I live in Germany. And beeing a freelance developer, I get to hop around the country quite a bit, switching cities every few months.
What I find interesting is, that I have less of this feeling when I'm in the south here as well (Bavaria). It's easier to connect there. There must be something about the south.
But sometimes (at least in my case) it seems that even if you put in all that effort, most of it just vanishes into some kind of void. You try to stay in touch with people, but no matter what you do, they keep drifting away. Which then leads to thinking "Why even bother putting in the energy, if I'm the only one trying".
I am currently working on getting a better understanding of OOP basics, since I learned most of my web programming on the job, starting way back in 96, and not in some university course.
But every time I read some of the newer Uncle Bob stuff I am more confused instead of less. It's always some grandiose and general stuff about how we are doing it wrong, but without any really actionable advice.
It's all well and good to tell people "do it without a framework first", but some actual examples would go a long way in getting people to actually do it this way.
It might be a good name in the UK, but almost everytime I tell someone here in Germany about lovefilm, the first thing I get asked is "So, it's a porn rental thing?"