Now
Amsterdam
I moved to Amsterdam in April. It's hard for me to describe my
experience so far without either going into too much detail or just
collapsing everything into a general "it's good". I didn't make big
changes to how I allocate my time since coming here, and since most of
my daily activities are location-agnostic, my life hasn't really changed
much. However, I do think that the small differences compound over time
and lead to very different outcomes.
Overall, living here has been a great experience so far. Even the
weather hasn't been bad. I think moving to a different, preferably big
and developed city is a great experience in general, and I wish I had
done it sooner. It's still hard for me to tell if I'll stay here for
more than a couple of years or if I'll move back or even move somewhere
else, but I'm excited to keep trying things and see where that takes me.
Work
I'm working as a site reliability engineer at FareHarbor now. I feel like I can grow and make an impact at this place, live comfortably in Amsterdam, my colleagues are great and I can work remotely, so I'm happy with my new role.
Side Projects
For the last couple of months I've been spending some nights and
weekends working on an unexpected side project. I've had the idea for it
for a while, but didn't really want to build it as I knew it would
require a decent amount of effort, but wouldn't really help me move
forward with my long-term goals.
However, one night I started poking around the idea, and built a small
subset of functionality I had in mind. This was enough to trick me into
thinking that I'm not that far from the finish line and that I should
keep working on it. Now I'm very close to shipping, but it has taken
much more time than I anticipated after my early successes. It's been a
lot of fun, so I don't regret the time spent on it. If you're a
Terraform user, stay tuned for the announcement!
Fitness
While I knew I won't be able to match my unemployment gym schedule, I
hoped to go at least three times a week. Unfortunately I am yet to hit
that target as of writing this. This is still much better than not going
at all, since I've mostly been able to maintain my strength level.
Part of the reason why I don't go to the gym as often as I'd like, is
because I kinda hate the one I'm going to. It's dirty, crowded and full
of people I don't find pleasant to be around. However, it's by far the
closest to my apartment and it's also much cheaper than the
alternatives. It's also open 24/7, which is also useful as I often can't
make it earlier in the day. I'll probably experiment more with my
schedule as well as get memberships to some other gyms to try to improve
the situation.
Traveling
Traveling fell on my priority list since moving to Amsterdam. Partly
because there are plenty of places to explore in and around Amsterdam
itself, but also because I want to establish myself in Amsterdam, and it
would be harder to do so if I'm not there for extended periods of time.
I also wanted to make the most of the summer in Amsterdam, and save my
vacation for the (literal) rainy days.
Finally, I want to visit my home country every once in a while, and at this
point it comes from the same budget as traveling to other destinations, both
in terms of money and time. I just spent two weeks in Montenegro, and I don't
think I would've enjoyed more being in any other place.
Entertainment
I haven't been doing much in terms of entertainment since moving to Amsterdam. It makes even less sense for me to play video games here, so I'm continuing not to do that. A good TV show can be a nice way to relax at the end of a busy day, but there haven't been many of them lately. I picked up Foundation right before the season 3 started airing. It's fine.