What's up with Hatim

It has almost been two weeks now and I have been postponing this blog entry. I guess it’s better to blog about travel, when traveling.

My primary reason for coming to Frankfurt was to attend first ever OpenNMS user conference. I had already paid my 199 Euro conference fee and 37.81 Euro VAT to Nethinks (who were arranging teh conference). I did get a (considerable) discount from Taurus for me being part of GSoC last year but since it was unpublished discount so let’s just leave it at that

‘The conference was in three hotel “ballrooms”. The first hosted the coffee while the other two were used for presentations.’. The kick off was done by Uwe Bergmann from Nethinks in Lyon hall. Then we had the keynote session from Taurus Balog . There were many things which I learned about OpenNMS in this talk(aside from back stories and jokes). After the keynote session we had lunch which was really good (so buffet in Le Maredian is definelty recommended). I decided to sit in Lyon  for the rest of the conference and didn’t attend some really interesting parallel tracks, but since all the sessions were recorded so I still have a chance of looking at them.

I attended talks on OpenNMS reporting by Ronny Trommer aka _indigo,Integrating Syslog Events into OpenNMS  by Alexander Finger aka gvainfo and Extending OpenNMS by Jason Aras aka fjay. All of the talks were really informative but in my books they didn’t top Tarus’s talk (perhaps because he was talking too much about future and these guys were talking about present

After the conference was over we decided to go for some drinks to Orielly’s an Irsih pub just in front of the central train station. There was a Scotland vs Ireland rugby game on and it’s good that we left that place before Ireland eventually won (otherwise we would have been caught in celebrations). By the way it’s hard to get any thing in an Irish pub, you have to squeeze your way through people. Lesson here is that Swedish pubs may be boring and expensive, but people respect other people’s turn.

Later along with some of the gang we went to dinner. We walked along the promenade where all the major museums of Frankfurt are centered. After a long walk  we  found the place which apparently Taurus got recommended by some one. Since it was Saturday night finding a free place was not easy. We settled for the next best restaurant. I had some traditional German dish recommended by Alexander Finger, and it was in fact really good (chicken and mushrooms, so the point being that if you don’t know what you want to eat, just ask the locals).

I learned a lot of things in the casual conversations over the dinner. I think not sitting for lunch or dinner in almost a year now with peers(since I left my full time job) has now taught me the value of casual knowledge transfer. In the end I believe Taurus footed the bill (I had my share of Euros out in my hand to pay like a "well mannered Swedish resident", but it never came to that) so thanks to Taurus, again.

After calling it a day we all went our septate ways, and I came back to my youth hostel to crash. Sunday I went to the Senkeberg Natural History museum (pictures here) and did some sight seeing around the city. I was tired and didn’t go much around the city. I wanted to take the bus tour and see the city skyline from teh famous Frankfurt tower. In the youth hostel’s lounge I met quite a few people from UK, Canada and US. Apparently frankfurt has cheap connecting flights from all over EU so many people come for a weekend getaway.

Monday afternoon I took the RyanAir flight back to Gothenburg. It was interesting to see that almost all of the flight passengers were the ones which I saw on Thursday and Friday (perhaps most of them were in Frankfurt for the weekend as this was the only cheap flight)

I have already planned my next trip to Frankfurt in summers, this time I would prefer to take Rhine Cruise and see the other German cities like Bonn, Cologne, Dusseldrof. Munich I plan to see when I go to Switzerland and Berlin would come with my trip to Warsaw.

Overall the trip was not what I expected it to be, but the conference was every bit better. There is already talk of this conference being held next year and I would definetly like to attend it.

In January I had decided to attend the first ever OpenNMS user conference and also visit Germany in mid march.I had initially booked a cheap RyanAir flight on 8th March 2009 to Düsseldorf. My plan was to check out different German cities  (incliding Kolon and Bonn) and finally go to Frankfurt and stay there for three nights. Later as I realized that it would be a hectic plan going through four youth hostels, I changed the plan and bought a ticket for Frankfurt Hahn airport instead for March 12th (to stay 4 nights in Frankfurt instead).

Here is one thing which I should have checked before buying the ticket, Frankfurt-Hahn airport is actually 2 hours away from Frankfurt city center (I always assumed that I was going to the same Frankfurt international airport from which I passed through while coming to Sweden). It costs around 12 Euros to get a bus ride from the airport (considering that i paid 9 Euros for the flight, it’s bit expensive :-})

So excited and well preped on Match 12th, I went to gothenburg city airport on time and got my boarding pass etc. I started reading The Business of Software Engineering and as a surprise to my self read a whole chapter of it in one sitting (I am used to reading short articles and long programming manuals, this kind of stuff is new for me). Around five pm after waiting for about three hours in the airport the announcement was mad that my flight had been canceled due to bad weather. Needless to say I was disappointed that I would miss a whole day of sight seeing. I got confirmation for the next day of flight booking from ryan air counter after a long wait.

The next day was another mishap for me, I got on the bus to go to the aiport (again) with my library book in hand. Some how in rush of getting off from the bus I forgot the book at the seat , but realized that I had lost it soon. From thereon for an hour or so I played “catch the right bus” in hopes of getting back my book, but with all the calculations of routes and bus numbers I was unable to catch the bus in which I had lost the book, so with a sad face I proceeded to the airport. The only thing I could do on the plane was to read a book on my laptop. I have recently found that reading books in electronic format is not necessarily easier or faster if you have to read cover to cover (it’s a whole different story if you have to use the search function). Any who I checked with the Gothenburg bus service office and I was told to check with them on Monday for lost and found (which I did and got the book back after paying 20 Kr Edit: and now safely returned, long live honest Swedes). I also realized after reaching the airport that I had no decent camera with me. Another bummer.

After reaching Frankfurt-Hahan, the first thing I did was to pull out some cash from the ATM. It was no problem (but it costs about 2$ for every 100$ withdrawal, which I later found out). The exchange rate from the ATM was fair though. I hopped on to the next bus to the city center.

At the droppoint for the aiport shuttle I had little idea where the YouthHostel I had booked really was. I knew that it was near central station and I was relying on my Nokia n810 GPS to help me with that. Fortunately the GPS worked like a charm. I walked pass by the Le Maredian, so I knew where I was suppose to go in the morning. I just showed up at my YouthHostel and they decided to let me in if I paid my 20 Euros for the day I missed as I didn’t cancel my booking.

It was quite late in the evening (around 10 PM) and I was in no position to go and hang out with the conference guys as planned. On top of that I was quite pissed at missing flight, paying extra for accommodation and loosing my book and no camera. But I forgot all about that after I had a delecious dinner at a Pakistani restaurant called “Iqbal da Dhabba”. It is interesting that just with simple nice food, all your troubles can go away.