Thing is, I've been trying to be positive.
No, Really!
I have!
But to little avail as my ingrained incensed ranting continues to spill out into the interwebs.
Especially two posts that at first I really liked, but am starting to think were cheap shots...
So I'll you quote fellow expat-Cascadian MayFray.
"Can I talk a little bit about how cool Iceland is? First of all, one of the reasons I decided to move here (well, aside from Tumi, obviously) was to go to graduate school. The Environment and Natural Resources program here is taught in English, and because of the overwhelming governmental support for education, tuition for grad school works out to about $600 a year. The one year I worked for Pacific Science Center between undergrad and moving to Iceland earned me a tax return that paid my entire graduate school tuition! In my opinion, this is the way education should be handled all over the world. And then there's healthcare. All of my prenatal care, and delivery, and postnatal care was free....that's right, FREE! We paid about $50 for the ambulance ride to the hospital, and I've paid about $30 for breast feeding advice, but other than that, all of our care was paid for by the government. The midwife COMES TO YOUR HOUSE EVERYDAY for a week after the baby is born to check up on you and answer your questions. Then, a nurse comes to visit every week or so for the first month to weigh the baby and provide even more help. We have an appointment to take Elsa in for her first check up actually IN the clinic in two weeks. I absolutely love this set-up, and when I feel homesick, it helps me to remember the really good things about the place I chose to live; like that the government invests its resources in creating a healthy, well-educated society, which are both goals I can fully support!
People here pay ridiculously high taxes, but that money goes to education, healthcare, social security, and other services the government provides to take care of its people. In America, our tax dollars do go to some support services, but a huge amount also goes to killing people in less fortunate places. All of which begs the question; Why can't Americans take better care of themselves?! We pretend like we're the biggest, strongest, best-est country in the world, but we neglect the poorest of our citizens. Only recently have we started to embrace the idea that adequate health care is a human right! Imagine an America where a university education costed $600 per year....what kind of a country would we be able to make then? Think of all the talent that is going to waste because of the prohibitively expensive price of a college education, and higher taxes to support a 'socialist' state doesn't sound that bad. That's the end of my lil' rant...mostly I feel very lucky to have been given such excellent education and care and support while living here.
Oh, and Tumi gets 6 months PAID PATERNITY LEAVE! Thank you, Iceland!"
'Cause as much as familiarity has bred contempt, one needs reminding from time to time that Iceland can be pretty fucking awesome.
1 comment:
Hey,
I just found your blog and it's pretty cool.
It looks like, from what I've read, that living in Iceland has been pretty rough overall(especially in the last couple of years). Hopefully things will improve when you go back to the USA.
From reading your blog I have a question(and if it is too personal, feel free to ignore it with my apologies).
Is dating, meeting people(both in a social and romantic way), and making friends as hard as it sounds? Because from what I've read here(as well as some other places) it sounds really, really rough.
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