Am I back?
Here is me, after long time not writing anything on that blog, I am coming with a retrospective of year 2020. I am doing that because I understood that I am getting older, my natural HDD is not so big and I start to forget events from past :), also year 2020 was one special, no comment on that.
My daughter
The most important thing in that year, last year and most probably all my other future years will be my daughter (in future can be another daughter or son, no action for now :)).
This year she did a lot of progress, which is normal for a child of one year. Going back from most fresh memories, she started to intonate the Jingle-Bells melody, most probably they learned in kindergarten, this is most obvious place where she learned as we didn't put this song on TV. From TV she learned few months ago to intonate the "Twinkle, twinkle little star" :). My wife is saying that at one year she is doing better than me on 33 years, well what can I say, she is all her mother :) and deep in side I am proud.
As mentioned earlier, this year she went to kindergarten, a private one which is accepting children from 1 year till 3 years old. The kindergarten is few kilometers away from the place where we are leaving now, so each morning I am getting her to and then at noon picking up. We are not ready yet to leave her for entire day and it does not make sense for now, we are staying at home almost all day, so she can sleep at home.
Going back in my memories, let me stop at our trip to Croatia this year. It was her second year at sea, last year and first one for her was in Greece, Crete. Well this year it was simpler, she had 1 year and 4 months, so less screaming, better sleep and more fun :) She liked to swim especially under the song about Elephants on spider silk, "Un elefant se legăna pe o pânză de păianjen și deoarece nu se rupea a mai chemat un elefant, 2! Doi elefanți ..." and on each count we were sinking her up to neck (not sure if I phrased the idea correctly :)). The first time and only time for now, she was able to escape from her bed and knock at door, we got scared, but happy that she didn't fall.
Even more back, let's stop in mid of July, when my wife's sister and husband visited us. It was nice period of 3 weeks, when Amelia learned to cheers (she was drinking water obvious) and walk. It happened that she saw few children running close to her, by that time she was only doing few steps and mostly crawling; she wanted to play with them and realized that for doing that she should walk, from that time she never crawled, only walking, now she is running. About running, each time when we go to mall she is running and screaming, like a man which got the freedom :).
One year, first year, it was one of the happiest days in our life and the most scary, one year passed, the time is flowing so fast and she is already so big. I remember days when I was able to carry her without any problem on one hand, but not anymore. We celebrated in company of my mom and brother, others were not able to visit us because of restrictions. She got a lot of presents, no the house is full of toys. We bought one big "1" balloon and few other balloons which were glued everywhere in living room and other ornamentations. We were grilling that day and weather was nice.
Rolling, almost forgot about. Somewhere in winter she learned to roll, not walking and not crawling, but rolling, it was quite funny. So when she wanted to get somewhere, she was rolling, well she had problems to turn, but if by some chance she was able to manage to turn then she was rolling to get to target.
I just remembered when she was able to crawl. It was after 1 year, we had in visit our friends, Pablo and Iulea. Pablo dressed some coloured socks, specially for Amelia and it worked, she crawled to socks, so "Pablo thank you :)".
Traveling
Croatia
Despite the pandemic, we were able to travel to Croatia this year. The choice was simple, the place where we can get by car with a child of 1 year and 4 months and which would be open for foreigners.
We got there and back by doing a stop in Austria for a night, so we had two days 5 hours trip. We stayed for 3 weeks in a village close to Rijeka, in Costrena.
We liked the Croatia from our first visit in 2018 (yes most probably Amelia was concepted in Croatia) and we decided that it worth to go again. In Croatia the water is very clean and beaches are short and have trees, which is very good with a child in a sunny day.
Austria 2x
Year 2020 we were two times in Austria, before the borders were closed because of COVID-19 epidemic.
The last time we went to Vienna, because I had an invite for an interview at Amazon. The Amazon recruiters came to Austria, Vienna and invited a lot of potential candidates. Well went nice, but I didn't pass, at least we enjoyed two days in Vienna and nice hotel payed by Amazon :).
The new year, the 2020, we met in Graz with my wife's sister, her husband and my brother. Obvious it was first trip to Austria that year. We chose Graz because it was somewhere in the middle between us, Prague and them, Bucharest. It is nice city and there is more to explore, but in summer. We visited Arnold Schwarzenegger's childhood house which now is museum.
Career
This year I changed the project, but remain in same company, Barclays and got higher position, now I am Vice President :). It got to be quite challenging work, as it is big chaos in team, but I would say that I succeeded, however will see on my "End year review" which should be hold soon.
Well that is a short or long summary of my 2020 year.
