Amsterdam
Monday March 4, 2024
The last time I was in Amsterdam, I got food poisoning from a smoked salmon wrap at the Van Gogh Museum. I wanted to come back in January 2022 but the Netherlands went into lockdown because of the pandemic, so I cancelled that leg of the trip. Finally, I’m back here to visit some places I missed and try some foods I didn’t the last time.
There’s a few things I’m not a fan of in the city. The absurd number of drunk and/or stoned Brits would probably be my number one. The lack of good savoury Dutch food also comes to mind. Yes the fries are good and the cheese is very famous, but those by itself do not make a meal. There’s an abundance of baked goods, waffles, pancakes, apple pie and poffertjes, and I know I love desserts, but this was too much, even for me. It’s not that I had bad food while I was here, it’s that Dutch cuisine is just not exciting or interesting. I had an amazing steak and some very good brunches but I wouldn’t classify those as authentically Dutch.
There were a lot of cats. My hostel had a resident cat called Rocker that was very affectionate. I went to De Poezenboot, a cat adoption agency based on a boat in one of Amsterdam’s many canals. I also went to the KattenKabinet, a cat museum, and I played To Zanarkand on the piano for the furry residents.
I was lucky with the weather, with only the first two days being wet. It was a bit cold and I still had to walk around with my winter jacket, but was pleasant once the sun came out. The buildings in the city center have interesting designs, and some of the churches are quite elaborate, but in general, everything looks quite brown and boring. It doesn’t have the charm of those colourful, bright houses you find dotted around the Mediterranean. What it does have is canals and bridges, and many decorated bicycles adorning those passageways. Amsterdam has character, but it’s a particular brand that is trying to distance itself from the party going, drunken, rowdy atmosphere. There were some really nice moments walking around the city in the stillness and quietness of the mornings.
It feels like a long time before I’m back in Canada but with people visiting and places to go, March is going to breeze by.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:40am on Monday March 4, 2024 :: 0 comments :: 
Malaysia and Chinese New Year
Tuesday February 27, 2024
Just over three weeks ago, I had departed Barcelona for Kuala Lumpur via Doha. The first leg of the journey was uneventful, though my entertainment system had some very bad lag issues and I couldn’t watch any movies. The second leg from Doha to Kuala Lumpur was handled by Malaysian Airlines, and I took advantage of the free wifi on board by chatting with some friends in Toronto and my workmate Pete in New Zealand. Suddenly Pete’s tone changed to that of panic, saying we’d been sent an email halting production immediately and that we’d been furloughed - that is, suspended from our jobs temporarily without pay. I spent the next 90 minutes of the flight hyperventilating.
A few days later, the company found out that it is illegal to furlough Canadians, so they laid us off instead. We’ve engaged an employment lawyer to help us through the proceedings and we’ll have to wait and see what happens next. For the Americans, it’s even worse because this is an underhanded tactic to lay them off without severance, which is contradictory to all the messaging about care and respect that the CEOs have been spouting on social media.
We’re finding it difficult to reconcile what’s been happening. No one saw this coming, no one expected it to be done this way, and no one could believe the lengths that Jeff and Annie have gone through to escape responsibility for their critical failures. Soon after we were furloughed/terminated, Prytania general staff and Game Science were let go as well. We set up a couple of Discord servers for everyone to discuss their options and provide support, and the way that we’ve come together in this month of dire need is testament to how amazing our team was.
I think that’s what hurts the most. That we had such a cool project and talented team but we’ll never be able to bring everyone together again to finish what we started. The Strains have gone completely silent and haven’t fronted media at all, let alone had the decency to talk to us directly, and instead have deleted their LinkedIn profiles as well as the Prytania one. And why? To hide all the posts they made about layoffs being the fault of leadership?
What that has meant in the short term is that suddenly my time in Malaysia freed up. In spite of the stress and lack of sleep, I’ve been able to enjoy the delicious food and catch up with family. The festivities of Chinese New Year were awesome to see as well, with lion dances and dragon dances, dragon displays, and of course, all the different kinds of food and goodies available during this time - yee sang, pineapple tarts, peanut cookies, almond cookies and more. And yet, on an occasion where I should have been celebrating success and prosperity, I could only fight to hold back tears, disappointed that all this had to happen during Chinese New Year.
In amongst all the eating, I’ve been doing interviews and practicing code tests. Live coding - where you solve a coding problem while your interviewers watch everything you type - is an incredibly stressful method of interviewing that is absolutely not indicative of the kind of conditions that programmers normally work in, so why do we continue to subject each other to such torture?
The last few days have been a flurry of fooding as I’ve tried to tick off the last remaining items on my list. On chap goh mei, the final day of Chinese New Year, we were treated to an exquisite meal at Copper Mansion, with suckling pig, abalone and prawns. I’ve been spoiled silly by family, as usual. I’m on my way back to Spain now, and things are looking up. I’ve got some time to travel and take a breather, and I’ll definitely be making the most of my time in Europe.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:03pm on Tuesday February 27, 2024 :: 0 comments ::
Hasta Luego
Sunday February 4, 2024
It’s time for me to leave the sunny shores of the Mediterranean and swap my idyllic Catalan lifestyle with the bustle of South East Asia. My time here has picked up since I moved to a different place, a little further away from downtown but more spacious, more natural light, warmer, more spices for cooking (there were five at the last place) and best of all, Odin, an adorable ginger cat who used to have feline leukaemia. He’s been keeping me company while his parents go to work, and he’s become comfortable enough to curl up on my bed and protect me from anything that might suddenly enter my room while I’m working.
Last weekend, Owen took me to a Michelin star restaurant for lunch, which I found to be of incredibly high quality, but lacking something particularly unique about the dishes. On Sunday, we took the train to Vallvidrera, which sits on the ridge west of Tibidabo. We wandered around for a bit along the Carretera de les Aigues, a popular road for running and biking, and then we followed a trail down the hill towards Les Planes, where Bea joined us for a calçotada - a Catalan barbeque where they grill spring onions over the fire and serve with romesco sauce. It’s nice to be able to share food with friends, especially at these very local restaurants where knowing the language and customs are a huge advantage. While we were there, there were two birthday parties for a 53 year old and an 80 year old, and the atmosphere was wholesome AF.
The remainder of my days have been spent wandering around the neighbourhood. It’s a 30 min walk to the beach, and there’s definitely been a few shorts days to enjoy. But the constant sun has caused the existing drought to worsen, and stricter rules have been imposed on Barcelona in an attempt to curb water expenditure. The region desperately needs rain and it’s another wake up call that climate change is really messing things up.
Work has been busy. European time means the morning are quiet and I can focus on my work without interruption, but evenings are when the North Americans come online and there’s a bit more conversation happening. I’m not sure how this is going to work in Malaysian time though, but work has thankfully given me permission to work “regular” Malaysian hours so I can still join my family for dinners. There’s a few holidays while I’m there though, so it doesn’t actually add up to that many days on awkward working hours.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:31pm on Sunday February 4, 2024 :: 0 comments ::
Spring Time...Almost
Friday January 19, 2024
While Toronto has been suffering in -15C temperatures and heavy snow, I've been out enjoying the beautiful weather here. Some days I've still needed a big jacket to walk around, but I think the fact that my face isn't suffering from frostbite is a huge win.
On Sunday, I was at the beach without my shirt on, soaking up the glorious sunshine. Given it's still "winter" here, the beach was relatively empty so it was nice to just relax and chill. I had brunch at Little Fern, run by a couple of Kiwi expats, and then I went and did some shopping around the city. On Saturday, I was walking around the Arc de Triomf and Parc de la Ciutadella. The fountain of Neptune was ironically switched off, like the Font Magica at Montjuic, due to the water restrictions, but there were still a lot of people around - some dancers at the top, some crossfitters to the side and buskers at the base. It was a really vibrant area, with several of the park's parrots chirping from the trees.
Yesterday was so warm that I went out to the Gothic Quarter in search of a suizo - a chocolate drink made from melting dark chocolate with hot milk. Even after work, it was still warm enough for me to sit under a marquee at 8.30pm and enjoy a fantastic Italian meal of home-made pasta and seafood. Today, it's raining, bringing some much needed relief to the area. I'll be relocating to another friend's place on Sunday, and he has a brainless ginger cat that I'll be sure to dote upon.
Work has been very busy. European time has been both good for productivity, since the mornings are quiet and I'm completely focused on hammering out some great code, but also exhausting since by the time I start to wind down in the evenings, everyone is coming online and starting to ask me questions. It'll be even more chaotic when I switch to Malaysian time, but we'll see how that goes. Maybe I can do some midnight to 8am thing, and then sleep in the afternoon and wake up for dinner?
Posted by Jeremy at 9:17pm on Friday January 19, 2024 :: 0 comments ::
Bon Any Nou!
Thursday January 4, 2024
Due to turbulence on the Toronto to Ponta Delgada flight, they ended up serving us dinner quite late, so I only managed a few hours of shut eye before the plane landed in the Azores. I rushed through immigration - it's a small airport and my transfer time of one hour was more than enough, and the immigration officer welcomed me into the Schengen without any fuss. I slept again on the leg to Barcelona, and landed just after 1pm. I had told Marc I was arriving on that day, at that time, and he texted me a few minutes before landing to say that I'd have to wait four hours for him to get home as he was taking his friend to Montserrat.
...
So I sat at the airport. Due to a miscommunication, Marc thought that he was going to pick me up from the terminal but I meant that I was going to wait at the airport until 5.30pm and then take the metro to his place and meet him there. As a result, we were only able to meet up at 6.30pm. I was tired and running on 4 hours of sleep, but Marc had a date to go to, so I ended up cooking dinner for myself and his friend from Chile, who was also staying with us for the next couple of weeks.
I struggled a bit with the jet lag, waking up for a few hours during the night and then sleeping from 5am to 11am. I felt lethargic during the day, and my efforts to adjust to the time zone were ruined by us going clubbing on Saturday night/Sunday morning. We went to this massive multi-room dance club called Razzmatazz, and hung out in the Pop Bar for most of the time. I would have been the fifth oldest person there, and I was surprised that they played songs I recognised - Spice Girls, Britney, Backstreet, even as far back as the Eurhythmics. I even danced a bit, especially when LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem came on. We left around 4am, passing by a xurreria where famed Catalan singer Rosalia had shot a music video.
On New Year's Eve, we headed out to Plaza Espaņa around 10.30pm. It was packed already, we found a spot on the main road leading towards the Magic Fountain. Due to the drought, the fountain wouldn't be operating, but a drone show with lights and fireworks was scheduled instead. And what a show it was! It was honestly the best New Year's celebration I've ever seen. The drones flew into formations of sea creatures as a reference to the America's Cup being held here later in the year, the fireworks were vibrant and spectacular, the music really lifted the mood in the crowd. Suddenly we heard four chimes of a bell, signalling the start of the Spanish tradition of eating one grape per second leading up to midnight, each grape successfully consumed granting good luck for each month ahead. I don't know how many I managed to stuff into my mouth, but on the stroke of midnight, the drones had flown into a series of horizontal rings and began to shoot sparks towards the ground. The show continued for another 10 minutes or so, with the drones continuing to morph into various shapes, at one time spelling out BARCELONA as the fireworks continued. As the main festivities died down, the crowd began to move slowly towards the exits, with the subway staying packed for a good hour or so afterwards. I lost sight of the other two, but I wanted to walk around and check out the vibe in the city. I would have gotten home around 2.15am.
On New Year's Day, Monday, we rushed to the Bunkers to catch the sunset. It was a lovely day with blue skies, not too cold. On the way down, we got into a heated argument about racism and exploitation of indigenous communities. A++ experience. On Tuesday, I got to explore the city by myself. I ran a few errands in the morning, but spent most of the day just walking around Plaza Catalunya and the Gran Via. On the way home, I stopped by Glories to pick up some groceries, as well as a damn chopping knife for the apartment since I'd been stuck using a steak knife to chop garlic for the past few days. On Wednesday, it was back to work, but since most people are still out, it's been quiet. The mornings are nice since no one else is awake, so I can get a lot done in preparation for the rest of the day. This Saturday is Epiphany and the Three Kings Parade will be on, and we'll be celebrating with Tortell de Reyes, a torus-shaped cake with a toy hidden inside - whoever gets the slice with the toy gets to wear a crown!
Posted by Jeremy at 9:53pm on Thursday January 4, 2024 :: 0 comments ::