Joachim Breitner's Homepage

Well, after the "Replaced by Bus" information in Malmö was quite wrong, I thought the rest of the voyage would not be a problem, and espeically bus free: Of course not! First I found out that trying to get a "Mitfahrgelegenheit" from Berlin to Karlsruhe on the day you want to travel is quite useless: Demand is much higher than supply, and thus all cars are already full. Oh well, so I take the train, it is more comfortable after all. So I got a ICE ticket, nonstop to Karlsruhe.

Already looking forward to the well earned shower, suddently the train stops somewhere before Göttingen. A slightly shaked an unsure voice through the loudspeaker told us about a "Personenschaden" (Person-Damage) that will cause an unknown delay, and that busses are on the way to us, so that the train can be vacuated (sic!). I didn't expect that it was actually our train, since after our first stop and a while, we rolled forward a bit. Instead, I guessed that a train on the track before us hit someone. I was wrong, as a train personell woman told me while we were waiting to get out: The train hat to roll forward to free the body, and whether I didn't feel the rumble! That's some honesty you rarely get from officials...

The busses got me to Göttingen, from where I took the slower IC to Karlsruhe. At 5 o'clock, 31h after I got on the train to Göteborg, I finally arrived. But that was not the end of my troubles: In the bus to my dorm I met a fellow network team member (usually a good thing), that greeted me with joy (also a good thing, but makes me worry) and told me that since yesterday, the internet connection is down: The power converter of the radio link to the university went up in flames. Well, sparks. Replacement was already orderd, but I really wanted to be online, to upload pictures and post this. Could be worse, I thought, and after doing the usual after-journey-tasks, I biked (what a great feeling after three weeks of train riding) to the university, just to find out that my WLAN access was disabled with my whole account, due to a compromise of their servers a few weeks ago. Luckily a fried of mine allowed me to use his connection.

Some afterthoughts: I measured the weight of the stuff I had to carry around (not a easy thing in my dorm, I had to check ten floors to find one with a scale), and it was exactly 100kg, which is obviously too much. If you know me you probably agree that it would be unhealthy to reduce my own weight (which is of course included in this number), so here are a few things I got to do better next time:

• Sleeping bag: While it's nice to have one that saves from freezing down to -20°C, it would be nicer to have one that saves a few pounds. Need to get a summer sleeping bag.
• Large towel: A must have, but mine was too large; should just be large enough to get you dry after a shower, no more.
• Small towel: Unneeded and unused, as I had the large towel.
• Computer mouse: Unused. ThinkPads have the TrackPoint, which (after some practice) is a very adequate replacement.
• Sun glasses: Unused. Ok, that's just me.
• Lockpicking set: Unused. I guess it's just the CCC with all the lockpickers, but not Debian. I did not ask though.

Ok, this would not save a great lot, but at least a bit. A smaller iso matress might be handy too.

Well, that's it. I thank all those reading my blogs for their attention, and after (rough guess, added car distances) 6600km of train travel plus some 470 km by ferry and 417 by car, not to mention the few by bus, after three weeks and a day and 15 postcards: This was worthwile journy. Although I did not have enough time and spend probably more time in the trains than outside (not counting DebConf), and all that becose of the upcoming exam on Tuesday, the reason for my haste. And what now: Leaving Göteborg in study-kind rainy weather, I find Karlsruhe in extreme heat. Let's see how much studying will come from this...