's a picture of some of the cute art they have up accompanying it

I managed to buy a small house during the weird financial stuff going on during covid. As much as this gif is accurate, I like it better than renting.

Hi I'm from Germany and I recently discovered these different spreads other than peanut butter here that I found quite tasty.

One was a peanut butter chocolate spread from Reese's who also makes my favorite candy Reese's peanut butter cups.

And I found a chocolate cream that's like Nutella but with crunchy pieces mixed in like the one in the image (tastes like Ovaltine powder or Whoppers candy and 55% of the ingredients is just sugar).

Nutella (/hazelnut spread) of course is very popular here but I rarely eat it. As a kid I used to love and be obsessed with this cookie butter from Lotus.

Other spreads I know would be Dulce de leche which is caramel flavored and popular in Latin America.

Is that something Americans would eat or does this sound very exotic/weird and they mostly stick to standard peanut butter?

Got a nice action shot of a heron trying to get some dinner. I've also had several geese start hissing and coming after me as I jogged past.

Speaking of, how many geese do you think you could take in a fair fight? Assume your choice of a natural environment. I think I could take at least 6. You can grab one of them by the neck and use it as a club to take out the other ones.

I have a bad habit of impulse buying the most random stuff, but to my credit, most of those turn out awesome. If you wanna hear about great impulse buys, that'd be a good topic for another "ask" post (which I will leave as an exercise to the reader).

Here, I want to hear about your worst impulse buys; ones that you regretted almost immediately.

Picture was pretty much me, frolicking through nature as I worked on my garden

Not the best, not the worst. The one that most makes you go "meh, you're ok". Or the one you keep forgetting exists.

Banned is maybe too far, but why should we as a country allow people to have petty power over meaningless things their neighbors do? Could we ban HOAs from being included in house sales, and every time it's sold the new owners have to opt in?

For the most part, I'm wondering about this in the context of single family homes since for homes like condos, you could make the case that HOAs are useful for shared things like roofs and whatnot. Maybe limit mandatory HOA involvement to things like what's truly necessary and shared and not how tall your grass is?

I think this is the ultimate red line that the US crossed from a democracy to a fascist authoritarian country. Here are my points:

• Trump is a known criminal who encouraged a terrorist attack against the government and government officials. The fact that he was not only free of punishment but also legible for running as president shows that the democracy was already extremely vulnerable to a hostile takeover.
• Trump before that has repeatedly tried to convince the public that the election he lost was rigged, this is a blatant attempt to hurt the government and derail the people twoards an insurrection. At the very least he should have been investigated for conspiracy against the government (If he was muslim he would have been fucking assassinated as a terrorist already)
• The insertion of an unelected and unqualified person into the government and letting him run around and fuck with confidential and extremely sensitive systems and data (Elon) is something that should have been stopped way before he was able to start gutting public services.
• Trump did a pump and dump on NFTs, meme coins, and most recently the literal US economy. He is not even investigated for securitys fraud.

And now the really really bad things:

• Deported legal residents without due process and with secret "evidence" that no one is willing to share past "terrorism and national security"
• Ignored the supreme court and deported innocent people to a literal concentration camp. This is the 101 of a democracy being shattered, the authority ignoring the law and the police (ICE in this case) listening to the authority and not the law.
• Has now publicly and shamelessly announced that legal, US born citizens are next. This is past illegal, this unconstitutional and is the very thing the founders of the USA had in mind when writing the constitution.

And all of this without mentioning Trump as a private person being a convicted felon, rapist and a failure of a businessman to a degree that any sane person wouldn't let him run a fucking easy-bake oven bakery.

So, am I crazy or did we just witness the actual moment that historians would label as the fall of the US democracy?

Also, wtf was Bush doing during her time in Congress?

Whoops, forgot to post yesterday 😅

Saw some turkeys with impressive feathers yesterday. Anyone else have good photos, wildlife or otherwise?

E.g. freelancers, contractors, small businesses, etc.

I always wondered how Americans are so resilient. Do they have some secret? It seems like they're always confident and hard working no mater how hard the situation is. I'm trying to work on myself and America always used to be my role model

I do target shooting as a hobby but I'm genuinely curious. The US is known (for better and worse) for it's culture of gun ownership but the US is also know for widely differing experiences

As a Chinese American, I kinda have this self-imposed rule to never enter the boundaries of a red state, and even within Blue/Purple states, to avoid ending up in some rural town. Bascially, half of my country is inaccessible to me due to my perceived fear of potentially being a victim of racism.

Am I being paranoid?

Trying a text post this time, but feel free to respond with GIFs like before if you'd like. Also taking suggestions for future posts. Emojis?

The weather around me is nice enough that I'm starting to run and bike again, which is nice. We had a few days of the worst sort of half-frozen sleet, but that's finally over.

I also upgraded my desktop. Partially because I had been planning to, and partially because who knows how much we might shoot ourselves in the foot with tariffs 🤦