Ongoing Struggles: Nothing Lasts Forever – Part One
January 2019—I was still living in Farum, Denmark—still unemployed, and feeling the mounting pressure to find a job. Any job, at that point. I was even ready to give up on my career as a geologist. Despite all the studying, all the effort, and even an internship, nothing concrete had come of it. The frustration was real. But nothing lasts forever, right? Not the good times—but not the bad ones either.
As a last resort, just to avoid moving back to Romania, I started considering a move to Hungary later that year. A fresh start: new country, new career, new opportunities. Hopefully. Maybe.
Then came an unexpected turning point.
Nostalgia Comes Knocking
Half way through January, I went to see the movie Glass with two of my friends, Venko and Abdalla. As we left the cinema chatting about the film, the conversation drifted—first to life, then to housing. Not abroad. Within Denmark. I admitted how tired I was of Farum. It felt like ever since I moved there, I’d left the best parts of my Danish life behind in Copenhagen. I missed the city. I missed the memories.
Coincidentally, both Venko and Abdalla were also thinking about moving out of their apartments. That’s when I threw out a suggestion—half joke, half serious: “What if we moved in together?”
It made sense. Renting a larger apartment for several people was often easier—and cheaper—than finding a one- or two-bedroom place alone. The idea stuck. Before long, we were actively looking, even attending open houses. I only had one request: to take the smaller room, and pay a little less. They both had full-time jobs, while I was still unemployed. Our financial situations were very different, and I wanted to be fair.
The Apartment That Lit a Spark
We visited an apartment in a newly built complex in Amager, on Faste Batteri Vej. The area still had that “fresh construction” feel—unfinished corners in the courtyard, patches of gravel where grass would eventually grow—but the apartment itself? It was lit.
Three bedrooms, a spacious living room with an open kitchen, and even a balcony. Best of all, one of the bedrooms was slightly smaller, but it had large floor-to-ceiling windows that flooded the space with light. I loved it instantly. The rent, when split three ways, wasn’t bad at all. Even though I’d be paying less than my friends due to my financial situation, it was still going to be more expensive than what I was paying in Farum. But honestly, it felt worth it.
At that point in my life, I desperately needed a morale boost. Moving back to Copenhagen and living with close friends felt like exactly the right call. After thinking it over for a few days, we all agreed: We’d take it.
The move
The move could honestly be a story all on its own. We were three guys—none of us with a car, and I don’t think any of us even had an active driver’s license—trying to move into one apartment, all on the same day, from three different directions. To make things even more chaotic, we had plans to pick up various pieces of second-hand furniture along the way.
To bring some order to the madness, we called in our friend Bogdan—our unofficial strategist and logistics master. The plan was simple-ish: Bogdan would rent a large van, pick up Venko first, then come grab me and all my stuff from Farum in the afternoon. From there, we’d spend the evening and night picking up furniture, grabbing Abdalla, and collecting a second-hand couch and TV. We would move in that very night.
The day arrived. My luggage and few pieces of furniture were packed and ready to go. The guys showed up a little behind schedule, but we loaded everything quickly. I vividly remember watching a beautiful sunset as we drove toward Copenhagen.
I was leaving Farum behind for good—and it felt symbolic.
The stagnant, sour winds were finally shifting. Something new was beginning. A rebirth.
By the time we’d picked up Abdalla and loaded everyone’s belongings, it was already nighttime. The van was getting full, and we started to worry. How were we going to haul beds, tables, and a huge couch up several flights of stairs? The elevator in the building was tiny—it clearly wasn’t going to cut it.
The Couch: A Battle of Willpower
Ah yes, the couch.
It was big. Which was perfect for our spacious new living room—but a total nightmare to carry. To make matters worse, it couldn’t be disassembled. Still, we bought it. We’d figure it out somehow.
And figure it out we did—through sheer Balkan willpower, brute force, and a lot of swearing. We pushed, pulled, and wrestled that massive thing up a tight, winding staircase—floor by floor—until we finally reached the top (I believe it was the 5’th) floor. By the end, we were drenched in sweat and completely exhausted. It was around 3 a.m., but we had pulled off the unimaginable: moved three people, furniture and all, across greater Copenhagen, in less than a day.
We capped off the night with a celebratory meal at a nearby Chinese fast-food spot that was open all night. Sitting there, utterly wiped out but smiling, it was clear this would be the beginning of a beautiful new chapter.
Finally back in Copenhagen
After two years away from my favorite city, I was finally back in Copenhagen. This time, I was living in a fairly central neighborhood, which meant I could once again enjoy all the familiar places I used to frequent as a student—and, more importantly, spend more time with friends.
Not long after moving in, my flat mates and I began inviting friends over. Some evenings were for food and drinks, others were guitar jam sessions. It felt like life was finally falling back into place. Even if my career situation hadn’t improved yet, I felt more grounded, more at home.
But being back also meant new bureaucracy. Because I’d moved municipalities, I had to register with the local Copenhagen job center. That’s when they enrolled me in a mandatory six-week job search course—standard procedure for anyone newly unemployed in the city. The ironic part? I wasn’t new to unemployment. I had already been out of work for well over a year. But apparently, in the eyes of the system, I was “new” to being unemployed here—so off to class I went.
As absurd as it seemed at the time, that course ended up being one of the best unexpected turns in my life. Not because it helped me land a job, but because I met some truly unforgettable people—specifically a couple of hilarious Greeks who would end up leaving a real mark on my journey.
Greek Blood Runs Through Our Veins
Not long before this, I had taken one of those at-home DNA tests. Pure curiosity. My family has a pretty complex and scattered history, with a lot of missing pieces and unanswered questions. I just wanted to know more.
The results were mostly what I expected: a strong Balkan, Central, and Eastern European mix. But two things stood out. One was a notable percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. The other—more surprising to me—was a small spark of Greek heritage. Just about 5%.
That 5% fascinated me the most. Maybe because, in the months before, I’d already been drawing a kind of poetic parallel between my own journey and that of Odysseus—leaving behind my country of birth, wandering in search of a home, navigating obstacles, always hoping for a happy resolution. The idea that there might be a literal Greek connection hidden in my blood somehow made the metaphor feel more real.
Team Greece
It was right around this time that I met Makis and Anestis—two over-educated, unemployed Greeks who were stuck in the same job search course as me. From the first conversation, things escalated quickly: we went from casual small talk to deep dives into politics, philosophy, and history like it was nothing.
We became fast friends. It started as a joke—I called ourselves Odysseus, Achilles, and Agamemnon—but soon we were actually hanging out outside of class. One day, poor Makis had a full-on meltdown after spending hours arguing with a call center agent from DR (Danish Broadcasting). What started as a bad day turned into one of the funniest, most memorable rants I’ve ever witnessed. It lasted the whole day. Poor man had to eat a couple of cheap, shitty Frikadeller because the “DR mafia” had stolen his money.
We laughed until our stomachs hurt.
That late winter and early spring were filled with moments like that—serious conversations, endless jokes, and a bond that made the bleakness of unemployment more bearable.
It also sparked something deeper in me: a genuine curiosity to one day visit Greece, explore the culture, and connect—however loosely—to that little 5% of me. Not just to understand my heritage better, but to honor the strange and wonderful twists of fate that brought me to that job center classroom, and to the friends I met there.
Perhaps it was the move, or the change of the season, but I could almost feel the winds of change beginning to stir—gently carrying the scent of opportunity and better days. Life, as it turns out, was already setting the stage for an unexpected turn.