Strategic Tea posted:

There can never be enough reminders that GBS and most of the rest of the forums are weirdo KGB/tankie land and not ordinary political opinions

fnox posted:

fnox posted:

I did make it out, it wasn't easy,

Nissin Cup Nudist posted:

fnox, do you know if El Hefe is still alive?

fnox posted:

I don't know. However, he seems to have been quite resourceful, I'm sure he made it out OK. I don't know why he hasn't come back to SA, maybe he got bored of it or had other stuff take over in his life. I don't have any of his personal info, nor do any other venegoons, so we don't know how to contact him to verify his status.


I also have a small update. We've finally bought plane tickets for my parents after they were able to get all the paperwork they needed, they're leaving next week. It cost a small fortune, but we were able to afford it by selling whatever we could sell. They have some friends to stay with in Spain for the time being while they find an apartment, and I'm able to send them monthly payments, enough for them to support themselves while they find new jobs. My father will have to renovate his medical license, which takes up to a year, so he may not be able to find employment for the time being. He will also have to go through the same red tape that I did. I don't know if I can afford visiting them the day they arrive, I may have to wait a couple of weeks.

Somebody asked about my sister in PMs. She's doing very well, she left at around the same time I did for the UK, and has also found full time employment. The reason we're not living together has a lot to do with how I'm completing my degree in Sweden, I couldn't afford tuition in the UK and I couldn't apply for student loans as there is a long term residency requirement.

Aesop Poprock posted:

That's awesome dude you're a good guy

Former DILF posted:

iirc the tank part of tankies is a reference to the tanks in moscow, specifically in that tankies think the ussr made a mistake when they didnt use them to clear red square in 1991

quidditch it and quit it posted:

I really wanted to go to Venezuela for a long holiday then read fnox's thread back when it was posted and decided I couldn't do it and feel okay about it. drat you fnox (but also thanks, and well done)!

fnox posted:

I did make it out, it wasn't easy, seeing how I ended up entirely on my own in Sweden with very little money and basically no chance for a do-over. There were a lot of things that people didn't understand when I made the thread (Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough), first, how I really wanted to emigrate somewhere legally, because if I were to make a break for any country I wouldn't really have had any chance to prosper and actually get to settle permanently, and second of all, just how expensive the actual journey was for me. There are very few flights out of Venezuela that are less than a thousand dollars, and I had to get a round trip despite not needing it, because that's usually why people get sent back at the Venezuelan customs. I don't think I also made it clear just how desperate the situation was for me in Venezuela, each member of my family was spending hours queuing up for a single carton of milk, I was getting robbed constantly, all of the money that I had saved in bolivares ended up vanishing to inflation, food got increasingly harder to find, and the university I attended got shut down for well over a semester due to lack of funds. I didn't have a future in Venezuela, all I could have done there was hope that the poo poo I had didn't break, because then I couldn't replace it, and that I wouldn't get sick, because it would have died before being able to find medicine.

I was very, very lucky to have ran into people that were willing to help me the very same day I arrived to the small Swedish town I was going to stay in. I didn't even have a bed to sleep on after 30 hours of travel, and they helped me sort that out. Somebody that I had met online (not a goon) actually went out of his way to drive all the way to my town and give me a sort of care package full of traditional Swedish stuff, as well as some other household items that I lacked. A week after I had arrived to Sweden I set out to the UK (The country I have dual citizenship from) to get my legal status settled, and apply for a EHIC card which I needed to declare my resident status in Sweden, this ended up being more convoluted than necessary and ended up costing me about half of my remaining funds. After all that red tape was sorted through though, I was able to normalise my status in Sweden. Having recently been admitted to the emergency room at my local hospital after coming down with peritonitis, I have to say that all the steps I took towards acquiring residency status was well worth it, as I didn't have to pay a penny for my treatment, such an illness would have likely killed me had I been still living in Venezuela.

It's been a year now. I've now successfully transferred my Venezuelan college grades to the Swedish system so I got to skip ahead a bit after completing year 1 of my undergraduate degree, I now have a job in Sweden as a programmer which pays well enough for me to be able to send money home and assist my parents in leaving themselves (Which was the second part of my plan), and I'm steadily working towards learning more of the language so that I can integrate further into society. I feel like I beat the odds, I basically did a Hail Mary and it paid off. It's been a very radical change in my life, but I don't regret the decisions I took; in retrospective it becomes apparent that had I not left when I did, I would have been stuck in Venezuela for the rest of my life. I don't know if I'll ever return, frankly that seems to be very unlikely as the situation in the country has deteriorated further, but at least I'm happy to be where I am.

wyntyr posted:

I have said it before and will say it again, make Caro mod of D&D.

Also someone make a patreon or something for Caro because I am, genuinely, just glad he's alive.

ugh its Troika posted:

I actually talked to Caro on facebook and bought him a gift certificate for an account, but he hasn't shown up. Last I heard he was denied government benefits because he committed a crime by going over to Syria and fighting and was homeless.

Tardcore posted:

The US abandons another one of its veterans. smdh

UWBW posted:

A patreon seems a bit much, can't we just FedEx him a sandwich or something?

ugh its Troika posted:

I actually talked to Caro on facebook and bought him a gift certificate for an account, but he hasn't shown up. Last I heard he was denied government benefits because he committed a crime by going over to Syria and fighting and was homeless.

But Rocks Hurt Head posted:

Let's get some money together to buy him pants

Aesop Poprock posted:

Lol

Seriously though don't give Caro money you retards he's essentially a crazy war criminal regardless of how entertaining his saga is

Slowpoke Rodriguez posted:

I think we should give him money to open up a hotdog stand.

Aesop Poprock posted:

Lol

Seriously though don't give Caro money you retards he's essentially a crazy war criminal regardless of how entertaining his saga is

wyntyr posted:

What Caro did is no more or less wrong than what any soldier does, though

He may be a crazy "war criminal", but he's our crazy war criminal

Aesop Poprock posted:

Er regardless of what you think of the military their soldiers and medics usually have been trained in their fields and have an excuse to be there. Similar to how the police in America are questionable at best but I still don't want insane dudes running around shooting people to satisfy their delusions and I wouldn't support them with a patreon

Tardcore posted:

Caro had about as much excuse to be in Libya as America had to be in Iraq though.

BENGHAZI 2 posted:

Lmbo no they're not

Tardcore posted:

Caro had about as much excuse to be in Libya as America had to be in Iraq though.

du -hast posted:

OH MY GOD GO TO THIS THREAD IMMEDIATELY

CSPAM IRON CHEF

It's THE best thread on the forums right now imvho

du -hast posted:

OH MY GOD GO TO THIS THREAD IMMEDIATELY

CSPAM IRON CHEF

It's THE best thread on the forums right now imvho