Europe 2018: Part 1
Sunday, 25 March 2018 18:14![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iguana
I visited four countries in February, three of them new! In Switzerland I met up with Sean, Samathy, Rae, and David, then I travelled in spirals through the scenic Alps by train to Milan with Sean.
Swiss Python Summit
I was nominally in Switzerland for the Swiss Python Summit, the country's local day-long PyCon; it was cheap enough to constitute a great way to meet up with the friends I made last PyCon UK. After flying into Zurich Airport and meeting up with Sean, we checked into the easyHotel in Zurich, which turned out to be way more pleasant than I was expecting; just like any budget hotel, but with frills such as room service during your stay removed (for that length of stay I usually hang up a Do Not Disturb sign up anyway), and a clever combination code system for the room to avoid keys or keycards. We went out to a vegetarian restaurant, SamSeS, for dinner, and it turned out they had a special on vegan fondue, which turned out to be pretty good.
We met up with Rae, David, and Samathy at Rapperswil railway station and walked to the University campus that was hosting the Summit.
The conference itself was okay, and they certainly fed us well; somehow the fifteen euro fee got us morning pastries, a full canteen lunch, and afternoon snacks. There were a couple of stand-out talks; the ones I remember were one about the German Space Agency, and another demoing a classroom "Hacker's Laptop"; a cool-looking raspberry pi rig with built-in MITM demos and suchlike. There was only one stream so that saved some decision fatigue; and there are probably advantages of listening to topics I wouldn't necessarily have picked given the option.
Afterwards we went back to Rae and David's place, and played RoboRally.
The next morning we had a collective breakfast at Babu's -- a very fancy breakfast, as it turned out; it arrived on a tierer stand! After that we played Das Wrack (The Wreck) at Panic Room Games. The scenario was that, as the Allies, we had to descend to a sunken German U-Boat during World War II to recover an enigma machine and decode a message on it. This was an interesting set-up that meant that rather than being locked in, we had to break into the place, which I liked. The set was pretty good, having been made to measure the insides of a real U-boat. We finished in just under 40 minutes and my main criticism of the game would be that it didn't have a very good finale -- in fact due to the 'break-in' nature of the game we weren't even sure when we were finished!
We spent the rest of the day exploring Zurich -- being locals, Rae and David gave us a good tour! -- visiting colourful streets and churches that used to be in the middle of the river before being built out to.
In the evening, Rae and David kindly invited us over for homemade chilli, and afterwards we played Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes, an entertaining tabletop/video game about defusing a virtual bomb.
I was nominally in Switzerland for the Swiss Python Summit, the country's local day-long PyCon; it was cheap enough to constitute a great way to meet up with the friends I made last PyCon UK. After flying into Zurich Airport and meeting up with Sean, we checked into the easyHotel in Zurich, which turned out to be way more pleasant than I was expecting; just like any budget hotel, but with frills such as room service during your stay removed (for that length of stay I usually hang up a Do Not Disturb sign up anyway), and a clever combination code system for the room to avoid keys or keycards. We went out to a vegetarian restaurant, SamSeS, for dinner, and it turned out they had a special on vegan fondue, which turned out to be pretty good.
We met up with Rae, David, and Samathy at Rapperswil railway station and walked to the University campus that was hosting the Summit.
The conference itself was okay, and they certainly fed us well; somehow the fifteen euro fee got us morning pastries, a full canteen lunch, and afternoon snacks. There were a couple of stand-out talks; the ones I remember were one about the German Space Agency, and another demoing a classroom "Hacker's Laptop"; a cool-looking raspberry pi rig with built-in MITM demos and suchlike. There was only one stream so that saved some decision fatigue; and there are probably advantages of listening to topics I wouldn't necessarily have picked given the option.
Afterwards we went back to Rae and David's place, and played RoboRally.
The next morning we had a collective breakfast at Babu's -- a very fancy breakfast, as it turned out; it arrived on a tierer stand! After that we played Das Wrack (The Wreck) at Panic Room Games. The scenario was that, as the Allies, we had to descend to a sunken German U-Boat during World War II to recover an enigma machine and decode a message on it. This was an interesting set-up that meant that rather than being locked in, we had to break into the place, which I liked. The set was pretty good, having been made to measure the insides of a real U-boat. We finished in just under 40 minutes and my main criticism of the game would be that it didn't have a very good finale -- in fact due to the 'break-in' nature of the game we weren't even sure when we were finished!
We spent the rest of the day exploring Zurich -- being locals, Rae and David gave us a good tour! -- visiting colourful streets and churches that used to be in the middle of the river before being built out to.
In the evening, Rae and David kindly invited us over for homemade chilli, and afterwards we played Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes, an entertaining tabletop/video game about defusing a virtual bomb.
Bernina Express
I have a list of things I want/wanted to do in Switzerland, and going on a train ride that included a spiral, and Sean agreed to come along to witness my madness. We took the Bernina Express, the highest rail route in Europe, which turned out to be a beautiful journey in its own right; a single-track route through the snowy Swiss Alps with a short stop at the high point for everyone to get out and see the views -- as if being in a panoramic carriage wasn't good enough!
At this point we had apparently been through a few tunnel spirals, but being in tunnels it was difficult to tell. The highlight of the route was after we had descended quite a far way down the mountains towards Italy, at Brusio. I made sure to get up to stand on the correct side of the train to see us going around the spiral, and unbelievably, Sean and I were the only ones doing so. What were all the other people sitting on the left of the train even doing on board? Maybe they were happy with just seeing the embossed version on the free chocolate coins they gave out on board. Oh well, a better view for us then!
Soon we were in Tirano, almost immediately after the Swiss-Italy border. We swapped the Swiss Bernina Express for a local Italian train (gotta say, there was quite a step change down in quality between the two countries' railways) and a couple of hours later, having travelled alongside Lake Como for a bit, we arrived in Milan.
I have a list of things I want/wanted to do in Switzerland, and going on a train ride that included a spiral, and Sean agreed to come along to witness my madness. We took the Bernina Express, the highest rail route in Europe, which turned out to be a beautiful journey in its own right; a single-track route through the snowy Swiss Alps with a short stop at the high point for everyone to get out and see the views -- as if being in a panoramic carriage wasn't good enough!
At this point we had apparently been through a few tunnel spirals, but being in tunnels it was difficult to tell. The highlight of the route was after we had descended quite a far way down the mountains towards Italy, at Brusio. I made sure to get up to stand on the correct side of the train to see us going around the spiral, and unbelievably, Sean and I were the only ones doing so. What were all the other people sitting on the left of the train even doing on board? Maybe they were happy with just seeing the embossed version on the free chocolate coins they gave out on board. Oh well, a better view for us then!
Soon we were in Tirano, almost immediately after the Swiss-Italy border. We swapped the Swiss Bernina Express for a local Italian train (gotta say, there was quite a step change down in quality between the two countries' railways) and a couple of hours later, having travelled alongside Lake Como for a bit, we arrived in Milan.
Milan
We were in Milan for the evening and a full day before going to the airport fairly early on the second morning; unfortunately I had forgotten to look up when Italy's Everything Is Closed Day is (Mondays) so we ended up a little short of things to do, though avoiding all the con-men trying to put a bracelet on your arm as you were taking photos was quite a sport. We visited the Duomo, which was very impressive and difficult to get across in photos, and the Leonardo3 museum, a collection of reconstructions of Leonardo da Vinci's various machines, which was interesting.
It turned out that evening Nerina Pallot, my favourite musician, had been performing in Milan, and I'm still kicking myself for having missed that, especially as we were light on other things to do. But I suppose it would have been a strange thing to have checked beforehand!
The flight back to, well, Amsterdam, in my case, made the trip worth doing at any rate. I don't usually take photos out of plane windows, but the views over the Alps as we flew towards and then over Geneva, were absolutely stunning. (I also had the whole side of my row of the aeroplane to myself on all my journeys except the one back to the UK this holiday, weird.)
What a great first half of my holiday! One escape room down, two to go; two countries down, two to go!
We were in Milan for the evening and a full day before going to the airport fairly early on the second morning; unfortunately I had forgotten to look up when Italy's Everything Is Closed Day is (Mondays) so we ended up a little short of things to do, though avoiding all the con-men trying to put a bracelet on your arm as you were taking photos was quite a sport. We visited the Duomo, which was very impressive and difficult to get across in photos, and the Leonardo3 museum, a collection of reconstructions of Leonardo da Vinci's various machines, which was interesting.
It turned out that evening Nerina Pallot, my favourite musician, had been performing in Milan, and I'm still kicking myself for having missed that, especially as we were light on other things to do. But I suppose it would have been a strange thing to have checked beforehand!
The flight back to, well, Amsterdam, in my case, made the trip worth doing at any rate. I don't usually take photos out of plane windows, but the views over the Alps as we flew towards and then over Geneva, were absolutely stunning. (I also had the whole side of my row of the aeroplane to myself on all my journeys except the one back to the UK this holiday, weird.)
What a great first half of my holiday! One escape room down, two to go; two countries down, two to go!
