I doubt we'll understand eachother between Frisian and Welsh, but I agree it's very interesting how Frisian is closer to English than Dutch!
I'm also surprised that someone on here even knows that Friesland has its own language.
Frisians are more patriotic on their own province than most parts of the Netherlands, but there is no want for independence except tongue in cheek. It's never been independent in its current form, unless you go back to the early middle ages, long before the Netherlands even existed.
I'm just a wannabe though, I grew up in Amsterdam, and although I read and understand Friesian just fine, I've only been known to attempt to speak it when very drunk. Thankfully no one remembers. I just don't have enough active vocabulary for speaking and writing. I'm pretty sure I'd beat 75% of the Friesians in a spelling/grammar test though, this is very much a blue collar province.
In the part of Friesland where I live they speak their own dialect (Bildts), which is very different from formal Frisian, and before I lived in Harlingen where they speak Stadsfries (city Frisian, spoken in Harlingen and Leeuwarden). Which is much closer to Dutch but with its own grammar rules and a lot of different words.
So I haven't really lived anywhere where it was natural to learn to speak Frisian.