Pokemon has been a constant part of my life since I first saw Ash look up to the famous words "I want to be the very best, like no one ever was". I wanted him to become the very best, and I wanted to see every step he took to get there. Instinctively I was enticed by this cartoon that had so many exciting elements: adventures that challenge you to grow, setting off into the unknown, making friends along the way, and absolutely yes, catching them all. But more than anything I fell in love with the idea that no matter how improbable, daring, and big your dream is, it lies firmly within your reach if you never give up!

Decades later Pokemon is still part of my life. At the end of 2022 I decided to pick up Pokemon Go again. I started playing the game when it came out, along with literally everyone else in the world back then, but I quit around 2018 because I felt I didn't have any new exciting challenges left. Honestly I didn't expect to be playing for long, but the rush of encountering a variety of new Pokemons that I could register to the dex, finding shiny pokemon, and the convenience of remote raids got me hooked. I enjoyed playing daily, but I didn't really have a particular objective I was working towards. But then Vivillon was added to the game which introduced the goal to have trainers living in different regions of the world as a friend.

Fast forward to a few days ago when I was browsing my friends list, and noticed that in between the remote raids, and the Vivillon chase, I managed to become friends with trainers from around 20 different countries. Which was such a cool thing to discover! But it also made me think, wouldn't it be so much cooler if I had a friend from every country? And what if I had a best friend from every single country in the world? It sounded like a wildly improbable goal, until I remembered that these are just the type of goals that made me fall in love with pokemon in the first place.

So with my objective clear I started using the nickname function to identify which countries do i have friends from (I really hope tagging will be enabled for friends in the future), which, as of yesterday, was: 🇦🇷, 🇦🇺, 🇦🇹,🇧🇪, 🇧🇦, 🇧🇷, 🇧🇬, 🇨🇦, 🇨🇱, 🇨🇴, 🇨🇷, 🇨🇿, 🇩🇰, 🇪🇪, 🇫🇮, 🇫🇷, 🇩🇪, 🇮🇳, 🇮🇩, 🇮🇪, 🇮🇹, 🇯🇵, 🇱🇻, 🇲🇾, 🇲🇹 , 🇲🇽,🇳🇱, 🇳🇿, 🇳🇴, 🇵🇾,🇵🇱, 🇵🇹, 🇷🇴, 🇸🇬, 🇿🇦, 🇰🇷, 🇪🇸, 🇸🇪, 🇹🇼, 🇬🇧, 🇺🇸.

While there is a very long way to go, I wanted to record the progress that I have achieved so far, and why I started doing this in the first place. Thank you very much for reading my story, and if you happen to be from a country I do not have friends from, I'd appreciate it if you added me: 4265 7043 0499. I’ll try to post regular updates if you want to follow my progress, and if you have suggestions, or ideas that could help, please feel free to reach out!