Back from CeBIT

CeBIT was great fun. Lots to see, colourful, huge, yet not too messy.

On Friday, I and my colleagues arrived in Hannover, and most of us went to the hotel, very far away from the fair (about 10 km) and even farther from the central station. Then we went to the fair. Since there was no room at the company's booth for our luggage, we went to the garderobe, which was just outside the fair's turnstiles. After that, the turnstiles simply refused to let us in again. It was a mistake from us: we should have told the security personnel we were temporarily leaving, so the intelligent turnstiles would have let us in. But we didn't know. And the turnstiles were not intelligent enough to figure that. And the security woman was really, really German, and just told us "You used your ticket, so you can't get in again. Stop". Luckily, with some phone calls and help from another security woman, we could get in.

When inside, we just forgot to have lunch. There was so much to see. And I got my indispensable calories from candies many booths were giving away. Strangely enough, many big names were not present or not so visible (Sony, Motorola, Philips). But there was IBM, Siemens (playing home), Microsoft. Not many Linux companies, what a pity. Novell dedicated a very small area of its booth to Linux. And there was even Commodore, which was so important in my teenage, when I used to spend all my free time in front of a C64.
For dinner, we went to a carefully chosen restaurant: it was the first Greek restaurant we saw just before the tram stopped by it. It turned out to be very good, a lot of meat, tasty. And the atmosphere among colleagues was so nice. It is good to have these moments, otherwise the only relationships among us would be work.

The day after, it was a little colder.

My colleagues waiting for the tram at the tram stop (reached through a shortcut) on Saturday morning

I remembered I am a Telecommunciations' engineer, and I stayed pretty long in the telecoms area. It is nice to see all the acronyms studied at school have some practical significance (almost all of them, some are long-forgotten). Since I don't work exactly in the telecoms field, I am behind the latest technology achievements. But it was fun.

The return journey was more exhausting than expected. We knew the train from Hannover would not have reached Holland, and we would have to take a bus from the border to the intermediate station of Almelo. What we didn't know was that that train would have left Hannover with 1h15 delay. I am reconsidering my bad opinion on Trenitalia... Luckily we caught the last train from Almelo. Living in Amsterdam has some advantages, as people living farther away would have to make complicated train changes, and one missed connection would have meant sleeping in a station. But I hope everybody went home safe. Tomorrow we'll discover.

Get lost!

Last Saturday it was nice weather, so I and Elisa decided to go to Muiden by bicycle. I brought my TomTom One to find the way.

So, a bike route sign told us to turn right. The TomTom told us to go straight, so we went straight. Suddenly we met a road with no bicycle lane, and the TomTom told us that it was the right way. What should we do? Elisa thinks that, this time, we should not follow the TomTom, so we turn right. Guess what? We get lost in a plain with little human presence, and still covered by snow from the previous days.
The plain, fortunately, had lots of signposts, so we eventually found our way. And, when in Muiden, we found that the castle was closed.
We had lunch in a typical Dutch bar, furnished with a lot of wood, and with a rug as tablecloth (yes, a rug! I wonder how hygienic it is...). The lunch was not bad, Dutch cheese and worst (sausage).
On the way back home, it started raining. Clouds must have realised we were by bike.
And on Monday I discovered the rear tube had a hole. Again! This time, remembering the past experience, I didn't take off the wheel, I managed to repair it by just removing the external tyre. No more rip-offs from bike repairers!
On Tuesday I voted for the municipality and district elections. As an EU citizen registered as living in the Netherlands, I have right to vote for local elections (not for national ones) automatically. It was fun. The voting offices are much more relaxed than in Italy, no police outside, and they didn't even ask me for a document!

And tomorrow is CeBIT day! Yippie!

And you thought spring was near

Yesterday night snow fell on Amsterdam. This morning the city was covered by white. And it was a sunny day, so the sights were so pretty.

My bike is the third from the left. No wonder today I went to work by tram