I know exactly how you feel lol…
“Man is born free but everywhere is in chains.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I had a similar experience when I decided to learn Romanian (something few people see a point in doing in)… I went to Romania and studied Romanian with an international group of students there. The best thing was really the other students (who came from all over the world, even one guy from Japan). They were all leavers. I didn’t know then, but there was this feeling that we were one big family, nobody was left out.