Sunday, October 22, 2006

And so my time in Austria comes to a close. I’ve stayed in Klagenfurt this weekend, and will fly back Wednesday evening. Gah… flying. I wonder what the chances are my flight will be delayed, cancelled, rescheduled, or otherwise rendered incompetent. Of the five flights I’ve made to and from Austria, only one has actually gone according to the original plan. The worst was going home last Friday, where my flight from Klagenfurt to Vienne was delayed by an hour, which meant I missed the last connecting flight to Zurich. I managed to get on a flight to Basel, take a taxi from Basel airport to the train station (CHF40, halved with someone else) and take the train to Olten. On the plus side my flight was upgraded to business class, and my seat number was A1. Of course by the time I got to Olten it was past midnight and there were no more trains to Murgenthal (my stop), so Claudia came to my rescue and met me in Olten. And it was Emil’s birthday. Thanks Austrian Airlines!





I’ve had a touch of a cold or something since Friday, but it hasn’t slowed me down much. You can’t keep a good man down, as they say. And you can’t keep me down either. Nonetheless I’m quietly spending my Sunday reading Dilbert, watching a German overdubbing of Angels in the Outfield, and updating the blog. Was a really nice day so I went to the Zentrum for lunch and took some pictures.

Yesterday I went walking on the Slovenian border with some guys from work. Actually we parked on the Austrian side, showed our passports to the dude in the checkpoint, and walked up the valley on the Slovenian side. The border is just a 3-foot with a stick-figure sign saying you shouldn’t jump over it. Some rules just beg to be broken. There was a duty free shop too (the border actually runs through the shop), but Austrians and Slovenians aren’t allowed to buy from it, unless someone with a foreign passport buys it for them. Not that I did or anything.
From next Monday I will work in Zurich on a real project. A colleague here at work says he knows someone in Zurich who has a room for rent. I’m quite happy staying in Fulenbach for the moment, but the 90min transit to work and back might change that. I’ll try commuting for the first week and see what happens. I’m looking forward to having a regular lifestyle.






Saturday, October 07, 2006

Phew! My first week at work has gone swiftly and remarkably painlessly. What can I say? Austrians speak a funny version of German, which is actually better understood by the Swiss than the Germans. The country is similar to Switzerland in many ways, though they don't eat as much cheese, and have dark beer.

Sunday 01/10:
Posted off my application form for my General Abonument (GA, pronounced gee-haa), which is a pass that will allow me to travel the entire Swiss trains, bus, boat, tram and gondola network for free (or in some cases a reduced fare).
Took the train to Zurich and stayed with my cousin Andrea and her husband Marcell who had kindly agreed to put me up for the night. Thanks guys.

Monday 02/10:
Woke at 5am, showered, had breakfast, and Marcell drove me to the Zurich airport at 6am. This gave me sufficent time to catch my 8am flight, as the earliest train would have arrived at 7:15am, and I didn't want to even consider the posibility of missing the plane on my first day at work.
I borded the plane with no major problems. My surname had been misspelled, but the check-in chick said it would only be a problem if I were travelling to the US. Flew to Vienne, then on to Klagenfurt arriving at 11:10am where my boss Kurt met me there. We drove to my hotel, checked in, and then on to the office. I met the few people who were actually there (seems everyone was away on various business that week), was introduced to my laptop for the time being, and spent the day installing stuff and tinkering with the laptop. By the time 6pm rolled around, I was literally struggling to keep my eyes open. I went to my hotel, drank my first dark beer in four months, ate, and hit the hay.
The hotel is a middle-range hotel with all the necessities and none of the frills. The staff are friendly, I was well fed, and the room was comfortable enough so I can't complain. Given the chance, however, I would suggest to the broadcasting authorities to put on more English shows. Channel 22 was CNN, and channel 27 was German MTV. CNN was stuck on repeat, and as for MTV, watching 'date my mom' quickly lost its charm, which was followed by the gay version of 'date my mom'... I stopped there.

Tuesday 03/10 - Wednesday 04/10:
Spent two days reading technical documentation on the system I will be working with. User manual for entre and technical docs for the main course. API javadoc was for desert but I was full and only picked at it. With all the @enterprise experts out of the office (that's the name of the system I'm working with) I had little else to do.
Back at the batcave... our hero makes a shocking discovery. Swiss power plugs have three prongs, but Austrian power sockets have only two holes, and the home-made New Zealand/Swiss power adapter won't fit any of the ten sockets (I counted) in his room! What will he do??? Without a second's hesitation, using his watch wrist band as a screwdriver, he opens the converter and removes the middle prong. Voilla! Yes, I was pleased with myself, and as a bonus I even got to recharge my cellphone and electric toothbrush.

Thursday 05/10:
Started to get my (clean) teeth into Java which I will admit, was kind of nostalgic. Tinkered mostly. Got stuck on a problem that I'd need to ask someone about, but someone wasn't there, so I went home early.
Went for a stroll into the Zentrum (city centre). Was around a 20-30min walk, and was a nice evening. I would say that Klagenfurt has many similarities to Christchurch, NZ. It has a hospital, an airport, and a university within the city limits. A river runs through Klagenfurt and next to the university (it's bigger and deeper than the Avon though). At the centre of Klagenfurt is a square with a statue and market stalls. Although it's not in the square, there is also a large church. To my amusement I noticed a brothel operating opposite from the church, and pondered breifly to myself the order in which patrons visit the two establishments (sinning, and then repenting, or vice versa). I stopped by nearby bar for a beer (not the brothel), and then tasked myself with the difficulty of getting home again.
Finding my way into town was easy - just walk towards the church spire. At the uni I asked some people which way to the Zentrum and was told to go "Uber der brucke, links, und immer gerade aus" (over the bridge, left, and then keep going). Getting home, however, was slightly more difficult. Yes, I have to walk away from the spires, but in which direction, and I can't exactly ask the way to my hotel now can I? So how to get home? Easy. It's a ranger class-skill called intuit direction. Obviously. I take a bearing of what I sense to be north, and away I go. After ten minutes walking having still not recognised anything I make an executive decision and take a left turn, which leads me to the Hospital. Twenty minutes after cutting through the hospital in search of a backtrack (or a taxi by this stage) I find Feldkirkner Strasse (which I wrote down on my way in). I momentarily revel in my victory over maps, taxis and other common sense approaches, and head for my hotel with a healthy appetite.

Friday 06/10:
Check out at 7:30am. Head to work, and pass the day on the mini-project I've been toying with. At 5pm Kurt drops me to the airport. The flight is delayed, and my connecting flight is brought forward by half an hour, which means that my flight to Zurich boards at one end fo the airport as I land at the other. Fantastic. Well at least I wasn't the only one running to the terminal.
Land in Zurich, take the train to Murgenthal, walk home to Fulenbach, and get home just on midnight. Find my clothes washed and my bed made. Thanks Sonya. :)

So, that was my eventful week. Tomorrow (Sunday) I'll go to Roger's birthday party, and then on Monday morning I get to repeat it all again. Chances are I'll be spending most of October in Klagenfurt... what a shame... :)