Switzerland Day 2

Early in the morning, we went to Eurocar to pick up the car. The car was very new. I had no idea at all where we were on the map. But W drove first to Bern, then the Chateau de Chillon, Interlaken, then finally the Jung Frau. Didn't take the tram to the top, was a pity... :p In the French speaking region, we had lunch in a small town. There is a COOP though. :p I paid this time Euro as Franc. The woman at COOP spoke something to me in French, of course I didn't understand... :p Chateau de Chillon and Bern DC was run out of battery. I will probably buy a new DC when I go back to HK.... :p At night he cooked the dinner. I saw on the street the Doener in Zurich doubled the price in my uni-town in Germany (which is already an expensive town). Swiss stuff which I bought with my coins

Switzerland Day 1 in Zurich

This episode of my adventure in Europe is to visit my mother's friend's son W in Zurich. I arrived there in 11am by DB and could not contact him until 3pm. Then, the problem was execgerated: Me in Zurich => Mum in HK => Mum's friend in HK => Mum's friend's 2nd son in UK => W in Zurich; where => is a phone call.. I walked along the Bahnhofstrasse, within 3 hours I've visited all the churches on the map, took a look at Manor's food court, etc. Jo described it like a very big city: full of brands, stylish people, and is a must-go for a 2nd time, to me it is a little bit difficult to understand. I thought it's one of the 4th biggest financial centers comparable to NYC, London, HK... :p St Peter's Church und Fremd-Munster Then I was in the tiny X'mas market at the HBf, met W, went to his apartment, had dinner at Altstadt. The only big city feeling about Zurich is the soaring high living-cost: housing, food, transportation etc. Markt and X'mas lights at Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich

Crazy schedule for 24th

09-12 Wilhemstr. Kurs 12.30-14 Sand Projekt-Besprecherung [20 min gap for lunch] 15.05-16 Mensa Tandem [60 min gap for going to supermarket + cooking for dinner party] 18-20 Molstr. Kurs 19.30-? Molstr. thanks-giving dinner [remaining night, packing for Zurich + wake up early next morning]

換錢...

今日花左大半日研究去 Zurich 玩o的乜... 睇o的飲食介紹... 一般平既都係 Fr. 10+... 正係度諗，夠竟即係幾多港紙... 而後發現自己連去餐廳食都有錢俾... 但係我原本只係想唱 200 蚊港紙... 跟住即刻知道出事... 冇啦啦唱左 200 Euro 既 Franken... 呢個錯誤可能會令我係德國唔夠錢洗...

Learning from mistakes

Now I understand why some people plan for a week what they eat on each day... If you don't have time to go to a supermarket often, and then you buy in large quantities, it is very important to buy: 1) the right amount of quantity, and 2) the right combination of food (Yet a thrid concern is when the food are expensive, and you are living on a tight budget) so that you can consume all the food in a particular sequence before any of them becomes rot, and desirably also lead a balanced diet. The lessons I learnt over the days: 1) 2 out of 3 lemons were rot 2) 1-2 out of 10 mandarins were rot 3) 1/2 bottle of milk turned bad 4) Bought too much toasts, so that even if I had 4 slices/day, both for lunch and for dinner, I couldn't finish them before the expiry date.

ein Vater Process

A "parent process" is called "ein Vater Process" in German. Now it's time to think about why in English it is a "single parent", and why the translation in German is not "ein Eltern Process" (note 1) nor "ein Mutter Process" (note 2) (note 1) In German, probably Eltern is a plural noun, which can never be used for a "single" process. (note 2) "ein Mutter Process" looks somewhat like foul language, maybe that's the reason?!

Day-off

In the morning I went to the Uni Kasse to collect my $$. Then I met Chiara. I suggested maybe we better visit the innerstadt instead of my wohnheim becasue she has no semester ticket. We were in an Italienisch Einscafe, for 2,40 Euro there are 3 Kuegels. All the staff members in the shop are from Italy. We discussed about the living cost in different cities. Then I visited her Wohnnung, to me that is very big. We chatted for 4-5 hours (until her bf is back) on different topics: her photos, our language courses, foods, languages (and she taught me how to pronounce 'r' , I'm now very clear, but I simply can't vibrate the right part), the importance of languages in European unification... And I didn't expect I'd have spent a whole afternoon. Now my revision, homework, and thesis have problems. She will teach me how to make Tiramisu? At night I went to the Bridge course again. So "Buergel" studies Astronomie, the other 2 students study BWL and Geschieste. On the bus home, I met Yang, and we will meet this Sat for dinner.

Einstufungspruefung

Today I had a oral Einstufungspruefung from the ISP. The arragement is as usual, like a mess. I don't know why they can't assign a particular timeslot instead of having a crowd of students waiting outside the room without queuing. But because of this mess, I get to know an Italian girl. I have finished the programming part of my first "exercise" for the CS course. The exercise was supposed to be finished by a group of 2-3 students, and I group with a mainland girl. But it was a terrible experience... Finally I completed the programming part alone, with the extra load of solving her programming problems. She anwered the written part of the questions, but I simply cannot agree with her interpretation of a question, and I could not convince her, and finally I submitted another version of answer, and our "group" is deformed... OMG!!! :p At night I had my Bridge course, 2nd lesson. The German student (Buergel?) was very nice to ask if he should teach the course in English, but the other German students seem to be quite reluctant, and thus I answered: "Du kannst auch auf Deutsch machen. Ich versuche zu verstehen" -_-"" Then, I understood what is a language barrier. And Buergel was very responsible to ask me questions regularly to check if I understand. LOL. I was able to catch the simple rules, but was clearly didn't able to catch as much as the German students. At night, I worked until 3am on my own version of answers for the CS exercise, spending time on both reading the notes, and finding helps for translating my answers from English to German.

Frage: Wozu gibt es UDP? Haette es genuegt, die Benutzerprozesse einfache rohe IP-Paketesenden zu lassen? Begruende deine Antwort! Anwort: UDP ist für Netzwerkanwendungen, wie z.b. die Übertragung von Dateien und Medien, verantwortlich; welche während der Dattenübertagung ein bestimmtesMaß an Datenverlust und Fehler tolerieren können. Wegen der Einfachheit des UDP Protokolls (z.B. ist es verbindungslos und nichtzuverlässig) ist das UDP Protokoll für leichte oder zeitkritische Anwendungenschneller und effizienter. Nein, rohe ip-Pakete sind nicht ausreichend, weil UDP Funktionen wie z.B. multiplexing und Daten-Checksumme auf die Spitze eines IP Datagramms hinzufügt.

This is for me an important milestone... :p