Hamburg, again

This time no longer a business trip, but a vacation of sorts. Initially we planned to stay there for one night but later extended that another day so we have a little bit more time. This was more or less our Christmas “vacation” for this year, since we didn’t manage to go anywhere else.

The weather didn’t really cooperate but at least it only rained 50% of the time. Surprisingly enough, it was slightly warmer than at home. Even though it wasn’t enough time to visit much, the city is nice and it gets our approval. Some pictures, made at night:

Not dead

I am not dead, still alive and kicking even though I let the blog be for the past couple of months. Not sure how many people look here from time to time (if any) but I plan to revive the blog and keep up posting. I even took time today and updated WordPress from the ancient version I was running.

This year the stupid 5-day festival I was talking about last year took place again in our town but this time we were prepared: we took vacation days. We went for a week to Romania, this time by plane so we won’t waste 4 days just driving. We left right in the morning when the great event started and came back one week later.

The vacation itself was nice although a bit too hot, I don’t think there was a single day with temperatures below 32C or so. We spent 2 days in Bucharest, another 2 at Paraul Rece and then 4 days in a tiny village somewhere in the neighborhood of Buzau. On our way back from there we stopped for couple of hours in Brasov so Freya had  a chance to see the the city center and bit around.

We flew with German Wings, a local “low-cost” company. I say “low-cost” because, while cheaper than a normal airline, it’s still not so low after you add all kind of things, like extra suitcases and so on. We also had the dubious privilege of landing and taking off from Baneasa Airport, which still seems ancient and out of last century.

Eventually we came back to lovely Germany where we were promptly welcomed with 18C temperatures and gray weather.  And then we started work so things are back to normal :)

Rømø again

Even though the timing was not exactly great, we had booked this vacation since a while now so we decided to go after all. We just needed a week to get away from the daily shit happening all around us and what better place than the island of Rømø in Denmark. We’ve been there couple of times so far, so we are quite familiar with it. Not much to tell except, the house we’ve rented this place was one of the best ones so far for us:

This time we didn’t use the electric heaters so much but instead we used the wood oven to heat and I have to say it was much more pleasant. Now that we are home we are missing it already but one day we will have some like that too ;-)

Weather was so and so, couple of  sunny days, rain too but the stay was very nice and quite relaxing. We visited also couple of places on the mainland and noticed that the danish houses have very nice doors. So we made pictures of them!

And a bit more pictures from the island:

Next time we go there we plan to stay somewhere up north so we can get away a bit from the german crowds, the island is a somewhat popular destination. We’ll see how it goes.

Summer is gone, life goes on

Unfortunately the warm days of the summer are gone. I still see sunny days every now and then but it’s cold and we’re starting here to have temperatures below 0 during the night. We didn’t even have much of an autumn, it kinda jumped directly to winter. Don’t know if I should be happy or not about that, I am not crazy about autumn either, at least not about the rainy part anyway.

At work it’s still kinda ok. Besides the fact that I  have to go back and forth each week, the project is interesting, challenging and gives me the chance to work with technologies not easily available in most other places. It’s a great place to learn things and I would say it’s the perfect working environment to be in if you’re studying for CCIE, the Holy Grail of Cisco Certifications (Service Provider part).

Which is exactly what a couple of my colleagues are doing but it’s not easy at all. This is one exam (a 8-hour lab actually) where it’s not enough to just know stuff, you have to know it perfectly and be able to work fast because you are constantly under time pressure. And trust me, it’s not cheap at all, you end up with thousands and thousands of euros invested in books, rack rentals, boot camps, the lab itself, etc.  Needless to say, this is hardly doable without the support of your company. And on top of that, the pass rate is very low. It is said that less than 10% of people taking the lab pass it the first time. On average, one needs 3-4 attempts to pass it. Kinda bad, eh ?

I am probably at the stage where I could attempt it but I really have no time for it, not when I am gone most of the time. Maybe later. I will just focus on other professional certification in the meanwhile.

Vacation is coming at the end of the year, which is something I am looking forward to. Probably we won’t go anywhere but some time at home is not bad either. Speaking of vacation, there is one thing that annoys me at my company. They ask us to give a vacation plan for the whole next year. I have 28 days of vacation and I have to plan them ALL one year in advance. I can understand their point of view in a way, that they need some kind of overview when people are gonna be gone, but I still think it’s very weird. How am I supposed to know what I will do in one year ? Something might come up and you might need to change the dates but you can be shit out of luck if someone else in your team has it planned in that time.

They say that this is just for “planning purposes” and that you can change it but we all know that once you turn it in, it’s pretty much fixed, there is no change because you most likely conflict with someone else. I didn’t use to have this in my former company but it was a bit easier there I guess, less people in our department so less chances of conflicts.

And at the end, something unrelated. I came upon a very interesting article from cracked.com: “7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable” (via). It’s a bit long’ish but it’s well worth it.

Römö Island, Denmark

Off the west coast of Denmark there is a small island called Römö, maybe 5km by 10km.

We have been there in vacation two times so far and this year we will go again, I just recently booked a week in September. The two times that we’ve been there were the most relaxing vacations we had, I would say. Maybe a little bit less the second time when I made a mistake and rented an apartment instead of a house. On the island there are a lot of vacation houses you can rent, small and cute houses for 3-4 persons all the way to big ones for 10 persons. The prices vary accordingly but a house for 2-4 persons will run you roughly between 200-300 Euros per week off-season up to 300-400 during high-season, depending on the house.  Which I would say it’s really not much considering how much you pay in other places.

The good thing is that you have everything you need inside, fully equipped kitchen, living room, etc. Depending on the house you can even have dishwasher, wash machine, dryer, grill, and so on. But the best thing about this place is that you can have peace and quiet. You can really relax. The cottages are most of them isolated and you can spend the whole week without seeing anyone if you so choose. The first cottage we rented there was surrounded by a patch of forest and it just gave me the feeling that I was alone on that island. Some pictures from that vacation:

Yes, that’s a small baby deer which came all the way to our window ;-) You really feel like you’re in the middle of nature. You can also go bike riding or backpacking if that’s your thing. And if you like windsurfing (on water or land) then you are in luck because the island has a huge flat beach, as you can see in the top picture or in the google map at the end of the post (just zoom in to the west side of the island). The beach is almost all of it open to cars so you can do a lot of driving around, too it’s fun not be bound by lanes, sidewalks and so on ;-) Below some pictures from last year:

I would recommend the island as a recreation spot to anyone who wants a week away from everything. I can’t wait to get there again, even though it’s still some time left until Septmber.

Map