I'm not homesick, because I'm not a sentimental person. But from a practicality standpoint, this country sucks. I'm in the suburbs on the East coast and everything is a 30 minute drive away. I don't drive. Where I came from in Europe, everything could be reach by walking or cycling or taking a train or bus. Here, nothing is reachable unless you're willing to spend half of your day in a massive, expensive, gas-guzzling death machine. The neighbours out here are all boomers who do nothing but mow their lawns and watch CNN or Newsmax all day. I've never felt this level of capitalist alienation before, and I've always been an introvert. It's not only inconvenient here, but gaslighting because everyone else seems not to question this boring concrete hellscape. There is nothing to do or see; only hundreds of fast food restaurants and gas stations. There's a PSL branch downtown, but that's an hour away by bus and the bus stop is a 45 minute walk (I'm not exaggerating). I thought the capitalist society I moved from was bad, but this is so much worse. And this is the bastion of freedom and liberty I've heard so much about? I guess I'm free to eat cheetos and watch Fox but other than that it isn't very liberating. My partner is a yank and really doesn't notice or mind, but I feel like I'll go crazy here. It's just miles and miles of asphalt and paranoid gun owners. I hate it and don't really know what to do. The food in the US costs at least two or three times as much as where I immigrated from, and tastes like garbage (I'm talking about the 'fresh' stuff). Utility bills are also much higher. On every street is a church blasting some religious doctrine at me (Easter was a cringe-fest). How do the rest of you cope???
I'm 20, going to university, I had enough money to move, and am extremely lucky to have dual citizenship. I can't suggest this as a plan in general, it's too specific to my circumstances and it once being cheap has now been blown up by the succdems here (just like Nordstream).
I applied for a 1 year university program in Norway for teaching immigrants the language. Once you finish, you are certified to take classes in Norwegian at any university here. My plan is to get a bachelor's and a real job here over the next couple years.
Studying here was formerly free for everyone in the world, but the goddamn succdems here this year decided to curtail that. Now it is only those from the walled garden of the EU/EEA who are privileged with this (:us-foreign-policy:), so this plan is not accessible to Americans now unfortunately. If you have the money to pay lots in tuition, I am guessing you have another way to leave anyway.
My understanding is that permanent residency is not very hard to get here, so the citizenship issue was not nearly as important before (even if it definitely helped me with moving easily). Now that they are going to charge tuition for international students, I don't see how university here could work as an escape route anymore. I can only still do this free because of my background. It's a damn shame, not only was studying free, rent is cheaper here. I pay the equivalent of like $500 a month; I live in a glorified closet, but still. I am saving a lot of money compared to trying to study in the US.