Fateful events: cryptocurrencies, New Zealand and a Canadian winter
Following my trip to Budapest I returned to Denmark to continue my unemployment streak. Around this time, I first dipped my toes into the waters of cryptocurrency investment. This was also around that time that I would take my second shot at New Zealand. Above all else, the end of the year would mark my return to Canada for a short family visit in December. I would soon get my first taste of a Canadian winter.
How did we get to cryptocurrencies?
It might seem like this came out of nowhere, but this moment was one of those fateful events in life that would have long term ramifications for me.
I had known about cryptocurrencies for years before 2018. I had seen the crazy surge of bitcoin in the past years and wished I could have gotten in at a good time. However I never had money to throw away on such a gambit. I also didn’t know of a safe and easy way for Eastern European citizens to tap into this young new market. If you remember those days, buying crypto meant wiring money to shady exchange websites — many of which, like BTC-e, ended up scamming their clients’ funds.
By 2018, however, the winds were shifting, and this once-marginal asset class was gradually gaining acceptance worldwide. More secure exchanges with easy fiat on-ramps were springing up left and right, like Bitpanda in the EU. In this steadily growing pro-crypto climate, I found myself hanging out with a couple of friends when the topic of cryptocurrencies came up. After a few drinks and a shared blunt, I allowed myself to be convinced that this was the perfect time to get in on the action. The market had corrected for the most part of the year and enthusiasm for a multi-year bull-run was creeping back.
The next day I registered on a crypto exchange and deposited my first 50 euros with great financial hopes and dreams for the future.
Hopes and dreams…
Speaking of hopes and dreams, November arrived—bringing with it the one day each year when New Zealand immigration opened its working holiday visa portal to the world.
I had made a list with my personal details for me and a few of my friends that were going to help me apply. The challenge was to fill out the immigration web-forms as soon as fast as humanly possible in hopes of getting me my coveted visa. The moment the portal went live, the website crashed. Like every year before, millions of candidates from across the world flooded New Zealand immigration servers.
Try as I might, I could never get passed the first page without it freezing or crashing, and having to reload the thing. One of my friends managed to advance to the next pages, but once again the website crashed and sent him back to the start. It was a complete shit show. Five minutes later the portal was closed and a disappointing message filled the screen—the yearly quota had been filled.
This second gut-punch would be my final attempt to move to the dreamy lands of Middle Earth. All hopes and dreams I had for New Zealand were now shattered for good.
Questioning my career path
More than a year had passed since I successfully defended my Master’s thesis, yet my job prospects remained as bleak as ever. I was seriously questioning my career path at this point. Clearly, the number of geology graduates each year far exceeded the available jobs in not only Denmark but the entire European continent.
Aside from a handful of countries like Finland and Sweden that had a more robust mining industry, the remaining countries were very limited in opportunities. To make matters worse, my experience with New Zealand showed that looking outside of Europe presented a whole new array of challenges. Mainly due to visa restrictions.
Somehow, I found myself applying for the most unrelated job imaginable—a telemarketer position in Oslo. It was just another entry in the weekly swarm of applications I sent out, now stretching far beyond my field of specialization.
To my surprise, I got a call back from their headhunter—and somehow, my honesty and determination over the phone won him over. After an equally successful interview, I faced a final mock-call test. All this was happening while I was preparing to fly to Canada for a couple of weeks to visit my extended family.
Oh Canada…
So… Canada. To really tell this part of my story, I need to rewind a little. It all started with my older cousin on my mother’s side, who moved there with his family back in the ’90s. He went on to become a successful geologist in the oil and gas industry, and watching his journey was one of the sparks that inspired me to follow a similar path.
Before my final year of high school, he invited me to Canada for a month. It was my first real experience abroad—my first flight, my first time in the far west, and my first time casually speaking English with native speakers. For teenage me, it was an incredibly positive experience—one I left with tears in my eyes, having to return to my miserable life back in Romania.
After finishing university, I set my sights on Canadian residency. But things had changed drastically since the ’90s—immigration policies were overhauled, and I had no idea about the new point system. I spent a year navigating the application process, only to face the harsh reality after talking with an immigration lawyer: without work experience, I simply didn’t have enough points to qualify. It was a tough, deflating lesson in the challenges faced by an inexperienced young graduate hoping to take on the world—one of many more lessons yet to come.
Six years later in mid-December, I was boarding a plane to Canada for the second time in my life.
The family
My Canadian side of the family consists of my two cousins, their spouses and their children. All of them living in Calgary. A few years ago their mother, my aunt, had joined them and became a permanent resident and more recently a citizen.
The oldest of my two Romanian-Canadian cousins is Lucian, whom I’ve mentioned before. He was the geologist working in oil and gas for many years. His younger brother Bogdan was a professional athlete and swimming coach for the most part of his life. By 2018, he had chosen to get into the trucking business and was driving around in one of those massive North American semi trucks.
During the winter holidays of 2018, the whole family got together for the first time in decades. My cousins with their families, their mom, my mom and myself.
It was a nice gathering with the typical dose of family goofiness and some awkward moments. For the most part, everyone was smiling. Including myself as I was expecting to hear back from the Norwegian company I had applied to and picturing my future life in Oslo.
A Canadian winter
One of the highlights of my time there was seeing snow that lasted for more than just an evening. Denmark’s winters had been too mild for that, and the last time I experienced multi-week snowy winters was back in my teenage years in Romania—winters that had since grown significantly warmer as well.
Canada still had snow though. Not a lot in Calgary, but there was plenty in the mountains. On my birthday we went for a drive to Banff. Nestled within Banff National Park in Alberta, Banff is a picturesque mountain town surrounded by the rugged peaks of the Canadian Rockies. With the numerous hiking, skiing and biking opportunities, Banff is one of the top tourist destinations in Western Canada.
Lake Louise
Another favorite tourist destination in the area is Lake Louise. The lake sits beneath the towering Victoria Glacier and is surrounded by rugged mountain peaks. The water stays cold throughout the year and boasts a vibrant turquoise color, typical of glacial lakes.
As always, I was eager to do more than a 10 minute walk around Lake Louise. So Bogdan and I left the rest of the family to chill by the lake and castle hotel and we went for a hike to Lake Agnes further up the mountain.
The trail is a steady 7 km hike up from Lake Louise with roughly 400 m elevation gain. I remembered doing this hike back in 2006 too, so it was really nice seeing it in the winter over 10 years later. Following switchbacks through the forest, the trail offers some spectacular panoramic views of the Rockies and ends at a small tea house on the shores of Lake Agnes.
I recall Bogdan telling me at some point that this was his sanctuary. In his own words, his “palace”. He had many troubles and hardships ever since moving to Canada and the mountains were always his peaceful retreat. I could certainly see why.
Calgary
Most of my time there was spent around the Arbour Lake neighborhood in Calgary, where my older cousin lived. The seemingly copy paste residential houses of the endless suburban landscape had become familiar and a bit dull.
Separated by the occasional shopping complex with vast parking lots, the city seemed more like an overstretched small town with a concentrated downtown core. Speaking of downtown, we did pay it a visit a couple of times.
Shiny steel and glass skyscrapers rose above the Bow River, a gleaming testament to the wealth the oil and gas industry had poured into the city. Yet oddities like a major freight train slicing through the downtown core, and the striking absence of historic buildings, revealed the youthful, almost unfinished character of this rapidly growing city.
At night, the glittering lights of the downtown skyscrapers gave the illusion of a grand metropolis, echoing the likes of New York. Yet the relatively empty streets, largely devoid of pedestrians, and the muted residential neighborhoods stretching for dozens of miles in every direction, told a different story: one of a quiet, tame, and rather uneventful city.
Back to the drawing board
The week after Christmas I finally got an answer from the Norwegian company regarding the job in Oslo. They weren’t offering me the job. I guess I wasn’t cut out to be a telemarketer.
Although in hindsight it’s good that I didn’t switch careers just yet, at the moment it was another one of many blows. My mood had been soured once again at the end of the year. As much as I used to look forward to the holiday season in December, I was developing quite the streak of shitty Decembers.
With New Year’s Eve approaching, I looked forward to returning to Denmark and gathering my thoughts once more. In turbulent times, I always sought solitude—time to myself, time to regroup.
Fortunately, I rang in the new year in the warm company of friends at a lively house party. Surrounded by positive spirits and a welcoming atmosphere, I didn’t yet realize that this night would plant the seed for a pivotal change in the year ahead—a change that would gradually lead to the next grand chapter of my life.