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(at kuala lumpur airport)

the flight was much more pleasant than my flight to sydney last year. the main reason for that is probably the lc display at every seat, showing ~10 movie channels, 10 music stations + some “interactive content” (tetris + co.). i spent the first hours watching ‘the edukators’ (die fetten jahre sind vorueber) - a very nicely shot german movie about 3 twens more or less accidentally kidnapping a millionaire…. (it’s not a comedy, the air line magazine says it’s a drama…well, not really, but it’s great anyway).

boarding time….

later…. at vienna air port. i was too lazy to get my laptop out during the flight, so i spent most of the 12h flight sleeping, watching movies and eating. my next flight to berlin is delayed by one hour.
a couple of interesting details from the last flights:

my air line (austria air) belongs to a larger air line called lauda air, which is apparently owned by niki lauda. as a result the entertainment systems offered such things as ‘nikis kids world’ and an separate section with information about laudas life - i could resist the temptation.

before landing in kuala lumpur: “ladies and gentlement, please be advised that importing illegal drugs into malaysia is a serious offense and will be charged with death penalty” - please throw your drugs out of the window now, or what did that austrian-english voice want to tell us here?

the seats all had adjustable head rests. you could even bend them so you had some padding at the side which made it much more comfortable (or even possible) to sleep - too bad i was almost the only one who found out - man these people were hanging in their seats

the bastards from the air line had put the manual for the business class seats into the air line magazine available at every seat, so we 2nd class passengers could read about how good the rich guys in the front had it; and that chief flight attendant also introduced the business class only chef to everyone. grrrr. food was not so bad anyway, and there was plenty of it.

switch to vienna air port:

culture shock europe

i know, i am supposed to experience what people call a culture shock when i go to a foreign country, but i think it’s at least as interesting when you come back and re-experience all the things you have forgotten about.

- the first negative thing i notice: there are smoking areas at the air port. of course the smoke does not stay there. you’d never have that in australia. the government there is actually preparing a law that bans smoking from all public places, including pubs.

- it’s freezing cold here, a ‘freaking fridge’ as my flat mate tanny put it when i explained the concept of a european winter to her. actually even worse than a 8 degrees warm fridge - it’s 2 degrees C. i wonder why i’m the only one in a t-shirt here. but when i came to australia i was the only one having a sweater/jacket so i guess that’s okay

- the vienna air port looks much less friendly than sydney. everything looks so cold (and the metal seats are). everyone is wearing black and grey clothes here - except me in red. i guess i’ll witch to my black fleece sweater in a minute, surrendering to the temperatures. at least my laptop gives me a bit of warmth - thank you for inefficient processors that produce some 50W of heat.

- every second poster on the wall is in english, or worse half english half german. but it’s not english, it’s german translated into something they call english here…. (yeah, i know i probably could not do it any better)

- the amount of old people has dramatically increased, in fact i see hardly anyone under 30. there are plenty of 60+-year-olds

- first question of the austrian customs officer: “irgendwas eingedascht?” - i must have looked really puzzled, i couldn’t remember having stolen anything. “anyssing in yoor pocketss?” - ah. no, nothing.

- boarding time. i wonder if i can use the informal ‘du’ when talking to the flight attendant. she doesn’t look like she’s much older than me. i try a charming ‘hi’ and get a ‘grueasss gottt’ and ‘bittaschoeeen’ in response. thanks.

- next to me is sitting a probably half senile ~75 YO blabbering bullshit to his wife next to him, in this typical *german* way some of these old guys that survived WW2 talk. man how much i’ve missed that….

i spent my last night in sydney in a club called star bar, where i learned some new “aussi clubbing laws”, people are not allowed to:

• wear a hat
• take off their shoes (even when sitting)
• dance and have a drink at the same time
• fight (okay, i have to admit that makes sense)
• dance while standing on a sofa

…. in all these cases some security guard immediately intervened…. i mean, are aussis too dumb to handle a drink while in a crowd? do they have to be protected from spilling it over their clothes or something? why do european governments trust their citizens but australia can’t??

oh, at 3 a.m. the music suddenly stopped playing, and we were asked by security to leave immediately. when we were standing on the street for a couple of minutes in front of the club we were then asked by police to leave the place … immediately. ohmygod.

when you go to a concert in germany, say to a “rock concert”… you know, that music that can get a little louder, and people get excited when they hear this loud music. i mean, really excited, at a concert. in germany, when you go to such a concert, then, at some point in the middle of that concert, a certain part of the crowd moves to the area in front of the stage (if they’re not already there). they then start bumping into each other, yes, intentionally throwing their bodies against each other. and it’s great fun for them (i am one of these, sometimes). everyone who doesn’t want to get bumped in just stays out of the way - it’s totally fine. in germany, we call that ‘pogen’.

now imagine you are in sydney, you go to a concert (or, say to a club with a live band, kind of a concert, isn’t it?). at least in terms of ‘pogen’ - you might think. in australia, when you listen to loud music, and you get excited, and then you bump into your neighbour …. well, a second later someone else bumps into you. suddenly, the music stops playing, you hear someone shouting “prick head” from the stage.
ok, so that other guy was the 120kg security guard trying to bring you down, and the guys swearing at you, that’s the band. weird world.

i have become really lazy in terms of eating/food preparation. i have never cooked anything since i moved to my new place, i eat out every day. luckily, the largest food court of the southern hemisphere is only 500m away. they have ~15 restaurants and cafes, ranging from chinese over mexican to italian.

in case i get hungry in the evening, here’s my latest recipe: grab a bunch of (green) grapes + a slice of cheese, have a byte of cheese, then a couple of grapes, a byte of cheese, grapes…. as simple (and lazy) as it can get…

the best bar in sydney (i know) is the blue horizon bar. (yes, i’ve just been there) it’s located on the top floor (36th or so) of the shangri-la hotel… a 5 star hotel in the rocks. they mainly serve cocktails which all cost around $18 but it’s definitely worth it. the view is awesome, you can see the harbour, circular quay, opera house, harbour bridge, north sydney … took some pictures, i’ll hopefully post them next week.

i just attended the 1st 2005 java developer day here in sydney.

the first part consisted of a couple of presentation:

introduction to java5 aka tiger

a short introduction to the new languagae features: auto boxing, generics, enums, annotations and the new for loop. nothing new, except that i didn’t know that you can create classes on the fly within an enum e.g.:
public class bla {
public enum month (jan(31), feb(29), mar(31), apr(30) ...) {
private int noOfDays;
public month(int numberOfDays) {
noOfDays = numberOfDays;
}

public int getNoOfDays() {return noOfDays;}
}
}


a demo to java studio creator

studio creator lets you create java applications by dragging widgets on a screen and attaching actions and data sources to them, looks like a nice tool for prototyping.

java studio enterprise

they showed the current version which basically allows you to model enterprise applications in uml, edit the generated source, deploy, test and profile in one tool. the coolest feature was that it would record the user interaction with the deployed application and this could be used by the integrated load generator to simulate any number of users using the system for profiling it.

james goslig

the 2nd part was a ‘james gosling’ unplugged session. (for those who don’t know it, james gosling is the ‘inventor’ of java). supposed to answering questions from the audience he basically told a lot of interesting and funny stories and bashed on microsoft, ibm (especially SWT), the dmca, c++ and others. he talked about computer architectures made of soap bubbles … i’ve forgotten the rest, but it was great

thilo has started his study abroad semester in sweden and also created a blog, which you can find here.

i recently bought an extra big pack of pop corn at a cinema - the first time in australia. i had to learn the hard way that in australia all pop corn is *salted* - disgusting

this is part two of my blog about my study abroad semester in sydney. you can find the first part at kangaroo.blogg.de