WRITTEN TRANSCRIPTION OF THE PODCAST:

Hello and welcome to my podcast My Life and Other Funny Stories. My name is Dagmar Tomášková, I am an English tutor and I created this podcast for students at intermediate and upper intermediate levels who want to get better in their oral comprehension. As always you can find the transcription of this episode, comprehension quiz, and vocabulary list in the notes of the podcast.

In this episode, I will talk about the time I worked in Iceland. As it would be again quite a long episode and I tried to keep these episodes short and sweet, I will divide it into more parts.

Today I will tell you how I found a job in Iceland and also about our journey there.

It was the year 2022 and my boyfriend and I decided that we would like to go and work abroad again. I knew that I will have to start my full-time in September and as I was planning to work freelance – which means not to be an employed person but to work for yourself, I wanted to be sure that I wouldn’t feel in a financial press and I wanted to make some money before I start my adult life. Or originally we were discussing whether we want to go to Norway or Iceland but Iceland was my first choice because I really wanted to visit this country. Why Iceland? Apart from the fact that it is an absolutely gorgeous and beautiful country, the minimum wage is the highest in the whole of Europe – so we knew we could make a lot of money working there.

Usually, when people go to work in a different country, they will find some company that will provide them with jobs and you have to pay to those companies. But I wanted to find a job by myself. I didn’t really know where to start but I knew about some people who worked in Iceland in the past. They couldn’t give me any contacts for their employers but they gave me a tip for a website where I could start looking for jobs. The website was called alfred.is so if you want to go and work in Iceland you can check it out there. I also joined several groups where people are looking for jobs or looking for employees or there are Czech people who work in Iceland.

And the process of sending emails and CVs began. Every day I spent a few hours looking for new offers and sending out emails. I was checking out the groups, checking out the website and jumping at every opportunity that I saw. To be honest, Icelandic people are not very responsive and they will just not respond to your emails at all. Which was very frustrating because I was sending email after email but getting no answers. However, It happened to me more times that someone responded. There were two scenarios happening there. Either they responded that they don’t look for employees or they responded that they are interested and if we can have a call. I was always so excited when they wanted to jump on a call. But, don’t cheer so much because it happened to me maybe three times that we agreed on a call and the people just didn’t come. The worst part is that they didn’t even cancel the meeting, they just ghosted me. Which is the worst because every time I was full of hope and then they let me down so hard.

Anyway, I didn’t stop. Even though the responses that I got- which there were not many of them- were always negative and I was getting more and more frustrated- I still kept on going.

I have to say, this. It was extremely stressful for me- I would say one of the most stressful periods of my life. Why?

I was in my last semester of school. I was writing my diploma thesis, studying for my final exams, and I worked as an English tutor for business groups – so a few times a week I went and had conversation lessons in different companies, I also worked as an online English tutor and I had quite a lot of lessons online and on top of that I was trying to find the job in Iceland and also starting to look for a new apartment where we could move after we come back from Iceland. Because I hated our room.

This was also the time I started therapy and thank God for that because without it I don’t know how I would be able to get through this period. I was working very hard all the time but looking back at it now, I am very proud of myself.

Anyway, coming back to the search for the job. During my usual searching, I came across one status on Facebook where someone was looking for a job in Iceland – and under it, I saw a comment talking about one specific farm in Iceland where they are still looking for housekeepers and waiters. I immediately went to their website and filled in a form that they had there. In a few days, I got a response. I couldn’t believe it, it was very positive and they wanted to have a call with us- by us, I mean me and my boyfriend.

So we agreed on a day and a time. Unfortunately, when I was waiting for the call, the woman who wanted to hire us didn’t come. So I thought that it would be another disappointment as before. But actually, the woman reached back to us and apologized because her child was sick at that point so she couldn’t come. Of course, we accepted that apology and agreed on another time. That time was successful and we met on a call with the woman. She was very kind, very cheerful and positive and I got a really good feeling from it. So when she said at the end of the call that she would like to hire us, we were more than happy to accept.

And finally, there it was. We could buy our plane tickets and look forward to the start of summer.

The day of departure came quicker than I thought since I had so much work and so much to do that the days flew by and suddenly it was here.

I really didn’t know what to pack with me because here it was very hot but I knew that in Iceland it’s colder than here. Of course, I took my winter jacket with me but I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it.

Anyway, we flew from Vienna to Reykjavik and we lended at around 2 in the morning. It was crazy because the sun was just behind the horizon and after maybe an hour, it was a sunrise again. Because in Iceland, especially during July, you have daylight for about 22 hours a day. And for the remaining two, it is still light but just not a direct sun. Immediately when we walked out of the airport the first person we talked to was a Slovak guy who was working as a driver of the bus taking people from the airport to the city center. So we knew that we will probably meet a lot of Czech, Slovak, and Polish people in Iceland – and we were right. We took the bus from the airport to the city center and then to the bus station. We had to take a bus from Reykjavik to Akureyri which is another city in Iceland – because the farm where we worked was in the north of Iceland and Reykjavik is in the south. We could also take a plane, but the plane tickets are much more expensive than the bus.

When we came to the bus station, I immediately took out my winter jacket and all my winter clothes because it was so cold.

And then we were waiting there for about four hours. Finally, we got on the bus, I was extremely exhausted – because I hadn’t slept for the whole night and it was already the next morning, and I hoped that I would sleep on the bus. Unfortunately for me with us there was some school trip so we got on the bus with about 20 loud teens – not the best conditions for sleeping. But after they got off I was able to fall asleep for a few hours. The bus ride took about six hours.

We arrived in Akureyri, where we waited for our employer to pick us up. She was late so we were waiting for her for about three hours but finally, she came for us. Then it was another two-hour ride by car to the farm.

We arrived quite late but it didn’t look like it because it was still light. But I was so exhausted, that all I wanted was to go to sleep. Our employer wanted to show us around. But to be honest, I couldn’t even hear what she was saying because my brain was just thinking: Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep.

Eventually, she showed us our room and told us that we were starting our job the next morning.

So it was time to get some rest and then the fun began.

If you want to hear about the job and our time working there, wait for the next week and I will tell you all about it!

Thank you so much for listening to this episode and don’t forget that you can find the transcription, vocabulary list, and comprehension quiz in the notes. Please please give this podcast a five stars rating on the platform that you are listening to this, since it’s the only way for me to get feedback, and making these episodes takes me a lot of time.

That is all and I will see you next time, bye-bye.