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.

Last updated: September 7, 2025