I feel this. Though I don’t tend to be optimistic in general about the state of my little place in the world , it definitely gets worse when I think of the big picture stuff that I have even less control over. I really wish I knew how to help, but I guess all I can do is relate and hope that you’re doing okay. At the risk of sounding insincere and acting weirdly intimate to a stranger online, we might never see each other in our lives, but we are fighting and suffering a reality that was forced upon us together. Hopefully things get better, but even if it doesn’t, we aren’t alone in this.

The weird incongruous part is that the people on Rednote (up until recently) thought the average American has over a million dollars (due to a weird mistranslation of something our embassy said about the average income from all Americans being over a million dollars), have a house (due to television shows), have free healthcare, and generally live a carefree life. Many people are questioning why there’s been such a push to work over here by their friends and family who visit.

Just superglue a neodymium magnet to the bottom of your bike shoe and hover it over the sensor lines in front of the stop light.

I’m still using a (Son) dynamo Busch and Müller light from a decade ago on my touring bike. It’s so reliable and the beam pattern is better than on my car. I also have schwalbe marathons and ortlieb panniers on that bike. Such a good setup for a bike built like a tank. It might be fully German if it wasn’t a Fuji with a Shimano groupset and Brooks saddle.