small indie games
Same here, they’re like a palate cleanser, and they fit a busier schedule better than a 200+ hour open-world immersive experience. There’s a place for each, but I really have become fond of pleasant little indie games.
This was a pretty weird article. I understand her frustration in learning the language, I’ve done it before and it’s rough. And I understand her frustration with not having support from the military due to her status, as well as the natural human experience of being far from family and missing home. But those aren’t Germany problems, those are either universal in any place you might move to, or they are the products of her own choices.
It also seems obvious that she brings her North American assumptions with her and is partly disappointed that Germany isn’t more like what she’s used to. She mentions driving, but yeah, it’s expensive to drive in Germany. If she chose a small town to live in that didn’t have good access to transit, that might be necessary, but it’s part of the cost of living there. She mentions big box store shopping, which made me laugh out loud, that’s a very North American perspective and even in the U.S. a lot of people would disagree.
Are there cultures more welcoming than Germany? Probably. My German isn’t great, I’ve definitely been criticized for my accent and lack of vocabulary. It felt harsh, but it was also true, and they weren’t impolite about it. Is it a reasonable expectation to land in a place and get free language lessons and be welcomed with open arms? Not really, and I would note that Americans probably wouldn’t do that either. Heck, in some parts of the country, your welcome would be considerably less polite.
Country music is locked in an ideological valence, it has no room for anything other than right-wing dogma, usually expressed through bro-country anthems of drinking and pretty girls and pick-up trucks. The genre basically kicked out progressive singers like Kacey Musgraves, even as she released multiple critically acclaimed and successful albums. And there isn’t much room for female country artists right now; in 2022 there was one ONE female solo country artist (Miranda Lambert) that managed to crack the top 100 country songs on country radio. Only two others scored hits by recording duets with male country singers. All the rest were male acts. There just isn’t a future for female country artists right now.
Maren Morris has a good voice and great songwriting chops, she already proved she can cross over with “The Middle,” so this seems like a logical move.