Spontaneous Planning

In my last story, I left you at the security gate at the airport in Zagreb. It was time to board my first flight to Montreal and start my new life. This was not my first cross-Atlantic flight, as I went to Chicago for one summer before starting University to visit family and friends. However, it was my first cross-continental flight with a one-way ticket. Actually, it was the first one-way ticket I have ever purchased (or in this case, that my company purchased for me). The flight itself was quite uneventful, it took between 8-10 hours to reach Montreal, with a layover in Germany (unfortunately there were no direct flights between Canada and Croatia at that time). Arriving in Montreal was quite a different story. You see, part of my luggage was a suitcase filled with farewell presents from my friends and family. It contained everything from Croatian goodies (sausages, pate, Turkish coffee, sweets, rakija, Cedevita, Vegeta, etc.), photos, books, all the way to a starter kit for living abroad containing, among other things, toilet paper and pepper-spray. My friends had a good sense of humor sending me off to Canada. One thing nobody really thought of is that some of these items might not be allowed to bring into Canada…so, I found out the hard/funny way. During the flight to Montreal, the stewardess gave everyone the customs form to fill in. I remember I had to fill that in when coming to the US but did not know it was the same practice for Canada. I started filling in the form very relaxed, answering “no” to all the questions, until I got to the questions such as: “Are you carrying any animal products?” and “Are you carrying any weapons (guns, knives, PEPPER-SPRAY)? I actually missed reading pepper spray the first time I went through the form, as I never thought of pepper spray being considered a weapon, so I had to change my “no” to a “yes”. I already got a feeling this will be an interesting first entry to Canada. 

We landed in Montreal on July 31st, 2010 in the afternoon. The first thing I had to go through was the immigration counter since I was moving to Canada for work. The work permit check and interview were quick, no issues there, and the immigration officer was quite polite and welcomed me to Canada. However, when the guy took a look at my customs form, he stamped it with a big red mark which made me a bit worried. But I moved forward thinking “oh well, there is not much I can do now, let’s see how this goes”. I waited for my suitcases and then went to customs clearance. The customs officer had one look at the form and immediately sent me aside for investigation. There were three officers waiting for me in the back. One of them took the form and immediately asked: “what kind of weapon are you carrying in your luggage?”. I answered: “A can of pepper spray that my friends bought for me as a farewell present for my move to Canada”. The three guys looked at me, then at each other, and then started laughing like crazy. After a minute or two of laughter, one of them said to me: “Why you have nothing to be afraid of, Canada is a very safe country!”. At that moment I started laughing as well and explained to them that neither I nor my friends considered this to be a weapon. They still joked with me a bit and in parallel found the pepper spray, safely put it into a plastic bag, and threw it away. Then the next question came: “What kind of animal products are you bringing?”. I actually was not sure what my Mom packed (another big no-no, as you can never allow someone else to pack your luggage!) so I just said: “some pate”. They started searching through my suitcases and found a few cans of pate, which they threw away. There were more cans in there but I kept my mouth shut as I really wanted to have some pate for dinner. After going through all my luggage (and there was quite a lot of luggage) the officers welcomed me to Canada once more and I was out the exit door. Salut Montreal!  

I took a taxi to the Marriott apartment hotel in downtown Montreal, where I would be staying for the first month, until I found an apartment. This was the first time I was going to stay in a hotel for such a long time and it was the first time I was staying in a Marriott hotel. Over the next ten years, Marriott hotel chain was going to convert into some form of a second home for me, but for now, it was still a novelty. I arrived at the hotel, settled myself into the apartment, called my family, and sent some messages to friends, letting everyone know I arrived safely in Canada. Then I took a shower and went for my first walk in Montreal, down Saint Catherine Street. Downtown Montreal felt like America, except for the French wording everywhere. And, I mean everywhere, even the Stop traffic sign was translated to Arrêt. You see, Montreal is the largest city in Quebec, which is the largest province in Canada by area, and with it a 100% French-speaking province (French as the sole official language). Canada as a whole is the second biggest country when it comes to french-native speakers, behind France. The people of Quebec (les Quebecois) are very proud of their French heritage, and there is a constant political debate around Quebec’s independence. I have learned a lot about Quebec history and culture over the years and I feel like a demi-Quebecoise myself now, but back then I just found it quite curious to walk along French America. Another sign that caught my eye was the one for Tim Horton’s. As I will learn shortly after, Tim Horton used to be a famous hockey player who opened a coffee shop franchise, Tim Horton’s, which turned into somewhat of a symbol of Canada. Anywhere you go in Canada you will find this coffee shop.  The coffee is not that great, however, they have great soup and sandwiches which I’ll be enjoying for years to come.  Anyway, returning to my walk, the jet lag was already starting to get to me despite the excitement, so very soon I went back to the hotel, ate some of that delicious pate with bread, and went nighty night. 

Tomorrow was a big day: my first work day in Ericsson Canada! I got up, got ready, and took a taxi to the office. I think later that day I rented a car for the first month (another courtesy of my employer), but as a start I found taxi to be the simplest way to get by. Montreal has quite a good public transportation system so later on I never owned a car there, but since I could have a car for the first month I just took it (as we say in Croatia, you don’t look into the teeth of a horse that was gifted to you). I arrived at the office and was welcomed by my hiring manager. Strangely enough, he would only be my manager for about one week. I found out right before my big trip that my unit had a reorganisation and they had laid off quite a lot of people, including my manager. Actually the whole unit I was hired into ceased to exist! At that time this was a big shock to me. Over the years however, I learned this is standard practice in big companies, with change being the only real constant. But at that moment I was very sad because the only person I knew in Montreal and who knew me and had confidence in me was about to leave the company. Not to mention that I was assigned to another unit which had no clue what I was doing there, most were not even aware of this leadership program I was a part of. Of course, my hiring manager was anything but in a good mood since he was let go, so as much as he tried to focus on getting me settled in, he could not hide the bad sentiment. So yeah, an interesting first day at work. I got introduced to my new manager, who was a nice guy from Macedonia and spoke Croatian. This was a trace of hope for me, at least I was sure I would get along with him. 🙂 He introduced me to the rest of the team, quite a diverse team indeed, with all nationalities covered. They were all friendly, just as you would imagine Canadians to be. There were few women though, which was somewhat expected based on my experience from University, although I thought Canada would be a bit more gender equal in engineering (in fact, I felt Ericsson in Croatia had far more female representation than in Canada). Of the few women I met that day one stuck in my mind: Thao. She was this really cool and super fashionable (to this day her outfits always amaze me) software developer, who immediately invited me for lunch. She was originally Vietnamese and grew up in Europe for the majority of her youth, so we immediately clicked. She was the first person I befriended and to this day she is one of my favorite people in the world. During lunch, she already invited me for dinner with her friends and organized a bike tour for us in the Italian neighborhood the following weekend. She is the type of person who loves to socialize and who knows how it feels to be new in a place and a country, so she wanted to welcome me and help me integrate. You can see why she is one of my favorite people, and this was just the beginning of a beautiful friendship. After lunch, I went to say hi to the HR representative who interviewed me and took care of all the logistics regarding my transfer. He was a very nice Latin American guy who welcomed me, explained to me the whole process of relocation, and answered all my remaining doubts. First day at work – check!

After the first day at work, it was time for the first night out. Thao invited me for dinner with a group of her friends at a cool restaurant in the French neighborhood Plateau. Plateau is the most famous neighborhood in Montreal, known for it’s many hipster stores, cafes, and restaurants. Thao’s friends were quite a diverse bunch: we had a Quebecois-Latin American, an Egyptian, and a Quebecoise. If you add Thao (Vietnamese-Italian) and moi (Croate) you get an interesting mix at the table. And we were not the only diverse table. In fact, there was not a single table in the restaurant without an ethnic mix. This was my first real exposure to such diversity and I fell in love with it from the get-go. I was in a totally different league now. One person that stood out at the table was a funny guy from Egypt called Sayed who also worked for Ericsson. He relocated to Montreal a few years before me so he had a lot of experiences to share. We immediately clicked – it was the start of another beautiful friendship, as over the years Sayed would become like a third brother to me. But that night it was all about good food and even better company. Thao and her friends treated me as if we had known each other for a long time and it really made me feel like I belong in this city. And it wasn’t just Thao’s friends, I got the same first impression in the office. In a very short time, I got incorporated into the team and became one of them as if I had always lived in Canada. This is also very true for Canada and Canadians, from the moment you step on the soil, you are looked at as a Canadian. Canada is the only country I have ever been to where I never felt like a foreigner.

Moving to a new country requires quite a lot of paperwork and logistics: work permit, social security number, health insurance, etc. On top of that I needed to find myself an apartment in a city I have never been to before. Some help was required to get all this done as painless as possible. Luckily, as part of my relocation package, Ericsson assigned to me a relocation agent who would help me get all that done. The agent was named Zvezdan and, as it turns out, he was a Montreal-raised Serbian. Another local face to welcome me, what luck! Zvezdan was not only super efficient and professional, but also a very nice guy who introduced me to the Montreal culture and made me feel welcomed. Unfortunately we did not stay in touch afterwards but I still remember him and his Quebecoise-Serbian accent. Getting the documents in order took surprisingly little time, I was done within a week. Apartment took a bit longer, as I had to do some research about what neighbourhoods to look at, as well as think about criteria for the apartment. This was the first time in my life I was looking for an apartment and searching for an apartment in Montreal was not exactly the same as searching for one in Zagreb. Another factor I had to keep in mind is the fact that I would only be living in this apartment for the first 6 months, after which I would be on the road for over a year. For this reason I did not want to search for anything that expensive nor long term. In the end I found an ok apartment on St Denis Street, in (already) my preferred neighbourhood Plateau. I will spend many wonderful years in this artsy hipster neighbourhood.

After one month in Montreal, the second big move day had arrived, this time from the Marriott to my new apartment. Luckily I had only suitcases to transfer as the apartment was fully furnished. However, I still needed some help (5 suitcases), so Thao and Sayed offered to help. Sayed was dating a girl from Italy who was visiting him in Montreal at that time, so she joined the moving party as well. The whole event was very cheerful and positive until my friends got me settled in and went home. Then I looked around my new home, all alone on the other side of the Atlantic, sat on my sofa bed, and started crying…Moving was not as easy as I thought it would be.