Goodbye 2020, happy new year 2021

Had a wonderful evening and a great start into a new year thanks to my amazing friends Marta, Piotr, Jóna and their friends and family. The food, the vodka, the games and the company of cat and dog was just perfect. 🙂 (Also not so many fireworks which I am not a big fan of, thank God!)

2020 was difficult for many of us but for me it was personally very successful. I made my dream come true to move to Iceland and found a job as well as wonderful friends here. Despite the pandemic and not being able to visit my family over the holidays I had an amazing winter in Reykjavik. This is because all of you have been so kind and supportive, helping me adapting to a new country (and the cold haha), a new culture and a new language.

2021 will be exciting for me. I need to work more on my Icelandic, I want to travel this beautiful country after Corona will let me and I’m also planning on going back to Japan for vacation in summer to meet my friends who I dearly miss. I want to have the confidence to speak in Icelandic by the end of 2021. I don’t want to speak it perfectly, but I want to be able to talk and enjoy making mistakes.

Let’s make 2021 even better than 2020. Let’s stay healthy, informed, let’s be kind to each other, especially to those who are not as lucky as we are. Let’s live solidarity, let’s keep up equality and let’s always try to understand each other, no matter where we come from.
Keep the ones you love close to you. Everything else will work out eventually. ❤

Happy new year to all of you.

I found work!

I already wrote about it on Facebook and shared it on Instagram and Twitter, but I thought it would be a good opportunity on my Sunday off to write about it on my blog again – I found work. 🙂

Much quicker and smoother than I thought and I’m still surprised and cannot believe how lucky I am. Again – in Japan although knowing the language it took me 6 months. In Iceland, with my very limited language skills it took me one month and three weeks.

I initially applied for a part time job at a Kindergarten close to the centre; that place invited me for an interview and they were very kind and already gave me good vibes on the day of the interview.

Then I got invited again – a kind of trial day on a Friday, full 8 hours with the biggest kids group in the kindergarten. It was so much fun! For real. Not only because I finally could do what I can do best (playing with children), also because I finally was forced to listen to Icelandic all day and to use it. I feel less pressure to make mistakes with children, since they don’t judge, they don’t comment or laugh about it. Children are the best teachers. Point.

I know that all Icelandic people speak English so well here and with every other job were I would have mainly worked with adults I knew I would never learn the language. But now, working with children I know that I need to work on my Icelandic, because children don’t care, they will continue talking to me in their mother tongue.

Some of them are so smart, they already realised I’m still not fluent and sometimes switch to English for me. (Even the 4 year old kids speak English here, amazing, right?!) Or they don’t come to me when they have a problem or need attention, they just come when they want to play, knowing communication is not that important.

But my co-workers are great, everybody speaks Icelandic to me and this really forces me to listen and repeat the words I hear.
I still cannot speak well and need to answer in English, with the kids I only use the words I know and I never use English with them, wanting them to understand that I’m learning Icelandic as well as they do. We have some international kids there as well who are learning together with me. I feel

like I’ve never been closer to what I love most – bilingual education and language learning.

The place is a 10 minute bus ride from my home, it’s super convenient and easy to go there, shifts are from 8:30 to 16:30. I was supposed to be there only for part time but the teachers are so nice, they offered me full time already after two days. Maybe they also like me and my non-existent Icelandic. 🙂 Lunch is free there for teachers (and really good!) and kids can also have breakfast, lunch and snack. I’m so happy to see that children can eat for free, remembering that in Japan they had to pay for school lunch and bring their own snack. The burden of preparing meals for kids is taken by having all that provided in the Kindergarten. This is all I ever wanted – equality, free play, free food. Kids just being kids. Iceland really makes me happy.

Same goes for transportation. My contract says I should come to work by walking, bike or bus.
Besides not having my own car I’m glad I’m also not forced to ever get one or even get my drivers license. I was so worried about having to do that, but now finding work where they even encourage me to use public transport feels great. This country really fits well with all my values.

Now I have a working contract until August 2021. Which also means I will need to get ready for the Icelandic winter. I’m still so much in a Japanese-season thinking that I assumed summer will last until October. (You can laugh about naive me.)

Somebody told me the other day it can already snow in September and therefore shattered my dreams of a long summer. I really need to start thinking about cold and snow at the end of August. I don’t know why I can easily adapt to people, languages and cultures but always struggle with the weather and climate. I still even need to get used to kids playing outside in rain, something which was a no go in Japan.

But that’s the only thing I guess. Having a full working routine again feels great after 4 months of Corona-induced holiday. I also had enough time to enjoy Reykjavik before working and now I have the time and opportunity to save money, live in this country and be excited for all the things which are going to happen from now on.

I cannot wait to be fluent in Icelandic. I won’t give up. It feels hard and frustrating sometimes but I will never, ever give up learning a language. The kids won’t do that either.

Almost a month!

I just realised that by next week Wednesday I will be living in Iceland for one month already and it has been such a wonderful time. I think I never enjoyed myself that much since I was born. Sounds exaggerated? 😀 I have been constantly working and never had much of a holiday in Japan and even if I had days off it was always too short to travel and to relax.

I have to admit, I’m not really at ease here since I still try to find work. But I have access to libraries, I have an annual museum card now and everything is so cheap and convenient and I feel like I can finally enjoy all my hobbies without spending too much money.
I got my library card for around 2000 Yen and my annual museums card for 3000 Yen (I’m still calculating in Yen, yes!) and with that and with some pocket money I have from my Japanese savings and from my parents I can buy food and I’m all happy. Some of the pools here are free to use as well. In Japan I could have never survived that long because everything costs money. So I really appreciate that I have cheap hobbies and that in Iceland the access has been made so easy.

I spent my days now sitting in the libraries, reading and writing poetry and when I get home I’m reading even more novels in English and German, because both languages (and even more!) are available at the libraries.
I also spent a lot of time at the pools, I mainly just enjoy being alone and taking a break from Tokyo, but I never feel lonely and everyday here seems like I have been living here forever. It just feels right.

I had several job interviews by now, nothing worked out, I was even so lucky to go to a Kindergarten but I also got denied there. I assume it is really because of my still beginner Icelandic skills which make it difficult for me to find work. I have applied for everything in service, gastronomy, health care, teaching, caring and nursing. I only got a few replies and went to three interviews yet. I never expected it to be easy. And then I remember when first coming to Japan, there was no Corona, I was already fluent in the language and still it took me 6 months to find work.

I’m still studying Icelandic everyday for one hour and I use it now in cafes and supermarkets when ordering, paying or asking for a bag. That’s all I can do now but of course that is still not conversational level.

Since everybody is fluent in English here and I feel so comfortable I got fooled to think it would be much easier to find work. But of course, it’s been hard for everyone everywhere now and I should lower my expectations.

I will visit the Directorate of Labour next week and hope to get more job offers and advice for job search there as well. It was super easy to book an appointment with them via the internet. Because everything is so super easy here since it’s digital.
I also had an interview yesterday and I’m waiting for their reply. As soon as something is decided I will write about it in more detail but for now I don’t want to write about things which are not 100%.

What is decided is, that I will stay as long as I can. I have an Icelandic bank account by now, too and found wonderful friends already. I feel like the whole LGBTQA community here is much more easily accessible here and people are open to talk about all kinds of things.

I feel comfortable and for the first time in my life I don’t think constantly about money, my future and survival. I feel like everything will work out in the end. And I guess that’s all I ever wanted.