Back home, what's different?

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

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

Anathema, Kino Siska, Slovenia

Usually most of the (first) pictures on this personal blog are some kind of nice mountain views but this one holds a special place. Due to not having a good sleep day before the flight and due to time difference, after my father picked me up at the airport my emotions were dull to say at least. My body wanted some rest but it was 2 pm and my friend's wedding was going to start at 5 pm. Didn't even had a chance to let my mind acknowledge that I'm home. Long story short, second day after landing I was in Slovenia watching, listening and crying to one of my all time favorite bands. 

Now, almost three months after, I can say some things with more certainty. It is hard to write stuff like this because there is a big chance I'll say something that is going to sound too cocky. More importantly it is not easy to be completely honest to yourself. Most people paint the past with a positive brush forgetting all of the bad colors. With a lot of free time on my hands while waiting for a second work permit, I read everything I wrote here in order to try to find an inspiration to write. And may I say, it is nice to "talk" with your old self...

First thing that struck me was amount of tobacco smoke almost everywhere you go. It was such a nice thing to be smoke free for a year, outside, inside, in a bar, in a club, in a car, at homes. Apart from that obvious Sherlock type discovery there are two things that really caught my attention. Nobody is smiling and people are rude and nervous, especially in traffic. When person is behind the wheel, he is kind of protected by the surroundings with his anonymity. That is the place or let's say a playing field you can show the best or worst of you without any immediate consequence. We suck at that, period. Drivers in Vancouver, also known as a place of bad drivers, are much much more polite.

˝Winter˝ climbing in Mimice, Croatia

Don't get me wrong, having a couple of months of sunny vacation while I know Vancouver is having its usual gloomy winter face is a very nice thing. For me as a person who moved away from something "old" to something "new" time flew away. It seemed to me like I was away for a month. Static as we are as society, after a year, everything is almost exactly as I left it. Didn't expect any different but I sincerely hope that next time I come back home some things are going to change. 

While most people see this decline of population due to emigration in Croatia as catastrophic, I think this is probably only short term way that is going to give us a good long term economic prosperity. Chances are that people who decide to emigrate to (mostly) EU countries are going to build a better life for themselves. Some of them are going to stay forever while some of them are going to come back to Croatia with hard earned capital. On the other hand, people who decided to stay are already having some positive effects. Supply of the labor is going down, thus there is more incentive for employers to try to keep good labor with raising wages and attracting new labor with higher wages as well. Due to emigration and EU regulations, government is under pressure to not spend more than they collect with taxes as well as lowering taxes to make companies more competitive on the global market. Process is painful and slow and emigration is not going to be stopped in the short term but in the long term I think we are heading in a good way...or at least not in a bad way like last 10+ years.

Hajducka Vrata, Cvrsnica, BiH

I entered WH pool on 10.12. and I got invitation on 11.12. Due to 3 month break rule I uploaded my documents on 08.01.. Today I got an email that I need to upload another police certificate (from local court) on top of the "main" one from Ministry of Justice. I think that rule was there for a long time but they didn't enforce it much. This year everybody I know received the same email. In the meantime WES has evaluated my diploma. They recognized my masters from Croatia (FESB) as a Canadian equivalent Masters. After they received all of the documents it took about month and a half for them first to check validity of the documents and then to evaluate all together. 

Waiting for a Bosnian meat pie, Sarajevo, BiH

Now I'm in the middle of the waiting game. As soon as I get my permit I'll buy an airplane ticket and fly back to Vancouver sometimes around start of March. Once I do few more months of work in Canada I'll have enough points to apply for PR. Plan is to prepare as much documents as I can now while I have plenty of time but I'm having very low motivation to do anything. Drinking beers, driving bicycle, playing soccer, waking up at 10am, going for dinners, mountains...all of that is nice. But my head is across the ocean with all of the ideas and plans that are waiting.

Friend(s) asked me did I miss anything from home in the past year while living in Vancouver. My immediate answer was no. Maybe out of self defense, but it was very clear to me. I'm still asking myself the same question and the answer is not chaning. To make things clear, we did agreed that definition of "missing" was broadly different. My idea of "missing" something is when you for example lay in your bed and think about home for a day, two, a month. Their idea was if you get glimpses now and then of something that you would like to have at the moment. Taken by their definition, answer becomes from no to shy yes...Now and then I was cursing the rain and hoped for sun, I was saying couple of times I would like to eat soparnik (pizza like dish with chard), I was having couple of short lived moments when thinking about do I really need this big change etc.

Limestone walls of the Biokovo mountain rising from sea level to 1762 meters, Croatia

Let's go back to my definition of "missing". In my mind I see this as a change in which all of the segments of my life have been given a new, I would say better perspective. Maybe not completely when talking about friends, but then again only when talking about friends for going for a beer and arguing about politics or whatever are we arguing at the moment. Job, food, place to live, future, options for career, community for mountains, opening a company, doing some side projects, new friends...I don't know maybe a year is a too short of a time or I'm being cold son of a bitch bit I feel like I moved on a next phase of my life with little to no constraints for making a life the way you want it to be. My body and mind need that...options. Not saying there are no options here or that life is bad, on contrary but there are many many more obstacles.

There is a lot of battles here to be fought, lot of (from my point of view) wrong ways problems are being dealt with, lot of envy and sourness (myself included in last couple of weeks), rudeness and on top of all layers upon layers of bad decisions that will take at least a decade to make things look optimistic, if ever. I choose the 'easy' way...

  Bulgarian jumping in Bosnia while Croatian is taking photos, Cvrsnica, BiH

As I said in my first post a year and a half ago, maybe I'll bite my tongue and say I was wrong in many things, but the bar must be set up high. I'm not a big risk taker and I truly believe that taking too big of a informed risks is not a smart long term strategy. Today, information about almost everything is at our hands, free and accessible. Spending some time behind screen and do a extensive research about area you want to go, culture, work, neighborhoods, immigration, public transport, options how to stay if you decide to do so...literally everything that can help mitigating risk as well as the stress once you land in "Brave new world". Forums, Facebook groups, government websites, meetups, websites for used stuff, couchsurfing; wast amount of information that can more or less help making a new start much easier.

Of course, in most cases all depends on finding good (or any for that matter) work. One  thing I can suggest regarding finding work abroad, don't take too seriously whatever you read on forums and Facebook. If you are having a friend or a good acquaintance and he is working in some field that is closely related to your field, sure. But otherwise there is too much subjective experience and it is at least for me good idea to try to avoid that. 

I'll talk about Vancouver but point is the same. Do your research on indeed.ca and linkedin just to get idea of what kind of jobs out there and what are usual things employers are searching for your field. Make a list of companies that are operating in the area, preferably companies that you see yourself work for. Rework your CV for Canadian standards. Once you land put your Canadian address and cell in the forehead of the CV to subtly make clear you are not on the other side of the world. You can send some CVs before you even depart from home and if you receive interview requests you're good. If not, not to much has changed and just proceed as usual. There is always some kind of work (in Vancouver for this story), for better or for worse, but it is work.

Split 2.0., Canada

By all means, be a good person to a complete stranger when nobody is watching but in the end there is only you and people you love. Everything else is kind of a life's side show. Strive to be a better person every day and compare yourself only to what you have been yesterday. To sound kind of a hippiesh, making a world a better place is no picnic and the first step is to do what we can do best in our own domains, make ourselves better.

On that sweet and sour note, I'll end with a quote from Daniel Gildenlow from Pain of Salvation:

All those times that I failed on you
All those times that I turned on you
Wish that I could take them back
Wish that I could take them back

Cos all those times are still here today
All those times they still hurt today
All those moments return today
All those times of "Another day"