After four years of living in Denmark, I left Copenhagen behind. My permanent destination was Canada, where I would start a new life as a PhD student somewhere in Quebec. My first flight took me to a familiar temporary stop in Reykjavík. Considering my incredible two-week adventure in Iceland a few years earlier, it felt like a fitting place to say goodbye to the last westward edge of the European continent. Looking back, I didn’t know it yet, but this journey would mark a rough landing in Quebec — the true beginning of my life in Canada.
A short stop in Iceland on my way to Canada
The transatlantic flight followed — hours above the ocean, then even more hours above the blinding white ice sheet of Greenland, followed by a long pass over the countless lakes and flatlands of northern Canada. Inch by inch, closer to my destination, until I finally landed in Montreal sometime during the night.
My first brief time in Montreal
Exhausted from the long flight, I jumped into a taxi as soon as I could and headed to the nearby hotel I had booked — Beausejour Hotel Apartments, from the 22nd to the 23rd of August. I still have it saved in my Bookings account. A simple room, but with an enormous king-sized bed — larger than anything I’d ever slept in before. I ordered myself a pizza and promptly passed out in that royal bed.
From Europe to the Fjordlands of Quebec
The following day brought the final leg of the journey: a local flight from Montreal to Saguenay. Saguenay is a region in Quebec, north of Quebec City, encompassing three towns spread around the Saguenay Fjord. Tucked into a bay to the east lies the small town of La Baie, while to the west stands the larger, more industrial-looking Jonquière. Between them sits Chicoutimi — the most populous of the three, and home to the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC), my new workplace for the next four years.
The Université du Québec à Chicoutimi in Chicoutimi, Québec
Before leaving for Canada, I had tried to contact my main supervisor regarding my arrival date and accommodation options. In a previous email, she had mentioned that she could temporarily house me until I found a place of my own. However, despite several attempts, I never received a reply. I even reached out to my second supervisor in Montreal to ask if he knew anything, but he didn’t — suggesting she might be away doing remote fieldwork during that period.
This shot was actually from my trans-Atlantic flight. I just loved the sharp limit between land and glacier and thought to include it here
With nowhere to go, I decided to book a “cheap” hotel for a week. Surprisingly, it wasn’t very cheap at all for what seemed like a small, remote town in the middle of nowhere in Quebec. Apparently, Chicoutimi is a bit of a summer holiday destination for locals. Regardless, my options were limited. After landing in Saguenay, I made my way to Hotel du Parc in Chicoutimi.
Culture Shock, Served at Lunch
It was late morning or early noon when I checked in. I dropped my things and went down to the hotel restaurant to have lunch. This is where my cultural shock began.
Hotel du Parc in Chicoutimi
Despite being a hotel, the staff spoke very limited English — the restaurant staff even less. My French at this point was extremely basic, despite having theoretically learned some during early school years. I knew enough to ask for lunch: déjeuner. The waitress then began explaining that they no longer served déjeuner, only dîner.
Dinner? At noon?
What followed was a clumsy, drawn-out back-and-forth until I finally understood that in Quebec French, déjeuner means breakfast, dîner means lunch, and souper means dinner. Whereas in “standard” French, breakfast is petit-déjeuner, lunch is déjeuner, and dinner is dîner. Oh gods… even ordering food at a hotel was complicated. What a start.
Setting out in Chicoutimi for the first time, along the large Talbot boulevard
Another amusing detail from that first meal was noticing bottles of homemade ketchup for sale. Up to that point, I had only ever seen the standard processed red goop everyone calls ketchup — never the jam-like, artisanal-looking stuff. I was tempted, but this was not the time for ketchup.
Lost in Translation (and Hallways)
With Google Maps in hand, I slowly made my way toward the university. It was time to find out whether my supervisor was still alive.
On the way, I passed a local budget telecom shop and quickly picked up a cheap prepaid Canadian phone number. There, at least, they spoke English — giving me a brief sense of relief. That relief was short-lived.
Oh and there were a lot of Marmots all over the place. They should’ve just renamed Chicoutimi to Marmotville
At the university reception, I began explaining to the lady behind the desk that I was an international PhD student starting there for the first time and that I was looking for my supervisor’s office — Lucie Mathieu. Her eyes widened. She struggled to form a few words in English.
Oh no. Even here? At an international university?
I knew Quebec was French-speaking, but I hadn’t expected people to speak no English at all — especially within a university, in an otherwise majority English-speaking country. I slowed my speech and reduced my vocabulary to survival mode:
That, at least, she understood. She wrote down a floor and office number and attempted to explain how to get there. I only half understood that part.
I wandered through the labyrinth that was the UQAC building and eventually found Lucie’s office. I knocked, smiled, and introduced myself. She greeted me warmly.
And here are some campus marmots
After a light-hearted conversation about my failed attempts to reach her, my concern that she might no longer be alive, and my first impressions of Quebec so far, she gave me a few practical tips and suggested I take the next few days to settle in and find accommodation. She also introduced me to part of her research group — among them Adrien, the Master’s student responsible for posting the PhD position in the EUGEN group where I had first found it.
A Week of Adjustment
What followed was a week filled with further culture shock and growing frustration, mostly due to ongoing communication barriers.
Throughout the days, place after place, I kept running into the same language barrier. Stores. Restaurants. Service counters. Even when I went to schedule an appointment to open a bank account with Desjardins, I could barely get by in English. In the end, I asked Adrien to come with me to the appointment — because not being able to properly communicate with the person opening your bank account is, frankly, a bit much.
Ironically, that particular employee turned out to speak fluent English.
The bridge across the Saguenay in Chicoutimi
After having traveled through several foreign countries in Europe and being completely confident that English would always get me by, this experience became increasingly disappointing. More and more, in the coming months, I found myself reluctant to go anywhere or do anything at all — simply because of the language barrier. I never, in a million years, expected to experience culture shock in Canada of all places.
Quebec Is (and Isn’t) Its Own Thing
I considered saying now that I slowly learned Quebec was truly its own thing, separate from Canada — but that would be a lie. It wasn’t. Apart from the language, it felt as North American as anywhere else.
The spread-out residential neighborhoods. The “paper houses” — non-brick constructions that felt fragile compared to European buildings. The extremely car-centric town layouts, with multi-lane highways cutting straight through urban areas. The lack of sidewalks in many places. The enormous, one-story commercial buildings surrounded by seas of parking lots. And of course, the omnipresent fast-food culture.
Chicoutimi extending out on both sides of the Saguenay river
Yes, the Québécois had their local quirks — their own customs, expressions, and French heritage — but to me, they were still as Canadian as the rest of the country.
I should also add that, in my experience, the lack of English wasn’t due to people refusing to speak it, as some Quebec-haters like to claim. Not at all. Most simply didn’t know English well enough. From conversations I had with locals, they learned some English in school, but then never used it and gradually lost it — much like my own French.
The key point was that they didn’t need to. Most rarely traveled to English-speaking regions. A kind of cultural and linguistic self-isolation.
Saint-François-Xavier Cathedral, a familiar sight in Chicoutimi
I also never sensed any widespread English-hating attitude. Surely, such people exist — they do everywhere — but it wasn’t the general sentiment. On the contrary, many people, despite their broken and limited English, were kind and genuinely curious about me as a foreigner. Perhaps because I wasn’t their English-Canadian “enemy,” but rather someone clearly trying to integrate. I don’t know.
The Hunt for an Apartment
After stocking up on food from a not-at-all-nearby supermarket — because everything was so damn far thanks to that car-centric town design — I began searching for rental apartments online.
I quickly found the local classifieds website: Kijiji. From furniture to vehicles to apartments, everything was listed there. I started sending out inquiries.
At first, I wrote long, detailed messages in English explaining who I was and that I was looking to rent a studio apartment. None of them received replies. So I switched tactics and began sending much shorter messages in French, heavily assisted by Google Translate.
Days passed. Still no replies. My hotel stay was coming to an end, and desperation began creeping in. It was time to stop hiding behind messages and pick up the phone.
Phone Calls, Panic, and One Miracle
I started the calls the same way I always had — straight in English. That went nowhere. Then I adjusted again, opening in broken French and asking if the person spoke English. The answer was usually a simple: Non, désolé. Eventually, I wrote down a few French sentences for myself — just enough to explain my situation concisely over the phone.
Saguenay City Hall, one of the few nice stone buildings in Chicoutimi, together with the Cathedral
One of the listings was for a nice-looking, unfurnished studio apartment by the shores of the Saguenay. I called. The man on the other end immediately launched into several minutes of rapid-fire speech — in what must have been the thickest Saguenay French dialect imaginable. I didn’t understand a single word.
I had to cut him off.
Uh… oh… désolé… mon français n’est pas bon… euh… j’utilise Google Translate…
As hilarious and frustrating as the conversation was, I have to give the man credit — he didn’t hang up. Somehow, through repeated excuse-moi, requests to speak slower, and constant repetition, we reached a fragile half-understanding.
Walking along the Vieux-port de Chicoutimi, I encountered this chicken
Yes, the apartment was available. Yes, we could schedule a visit. The time… maybe 5 PM?
I wasn’t sure. Stress levels were high. But I decided: fuck it. I’d go there at 5 and hope for the best. And I got it right.
Carl, the Accent, and a Cheap Studio
Carl, the owner, greeted me with a warm smile — and an absolutely legendary Saguenay accent. One so thick that, as I later learned, not even French speakers understood it. In person, though, everything became easier. The hand gestures helped a lot.
The apartment was genuinely nice: one of four studio units on the second floor of a large house. Carl and his wife lived downstairs in a spacious, elegant first-floor apartment, while the studios above were all rented out.
The location was one of the best in Chicoutimi. The rent was dirt cheap — around 400 dollars. His only real request was simple: be tranquil. No parties. No noise. Perfect.
Walking out of the apartment, I’d be greeted with this view of the Saguenay and marina. Not too shabby!
Somehow, against all odds, I had navigated the language barrier and landed myself a solid place to live. Now all I needed was furniture.
A Furnished Beginning
I got a lucky break with one of my neighbors, who was preparing to leave the country and needed to get rid of everything he owned. For next to nothing, he sold me an entire kitchen setup — utensils, pots, plates, even a vacuum cleaner and an electric oven — all for a mere 100 dollars. It was a fantastic start.
For the rest, I went to one of the local furniture chains, MeubleRD. I could have gone the second-hand route again, but this time I knew I’d soon have a decent income and I wanted, for once, to build a place that felt intentionally mine rather than a random collection of leftovers from other people’s lives.
The last summer days at the end of August in Chicoutimi
There was also a practical constraint: I didn’t own a car, and I didn’t plan on getting one. Carrying furniture across Chicoutimi wasn’t an option. So after browsing the store, I bought a few small items and ordered the most important pieces online, including a bed frame and a mattress. According to the website, delivery would take about a week. Until then, I slept on a mat and a sleeping bag in my large, empty room. It felt like camping indoors.
That week stretched into three due to stock issues and delays. My back was not happy, but at least I had a roof over my head.
Brothers in a Rough Landing
Just before the semester began, the final member of our research group arrived from France: Alexandre, another PhD student under the same supervisor. Beyond our shared academic path, we quickly discovered we had strikingly similar tastes in music, humor, and outlook. He also arrived with a gigantic Maine Coon cat, which instantly impressed me. We became friends almost immediately.
My first time discovering Parc de la Rivière-du-Moulin in Chicoutimi
His own apartment turned out to be… interesting — a euphemism for a place that turned out to be riddled with problems and awful neighbors, the kind of situation that slowly wears you down. He also got screwed over by one of the telecom companies when first trying to get a Canadian number. Apparently even speaking the local language fluently was no guarantee of a smooth landing.
I helped where I could. We split the haul of kitchenware I’d acquired, and I gave him the electric oven since I had no use for it while he desperately needed one. My own apartment, meanwhile, lacked a washing machine. I tried doing laundry at the university for a while, but the constant security checks made it a chore. Eventually, I began doing my weekly laundry at Alexandre’s place, which turned into our regular ritual of shared meals, drinks, and evenings of laughter and entertainment.
Into the Archean
Not long after the start of the semester, our supervisor took us on an organized field trip north to Chibougamau. Beyond its academic purpose, I quietly looked forward to it for a far simpler reason — it would be my first time sleeping in a proper bed after nearly ten days on the floor of my empty apartment.
The vast wilderness of central Quebec, only interrupted by the occasional high powerlines
Lucie was in her element out there. As our minibus pushed deeper into the vast nothingness north of Saguenay — endless forests, swamps, and lakes stretching to every horizon — she excitedly pointed out that, according to the geological maps, we had just crossed from the Proterozoic into the Archean. Two entirely different chapters of Earth’s history, separated by hundreds of millions of years… yet outside the window, nothing seemed to change. The wilderness stretched unbroken in every direction, with not a hint of civilization. The realization that the rocks beneath our feet had quietly shifted by two billion years without any visible sign was fascinating.
We were based at a roadside motel at the entrance to Chibougamau. Alexandre and I shared a room and couldn’t stop laughing at how it looked like something out of a crime movie — the kind of place where a man on the run hides from the police, nervously peeking through the curtains every time a car passes. I even started doing it as a joke, scanning the parking lot for imaginary cops, which only made us laugh harder.
Strange new rocks of primordial times
This was our first real immersion into the geology of the Canadian Shield and the Archean world of the Abitibi Greenstone Belt. Having once gone through the same shock herself, Lucie knew what awaited us: rocks more than two billion years old, heavily deformed, weathered, and nothing like the fresh, black basalt I had seen in Iceland.
For example, the “basalt” she pointed out in the field barely resembled anything I thought I knew. We were about to spend a long time relearning how to think in geological terms.
Our field trip crew during that first visit to Chibougamau
It was also our first, very mild encounter with the local flying menaces known as black flies. Thankfully, this late in the season and with the cool temperatures, they were little more than a minor annoyance. At the time, I had no idea what kind of terror they would become once summer arrived.
The Work Ahead
My project would cover multiple Archean formations across vast regions — not only the Abitibi in Quebec, but also the equally enormous Wabigoon Greenstone Belt in Ontario. The scope was intimidating.
That first semester was about orientation: understanding the geology, defining the project, and keeping up with coursework. In December, I would have to give a formal presentation as part of an exam that would determine whether I would be officially accepted into the PhD program. Until I passed it, nothing was guaranteed.
A sulfide bearing felsic Archean rock. One of many more to come
So I buried myself in Archean geology, coursework, and the slow, awkward process of building a life in a new place. By then, I had finished running the gauntlet of my rough landing in Quebec — and was finally ready to dig in.
April 2019 — A year and a half had passed since completing my Master’s degree in Geology at Copenhagen University, and still no job in sight. I had applied locally and abroad, sent out countless CVs, and heard nothing but silence. Near the end of my patience, I was ready to give up on geology altogether and follow the path so many of my classmates had taken: switching into IT. Then, in the span of just one week, everything changed — five job offers arrived after eighteen months of nothing.
This was one of the great crossroads of my life: the moment that closed my chapter in Denmark and opened the next big phase of my journey.
A Few Weeks Earlier
It was just another ordinary day, the kind that usually gets lost in memory. Late March, 2019. Then, on Facebook, something unusual caught my eye: a post in the EUGEN (European Geoscience Network) group.
Just an ordinary spring day in Copenhagen, 2019
Remember EUGEN? The student-run network that organized annual summer geology camps? After the great time I’d had at EUGEN Austria the year before, I had joined their Facebook group. And half a year later, that decision proved unexpectedly valuable.
A fellow “Eugeneer,” Adrien — someone I’d never met — shared an opportunity: his supervisor in Quebec, Canada was looking for PhD candidates. I thought, why not? It was worth a shot, though I didn’t expect much after so many applications that had gone nowhere.
The imposing Grundtvigs Kirke in Bispebjerg, Copenhagen
To my surprise, just a few days later I heard back. Professor Lucie Mathieu was not only interested but eager to set up an interview. The conversation went very well, but questions remained: tuition fees, grant coverage, and whether the stipend would be enough to live on. It wasn’t a done deal yet — but it was the most promising lead I’d had in months.
Exploring Every Possibility
As I continued to look into the tuition situation in Quebec, I never stopped pursuing other paths. If there was one thing I had learned since graduating, it was that nothing was certain until the deal was signed. Among those other paths were two more PhD applications — one in Dublin, Ireland, and one at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. I also stayed in touch with my former supervisor from my 2018 internship at GEUS, hoping that one day, if a lab-tech role opened, he might have me in mind.
The sea of uncertainty was finally narrowing
None of this was new. I had been applying since 2017, endlessly sending CVs into the void. The only fresh tactic I tried came after a job-seeking course suggested I reach out directly on LinkedIn. Late that March, I gave it a shot, writing to an executive at Boliden, the Swedish mining company, to ask about summer fieldwork.
The Week Everything Changed
Up until mid-March 2019 — until that Canadian PhD interview — I had not received so much as a single interview invitation. Then, suddenly, everything flipped.
The financial uncertainties in Quebec were resolved: tuition would be minimal, and the PhD stipend more than enough to cover living costs. Professor Julien Allaz at ETH invited me first to a Skype call and then to Zurich for the final stage of selection, expenses paid. Tonny Thomsen from GEUS reached out with a one-year lab technician offer. Peter Svensson from Boliden called me to offer a summer job in Sweden after my speculative LinkedIn message. Even the Dublin professor wrote to express interest — though by then, overwhelmed with concrete options, I politely declined.
Cherry blossom at Bispebjerg Kirkegård
It was absolutely surreal. After nearly two years of silence, within a single week in April, everything was happening at once. I was ecstatic, but also frustrated and confused. Why now? Why all at once, after so long?
That week remains one of the most surreal of my life — the week I went from feeling invisible to standing at a crossroads of extraordinary opportunities. I knew whichever path I chose would shape not only the next few years, but the course of my life. And I wasn’t going to make that choice lightly.
Choices… So Many Choices
So many choices indeed. I had to pause and collect my thoughts. The spring days were warm and golden that year, and I spent as much time as I could cycling through the city streets. In the back of my mind I knew it would likely be my last spring in Denmark.
A melancholic visit to Amager beach park
The lab-tech position at GEUS was a solid opportunity, but it was only a one-year contract — hardly the stable future I was searching for. The Swedish mining job was tempting too: a real foot in the door of the exploration industry. Yet, it was only a summer contract, nothing permanent.
I couldn’t help reflecting on how much I would miss this place. Copenhagen had become my city — the city that gave me my first real chance to prove myself. And prove myself I did. My new apartment, right in the heart of town, felt like home again, especially living with two close friends. The sunsets from my window were spectacular and the apartment vibe was top. Well… except for that time when our ceiling sprung a leak and the landlord’s “solution” was to jam in a couple of metal rods and suspend two buckets in the middle of our living room. Still, the laughter, the company, and those views made it one of my happiest homes.
Newly built modern building. Great job guys! 6/10 – IGN
But choices had to be made. The path forward was narrowing. It would come down to one of the two PhD offers: Switzerland or Canada. Not an easy choice by any stretch.
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.
A rare snowy Nyhavn
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.
Exploring The Citadel during my early days in Copenhagen
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.
Walks along the canals in Copenhagen
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.
One last look at my room in Farum
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.
The night of the big move in. Couch successfully in place and all.
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.
Bogdan impressing us with his skills during one of our guitar jam sessions
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.
Spring was in the air in Copenhagen once 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.
Agamemnon, Achilles and Odysseus enjoying a BBQ
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.
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.
Or get scammed or hacked later… depending on your luck
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.
Strumming along and dreaming of sunny new horizons
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.
Moody photo during one of my visits to Hillerød
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.
My first time in Calgary during summer of 2006
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.
My younger cousins old semi-truck
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.
The big Christmas family gathering
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.
A snowy winter day in Banff
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.
Got to have that group photo with the sign, otherwise you weren’t there
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.
A snow covered Lake Louise
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.
On the trail to Lake Agnes
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 believe Lake Agnes was buried under the snow there somewhere
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.
Arbour lake neighborhood, NW Calgary
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.
Peace Bridge crossing the bow river to downtown Calgary
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.
Strolling around downtown Calgary after dark
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.
The sun sank behind the Rockies, just as it had on yet another plan that never came to fruition
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.
A layover in Toronto later I was just an ocean away from home
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.
A few years before my decision to move to Denmark, during what I would call my years of stagnation, I had a strange dream. This was perhaps a year, or so after I had graduated from University in Romania. The plans I had fell apart and I was caught in a loop of waiting on other people’s promises. Waiting for some miracle opportunity to fall into my lap.
It was at this point that I had a dream where I seemingly met up with a divine figure. It had no visible face in the dream, just a human-like outline radiating light. In the dream I acted as if this was some great old buddy of mine from past times. I told the figure that things had been quite dull and bleak for a while, and then asked when will things pick up again? The figure then replied “2015”. Then the dream just faded away. I had had all sorts of fascinating, insightful and strange dreams before. But never did I get a response like that to a legitimate question. I didn’t dwell on it too much, but it did leave me with a renewed sense of hope that things will work themselves out.
Waking up to a winter morning in the Danish countryside
I certainly didn’t plan on things going the way they did, but 2015 did indeed end up being the year that changed everything for me. It was toward the end of 2015 that I recalled that old dream. Mostly because a few months before I had another interesting one. In this one I was climbing a steep hill at night in a dark forest. It wasn’t just me alone, there were a bunch of people around me all trying to climb up this hill. It was hard and I kept sliding back constantly. Finally, a tall, smiling, short gray-haired blue eyed man extended his hand and helped me reach the top. It felt like a nice wholesome dream and I didn’t think much more of it at the time.
Knowledge shock
Before I started my studies at KU, I had to choose my specialization. The University offered four options for Geoscientists. I was debating between two of these. One was a sedimentary rock specialization, which was focused towards the oil and gas branch of geology. The other one was is igneous rocks and geochemical processes. This would somewhat touch upon economic geology and the mining industry, but was mostly a purely research oriented path. I thought back to how much I enjoyed the igneous classes from my Bachelors days. Sedimentary I always found a bit dull, but I wanted to keep my options open for practical reasons. I ended up choosing the igneous specialization, but also signed up for the sedimentary classes for my optional courses.
Nordhavn (North port), Copenhagen, seen from somewhere up the north coast
It was the most practical decision. I would give both specs a chance in my first semester and then decide which one I will focus on later. Regarding the igneous specialization, the one thing that I somehow glossed over was the “Geochemistry” part of the title. I was terrible at geochemistry. Not only that, but I severely lacked any good basic chemistry foundation. The result of too many different teachers replacing each other in middle school and high school.
At the start of my first geochem-heavy course called “Core to crust”, my huge knowledge-gap was immediately obvious. I recall our first professor, Robert Frei, stared off the course by quickly scribbling down an equation on the board and just causally stating “Well, everyone knows the decay equation, so…” and he keeps on going. I took a look at this never seen before scribble and my immediate reaction was , “Woah woah woah! What’s “e”? Euler’s number. The mathematical constant “e” obviously. Everyone knows that, right? Yeah… “Right”.
A steep learning curve
The first three weeks of courses at KU were brutal. I was trying to understand. I was listening and focusing during classes more than ever before. But some of the stuff just seemed so advanced to me that it was impossible to understand. My head felt two sizes too big after each geochemistry class. The sedimentary classes on the other hand were way easier to grasp and follow. Yet as frustrating as the geochem class was, it kept challenging and intriguing me. The topics were fascinating and kept me engaged.
A rainy Østerbrogade in Coepnhagen, Denmark
It wasn’t until we had to work in groups and make a presentation based on a scientific article that I finally started getting it. After all my Danish colleagues formed their groups and picked their topics, the two foreigners, Nigel and myself teamed up to take the scraps. I don’t recall the exact topic of the article we got, but I know it took us two solid afternoons to chew through the material. Re-reading paragraphs dozens of times to try to understand what the heck the author is saying. Deciphering scientific sentences word for word at times. Then there were all these “alien” elements that I never heard of. Like Yb… Huh, Yb? Ybbibidium? What? How about Tb? Teletubium? Ugh…
We did our best to present what we learned. A big part of it just felt like the author arguing for some things while acknowledging that it could be this way, or that way, or another way. It turned out to be a great presentation. This was what our professor was trying to show us. How so many of these processes are still not well understood. Yet how researchers keep pushing to find different ingenious, indirect ways to make sense of what we can’t see, or directly measure. It was fine to not understand everything. You just had to continue persevering, asking questions and researching. There were never any wrong questions. Maybe just wrong answers.
Enter the smiling, gray-haired, blue-eyed man
One month in, I was feeling a lot more comfortable in classes. The geochemistry class had won me over. I was now keen on sticking with the igneous rock specialization. The next step was to find an Master’s thesis project and I didn’t want to waste any time. I asked my friend Jasper about any ideas of whom I could talk to. I told him I’d love to work on volcanoes and magmatic processes. He then told me a professor Paul-Martin Holm, who had a project in the Cape Verde islands. Incidentally he was going to present the second part of our geochem class, so I’d have the chance to meet him soon.
Somewhere on a farm in Ballerup, Denmark during winter 2015
There were a few rumors’ coming from some of my Danish colleagues that Paul Martin was this mean professor. That he was very demanding and harsh during exams. The class starts and in enters this smiling, kind looking, tall, gray-haired, blue-eyed Danish man. I didn’t think of it at the time, but in hindsight, he looked eerily similar to the man extending his helping hand in my hill-climbing dream.
The moment we took a break, I walked up to him and introduced myself. I mentioned that I had heard of a potential Cape Verde project he has and that I would be interested. He replied that sadly he already has another student for that project. However, he had this other geochemistry project in Argentina that would require a Master’s student if I’m interested.
Wow… Argentina?! Heck yeah I was interested! But the geochemistry part again… I told Paul Martin I had a severely week geochemistry background and wasn’t sure if it was wise to sign up for a geochem focused project. His reply was “But you can learn!”. Nobody could have given me a better answer in that moment. I felt challenged in the best way possible. I was given a golden opportunity here and it was time to show what I could do!
Just one little problem…
The Argentina project sounded incredible, but there was one little problem for me. It wasn’t entirely covered by Paul’s research funds, so the students would have to pay a portion of the expenses. This was highly problematic given my dubious financial standing at the time. Well, I still had time to find a better paying job, I thought. So, I accepted. This was around mid-October.
Fast-forward to December and how “well” my job-search was going. Add to that the SU-grant rejection and you can now imagine that I wasn’t in the most cheerful of holiday spirits.
A gloomy winter holiday
I had no plans for the school break. I was just sulking in temporary defeat.
At the same time an old high school friend from Romania, Vlad, was living and working on a farm in Ballerup, Denmark. He invited me over for Christmas dinner with him and the farm-owners. So I went over to pay him a visit. We ate and drank, talked and laughed. His employers were very nice people. They even gave me a gift. The topic of a job came up too. They weren’t really hiring, but I also couldn’t exactly take on a full-time farm-job half an hour away from Copenhagen either.
A Danish Christmas dinner prepared by my high school friend, master chef Vlad
Vlad was a good friend. A great friend. He did what he could in his old way to cheer me up. I felt bad for bringing down the mood, but I told him too that it was just a really shitty period for me. As always, I had to dredge through this on my own.
Despite the struggles, it was a wholesome end to a life-changing year
By the time December 31’st had rolled up, I felt I had enough time to recharge mentally. I spontaneously went out with a group of dorm-mates to have a few drinks in the chaotic streets of Copenhagen on New Years Eve. I hyped myself up and prepared for the next year. Determined to fix my financial issues, prove that I could stand on my own two feet and then succeed in my challenging academic pursuits!
On January 1’st 2016, I received the following email from David, the website owner I was writing for:
My last line of income was cut. I burst out into hysteric laughter.
About a month after my arrival in Copenhagen, Denmark, I was comfortably settling into my new life. I now had a solid group of friends, I had a good means of transportation and had become familiar with most of the city. I was also adapting to the steep learning curve at KU. However, time was ticking on my limited finances and the pressure was on to find a local job.
My accommodation was covered for half a year and I was earning a small wage through my online content writing job. This was enough to cover my monthly costs for now. Nevertheless, I had to find a better income to be able to survive long-term.
Statue of famous Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen in Rosenborg park, Copenhagen
I had begun asking around about jobs and grant opportunities within my new circle of friends and colleagues. I soon learned about the SU-system that all my fellow Danish students were on.
The SU-system
The Danish SU-system is a state educational grant and loan scheme for people over 18 following a youth educational system and students enrolled in a full-degree program of higher education.
It’s basically a significant government financial support system for all Danes enrolled in Universities across the country. Foreign students are technically not eligible for SU, unless they apply for equal status with Danish citizens. As always, this is easier if you come from an EU member country. You can read more details about applying for SU as a foreign student here.
My road to SU
I began looking into the SU eligibility as soon as I had heard of it. From my research, I found I had to have no other foreign educational support grants and show that my income was meager enough to merit financial aid. Then the SU-grant would be significant enough for me to cover all expenses. It seemed like the perfect solution to my financial problems.
Amazing mural in the courtyard of Sølvgades Elementary school, Copenhagen
The problem was that I had a foreign job with no tax contribution to the Danish state. The only way this could potentially work was for me to open a company in Denmark and register as self-employed. My English colleague and good friend, Nigel who had experience in registering businesses in Denmark helped me set up “Odyssian Translations”. A one-man translation and content-writing firm registered in Copenhagen, Denmark. I was now the official boss! The boss of me, myself and I.
Now I just had to ask the website owner I was writing for to kindly reword some things in our contract agreement so it would all fit with my new company name. He was kind enough to oblige. Of course now my minimal income diminished further because I had to start paying tax on it. Still, with everything in order, I could finally take my shot at applying for SU in November.
Ongoing job-search
Even though I was banking on the SU-grant coming through, I was still adamant on finding a local part-time job. Mostly because any job in Denmark would pay way more than the content-writing income I had. If I had enough time, I could even do both, I thought. So off I went to ask around for jobs.
My frequent bike trips through north-east Copenhagen helped clear my mind
Ideally I would have loved to get a student-job on campus, or maybe an internship at a company relevant to my field. These were ambitious “big balloon” dreams that were unlikely to materialize. The reasons being that these jobs would be limited and require some level of nepotism and, usually, Danish fluency.
The nepotism part really irked me, because I had just left a country where nepotism was the norm everywhere and I was completely fed up with it. I always dreamed of an ideal meritocratic system where one proves themselves objectively based on skill, action and experience. However, when one has little past work experience and there are dozens, or hundreds of similar applicants for one position, the hirer will most often take a subjective approach and choose the one that had been recommended by a friend/colleague.
The problem for me was that this simple reality was colliding with my “do it on my own” mentality. My whole job application process in those months was as much of an internal struggle as it was an external one.
Expanding, adapting
As time passed on and no sweet and easy jobs were coming along, I had to adapt and expand my approach. I had exhausted my options on campus and it was time to broaden the search. Since my main weakness was lack of Danish fluency, I thought to seek out jobs that shouldn’t require it. I began looking up lists of hostels, hotels and other such businesses that would mostly have foreign clients. To most of these I just sent out swarms of applications through online portals, or email. Some of them I went off to visit in person, hoping that the extra personal step could land me a brief talk with a hiring manager.
When all this didn’t seem to work, I stepped it up a notch. I began going from door to door to stores, gas stations, bicycle repair shops and other businesses around me. Whatever I could think of that may offer a part-time job.
Svanemøllen bike-shop where I got my flat-tires fixed up and also tried to get a part-time job later
This, together with my studies became my daily focus in the final months of 2015. As you can imagine, it wasn’t easy. Every rejection was a let down and just made me want to crawl back into bed and forget about all of it. I didn’t though. I simply couldn’t afford to.
In that regard, this multi-month period was quite similar to early 2015 when I had went through the same thing, but with university applications. I kept telling myself that if I had done it before, I can do it again! I was once more conditioning myself to become immune to rejections. The more you reject me the more aggressive I will become in my job search! That was the mentality I had adapted by the end.
The SU decision
Around late November/early December, I received a reply from the state regarding my SU application. It was rejected… The reasoning was absolutely ridiculous: my income was too low to be eligible for SU.
Gloomy, rainy walks in Nyhavn
So a grant meant to provide financial help for struggling students with low income actually had a cap on how low that income can be. Any lower and NOPE! No grant for you! You’re income is now so low that you don’t even register on our radars!
It was sad and frustrating… Everyone I talked to about it was equally dismayed. Yet there was nothing I could do. Even if I contested their decision, the result would be the same because of their rigid “box-mentality” rules. It was now very clear. I HAD to get a Danish job. That was the only way I would get the grant and survive my coming years. However, after a whole year of fighting and struggling, I was mentally exhausted by that point.
There was also another potential financial burden waiting for me the next year. This was related to my newly proposed Master’s thesis project. However, I will elaborate on this more in my next post.
In my previous blog posts I’ve mostly focused on my travel and adventure episodes from my young adulthood, which for me were the highlight of those years. However, I’ve also sporadically mentioned that these were not great years for me. Today, I wanted to briefly retell my story from those years and the life changing decision I was about to make, which also inspired the name of my blog.
After graduating from university, my dissatisfaction with my country and surroundings only grew with each passing year. Each trip abroad I was fortunate enough to go on, would only reinforce my desires to leave Romania behind more and more. For years I kept trying out various ways of finding work abroad, either through contacts, or constant job applications. Despite my efforts though, by 2014 it had become clear this wasn’t going to work.
I ended up working for a Romanian oil and gas exploration company in the south of the country. The job wasn’t easy and the pay was laughable. However, I tried to make the best of it and put on a positive attitude. That lasted about a couple of days into my first shift.
My “lovely” work site sometime in autumn 2014
Now I don’t want to get into the details of all of my gripes with the company and my time there, but suffice to say, this half-year stint only served to amplify my already highly negative feelings towards everything around me.
The winds of change
Finally, by the start of 2015, I had decided that I was going to try a new approach to leave. I was ready to go back to school and thus, began a personal campaign of relentless university applications across Europe. My main target country was Norway, which had left e tremendously positive impression on me when I visited it a couple of years prior. I’m pretty sure I sent out an application to every Norwegian university I could find. However, I was not going to limit myself to just one country. My war on stagnation had begun and my barrage of applications was going to blanket the continent!
My cat as I was telling him of my glorious plans to break free and escape
A couple of months into 2015, I parted ways with my employers in a fairly explosive telephone conversation. Although that unfortunate moment of emotional meltdown left a very bitter taste in my mouth and a dent in my wall, I also began feeling surprisingly relieved. Like some invisible chains shackling me down were starting to break. Within a few days I somehow managed to find a freelance writer gig for an upcoming travel-tourist website. Ironically the pay was almost similar to my previous shitty field job, while the work routine was incomparably better. This little job would end up being a life saver in the months to come.
A surprising outcome
Amid my application frenzy in early spring, friends and family sometimes pitched in with additional ideas for places I could try to apply to. One of them came from the most random of sources: a former work-colleague of my mom’s, who had a son that had moved to Denmark a few years earlier. I knew little to nothing of Denmark apart from its common history with and proximity to Norway. So I applied to a couple of Universities in Denmark too. Although my hopes and dreams still laid with Norway, I was going all in. Something surely had to work out!
As the application deadlines for each university went by, I began receiving the decisions day after day, rejection after rejection. I wasn’t phased anymore. “Reject me all you want, I will never give up!” – became my new attitude. A couple of weeks in, all of my Norwegian applications had been rejected. Yet in the email sea of hopelessness, two shining jewels emerged out of nowhere.
I made sure to re-read these emails multiple times to be certain I wasn’t misreading something, but the message was true and clear. My applications to the Masters programs at the University of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark had been accepted.
