Hello and welcome.

name is Christopher Chandler.

And my name is Chris Schauer and we are Generally American.

In our podcast, we discuss events, culture, whatever else we want from a generally
American perspective.

From our differing viewpoints, our goal is that we can offer others and ourselves nuanced
opinions on fascinating topics related to the U.S.

We invite you to be part of the discussion and we hope that you'll stick around to see
where the conversation takes us.

So let's dive in.

And...

We're back.

We are.

We're happy to be here.

week.

Well, I ended up getting sick for about a week.

Which happens, like like a head cold.

You know, I think it was a minor flu.

It wasn't that bad.

It was just one of those things that, you know, missed a couple of days of work and ended
up not going to Thanksgiving.

It actually

I felt better, worked a couple days, and then I woke up with no voice on Thanksgiving
morning, so...

no.

Yeah.

I mean, that's terrible.

I mean, I wasn't sick, but I had an operation the other day.

So about like two, about two, three days ago.

Long story short, because it's kind of complicated.

I don't want to bore anyone with the details.

But yeah, I've been having problems with my wrists.

So they went in with a camera and checked out my tendons and all that.

was a very weird experience.

being put under.

And now we're better friends than ever because we've bonded through having wrist surgery.

Yeah.

Was it right or left?

Was it right or left?

It was left.

come on.

Yeah, it was my left hand.

Like, like I'm right handed.

And so it's kind of naive.

But I figure, you know, like, well, I have a dominant hand.

So what do I need my left hand for?

But obviously, when you can't use one of your hands, it's very limiting.

I can't really.

carry anything, I can't push the stroller, it's infuriating, so it'll be like that for
about two-ish weeks.

Did they give you some of the good drugs?

They gave me some pay meds, something from his stomach, because I couldn't eat afterwards.

Apparently it's a side effect of like anesthesia, that you have like an upset stomach or
like an uneasy stomach, so it was just terrible.

And then it was on Thanksgiving, so we...

You touched on that.

So I had my surgery on Thanksgiving and my wife made pumpkin pie for us.

And something I've never had on Thanksgiving before.

was like a pumpkin hollowed out with, I guess, her own creation, like a certain filling
with like rice.

It was very delicious.

And she's like, I'm sorry, it's not like a traditional Thanksgiving, which we can't do
anyway, because we don't really eat meat.

So it's kind of hard to.

Like do Thanksgiving if you don't eat meat.

That still sounds pretty neat.

it was awesome.

For me, it was a thought that counts because I mean, you're going to laugh, but there when
I was in the hospital, there were a whole bunch of like Thanksgiving ads on TV, but they

were all about Black Friday.

Yeah.

So obviously, Germans don't celebrate Thanksgiving, although they kind of do.

They do have a version of Thanksgiving, but I think it's like a Catholic holiday.

So unless you're like super religious, you don't celebrate it.

And they're like, well, you know, it's Thanksgiving.

But what's more important is it's Black Friday and you get 50 percent off.

But they don't have Black Friday here.

They have Black Week, which is very mean, that's kind of what it's turned into.

Yeah, basically.

All I did this year was order some jeans online.

Really?

I didn't buy anything.

No, I didn't do anything for Black Friday.

I refuse because I don't need anything at the moment.

I don't want anything.

I try to think of it like that.

Like, what do I need?

Like last year, I was just about to move, so I I bought like TV.

I bought things like that because like I'm moving.

I'm going to need these things.

And this year it was like, well, I only really have four good sets of jeans right now in
rotation.

And maybe I should pad that a little bit.

So I ordered some.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely need more clothes, which is kind of funny because when you're a
kid, I've or at least for me, it was like getting clothing was one of like the most boring

things you could get.

Like getting socks for like Christmas or for like your birthday was pretty boring.

But now I love it.

Now I love getting clothes.

yeah.

To be honest with you, and this is probably not going to sound great for me.

I can't remember the last time I bought a shirt.

Like, all my shirts are either from high school, which I don't wear really, but I still
have high school shirts that fit me.

They're in my closet.

And people will give me gifts from like where they've traveled and stuff.

And they're usually really comfy shirts and they fit well.

And the place I work right now doesn't have a dress code, so screw it.

I'll just wear comfy t-shirts.

I bought a boatload of t-shirts when I was in the US a couple, a couple months back.

But, before we get too far off, and actually get into the topic of today, obviously we
have to touch on the weather.

So it's been pretty cold, not going to lie.

So it's been in like, like the thirties and twenties.

And, last week,

my wife and I went down to go see a castle together like the very first time and it was
really awesome because we saw like snow covered hills basically so it was kind of like I

don't want to say like a fairy tale but it felt like a little bit although there wasn't
that much snow honestly something to write home about was maybe like an inch or two but

when you see it from the hillside it looks like a lot more so and yeah it's getting super
cold here

So I'm looking forward to having a hot wine.

I don't know if you know that.

I've heard about it.

You've told me about it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's a picturesque scene, though.

You're painting.

yeah.

It's lovely.

I love drinking a hot wine in the in the winter months.

So but yeah, that's that's the weather here.

What about where you are?

About the same.

It's a little late, but I said I was sick, so I kind of just

I left work early Friday, bought stuff to make chicken soup, rushed home, and then I just
stayed inside all weekend and I didn't look outside until Sunday.

I'm like, my God, it snowed.

And everyone I knew was like, yeah, it did two days ago.

So we had we had our first real snow last week and it's it's kind of hung around.

It's not snowed more, but the temperature has been hovering just below freezing, just
above freezing.

enough that it's slowly going away over the weeks.

that's about the norm.

It's going to be for the next four or so months.

It'll snow once and then slowly go away and then it'll snow again and slowly go away.

Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to more snow, but we're probably not going to get it.

So this year is coming to a close and so is this season.

So this podcast season, I would say.

And so what are we going to do for today?

So we're going to wrap up what we talked about this season, but we're also going to do a
bit of a I guess retrospective on the podcast as a whole, at least since I joined, because

we are pivoting in a new direction.

Yes.

We don't want to give away too much.

But I, and if you're, if you're a long time listener, you've probably kind of noticed
there's only so many things you can talk about with the U S it with our format.

We've talked about food, military, internet culture.

If you'll notice, we tried to stay away from political specifics for a long time, but
eventually that's all there really was to talk about.

And then the election happened and we'd already kind of we'd already kind of cross the
line.

So I think we just.

You know, we already crossed it, so let's go for it.

And, you know, I.

We've done what we think we can for this going forward.

We're going to be doing something more regional based and more researched.

And, we're very excited about it.

It was actually an idea we kind of tossed around, when I was about to join a three and a
half years ago, which is crazy to say.

know it's been really long.

Yeah.

I, I can't remember the exact reason why we didn't end up wanting to do it.

And I'm kind of glad we did, because I think, you know, we have more experience now.

We've built up a rapport with each other.

I think the product made now is going to be better than it would have if we made it three
years ago.

Don't want to give away too much because we're still working out the exacts, but we're
going to be drilling deeper into certain things, things that.

probably neither of us have information on right now.

It'll be true research and we're going to be learning along with you, which is part of why
we're excited.

Yeah.

Which is, which is not as like we don't obviously we do our research, but I think it's
more.

What's the best way, like more of like a journalistic approach, I would say more of a,
yeah, more of a research format.

Yeah.

Or a report like, which is funny because in school they're the worst, but now we're like,

We're going to do voluntary reports.

This is so exciting.

I definitely do like it for for the vast majority of things that we we've talked about on
the podcast.

Most of the things have been from a perspective like lived experience and with like
politics or with like food or with with true crime or police or school.

Like we've both lived those.

And so I think.

For me, that was one of the reasons why I didn't want to do a different format at the very
beginning.

I really felt like it was very interesting to give like an authentic experience of like,
how did you experience school?

Or how do you experience fast food?

Or what do you think about driving in the US and this and that?

And I don't know if that's something that you necessarily need to research unless you get
into like the statistics, then obviously you have to research that.

But

I mean, that's that's my perspective on it.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of what we did was.

I mean, almost vibe based for lack of a lack of a better phrase, and that's fine.

I think we've had like, you know, I can sit here and talk about American football just
fine.

And you know what?

I love going on vacation and coming back and talking about the vacation I went on.

kind of a twofer it feels like cheating but it's fun talking about and gushing about
Boston recently one of the favorite things I did just because I love Boston so much gonna

love talking about it but yeah so that's it that's a good starting point so you can start
there so that because that was the first episode of this season which is Boston

So why do you love it so much?

I mean, it's just a...

It's so different from where I live.

Like everything looks like it's steeped in history.

Every, you know, lots of brick architecture, the public transportation is amazing.

It's just, it's just different.

You know, I'm Montana is home, you know.

I was glad to come back.

It's stress.

I'm getting better about it, but being in big cities for a long time does kind of stress
me out, but I really could see myself living there when I did it.

And I know people say that about places they go on vacation.

And it turns out it's a lot worse when you have to work, you know, a full-time job.

Then all of a sudden it's not as fun for some reason, but like I could picture it like
waking up in the morning, catch the train, go to work, go to lunch.

find some cool restaurant to walk to, take your lunch there, go back to work, catch the
train home.

Like I was picturing it.

It would have been really expensive and I don't know how, what kind of work I would have
done, but I was picturing it.

I can definitely understand that sentiment.

So, I mean, I moved to the U S or sorry, I moved to Germany when I was fairly young.

So I'd just finished high school and I went to it and I was like, my God, this is so
perfect.

Like I want to live here forever.

And obviously

you know, being 18 and whatnot, you don't really have the maturity, I would say, to see
the difference between visiting a place and living in a place.

And those are like two totally different things.

And I get that a lot too, especially on like the podcast or about people who listen or
from people who listen to podcasts, I'm sorry, where I talk about like, I live in Europe

and I don't live in the US.

And people are like, well, you know, the US sounds so amazing and like the podcast is so
interesting and you know, there are so many different things you can do though, US and I

always kind of retort with, you know, well, like, obviously I love the US, you know, it's
where I was born and raised and it's, you know, it's my home country and whatnot, but

visiting the US and being in the US are always two totally different things.

and I guess that's one of the things I also want to kind of trans

wanted to transmit with the podcast, is to have more of like a nuanced opinion through
lived experience.

But who knows, maybe you'll maybe you'll move to Boston someday.

Maybe, maybe.

And you know, a slight hint about, I guess, the direction we're moving.

to be talking about Boston again.

We're going to be talking about it and I'm looking forward to it.

How far is Boston from Montana?

Can't remember.

I'll tell you what.

Flight wise, I'm going to guess 2500 miles and I will.

I mean, there is no direct flight.

well, that sucks.

I had to take a two step flight, which isn't too bad, but it's a.

22,

Well, by car, it's a 2200 miles.

Would you drive that is the question.

I mean, I'd be willing to.

So the nice, the fun thing, I think I talked about this before, but the major interstate
here in Billings is I-90.

I-90 takes you all the way to Boston.

I crossed I-90 several times in Boston.

It was weird to see signage for I-90 in Boston.

Like a man.

Because I-90 goes all the way from...

it ends in Boston and it goes all the way to Seattle.

it really does.

I was double checking, but it actually through Chicago.

It's big one.

Yeah, I mean, that's also with traveling and whatnot, that's also a common cliche with the
US that people are willing to just drive about...

to drive really anywhere.

I guess I've become more sensitive.

by living over in Europe.

Anything over like a couple hundred miles is too, it's pretty far for me.

I'll just fly it.

But I would say for the average person, that's not really worth it in the US.

And I've met plenty of people who are willing to drive like a thousand miles, literally.

Yeah.

I mean, if time was no object, it would be a fun road trip.

Like you could stop at lots of places along the way.

the real world, where you only get so much

personal time for work, this is definitely a flight.

That's definitely true.

But I'm just looking at the route right now.

Like you pass through lots of interesting places.

It'd be a fun road trip.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I would definitely love to go on a road trip in the US.

I've talked to so many people who are like, I love the US.

I want to go to New York and I want to rent like a RV or whatever and

do like a weekend trip from New York to California.

I was like, you're not doing a weekend trip from New York to California.

and actually going to see a lot.

you're not, I don't think you're going to make it at all.

No, don't think you'd like that.

But I think a lot of people like underestimate how massive the U S is and how much time
you would actually need to travel, back and forth.

But yeah, speaking about

you go to Boston.

I went to St.

Louis with my wife and with our daughter in what was it July?

Yeah, and that was one of longest trips I'd actually been in the US since I'd left.

And it was really odd, because after like the first week or two, I'd felt like, you know,
I was basically here to stay.

Obviously, I wasn't going to stay forever.

I can't.

But still, it was really nice.

And for me, like visiting the arch and like going to St.

Louis and like all the historical sites for me, it was kind of I don't want to say boring,
but I've seen it probably like 20 times.

So it's nothing really new, so to speak.

Like I did go to Illinois and visit a couple of people there.

But for the most part, I was just kind of in St.

Louis the whole time.

And even though my wife has been there.

I think four or five times already.

She absolutely enjoyed it.

So I think we'll go back there next year.

We go back every year.

One thing I do regret is not doing like a national flight.

Because one of my friends had kind of remarked to my wife like, it sucks that you always
come to St.

Louis and don't see other places.

And like, well, I don't have like $3,000 to go to like

Florida or whatever.

But then I forgot that if I fly within the US, it's really cheap.

know, like flying from, I don't know, St.

Louis to Florida probably costs a couple hundred dollars, as opposed to flying from like
Berlin to Florida, which would probably cost like a grand.

So maybe next year or the year after that, we'll probably do like a vacation within a
vacation.

And I don't know, maybe go to Boston or something.

I mean,

highly recommend it.

It's a beautiful city.

Yeah, I think last time you were talking about like the freedom path from the freedom
trail.

Freedom trail.

Thank you.

It's it's super touristy, but like not in a not in like a horrible way.

I mean, there's like 20 landmarks on the way and a lot of the stuff you just kind of walk
by and take in.

And some of it, there's museums you can stop by.

I don't know.

It's just it's really cool.

Yeah, if anybody does go pro tip, you can get on the USS Constitution, which I talked
about the US ship estate.

The only day it is closed is Monday and I went on a Monday.

So just don't go on a Monday.

I didn't know it was a ship.

But good to know.

Yeah.

And if you I guess if you do go to St.

Louis, you have to visit the arch.

So the gateway to the west.

If you want to know and there is a museum Below the arch and you can actually go to the
top of the arch with an elevator Which a lot of people don't know Like I said, I've done

it like six times The first time was amazing and after that it was just you know, well,
I've got nothing better to do But yeah, so moving on from there so

Then we kind of get into like the, guess, like the politics side of things.

What you mentioned at the very beginning of the podcast.

Well, we did, we did, we skipped a little bit.

We did have an episode about jury duty and my failed attempt at it.

Yeah.

Which I guess is still kind of, is it politics?

don't know if it's really.

No, but I mean, it it didn't amount to a whole lot.

I mean, it of caused a lot of stress with my job, but like the, the defendant didn't show.

And then another friend of mine was going through jury duty and I'm like, okay, great.

Tell me all about it when it's done.

He only made it to the question stage and he got eliminated.

So it was an interesting experience, but it wasn't much of an experience.

Yeah.

I mean, which is, guess kind of said, I don't really have anything to add to jury duty.

I've never been on jury duty.

I think you're probably the only person I've ever.

I know that's actually ever even been in Jury Duty.

Or at least the first one who's actually told me about it, I remember.

I can't think of anyone else.

Yeah, well, I'm still in the pool.

It might happen.

really?

Yeah, I mean, you could be called for jury duty like three times in the same year.

I think the way it works is you're in the pool of like random names and then when they
need them, they just draw it random.

Okay, so yeah, so maybe next year We'll have to miss a few episodes because you'll be in
jury duty.

I Think it's like August or September Is like the beginning of the jury duty year, so I
still have you know, I Still have some time.

I didn't know it was actually limited to months But yeah, but I mean for those who don't
remember because I think we've touched on in a couple of times I mean most Americans have

to sign up for

a couple of things like selective service, I think it's called, which is a mild form of a
draft, if you will, and jury duty, which is you have to serve on like a board, basically,

of people who are in a court and decide someone else's fate.

I guess it's the easiest way to describe a jury.

And I would say it's one of the things that most Americans loathe.

And I don't think anyone actually enjoys it.

It's the bunt of a it's like the butt of a lot of jokes in a lot of movies and like songs
and shows.

No one enjoys jury duty.

So I was walking outside, you know, because they released like 40 people at once.

A lot of people are going to be with each other on the street.

I heard one lady like, don't really want to go back to work.

OK.

I mean, you know, you're supposed to if you get cut from jury duty, just go back to work.

OK.

Well, I mean, that's

I guess it really depends on how much you love or hate your job.

If you love it more than Jury Duty or you hate it more than Jury Duty, then I guess
obviously you'd want to go back to one or the other depending on it.

But yeah, so that was pretty much I think that.

And then we get into the, I guess the more dangerous territory of talking about politics.

And then this was in your neck of the woods.

Yeah, because the Montana election was...

I So how did that go?

Well, the incumbent John Tester lost.

Mm-hmm.

Which I gotta say, I kind of saw coming.

You know, it was interesting.

A lot of the criticism of Democrats this year was Democrats trying to appeal to the
moderate right.

Mm-hmm.

And then that's part of the reason why they failed.

Which is true.

but John Tester has been doing that for over a decade because that's just kind of what it
took to win in Montana.

And it did actually work here.

But I got to say, seeing his ads this year, I'm like, dude.

Yeah, he was he did not have the best running platform and the ads were everywhere
constant and

And they were around like one of my friends as a teacher.

the the guy who ended up winning Tim Sheehy, they called him Shady Sheehy in political
ads.

And I guess the kids thought that was hilarious.

She teaches high school, but she heard Shady Sheehy all around the school.

But I don't think it's because they actually believed he was Shady Sheehy.

They just thought it was funny.

I mean...

Yeah, I get that.

I'm not that too versed in politics, let alone in politics in Montana.

I mean, that's your neck of the woods.

But I mean, yeah, I think that definitely will tie into the final topic that we did this
episode, which is appealing to moderates.

But are you happy with the outcome?

No.

I didn't think so.

No.

I can't remember what it was.

There was some

I think we voted to protect abortion in Montana.

That was like our only win.

Other than that, the state basically went bright red to the right.

Yeah.

And unless you anything else on that episode, I think that ties directly into the final
one, which is like going bright red or like the red wave.

So we talked about this a couple of weeks ago with, you know, with the presidential
election and.

The whole country going red, I don't know how accurate that is, though.

I think if you look at like the raw numbers, then it would give you the impression that
people are becoming more.

conservative, although I don't think that's necessarily true.

It is in some cases.

It's been an interesting generational thing watching.

Cause like over recent years, I've heard a lot of, wow, Gen Z is like the most progressive
generation we've ever had.

And then...

they ended up swinging like hard right especially young men and then it's been interesting
to watch and

I mean, it's been a horror show.

has.

Yeah, that's kind of why I'm, I'm trying to choose my words carefully, but it was a lot
of, I mean, basically the, I don't want to say the end all beyond boil it down too simple,

but one of the big factors of why the Democrats lost the election so hard is they were
trying to appeal to moderate right-wing voters who were never going to vote for them.

And by doing that,

They disenfranchised everyone on the left and the left-winger notoriously bad at voting
and the right-wing love to vote.

They will stand in line for five hours with a big old smile on their face.

There was also a lot of weird voter stuff going on.

So I am a registered voter, but they unregistered my absentee ballot, which I didn't find
out until the day of the election.

And I was going to vote, but there's only one polling place in my whole city.

And every time I drove by it, like the line was like out the door, wrapped around several
buildings.

And then when I got off work and tried to go over there, like a traffic light was out,
like it took me 50 minutes to drive a distance that normally takes me five minutes.

Like there was no like.

So I just didn't go vote and, know, I'm not saying that would have made the difference in
this case.

but you know, the way election laws are, it's not easy to vote.

Yeah, I mean, we all know the expression or I wouldn't say the expression, but we all know
the sentiment of like, well, you know, one vote doesn't matter.

And then the common response to that is, well, if a million people said that, then it
would matter.

But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter.

And it didn't matter in this one, in this election, because for a lot of the states, it
was so far to one direction.

I mean,

there weren't that many close calls where you could say like, like 10,000 votes.

And that would have made like all the difference like last time, but it happened with some
ballot initiatives.

Yeah, it's true.

That is true.

I'll give you that point.

So Alaska, they had they have ranked choice voting and they had to vote to protect it this
year.

And I think they protected it by by less than 700 votes.

OK.

Yeah.

I mean, so I mean, you do have obviously do have cases where, you know, that one vote does
matter.

like, and within the presidential election, it's really difficult.

Or at the very least, it's very hard for you to feel like that one vote matters because
you don't vote for the president directly, you have the electoral college and blah, blah,

blah, as we all know.

Obviously, so have to go out and vote and do due diligence, but I dropped the ball to I
thought that I could send my ballot by email.

Apparently, you can only do that if you live in a war zone.

I don't live in a war zone, thank God.

But had I been living in one, then I could have sent it by email.

Otherwise, you actually have to send it by mail.

And I guess I was pretty naive on that point, because I assumed, if I send it out, then
they'll be able to track the time when I sent it out, and they'll still count it even if

it comes like a couple days later.

Nope, if it's not there by the election day at, think it was 7 p.m.

or something, it's not counted.

And so I had a week to send out my vote, but I was like, am I gonna pay $60 for like an
express letter for them to receive my vote and it most likely not make a difference?

Which it wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

It would have made me feel better.

I feel like I'm doing my duty, my due diligence as an American citizen by voting.

But beyond that, I don't think it would have actually changed the, you know, the tides, so
to speak.

I don't know how it would work, but I've always just thought, excuse me, how nice it would
be if there was like some sort of democracy app or something, just everybody has it on

their phone and you could just.

Here's what we're all in.

They could just put out a vote at any time like, hey, how do how does instead of having a
special election and making everyone like in June go to a polling place, like you put it

on the phone like, hey, this senator died or retired and we need to replace them right
now.

Here are the candidates.

Who do you want?

OK, that's yeah.

I wouldn't that be nice?

Yeah, I mean, for the most part.

I think the barrier to voting should be a lot lower.

I think it should be a lot easier.

But then you have a lot of people who are against all that, a lot of people who are
worried about voter fraud and illegal immigrants voting and you know all the stuff you've

heard like a billion different times.

So I think if you make voting easier, you have a lot of people who start like frothing at
the mouth.

worrying about, you know, ruining the system.

But to peddle back what you said a couple minutes ago about choosing your words carefully,
I think that's definitely a really good sentiment when it comes to politics, especially

now within the context of the US and, you know, Trump and all that.

It's really hard to express your feelings without

feeling like you're alienating someone, you know?

And I don't think that's ever really been an issue until like Trump came into office, like
in 2016.

And I feel like a lot of it is very dogmatic and it almost feels somewhat like a religion.

Well, yeah.

mean, you think of it like this.

The campaign for the 2016 election started, you know, in earnest around 2015, right?

Yeah.

We've been in a campaign.

We've been in nonstop campaign mode for almost 10 years.

Hmm.

Because it's almost 20, 25.

don't say that.

I know.

But like, think about it like Trump only knows one mode and it's campaign mode.

He's in campaign mode all day, every day.

Even when he's president, when he's not president, it doesn't matter.

And that and that's the thing.

So it's really.

And I think that's one of the biggest mistakes that a lot of people made was not being
careful with their words.

Even like during this election where they referred to, or where Biden I think referred to
as Trump supporters as like trash or something.

And people pick up on that and you have to really choose your words, especially with those
kinds of people.

And I think for like a lot of the Democrats, it was really easy just to throw a lot of the
Trump supporters under the bus or aside.

you know, because of their views or who they support.

And I think we touched on this in the episode as well, where one guy said that he was
voting for Trump, not because he necessarily supported Trump, but because he was going to

lower taxes.

So I don't think that makes you a right-winger because you want lower taxes.

You know, at the end of the day, you got to, you got to protect your wallet.

And I get that with a lot of people.

And some people have other motivations for voting for Trump or Kamala.

Not that that matters at all.

Fun side note, the former chancellor of Germany brought out her autobiography.

I think it's called freedom in English.

At least that's the German translation of it.

And in her autobiography, she hoped that Kamala would be president of the US, but she had

like she brought out before the election.

didn't she say something in there?

That's like everything to Trump as a competition.

Whenever you met him, was like, yeah, yeah.

So she basically discussed how she felt about Trump and all that.

And it was less than ideal.

I haven't read it.

I haven't read the memoirs.

I'm not going to.

I don't really actually care that much.

But

But yeah, so that was the election in a nutshell.

Yeah.

It was.

But anyway, I guess kind of wrapping it up and yeah, we kind of discussed it earlier, but.

Moving on from this format, which is kind of bittersweet because we've been doing this
over three years.

At least I've been doing this over three years.

I really do think we touched on just about everything we could reasonably talk about.

And, you know, we talked about as much as we could the, you know, governmental procedures,
perceptions of things.

culture, how transportation works.

We definitely doubled over some things.

Some things were arguably not necessarily about American culture.

mean, we, we touched a lot on food.

I think we have multiple episodes about food, fast food.

Everybody loves talking food.

We're still going to be talking food.

That's not going away.

definitely.

We're definitely going to talk, talk on food.

but I think one thing I really loved talking about was, I guess health insurance and like,
drugs funny enough.

just because it's so, so different than the rest of the world, how it works, how like the
drug laws work, how health insurance works and whatnot.

And I think it's one of the things that a lot of people totally underestimate when they
come to the U S

of how serious these things are taken and how medical debt is a real thing here.

Or like missing your, like, you know, getting fired from your job because you were sick
for too long, for example.

Or like at will employment is one of the things I enjoy talking about.

It's like workplace culture.

That's the thing I think surprises a lot of people is like at will employment.

And we've talked about work and healthcare and all that, think, ad nauseum.

So, like, a lot.

And we definitely did avoid politics, that's true.

So I think we've only touched on politics a couple of times.

But I'm happy with that, if you are, because I'm definitely not a very openly political
person, I would say.

I mean, I am.

Not at work because I work in trucking and I am an extreme minority.

But,

Yeah, but I mean, part of that decision was, you know, one, we didn't want to be too
alienating, I guess, right off the bat.

two, that's definitely true.

Like.

Everyone's tired of US politics.

Like we had to talk about it.

The election was happening.

Come on.

Like we can't not talk about it.

But, you know, I don't think anybody really wanted to hear it in 2023 or whatever.

I mean, I feel like the rest of the world gets force-fed our politics so much.

And I see it online sometimes, like people are like, my god, stop talking about it, we
don't care, please.

Yeah, I mean that's definitely true.

You know as the saying goes when the US sneezes the rest of world catches a cold I think
that's kind of overestimating our own importance, but at the same time What the US does?

Does affect a lot of the world so it doesn't happen in a vacuum for better for worse So
something I'm necessarily like proud or ashamed of but it's it's just a matter of fact,

you know

Even American politics, they affect me over here.

I guess in kind of like a tongue-in-cheek kind of comment, I'm in like certain Facebook
groups for Americans living abroad, and they all talk about how they're going to immigrate

to like Germany or whatever, because of like the elections and because of like the
politics, you know.

And I'm sure you've heard, I'm sure you've heard this sentiment from like celebrities
where they say like, well, if

so and so gets elected that I'm going to leave the country.

I think that's something that you hear all the time in the US.

So I mean, even we are sick of our own politics.

Well, I mean, it already, which is, you know, it's an obnoxious thing.

like, all these, millionaires and they have the luxury of choosing to leave the country.

Meanwhile, like everyone else is just stuck here.

Pretty much.

You can't just leave the I mean, you can leave the country, but you can't just go live
somewhere.

You know, like illegal immigration is a hot button issue here.

It is other places too.

You can't just go choose to live somewhere.

You can start the process, but you probably, depending on where you need to go, you need
either a lot of money or you need a desirable degree or skillset.

Yeah.

I mean, it's definitely not that black and white.

I'm just going to up and leave and go to, I don't know, Brazil or wherever you want to be.

But now, so we've touched on a lot of.

different topics and obviously I've really tried to bring in lot of perspective from like
living in Europe and Germany.

So that's one of things I really like doing.

Obviously where it's relevant, I'll continue to mention that.

But yeah, I definitely think that's something that has been a theme throughout the
majority of episodes is, you know, my position of like living in Germany and how that

relates back to the U S especially now, you know, having

a daughter and she has to grow up in that constellation as well.

But with that being said, I think that's my final point.

So I'm really looking forward to the future.

So we'll be on break for a while at least.

I'll be on parental leave and Chris and I will also be getting ready for the holiday.

So we'll be busy there, but we're not going to be gone forever.

So please do stick around.

Please feel free to listen to old episodes.

Definitely makes us very happy and it's very good for.

the algorithms.

But yeah, and we'll be back with a revamped format, which again, we're excited about.

Yeah, we definitely are.

And if you have any comments, questions or suggestions or whatnot, you know where to
contact us.

We're not that active in the discord, but that will change in the near future.

And you have our email.

So.

Please do feel free to contact us, feel free to listen to old episodes.

We welcome everything.

All right, I don't have anything else to add.

I don't know if you want to throw anything in there before we get out of here.

I think we're done.

All right, thanks so much for listening.

It's a bit early, but enjoy your holidays.

Happy New Year in a month.

But we'll see you all then.

See you next time.

All right, see you.

Bye.

We really appreciate you taking the time to listen to our podcast.

We hope that it was informative and that we were able to expand your worldview, even if
only just a little.

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If you'd like to provide us with any, please reach out to us at our Discord or email
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