Glimmer of hope, beginning to settle.

So it's been about a week or so now and there has been some progress since. I can't remember a lot of it but basically on Tuesday last week I went into downtown to run around a few game studios that I had sketched down on a map. Of course I ended up forgetting the address book that I had created to go with the map and so wasn't able to find anywhere. I kept walking to the rough areas anyway hoping that there would be a sign or something obvious and managed to get into a few places although with very little success. Then I went into Relic and you might already know the deal by now. I got talking to the technical director, then a recruiter and was called back later on to do a further phone interview.

Rule #1; Set up camp where ever one can find free internet.

Rule #2; Never refuse free food. (Library breakfast drive)

Rations for the first couple of days...

The only picture of Vancouver that I have so far!

My hotel room at the start of the trip.

The phone interview ended up just being another quick conversation with the TD about the recruitment process and he said that even though there was no specific openings my enthusiasm and school encouraged him to give me a shot. So I did a test at home to write a simple sphere class and just describe some of the game related areas that I know about. This week I'll hopefully get to sit down with the lead programmer for Relic and see if there is anything he has to say.

Besides that I've been working away in the factory (www.versatech.com). I almost did a full week last week, with 4 days so things are picking up. I have built myself a bit of a routine for this week as well so hopefully I'll begin to get more comfortable in the area and be able to get around a bit more on the weekend. This weekend I just stayed in practicing C++ for any possible interview that might happen and it's the biggest gap in my resume at the moment, so there may be a few quiet weekends as I try to improve on that but hopefully not too many once I have the money to go out and see the place a bit more.

It's not North America without a gallon of ice-cream.

It's not a metal gig without... seating?!

Cats welcome me to the new apartment.

On Sunday we went to the local ice skating rink to see what the locals got up to and it was a cracking hour... thankfully no bones were cracked though as I didn't even fall once (not sure how I managed that one, was pretty handy on the skates actually). We're thinking about going for lessons beginning this Thursday and I'd love to give ice hockey a go before I leave.

Fast forward 3 years... Andy returns to North America!

So here we are again. It's been almost exactly 3 years since my last post here and my departure from America. Over the last 3 years I have finished my Undergraduate degree, experienced the lows of a country in recession and moved onto an MSc course in Trinity College. Having struggled to find steady work after leaving college I decided to go back into the educational slack-force for a year to get a postgraduate degree and had decided by February of 2009 that once I was done I would emigrate from Ireland once more.

When I began to look at where to travel I was immediately pulled towards Canada. I had never been there before and its similarities with the USA would lend some comfort to me as I travelled. As well as this, there is a significant video game industry in Canada which could only be a good thing. The gears were in motion by this time last year as I began to assemble the necessary application components such as getting myself a new passport, doing gardai checks and US FBI checks to ensure that I wasn't a trouble-maker. By early December I had everything in place and once the gates opened in January I applied for the one year Canadian visa.

The visa came through about March and then it was only a matter of finishing the MSc course and trotting off to Vancouver for the laugh, but sure that was months away. The MSc flew by and before I knew it I had finished my dissertation and had two weeks to pack, plan and panic before I had to leave. The last two weeks were hectic as I celebrated finishing the course, tied up loose ends with college, helped Sandra to move house, said my goodbyes and with a day to spared lumped all of my worldly belongings into a bag and got on a plane from Dublin to Heathrow.

As I walked away from my family and Sandra the reality began to sink in and I suddenly felt very alone in that airport. I'm generally OK to do things by myself and if there is something that I want to do then I will do it even if nobody else will come along with me, but leaving everybody behind without really having the time to say any proper goodbyes was tough.

Of course the flight from Dublin was delayed and we arrived late into Heathrow, I immediately began to head through all of the crap and followed all of the signs in order to get to the flight to Vancouver. Weaving through the crowds, holding up boarding pass and passport, heading through security; jacket off, laptop & hard-drive out, belt off, shoes off, in the tray and through the detector, shoes on, jacket on, belt on, somehow manage to stuff laptop and drive back into bag. Grand, now just head to the gate and we're sorted.

Only the gate for my flight was in a whole other terminal, a terminal that required a bus ride to get to. Awkward, but not a big issue. But then the dilemmas started to build up. Once I arrived in the other terminal I had to clear security again (and don't get me started on airport security!), fine; jacket off, laptop & hard-drive out, belt off, shoes off, in the tray and through the detector, shoes on, jacket on, belt on, somehow manage to stuff laptop and drive back into bag.

I followed all the signs I was due to follow and reached another checking area for passports and was finally informed of my boarding gate, "try to head there as soon as possible" she says. Yes, I have been thank you very much! More signs, more people ... more security. FFFFUUUUUU...! jacket off, laptop & hard-drive out, belt off, shoes off, in the tray and through the detector, shoes on, jacket on, belt on, somehow manage to stuff laptop and drive back into bag.

By the time I was through this last set of security checks I had about 5-10 minutes to get to the gate and I was beginning to sweat. I began working my way towards the gate and once I had finally arrived at the sign pointing towards it I was greeted with "<-- C33. 15 minutes". Well that's that then, it's been a great trip to London and all but this is where it ends.

Well those 15minutes accounted for a lift down to a train, taking the train, two sets of massive elevators, and a distance to the gate. I covered it in about 5 minutes with my 20kg bag on my back and arrived at the gate with 1 minute to spare, I had my booking and passport ready and presented it to the woman at the desk; "I'm sorry sir..." Oh no, oh no! ... "but we're not ready for boarding just yet, if you could just take a seat and wait patiently over there.". I stood there, sweating up a puddle at my feet, dizzy from the 2-stairs-per-step ascent of the escalators, hungry and ready to collapse. I guess the connecting flights from other areas had also been delayed as the problem was with fog in Heathrow so the whole thing had been postponed.

The flight went without incident and I was able to get an aisle seat for myself with nobody on the seat beside me, perfect.

Then I spent the entire night looking for an adapter for the laptop. I can't begin to tell you how many blank stares I got when I asked for a "plug adapter". Was not a happy camper that night. Managed to get one the next day in downtown however in some crappy little shop.

Hmm, I'm writing this section now almost a week later so I'll try to be brief. I stayed in the travellodge hotel for the first few days and basically went house hunting on craigslist.com trying to find a place to stay. I looked at some places, but most were unimpressive to say the least. There was the guy that answered in his boxers only to tell me the place had been taken. Thank God. Then there was the basement room where the ceilings were under 6 foot.

I did have some luck when I posted myself on craigslist asking for housing. A girl called Kelly got back to me and although the house was far away from downtown it was in the same area as the hotel so I said I would drop by anyway. A midnight bus, the feeling of being lost in the pitch black and a few walked blocks later and I arrived at Kelly's house. I immediately took a warm to it and talking to Kelly for a while made it all the more obvious that this would be a great place to plant myself for a while. One thing leads to the next and I ended up drunk and crashing at the house; well I might as well try before I buy, right?

Hmm, since then, I'm already forgetting things but I met with Sinead's friend Julie-Ann and her mother. Julie donated a phone and her mother donated some food. They're good people! I helped one guy with direction to the skytrain and he went to high-5 me but I made a complete botch of it, then a day later I tried to clear some steps at the skytrain and fell onto hands and knees. Gonna be many years before I regain all that lost street-cred.

Went to an As I lay Dying gig which was in a completely seated venue. Metal gig + seating does not mix well. Was a bit let down by that having splashed the money on it but the show was alright.

Oh, then another day I was walking around downtown and was in starvation mode (no house, no job so no food). I walked into the library and there was some sort of food drive going on, but not only that there was free breakfast in combination with the food drive. Em, yes please. So I stuffed myself there, took all the free soya milk, cereal bars and whatever else they gave me and was gone.

I've started work now building oil spill booms in a factory. Not difficult work by any means, some physical labour but great to get me on my feet and everyone in the place is sound. The first night we were working away around 8 or 9pm just listening to some music and I could have sworn that a factory-dance session like in Grease was but moments away. Oh, also drinking beer at lunch, but lunch was about 7pm so I guess that's OK.

Sitting down today creating a map of all the video game development houses in and around Vancouver which I hope to explore this coming week. Besides that I'll probably be sitting in today and tomorrow writing graphics code. Fun!

No pictures yet as I need another adapter before I can do that, but thought I'd throw something up here anyway. Very messy for now but hopefully I can refine my style over the coming weeks.