Ask Lemmy

Ok, without cheating, I can read:

_____, yeah man! Welcome.

May I ask, why Iceland? How goes learning the language? How goes finding work? Something something with people?

So, Iceland is rated top 5 in pretty much every happiness or quality of life rating there is. They are still focused on freedom and education of people, so hopefully the descent into fascism is much further away. Also, I have some allergies that are causing other problems, so moving to a place with many months of no pollen was a good thing for me. That and the northern lights make the winter a positive for me, not a negative.

Learning the language is hard, as you say. I've been very lucky to move to a place and make friends with a lot of people who are helping me learn a lot. They have patience with me and repeat things slowly. I try to pick up a few words a day. I am maybe at the level of a toddler. I can pick out enough words and read body language well enough to get the context, but I can't really make sentences well. And all of the people helping me learn is a double edged sword. They don't want to act like talking to a toddler all day, so we end up speaking English a lot.

The work thing is turning out pretty ok. I might be able to get a bit of consulting gig going, or I may look for a remote job in Europe. Maybe both. I'm very fortunate to have money enough to pay cash for a decent house and have money enough to live off of for a few years once I don't have rent to pay, so that hasn't been as much of a priority for me. This has been more of a vacation for a bit.

So I cheated to find out the last question: Do I manage to make friends with people? Yes! This has been the biggest surprise. Most sources that we read on the internet told us that as a foreigner, wed always be on the outsiders. The perspective that we read is that everyone is everyone's frændi, and we're just always going to be on the outside. Perhaps we got very lucky, but it seems that we've found a way to become a part of the local community. It's a little village in the north, so it's perhaps better to make friends than in the capitol. They mostly seem to be happy to see people actually moving in instead of out.