First Report
Hi Readers!
As I promised l start my weblog today to keep you all informed.
I arrived at saturday 9p.m. after a 24 hours trip. I only wrote a few e-mails with Juana who is the coordinator of IAESTE Panama a few weeks ago, no address, no phone number. Actually I was not sure if someone will pick me up on the airport. Fortunately, Karla and another girl from Panama City University brought me to my new flat. I am sharing a room with a graduate from Panama, his name is Eddy. The other 2 guys in the flat are Edward (Ed) from Manchester, UK and Nicolas from france. Nicolas spends his whole time in lectures and the gym. Ed does some Java 3D stuff I don't understand. After meeting them all, I went to bed...
The first day abroad is always a bit confusing. I was lucky and Ed asked me if I'd like to go to Isla Taboga, a small Island on the Archipello de Panama. Spent a nice day there having a lot of sun, fish and a couple of beers. Had a bad jetlag... tired during the day, awake on 4 a.m.... that really sucks. It was also very hot on the first day, but it is better now, it was just a heat wave on Sunday and Monday.
Monday was my first day at work. Fortunately, Ed brought me to my new office. I am working here with 6 other people from panama: Ernesto, Belkys, Oscar, Salvador, Carlos (Charly), and Kevin. They are all very friendly and glad about the chance to learn some english, and maybe also some words in german, although they are joking about the sound of the german language.
My first task was to set up a webserver using apache, php, openSSL, and MySQL. The basis OS was SuSE Linux 9.3, but they asked me to compile all components rather than using SuSE packages, which took me the whole day (on a PIII 600 MHz %-). They also asked me for my opinion for a problem they have with authentication here. I felt very honored...
Had lunch at the canteen, the food was quite the same as in europe: lentils sauce (Ger: linsensause) and stewed beef. Went to bed early, after sharing a can of beer with Ed.
On Tuesday I made some final steps with my SuSE server. Afterwards I tried to find a solution for the authentication problem. We went out for lunch in a fast food pizza restaurant called Dominos. Eddy (my roommate) came by later on the afternoon and asked me for help with his server which should host a Java Server Faces application on which he writes a whole year now. After coming into trouble with his machine I decided to go home.
I felt very curious this day and asked Eddy if he could take me to Dorado, an american style shopping mall. It was very interesting, had to ask in 5 stores if they have an universal connector for my laptop power supply. After rain set in, I bought an umbrella as well as a new backpack to stow all my new stuff. Finally I fetched a six pack of Atlas (panamesian beer) for 2$ which saved my day :-)
On my way home I took the bus. The bus system is fascinating here. Each bus only drives on one street, for a standard price of 25 cents. The busses are old large Ford busses just like in Cuba. Some of them are customized really nice, with chrome exhaust pipes, incredible HiFi equipment, and lots of Airbrush drawings.
I took a shortcut to see the Hindu Temple which is placed on a small hill near my flat. Panama has really everything I suppose.
Today is Wednesday. I tried to fix Eddies server, but they didn't let me in. When Ernesto came to the office he helped me out and I spent 3 hours in the other office fixing Eddies server. When I came back, my colleagues where quite busy. They locked themselves out of some Sun machine, a common problem for sysops ;-)
So... my first 4 days are gone now. I like it here. The people are friendly, and the equipment here in the university is as modern as in europe. The weather is not mine, its too hot (32°) and humid (90%) for me. The building I work in has air condition, so I wear a pullover when I am inside and sweat when I am outside. Thats somewhat weird in my view of the universe.
The only problem (outside) is that I don't speak spanish... but I am getting better every day :-)
So... thanks for your attention. I will post some pictures as soon as I've made some ;-) I'll ask Ed to give me his pix from out Isla Tobaga trip.
Greetings from Panama,
Martin
As I promised l start my weblog today to keep you all informed.
I arrived at saturday 9p.m. after a 24 hours trip. I only wrote a few e-mails with Juana who is the coordinator of IAESTE Panama a few weeks ago, no address, no phone number. Actually I was not sure if someone will pick me up on the airport. Fortunately, Karla and another girl from Panama City University brought me to my new flat. I am sharing a room with a graduate from Panama, his name is Eddy. The other 2 guys in the flat are Edward (Ed) from Manchester, UK and Nicolas from france. Nicolas spends his whole time in lectures and the gym. Ed does some Java 3D stuff I don't understand. After meeting them all, I went to bed...
The first day abroad is always a bit confusing. I was lucky and Ed asked me if I'd like to go to Isla Taboga, a small Island on the Archipello de Panama. Spent a nice day there having a lot of sun, fish and a couple of beers. Had a bad jetlag... tired during the day, awake on 4 a.m.... that really sucks. It was also very hot on the first day, but it is better now, it was just a heat wave on Sunday and Monday.
Monday was my first day at work. Fortunately, Ed brought me to my new office. I am working here with 6 other people from panama: Ernesto, Belkys, Oscar, Salvador, Carlos (Charly), and Kevin. They are all very friendly and glad about the chance to learn some english, and maybe also some words in german, although they are joking about the sound of the german language.
My first task was to set up a webserver using apache, php, openSSL, and MySQL. The basis OS was SuSE Linux 9.3, but they asked me to compile all components rather than using SuSE packages, which took me the whole day (on a PIII 600 MHz %-). They also asked me for my opinion for a problem they have with authentication here. I felt very honored...
Had lunch at the canteen, the food was quite the same as in europe: lentils sauce (Ger: linsensause) and stewed beef. Went to bed early, after sharing a can of beer with Ed.
On Tuesday I made some final steps with my SuSE server. Afterwards I tried to find a solution for the authentication problem. We went out for lunch in a fast food pizza restaurant called Dominos. Eddy (my roommate) came by later on the afternoon and asked me for help with his server which should host a Java Server Faces application on which he writes a whole year now. After coming into trouble with his machine I decided to go home.
I felt very curious this day and asked Eddy if he could take me to Dorado, an american style shopping mall. It was very interesting, had to ask in 5 stores if they have an universal connector for my laptop power supply. After rain set in, I bought an umbrella as well as a new backpack to stow all my new stuff. Finally I fetched a six pack of Atlas (panamesian beer) for 2$ which saved my day :-)
On my way home I took the bus. The bus system is fascinating here. Each bus only drives on one street, for a standard price of 25 cents. The busses are old large Ford busses just like in Cuba. Some of them are customized really nice, with chrome exhaust pipes, incredible HiFi equipment, and lots of Airbrush drawings.
I took a shortcut to see the Hindu Temple which is placed on a small hill near my flat. Panama has really everything I suppose.
Today is Wednesday. I tried to fix Eddies server, but they didn't let me in. When Ernesto came to the office he helped me out and I spent 3 hours in the other office fixing Eddies server. When I came back, my colleagues where quite busy. They locked themselves out of some Sun machine, a common problem for sysops ;-)
So... my first 4 days are gone now. I like it here. The people are friendly, and the equipment here in the university is as modern as in europe. The weather is not mine, its too hot (32°) and humid (90%) for me. The building I work in has air condition, so I wear a pullover when I am inside and sweat when I am outside. Thats somewhat weird in my view of the universe.
The only problem (outside) is that I don't speak spanish... but I am getting better every day :-)
So... thanks for your attention. I will post some pictures as soon as I've made some ;-) I'll ask Ed to give me his pix from out Isla Tobaga trip.
Greetings from Panama,
Martin
posted by Martin Loitzl at 13:36
1 Comments:
I appreciate comments from home... here's the best place for them :-)
Kommentare sind herzlich willkommen ... hier der beste Platz dafür :-) Auch in Deutsch, keine Sorge
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