Back home, what's different?

Landing once again on a Croatian soil had more of a specific taste this time. Even though spending little bit more than a year away is not a period that is long enough to draw some serious conclusions, my brain is playing a different game. As soon as I left the airplane all of the sudden I'm not in Canada anymore, people bitching around, taxi drivers throwing signs at my face, honking and nervous drivers and many other delights that I can live without.

But the way I adapted easily going from "bad" to "good" the other way around wasn't a problem as well. Late October sunny and warm day made things much easier. Apart from smiling and saying hi to everybody first couple of days, transition to a Croatian version of me was kind of immediate. Although I'm not sure if things are going to be smooth like this after couple more years of Canada.

Anathema, Kino Siska, Slovenia

The circle is complete

Today is exactly a year from the day I landed in Calgary. A year that flew by like many before, but this one had much more significance attached to it. These beautiful fall colors greeted me in the Rockies when I landed and they are going to greet me goodbye at the very same place. Some may wonder why I mention Rockies. Am I not in the Rockies all the time? No! Coastal mountains and the Rockies are two big mountain chains (each double the surface of the Alps) with a very different geological past. One granite, other limestone. One has much more precipitation due to ocean... Ok, nobody wondered, let's go on.

Wedgemount Lake, BC

From Split to Vancouver

Name of this blog is becoming more and more obsolete. No drama, no sudden change of heart, no tears shed...just more or less painless transition from one place to another. Sun is out for last month and a half, not too hot during the day, not above 20 degrees during the night. The idea of summer paradise for my heat hating body. First couple of months I had a cautious approach to my ideas and wishes. Now, after 9 months in Vancouver I can say that I found my place to live. Maybe do some winters up in the far north or something similar with a dose of personal challenge (there is only one True North, sorry Jon Snow!), but in general Vancouver is a place I'm staying for (much) longer. Honeymoon phase is just getting better and better :)

Spring sunrise over English Bay

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

A good friend of mine told me that I should stop complaining about rain. Probably he is right. He is not only right, but he is also slim and he has habits! So this post will be without too much words. Just pictures from one of those rare moments of beautiful winter weather in the city. A city I'm growing to love more and more...

Disclaimer for the last post:

Other good friend of mine who is getting married soon and I must try not to get my visa extended so I can attend his marriage was giving me shits because I was talking about real estate prices. To be clear, buying a house is a thing that is not my concern for a next decade but renting prices are. More expensive real estate, more expensive mortgages, more expensive renting prices.

Downsides of living in Vancouver

Before starting with the subject of this post...

While I did mentioned it before, I want to emphasize once more importance of making and updating fore example LinkedIn and Indeed profiles. I suppose it is just a coincidence but in a last 10 days I got 3 job offers (two via LinkedIn and one via Indeed). So it was not a invitation for an interview, but job offer. Obviously when some recruiter contacts people, companies are in a great need for people.

Two of them were from big Canadian companies (Ledcor and TekSystems) and one was from a American recruitment agency to work all around States. To put it in a context, I never sent a single resume for those kind of jobs. For Canadian ones I was not interested (installing residential IT equipment). For USA job I was very interested (pretty much same job as I'm doing now) but unfortunately without Canadian Permanent Residence or Canadian Citizenship companies are not so interested to hussle with all of the papers and shit. Recruiter said she will get in touch if they don't find enough people with "easier" passports. In my mind I was even ready to sacrifice all the mountains here in BC to get a chance to get closer to USA working permit. 

To put things in another context, if any of those offers were for some kind on electrical engineering jobs, either IT or High Voltage, I would probably took it regardless of probably  less pay / beginner type of job. For those kind of jobs I'm sending couple of resumes a week just for the sake of it.

BC Place, Downtown Vancouver

Beginners tips from the beginner vol.2

Three months have passed since the first installment of this series. In the meantime I didn't found out about any magical shortcuts unfortunately. Instead I'll layout some stuff that will maybe sound pretty dull, but there are many things that seem normal / common sense stuff to me and not to the guy next to me and vice versa.

Canadian "vs." immigrant workers

Couple of days ago our GM (General Manager) called a meeting for all company's staff (cca. 15 of us). By the sound of it I thought that maybe company is shutting down after 10 years of being in the industry. Fortunately that was not the case. Subject of the meeting was that there is a lot of job down the pipe in a near future but next couple of weeks will be sluggish. Less jobs, less hours worked, less money.

One flag is missing. Coincidence?!

Breaking news! Nothing is happening

Vancouver is covered by snow once again. But this time is has pretty much melted in couple of days. I'm witnessing one of the coldest winters in Vancouver and yet when going out short sleeves and jacket is all that is needed. Hearing people complain about it reminds me about our human nature, easily settling for better but having a hard time when we encounter some bad short term anomalies.

Full moon rising, Garibaldi Provincal Park, BC