Just Another Blog – Kastna's Blog

So there I am. I’m a student now. Studying at the University of Preston. Campus: Vienna. Yes, it’s distance learning, but still we have lectures every week.
And that’s what makes it pretty complicated. My girlfriend is in Dornbirn; the city I’ve lived in the last three years and the place I feel most connected to right now. Then there are my friends, they are here in Linz, where I’m living at the moment and where I basically come from. And there’s Vienna. The city I go to every week to listen to new stuff.

The following year is going to be pretty strenuous. Not only because I’m also working part time while studying, but also because I’m going to spend a lot of time behind the steering wheel of my car on the highways of Austria and Germany.

I bought myself a new notebook. Today it arrived. It’s an Asus N82JV. From what I have seen so far, there are two sides to this notebook.

First, hardware. The hardware is great. Alone from the specs you can tell that this is not just a business-laptop. With the powerful nVidia GT 335M, you can play even the most modern games and the i5 with hyperthreading is not only very fast, but also energy-saving. Along with the so called “nVidia optimus technology”, the dedicated graphics card is deactivated and the onChip-GPU is working, if there is no need for a “high performance GPU”. The switching happens automagically and allows the user to work for hours without the need of a power socket.
Though I had to upgrade the nVidia driver to make the optimus-technology work, it now works flawlessly. Automatically.

There are, however, more options to make it work and those options are the second point of view: The additional software.
I simply can not believe, how bloated every single assembled computer (and therefore all laptops) are. I already spent 4 hours uninstalling a crapload of unnecessary features, and am still continuing. I’ve freed almost 3 gigabyte of disk space and reduced the number of processes that are running from the beginning from over 90 to almost 50. As if Windows 7 wasn’t already slow enough, Asus adds tons of stupid software. Incredible.

I will now continue to uninstall crap.

Was für ein Wochenende. 16 Stunden Autofahren, 2.000 Kilometer. Lastwagen ein- und ausräumen.

Am Samstag hieß es, rasch nach Oberösterreich zu düsen, und den Lastwagen zu holen. 500 Kilometer nach Linz in 3,5 Stunden bedeutete wieder einmal, den Rekord einzustellen. Was bereits psychisch ermüdend war, wurde noch getoppt: Die gleichen 500 Kilometer am selben Tag wieder zurück nach Dornbirn zu fahren – mit einem Mercedes Sprinter. Fahrkomfort im Vergleich zur BMW Limousine: 0.
Hatte ichs geschafft? Nein. Wohnung ausräumen und Lastwagen einräumen stand auf dem Stundenplan. Nachdem ich die drei vorherigen Tage bereits mein gesamtes Hab und Gut in Kisten verpackt und sperrige Gegenstände auf Transportgröße auseinandergeschraubt hatte, benötigte ich, dank der tatkräftigen Unterstützung von Freundin, Schwager und ebenfalls schon lange im Kaloriendefizit arbeitenden Trainingspartner etwa 1,5 Stunden um den Transporter bis unters Dach randvoll zu packen. Mein Leben passt in einen Mercedes Sprinter.
Fast. Was noch fehlt ist der Kellerinhalt. Den werd ich wohl in mühevoller Kleinarbeit mit meiner Limousine ohne umklappbarer Rückbank Stück für Stück nach Oberösterreich karren.
Nach dem Einpacken war wenigstens mal Sense. Für Samstag.

Am Sonntag gings nach Oberösterreich. Inklusive Sonntags-Reiseverkehr im deutschen Hochgeschwindigkeitsirrenhaus. Noch war es eigentlich eh recht zivilisiert und die eigentliche Anstrengung, das Ausräumen des Lasters, stand ja erst bevor.
In Rekordzeit (gut eine Stunde) hatten wir das Vehikel wieder geleert. Die Couch und die Waschmaschine hatten wir zwecks Resignation allerdings ausgelassen. Die beiden guten Stücke stehen jetzt vorerst in der Perger Garage.

Die Trilogie hatte aber noch einen dritten Teil: Gestern, Montag, gings wieder zurück nach Dornbirn. Hier muss ich jetzt noch die Wohnung fertig ausräumen und putzen und meine Bildungskarenz (hoffentlich noch halbwegs fristgerecht) einreichen.
Während am Sonntag der Verkehr schon kaum zum Aushalten war, scheinen die Deutschen unter der Woche komplett verrückt zu spielen.

Liebe verrückte Idiotennachbarn, falls das jemand von euch liest: Wenn man vor einem überholenden Fahrzeug in letzter Sekunde ausschert und dieses zur Notbremsung zwingt und dann dennoch ein Auffahrunfall verursacht wird, ist das DIE SCHULD DES AUSSCHERENDEN! Herrgottsack! Verdammte Idioten! Die nächsten Bremsbeläge lass ich mir von euch kaufen! Und dann muss man sich auch noch zweifelhafte Gesten an den Kopf werfen lassen, wenn man bis auf einen halben Meter dank Vollbremsung gerade noch eine Kollision verhindern kann.
Nein Leute, einen LKW zu überholen ist KEIN universelles, jederzeit einforderbares Recht! Nicht, wenn von hinten einer mit 100 km/h Geschwindigkeitsdifferenz angerauscht kommt!

Move out, move in, prepare a project proposal for the university, register at the university, get the AMS-support for my educational year, organize a truck for moving, find people to help moving and try to leave the old apartment in a good state.
And everything within the next 5 days!

A car is like a piggy bank. Except you usually don’t get the money back you put in there. Today, I put another few bucks away for good.

The last 40.000 km I drove with my cars, I was lucky I guess, because none of my windshields was chipped by a stone. Not even in Ecuador. The last two times I drove to Upper Austria though, I was hit twice. What are the odds…

While the first one was a fairly small one, the second one (I caught two weeks ago) was so deep, that the first garage wouldn’t even try to repair it and tempted me to buy a whole new windshield. The second garage though, one, that is specialized in repairing stone chips and all other things that have to do with car glass, was professional enough to repair it. The impact is still visible, but the window won’t crack. Joe Kleber is the name of the guy, that fixed my windshield-problem with a three year guarantee and really polite and friendly employees.
I think, nowadays, this is mentionable, since for most garages, the customer is just another stupid person, that comes along and wants something magically fixed for a ridiculously low price. Though the garages had that one coming on themselves by demanding exorbitant prices, I won’t go any further in that discussion, because, oddly enough, I went to another garage today, that is the exact opposite of the above mentioned customer-eating, money-robbing wannabe-repairman.

What I missed, when I bought my car about one and a half year ago, was not only the fact, that the rear seats could not be folded, but also, that a decorative batten had loosened itself and dug into the paint which now started to rust. Clearly enough, this had to be fixed before the winter with all it’s salty-street-glory would come upon us and my rusty spot.
So I went to a guy in Egg, that had his small garage in the basement of another garage. Yeah, it’s actually that underground. It was recommended by a good friend of mine, who recently tried to battle the guardrail on the autobahn with his VW Passat. Unsuccessfully, as one might have suspected, but without any damage to any passangers.
Anywho… this guy fixed my teeny-tiny problem with a new batten and some paint, that was mixed to fit my lacquer. Interesting side note: It takes 8 different color-components to produce the “steel-gray metallic”-paint my car is wearing. The procedure took about half an hour, and all I paid was the new batten, and for that, I didn’t pay the whole price, because I profited from the discount the repairman gets from his wholesale dealer.

Now that’s just nice.

So on my third Friday (since I’ve arrived on a Friday the first Friday was the arriving day) I took a cab to the terminal norte. Bus would have been way cheaper, but I was already a bit late, and the bus would have taken at least an hour to get to the terminal. Including the two-and-a-half-hour-ride from Quito to Ibarra, I would have arrived a little bit late. So I just spent the ridiculous amount of 7 Dollar (which is a lot in Ecuador) on a cab for the 5 kilometer-drive to the terminal and another 2,50 on the 150 kilometer-bus ride to Ibarra. Talking about proportion…
In Ibarra I basically did four things: Sleeping, eating, digging up old stories from my girlfriends past and doing a lot of shopping and gift-collecting to work of the shopping list from the exile-Ecuatorians. I came back to Austria with more gifts than I brought to Ecuador. More than half a suitcase just with gifts. I’m just glad, they didn’t stop me at the customs

In my third week, I’ve organized a trip to the Pichincha, Quito’s local mountain. Since the weather in Quito is pretty unpredictable, but follows the simple rule of “morning good – afternoon bad” I only had two chances of going to the Pichincha and having a great view over Quito: Risk it on my last day to go up there and end up with a bad view, or go during classes and be able to pick a day with good weather.
In the end, I had to organize a trip for the whole school and with all the strings attached, we ended up voting 7:4 for going on the Pichincha on a day with very bad weather. After all, it opened up for a few minutes, but the next time I’m in Quito, I will definitely walk again up to the almost 4700 m high mountaintop.

At my very last day, Saturday, I met again with Andres, and by coincidence, met Liz and other friends of Doris too, at the fiestas de Guapulo.
Guapulo is a hood in Quito and every year they have about an eight-day-celebration for the virgin of Guapulo. One of the most popular days is the day of the “vacas locas”, the crazy cows. I don’t know the story behind this day (and if anyone can provide me some background information, I would be glad to hear it), but the festivities basically consist of a lot of people in a huge crowd getting chased by papier-mâché-cows with fireworks attached to them, that fire in the crowd. You can get some impressions at youtube, of a more quiet fiesta. Look here for a closeup of a “singled out” cow and imagine this in a crowd of 2.000 people chasing after them

So after I got about 3 hours of sleep, I took a cab to the airport and headed for Austria via Miami and London to Zurich. At least, that what I thought I was doing, but because American Airlines had about a 2 hour delay in Quito before boarding even started (they said it was due to the bad weather the day before… of course), I wasn’t able to catch my connection flight in Miami.
The stewardesses in Quito, however, were very competent and nice young ladies, who hooked me up with an alternative via Miami and Paris (Charles de Gaulle) to Zurich (and I managed to arrange that flight all in Spanish!), which, in the end, was on time, and brought me to Zurich 10 minutes earlier than the original American Airlines-flight would have been. Despite a two hour delay! However, the incompetent AA-idiots nearly made me miss my connection flight to Paris in Miami. I was checking in literally in the last second. The terminals at the check-in-counter were already closed and only the third terminal worked at last. Of course, I had to run through the whole airport with my whole luggage, because stupid US-americans need to check the bags through customs, even if you are just in transit, even if you are headed for another country or even contintent.
And of course I had to go through passport control. I don’t know, why those assholes needed my fingerprints. Maybe, because I grew a beard the last three weeks, or because I was traveling from a South American country, but when I came from Zurich, the “CBP-Officer” didn’t even look a second time at me before I could pass “to the US”. Stupid motherfuckers. I can’t agitate enough about those paranoid idiots. If I would have missed my connection to Paris, I would have sued those bastards. And what I’ve heard from the US courts, that lawsuit might have even sticked…

Anyways… On Monday, 6th, I finally arrived at Zurich, took the train to St. Gallen and was there picked up by my colleague Wolfgang. Now I’m here in Austria again for more than a week and am already looking forward to my next trip to Ecuador.

First of all: No, I won’t write this entry in Spanish. First of all, because only a very small percentage of my readers could enjoy it (and they would probably have a lot of fun with my Spanish) and second of all, because it would take me hours to write a decent report

Anyways… I’ve been to Quito. Yet again. The second time in nine months. The reason? I wanted to learn Spanish. At least, I wanted to have a fair base that I could rely on and I think, that I’ve achieved that goal and I even think that I excelled that target.
It’s been three wonderful weeks although, at the last minute, there were some doubts about the reasonability of the trip altogether. Nevertheless I made it and I don’t regret it.

The beginning usually always starts with the journey. This time, I wanted to avoid Iberia at all costs, since last year we discovered, that the service, stewardesses, airplanes and everything else simply lacks in quality (unless the flight is operated by an Iberia-associative like LAN), and I decided to go with the second-cheapest airline: American Airlines. Big mistake.
I had to fly from Zurich via New York (JFK) and Miami to Quito. Well, not that this would have bothered me much, and I also expected some troubles at the US-border-control, but there were no problems. But the airline itself just stinks as much as Iberia. The service leaves a lot to be desired, the airplanes are getting older and older the more you go south and as I found out on my way back, the timing is everything else but accurate.

Finally, though, I arrived at Quito. Already 20 minutes late, I had to wait another 40 minutes until it was clear, that a suitcase was missing. You know, I’ve stopped counting my flights after more than 35, but never ever have I lost any of my bags. Doris, however, lost one last year with Iberia, but then, on the other hand, that’s Iberia…
So more than an hour late I stepped out of the airport where the kind Andres was still waiting for my arrival. We didn’t bother with going out or anything, but went more or less straight to bed. After nearly 24 hours “on the road”, I was happy to have something more comfortable to sleep in, than an airplane-seat.

The next two days I spent with Andres and his girlfriend who were so kind to provide a roof over my head until the “official arriving day” at my guest-family was due. We went to parks, the cinema and spent some time cooking typical Ecuadorian dishes.
On Sunday, Andres brought me to my host family in Quito. Noticeable at this point might be, that the whole three weeks (or almost four, since I actually stayed 24 days) it basically didn’t rain at all. But when I had to carry my suitcases up to the house, it rained cats and dogs. Talking about bad luck…

My host family was nice. Anxious to make my stay as comfortable as possible, I really settled in within a few days.
The next morning, school started. If the reviews of some schools in Quito are to be trusted, Bipo & Toni’s academia de Español is the best in town. I think so too, though I’ve never seen any other schools to compare. But well, the school was fine. I have absolutely nothing to critisice. Well, some computers could be renewed, or at least not be overburden with modern operating systems, but except from that, the school was absolutely worth it’s money. Competent teachers, nice staff, secure facility, clean house, great diversity of students, a good infrastructure and centrally located. A very charming school. I would totally recommend it.

School was usually in the morning, though there were courses offered in the afternoon too for people who were eager to learn more. Basically every afternoon they also offered other courses like cooking, dancing or grammar-Q&A. Also organized by the school were weekend-trips for sightseeing around Ecuador. Since I already did that last year, I had my first weekend off for taking a closer look at Quito and the second weekend for visiting my “suegra”, the mother of my girlfriend.

Stay tuned

La primera entrada en Español. Muy corta y solo saludos. Récord de la distancia: approximademente 10.500 km

Ende Gelände. Aus die Maus, Umi min Rumi.

Heute war mein letzter Arbeitstag bei Vision-Flow. Zumindest als Vollzeit-Angestellter. Dank massivem Zeitausgleich bin ich zwar in letzter Zeit auch keine 38,5 Stunden pro Woche mehr drin gesessen, aber ab morgen bin ich bis 30. September offiziell im Urlaub und danach bis Juni 2011 auf Bildungskarenz.
Ich werde natürlich weiterhin je nach Notwendigkeit für Vision-Flow tätig sein – event-driven sozusagen – aber in erster Linie bin ich ab Oktober Student. In drei Tagen beginnt mein Sprachaufenthalt in Ecuador und danach wirds spannend, wo ich einziehen werde

Nach genau 1122 Tagen bin ich nun nicht mehr berufstätig, sondern Dauerurlauber (siehe neuen Counter in der Sidebar rechts über dem Spamcount).