I sit here five years after the events of this story, revisiting them in their full form for the first time. This is not a year I ever enjoyed looking back on once I had survived it. Yet not every moment was terrible. There were small flashes of joy scattered between the difficult stretches. There was also a lot of music that I discovered during long winter walks, late nights, and periods where distraction became a form of survival. Music was always a reliable crutch.
Now, as I write this while listening to many of those same tracks, nostalgia quietly creeps in. Part of me almost misses those moments. At the same time, the rational side of my mind feels stunned by the audacity of wanting to relive a year that pushed me so close to the edge. Because 2021 was not simply difficult. It was the year that tested my resolve more than any other before or since.
Frozen Routine
The year began quietly. We were still trapped inside another strict lockdown rolling over from 2020. Apart from supermarkets and the restrictive university campus, nearly everything remained closed. Days moved slowly, stretched thin between routine and uncertainty.
A small space, a warm bed, and a quiet corner where old habits found their way back through a new musical instrument
At the time, I was still waiting on the final laboratory results for several rock samples. Something that should have taken weeks had already dragged on for nearly two months. Delays had become normal by then. Restricted work schedules and reduced access slowed nearly everything down. Once the results finally arrived, the next phase of my project began: data analysis. Hours disappeared into plotting graphs, comparing trends, searching for patterns and anomalies hidden inside datasets that I would later try to interpret.
Winter had settled fully over Saguenay by then. It had been there since November, and by my second year living in the region I understood that this was simply the rhythm of life in northern Quebec. Nearly half the year existed beneath a blanket of white, interrupted only by varying degrees of cold. Heavy storms would occasionally sweep through, dragging temperatures down toward -40°C, sometimes even lower when wind chill was particularly nasty. Most days, however, floated somewhere between -10 and -30.
A few months earlier, I had moved into a neighbouring apartment within the same house. Slightly smaller, but with a balcony and a direct view over the Saguenay. A small spatial trade-off for a permanent face-to-face with the fjord itself
By that point, Alexandre and I had adapted enough that -10 already felt like springtime. Anything warmer bordered on beach weather. We had integrated into the Canadian climate more than either of us probably expected.
Learning to Live With Winter
The most frustrating part of winter was not even the cold itself. It was the roads.
Chicoutimi sits within an ancient geological rift valley known as the Saguenay Graben. There is nearly a hundred-meter elevation difference between the lower ground near the Saguenay River where my apartment was located, and the upper plateau where the university, shops, and commercial areas sat.
When the roads froze solid beneath a glaze of ice, the steep streets became dangerous. Without fresh snow to provide grip, the pavement transformed into a slippery downhill slide. More than once, I chose to avoid the roads entirely. Instead, I would cut through deep snowbanks or take a longer path through Parc du Moulin. The route added time, but it also offered something the town itself often lacked during winter: silence.
Routine walks through the park sometimes meant forging my own path through untouched snow
Walking through the park meant escaping the repetitive landscape of parking lots, oversized roads, and rows of near-identical houses. It was quieter there, more natural, and easier to forget how repetitive lockdown life had become.
When Alexandre and I went shopping after work, we usually took the bus home. Nightfall came so early during winter that by the time errands were finished, darkness had already swallowed the streets. One particular evening remains especially memorable.
The Walmart Orogeny
A winter storm pushed through town that evening. Fine snow drifted across the asphalt in thin winding patterns, forming snaking shapes that looked almost like miniature sand dunes moving across the ground.
We had just finished a late-afternoon shopping trip at Walmart. Darkness had already settled outside. By that point in winter, snowbanks had grown enormous. While most of the surrounding landscape sat buried beneath at least half a meter of snow, the Walmart parking lot looked different.
Snowplows had spent months pushing snow into one corner of the lot, gradually building what resembled an artificial mountain range. The compressed snow hardened into towering icy ridges — five to ten meters high in places. Alexandre and I named it the Walmart Orogeny.
Where are we going, boys?
After leaving the store, we made our way toward the nearby bus stop, trying to shield ourselves from the freezing wind. The storm had emptied the streets. We seemed to be the only people outside. We waited there shivering while the bus ran late. Eventually, headlights emerged through the blowing snow.
An empty bus pulled up quickly, displaying the correct route number. The doors opened, and a young black guy with dreadlocks leaned toward us from the drivers seat with an unexpectedly cheerful grin. “So, where are we going, boys?” he asked in English, which itself was already shocking considering the limtied use of English in this part of the world. For a second I just stared at him, half laughing. “You tell us,” I replied. “You’re the bus driver.”
After some confused laughter and a bit of head scratching, he managed to get himself lost in some back streets due to various road closures. He was probably new on the job. It turned into one of the strangest bus rides I had experienced. Equal parts awkward, funny, and oddly memorable.
The Shattering
Winter carried on like that for weeks. Days blended together into a routine of snow, university work, grocery trips, and long stretches of quiet repetition. Then sometime near the end of January, Lucie called a meeting with the entire research group. Remote, of course. Face-to-face meetings between multiple people still felt discouraged, if not outright frowned upon.
Since the previous fall, a new student had joined our group. Taylor, from Edmonton, had come to complete her Master’s at UQAC despite speaking almost no French. We hadn’t even gotten the chance to meet her yet with all the restrictions and busy schedules. She was about to receive an intense introduction to Quebec academic life.
A clear winter day in the park, where snow and light softened the landscape into something quietly beautiful. A contrast to how the same season often felt from within
Lucie appeared on screen smiling as always. She had an energetic warmth that rarely seemed to disappear. Unfortunately, her smile did not always signal good news. This was one of those moments.
She wanted to tell us personally before the information spread further. A major financial crisis had surfaced at Laurentian University, triggering a large-scale investigation. The consequences extended far beyond one institution. Research budgets stalled and funding channels froze. Including those of our sponsors, Metal Earth…
In simple terms, our primary research funds had just been paralyzed. And just like that, the atmosphere changed. What had previously felt like a slow, frustrating winter suddenly became something heavier. The uncertainty was no longer abstract. The stability of the project itself no longer felt guaranteed.
Funding Frozen Indefinitely
We were all stunned.
Lucie tried to reassure us in whatever way she could. At least for now, our contracts were secure until May. PhD funding worked on a yearly basis, even though the projects themselves were designed to last four years. On paper, nothing had changed yet. But the truth was that she knew as little as we did.
Nobody could tell us how long the situation would last, whether funding would return, or if the projects would survive in their original form at all. So for the moment, we carried on as if nothing had happened. Not an easy thing to do when financial uncertainty hangs over your head like a storm cloud.
At the height of winter, the Saguenay lay still. Sealed beneath ice and silence
Without additional funding, further laboratory work and fieldwork were effectively off the table. If we wanted to continue, we would need to reshape our projects around what already existed using previous results, existing samples, and literature reviews to construct something workable from increasingly limited resources.
The Truth Behind Truth
It’s difficult to describe what a complete clusterfuck this situation had become.
Both Alexandre and I had entered fully funded four-year PhD projects with clearly defined goals, timelines, and expectations. Then the pandemic arrived a year earlier, throwing everything into disarray. Lockdowns slowed research, delayed lab access, complicated logistics, and gradually wore away at morale.
Despite all of that, we had managed to recover. By the end of 2020, we were finally back on track. Through stubbornness, efficiency, and a willingness to work relentlessly whenever opportunities appeared, we had clawed our way back into progress.
Lucie also played a major role, often shielding us from the more rigid and overly cautious layers of academic bureaucracy whenever our enthusiasm pushed beyond acceptable protocol. But now this. Something completely outside our control.
Nothing like this had happened before at a Canadian university, and somehow we had become tangled in the fallout through the financial lifeline supporting our projects.
An Odd Balancing of Scales
But as the universe taketh, so too it occasionally giveth.
Some posts ago, I mentioned how I had slowly become interested in cryptocurrency investing before leaving Denmark. What started around 2018 as casual curiosity had gradually evolved into a side hobby.
Over the years, I learned to tolerate the volatility. I followed traders on TradingView, watched technical analysts on YouTube, and slowly developed an understanding of how cyclical markets behaved. Crypto, despite its chaos, seemed to follow recognizable emotional rhythms — waves of optimism, collapse, accumulation, and eventual resurgence.
As temperatures eased, the first movement returned only where the current was strongest. The rest of the river still held in winter’s grip
For years, people talked about the elusive bull market phase of the four-year cycle. And by early 2021, it appeared to have arrived. The pandemic crash of 2020 had briefly crushed everything. Markets collapsed alongside global panic. But central banks responded by flooding economies with liquidity, printing money at historic levels to stabilize financial systems.
Everything rebounded. And risk assets, especially cryptocurrencies, surged. I had invested quite a lot by the end of 2020. Good timing, whether through foresight or luck. Suddenly, what had been a hobby was transforming into something far more serious.
Despite making several objectively terrible trades during early 2021, my portfolio grew rapidly. My crypto holdings began outpacing my actual academic income. For the first time, I wasn’t just saving money for a rainy day. I was making eyewatering profits. It felt unreal.
While uncertainty grew in university life, another parallel reality was unfolding quietly on my screen — one filled with charts, profits, optimism, and the dangerous illusion that perhaps financial freedom was not as far away as it once seemed.
Unravelling
While crypto helped keep my morale afloat, Alexandre was not doing well.
The lockdowns had hit him especially hard. Over time, his frustration with Chicoutimi, Quebec, and Canada itself became increasingly difficult to hide. The isolation weighed heavily on him. Now, with funding uncertainty threatening both his income and future, the pressure intensified. But academic stress was only part of the story.
Every step forward carried the risk of slipping further down… sometimes more literally than expected
He also had to live beside a deeply unstable neighbour. The guy regularly took drugs and experienced frequent mental breakdowns. Alexandre often complained about screaming late into the night, objects smashing against walls, and violent outbursts that made sleep nearly impossible. The landlord could do little because tenant protection laws complicated intervention. Then things escalated further.
At one point, the neighbour rammed a metal pipe, or something similar, directly through Alexandre’s wall. Police were called. Nothing meaningful happened. And so Alexandre remained trapped beside someone increasingly unpredictable.
We discussed moving him elsewhere, but realistically that would have to wait until summer. By then, though, the damage was already being done. He was exhausted. Mentally fried. And slowly approaching his limit.
The Decision to Leave
As April approached — still winter in Saguenay, despite what the calendar claimed — Alexandre had reached a turning point. He told me he was done. Fed up with the uncertainty, the isolation, with the absurdity of the place and his situation. He wanted to quit and move back to France.
The final piece pushing him toward that decision was family. Through video calls, he watched his parents age from afar. What had once felt temporary began to feel irreversible. Time suddenly seemed more fragile than before. He realized he no longer wanted to spend years feeling miserable in another country while missing precious time with people he loved. And honestly? I could not argue against it anymore.
The Saguenay river followed its natural course eastward, toward the sea… and for some, toward home
I understood. By then, I had also lived abroad for nearly seven years and had watched distance slowly reshape relationships with home and family. But I had committed to a different path. I had accepted long ago that I would keep moving until I found somewhere stable… somewhere that finally felt like home.
Alexandre already had that. He loved France and missed it more every day. He had something waiting for him. I didn’t.
Eventually, he told Lucie he wanted to downgrade his PhD into an MSc and finish within the year. His real goal, one he mostly kept between the two of us, was simple. He wanted to go home.
A Hollow Escape to Tadoussac
Sometime during what should have been spring, Alexandre, Pedro, and I decided to escape Chicoutimi for a day. We needed air. A change of scenery. Anything.
I can’t remember who suggested it first, but we drove east toward Tadoussac. Located where the Saguenay River meets the much larger St. Lawrence, Tadoussac is normally known for whale watching and summer tourism.
At times, tidal forces briefly reverse the Saguenay’s flow westward, against its natural course… against the sense of return
At that moment, we needed no excuse to go. We were simply happy to leave Chicoutimi behind for a few hours. That town had begun to feel heavy. Like a lead cloud permanently hanging overhead.
Driving through Saguenay Fjord National Park, I found myself unexpectedly struck by the scenery. The road wound between steep rocky cliffs and narrow valleys carved by ancient geological forces. For the first time, I fully appreciated the beauty of the landscape. And it frustrated me. Because my experience there had been so dominated by struggle that I had grown resentful toward the place itself. Yet the land remained beautiful regardless.
Tadoussac, however, felt lifeless. Late winter had stripped it of charm. The village sat somewhere between seasons. Neither winter nor spring. Dirty snow lingered in patches while mud surfaced through thawing ground. Everything seemed grey.
A lifeless Tadoussac. A few worn out colors contrasting the bleak late winter
The sky remained mostly overcast, allowing only faint pale sunlight to break through. Cold wind moved through empty streets. The occasional masked pedestrian only reinforced the atmosphere. A reminder, as if any of us needed one, of how everything had changed since the pandemic began. The place felt abandoned. And somehow perfectly aligned with the emotional tone of that year.
The Ice Begins to Melt
On the return trip, we crossed the Saguenay by ferry and stopped near La Baie. There, we walked onto the final remnants of ice still covering the river.
During peak winter, the Saguenay froze into a thick surface strong enough to support ice fishing camps and even vehicles. Locals built temporary communities directly on the frozen water. This was the first time we had seen it ourselves. I had been there for over a year, yet somehow remained a stranger to the place. I lived within the landscape, but never quite within the life of it.
The last remnants of ice fishing tents and equipment being packed up
This late in the season the ice was already deteriorating. People packed up tents and equipment as slush formed across the surface. It was surreal watching full-sized pickup trucks still driving over what looked increasingly unstable. In the pale yellow light of a sunset I watched winter losing its grip on the river. Reflecting on how I… would soon lose my only close friend there.
The thought of continuing alone, in a place that still felt alien due to the language barrier, especially under uncertain funding and growing instability, was not comforting. Things were changing. And I would have to change with them.
The Path Forward
Not long after Alexandre officially decided to leave the PhD program, I began seriously considering the same path. Not because I wanted to leave Canada or return to Europe, but because I wanted out of the academic system, and out of the depressive spiral that Chicoutimi had slowly become.
My goal had never truly been academia itself. From the moment I chose Canada over opportunities elsewhere, the objective had always been to build a future there. I needed a Canadian degree to qualify for a post-graduation work permit, but it did not need to be a PhD. What I really wanted was stability — a path into the mining industry, a career, and eventually a place that felt permanent. Alexandre was trying to return home. I was still searching for mine.
The sun sets over the slushy, unstable ground above the Saguenay
I sat down with Lucie for an honest conversation. She encouraged me not to rush my decision, but she also said something important. As valuable as research was, mental health mattered more.
I have to give her enormous credit here. Many supervisors might have pushed harder to keep students tied to projects out of pride, reputation, or convenience. She did the opposite. Lucie understood what the previous year had done to us. She had seen how hard we worked whenever opportunities existed. She had also lived through the same endless restrictions, bureaucracy, and funding collapse herself. Most of it was beyond her control.
Ferries sailing past each other across the Saguenay near Tadoussac
A few days later, I made my decision. I wanted out of the PhD program as well.
I would downgrade my study program, finish sooner, and leave the academic life with a second Masters degree rather than risk losing everything.
Approval came quickly. No resistance from supervisors. No objections from Metal Earth.
And so, two foreign PhD students prepared to do something that had apparently never happened before at that university. We asked to have our status changed from PhD students to Master’s students.
Following Christmas week in New York City, 2019 quietly came to an end with a relaxed New Year’s Eve dinner and drinks between two good friends. I was deep in my experimental cooking phase and had Alexandre over for a homemade, slightly burned, Greek moussaka.
A new year awaited. After the kind of year I’d just had, it was clear 2020 would probably be calmer. A step back. A year to build, not explode forward. As everyone now knows in hindsight, it would be far more than that — for all of us.
The New Semester Brought a New Victim to UQAC
With January came a new semester at UQAC. Alexandre and I registered for the two required PhD courses. Geology was always a small circle with barely a handful of students, most of them foreign. Among them was Pedro, a Brazilian PhD candidate who had just moved to Chicoutimi.
Welcome to the North. This is what you’ll see for half a year.
Pedro was one of those people who collects stories simply by existing. A guy who had never seen snow in his life moved to northern Canada in January, during a -40°C cold snap, with meters of snow and winter storms rolling in like clockwork. The story practically wrote itself.
After surviving the thermal shock, he endured months living with a questionable Québécois family. Among the gems he would retell: the time he opened the basement fridge to find his sandwich placed beside a box containing a dead cat. The owners were “waiting for spring to bury it” and didn’t want to leave it outside.
Pedro processed this information the way any rational person would — by moving out as soon as possible. With the amount of crazy stories he told us about his first months in Canada, he should honestly write his own blog.
The Rivière du Moulin during winter
He fit perfectly into our little circle of mildly disgruntled foreign PhD students trying to decode Quebec one snowstorm at a time.
The Quest for a Drivers License
For me, that winter felt like a tense calm before a summer storm. It was the first year of my PhD. That summer I was scheduled to do three months of fieldwork across Quebec and Ontario. Which meant one thing: I needed to renew my driver’s license.
The path ahead — Park du Rivière-du-Moulin
At the time I possesses an expired Romanian relic I hadn’t used since one lonely drive in Iceland in 2016. Naturally, it couldn’t be simple. Because my foreign license had expired, Quebec couldn’t simply exchange it. I had to redo the tests. Easy enough. Except I had barely driven in ten years.
Confidence low. Stress high. Instead of responsibly studying the driving manual, I decided to go in blindly. In contrast to my first driving exam when I passed both theory and practice on the first try, this time around I failed. Then failed again. The upside? Exam fees were cheap. Unlimited attempts.
The downside? A mandatory one-month wait between attempts. And of course, the regional SAAQ office was in Jonquière, not Chicoutimi. Which meant an hour-long bus ride each way through Saguenay’s bleak winter landscape every time I wanted to fail another exam. It was not a joyous era.
But with each attempt, I improved. Eventually I passed the theoretical. Then came the practical — rinse, repeat, stress, repeat. By summer, I finally had my Quebec driver’s license. Considering what was unfolding globally, this minor bureaucratic victory now feels oddly monumental.
My routine 10 km park walks to and from the supermarket and gym
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s rewind to winter.
Francisation
Another goal I had set at the start of the year was learning French properly. The university offered nothing useful in that regard. It was Pedro who pointed me toward Quebec’s government-funded francisation classes for newcomers. The Centre de formation générale des adultes was a ten-minute walk from campus.
When I went to register, the woman at the desk spoke exclusively French and had to evaluate my level. I stitched together broken sentences from memory. It didn’t come across as much. Beginner level it was.
But within a few weeks, something interesting happened. Fragments of childhood French combined with fluency in Romanian, a Latin language like French, roots began clicking into place. Vocabulary accelerated. Patterns emerged.
So I was bumped up a level or two. It felt like I was on the right path. Well on my way to adapt and integrate into my new life in French-Canada.
Routine into the Storm
Between language classes, Jonquière license expeditions, PhD coursework, and research work, I barely had time to breathe. But it was structured. Productive. Forward-moving. A couple times a week, Alexandre and I would make our “shopping expedition” — a half-hour walk through snow-covered streets to Place du Royaume, with a mandatory stop at Archambault along the way. Life was cold, busy, and routine. Until mid-March.
Sometimes the waterfall just completely froze
Another winter storm was forecast — strong winds, heavy snowfall. The university closed for the day. Nothing unusual. The next day I returned to find the campus in complete blackout. The storm had damaged major power lines. Parts of the town were without electricity. I made my way to our office using my phone flashlight. Inside, a few colleagues were sitting in pitch darkness, casually talking. Our office had no windows. This never bothered me much, but Alexandre hated it. We chatted in the dark for a while, laughed at the absurdity, then left. No work accomplished.
The following day was another write-off. I can’t even remember if it was still the outage, another storm, or just institutional confusion. The week was dissolving. At some point I joked to my friends: Just watch, Friday’s excuse is going to be a University shutdown because of that coronavirus thing. The news had been escalating into fear mongering. China. Italy. Numbers rising. Dramatic headlines.
Then Friday came. And with it, a state of emergency. The university closed. The province shut down. The world closed itself off. And just like that, routine evaporated. Me and my big mouth.
The New World Order — Life during the COVID-19 lockdown
Early into the first lockdown, I have to admit I felt a selfish sense of vindication. A quiet, petty sort of justice. For months I had been navigating life in a place where I barely spoke the language and knew only a couple of people. Isolation had been my baseline. And now, suddenly, everyone else was getting a taste of it.
Welcome to my world.
Time stopped dripping here. The world held its breath, and winter simply kept sculpting what was already still
At the same time, I secretly welcomed the abrupt pause. My schedule had been escalating into overload — PhD work, language classes, driving exam shenanigans, constant self-imposed pressure. The world hitting pause felt… convenient. I expected it to last a week. Maybe two. And then it just kept going.
Mask mandates appeared. Supermarket floor arrows dictated which direction you could walk, as if we were items on a conveyor belt. Entire stores closed. Curfews were introduced. News cycles amplified panic daily. Then came the toilet paper crisis. One of the stranger collective breakdowns of modern civilization.
Meanwhile, my mom in Romania described increasingly rigid restrictions there. At one point, people had to fill out official declaration papers justifying why they were leaving their homes. It triggered flashbacks for her — memories of life under Ceaușescu’s communist regime, when movement and speech were tightly controlled.
The longer the restrictions lasted, the more frustration built. The virus itself wasn’t what weighed on me most. It was the scale of disruption. The sense that normal life had been switched off indefinitely.
Remote Everything
The lockdown halted my French learning completely. At first, the school closed. Weeks later they began discussing remote options. But by then something inside me had shifted. My motivation drained slowly, almost imperceptibly. What was the point?
The surface freezes while the current moves on. Stillness and Motion.
University research continued from home. At that stage, most of my work involved literature review, so technically it was manageable. Psychologically, it was another story. For some of us, the university environment was essential — a mental trigger that said: now we work. At home, especially in small studio apartments, the boundaries collapsed. The same room that was for sleeping and relaxing became the office, classroom, gym, cafeteria. It blurred everything.
The university experimented with remote courses. It was… rough. At first, everyone tried. Professors adapting to Zoom. Students attempting to focus. But attention spans eroded quickly. Small distractions became irresistible. Changing backgrounds. Flipping someone’s screen. Eventually most students logged in, turned off their cameras and microphones, and disappeared into parallel lives while the professor lectured into the void. I often used that time to cook or clean. Assignments replaced exams. Everyone passed. I retained very little.
The longer the lockdown dragged on, the more pointless everything began to feel. The one concrete achievement of that period was my driver’s license. After all the failures and bus rides through frozen Saguenay, finally passing felt disproportionately triumphant. A small win in a shrinking world.
A Dead Campus
Fighting persistently on our behalf, our supervisor managed to secure limited access to the university for our research group. Strict rules, of course. Masks at all times. Only certain rooms permitted. Not our windowless office, but Lucie’s windowless lab-office. It was something.
The branches held their shape. Everything else waited. Frost simply finished what pause had started
When I think of UQAC now, I mostly remember it as it was during that period: a silent, cold building where you had to ring a security guard to enter. Empty hallways. Fluorescent lighting humming over abandoned corridors. It felt like living a post-apocalypse survival video game.
Apart from each other and supermarket outings, Alexandre and I hadn’t seen people in months. The streets were dead. The first time we saw our supervisor in person again, we talked for hours. Complained. Reflected. Laughed. It felt strangely profound — as if we had all returned from separate planets. Human contact had become a novelty.
The Slow Summer Shift
Weeks passed. Then a month. Finally, our supervisor pulled off another small miracle: approval for one month of fieldwork in August up north for her entire research group of four. Alexandre was relieved. Energized. It felt like movement. Progress. Normalcy.
I felt… nothing. What had begun as quiet vindication had slowly dissolved into indifference. I remember preparing supplies at the university and running into an old colleague, Tague. He was genuinely excited for us. “You guys must be thrilled!” I shrugged. Meh.
The cold had pressed pause so long the world forgot warmth. Yet here, on sun-heated rock, life tests its wings once more, slow and deliberate
In hindsight, I think something subtle had been settling in. Not dramatic, nor cinematic. Just a quiet flattening of emotion. A kind of functional numbness. I went through the motions. I did what needed to be done. But the internal spark, the ambition and momentum I had carried into 2020, had dimmed.
It would take a long time to recognize it for what it probably was. A slow, quiet form of depression.
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.
In my previous post, I talked briefly about “The Park” in Baia Mare city and how it’s a gateway to easily accessible hiking trails. I mentioned that the path northeast, takes you to Roman valley (Valea Romană), which was one of my favorite regions to hike. This will be the focus of today’s post.
The Roman valley
Located about 7 km north of Baia Mare, the Roman valley stretches around 2 km, from east to west along a small river. The valley is flanked by forest covered hills and short-mountains (up to 850 m high). The river flows from the mountains eastwards eventually reaching Lake Firiza. Several hiking paths cross the valley, but the most common one follows the river direction. The main path is fairly wide and can also be crossed by bicycle, motorcycle or ATV. The landscape itself is beautiful and offers a great retreat from urban life, while being relatively close to the city.
Hiking in the Roman valley during February (2013)
Main path during summer, 2015
Mount Igniș (1307 m), viewed from the Roman valley (2014)
Mushroom season
Numerous pastures and fern-covered meadows dot the region and offer the opportune environment for one of the most sought-after edible mushrooms in Europe: the parasol mushroom. The parasol, also known as Macrolepiota procera, is one of the most easily identifiable edible mushrooms. Its cream-colored and brown dotted “scale-like” cap set it apart from other mushrooms species in the region. I am by no means an expert on mushrooms, but I find that the parasol is definitely one of the easiest ones to identify. It’s fairly common throughout European countries and it’s delicious!
Young parasol mushroom in the Roman valley (2014)
The parasol season starts around late-spring, during May and ends in October. Personally, I found that they spring up more during spring and autumn, and less so during the summer. This might be due to the more abundant rain during these periods. This is also the time that you are more likely to see other people walking on the paths, as locals often go mushroom-picking during the high season. You can read more here about how to identify the parasol, as well as some cooking tips!
How to get there
You have two options to get to the Roman valley from Baia Mare city. You can take a car up the 183 county road going northeast from the city. When you reach Lake Firiza, you will want to drive another 2 km (~3 minutes) from the Adventure Lake Resort, until you reach the big bend in the road, with a forest road heading west. There will be a barrier on the road, so you’ll have to leave the car there – don’t worry, there is enough space and everybody does this! Alternatively, you can take a public bus from Baia Mare, to Firiza and get off at the Firiza Lake stop. You’ll have to walk a bit to get to the forest road, so make sure you have a map, or someone with you that knows the area!
Forest road from Roman valley ending in the 183 county road (2013)
A more exciting options to reach the Roman valley, is to hike 6-7 km all the way from the Queen Mary Municipal Park in Baia Mare. You can do this by following Petőfi Sándor street along the park and continuing north up Usturoiul valley. At one point the road turns left just after the last power lines end at a private cabin. At this point you don’t want to continue on the road, as it leads to the village of Ulmoasa. You should instead go straight, following the tight valley going north. You can add to the adventure by having a compass with you to help keep you north-bound! This is kind of an off-the path hike, so don’t worry if it seems like you’re going nowhere. As long as you keep north, you will end up in the Roman valley.
I personally preferred hiking from the city, then following the valley east on the forest road. To get back, I would just take the bus from Lake Firiza to Baia Mare. If you want to extend your trip, you can also take the bus up north to Firiza and spend a night at a cabin. I will talk more about this region in my next post!
Curious dragonfly while hiking in the Roman valley (2015)
