Re: Technical Update Days - Trip report Germany, Italy, Switzerland (part 1)

susan_skonetski_at_hotmail.com
Date: 10/28/05 

Date: 27 Oct 2005 20:33:41 -0700

Just letting you know that Ken Farmer has posted a couple of pictures
for me (about 10 out of several hundred) on openvms.org.

Warm Regards,
Sue

susan_skonetski@hotmail.com wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Skonetski, Susan
> Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2005 3:14 PM
> To: Skonetski, Susan
> Subject: Technical Update Days - Trip report Germany, Italy,
> Switzerland (part 1)
>
>
> Dear Folks,
>
> Well I am back from the European portion of the OpenVMS Technical
> Update Days. It was really wonderful to be with so many friends that I
> have not seen in awhile and in some cases never even met before. I
> have broken this in two parts for your sake and mine. This is a
> general trip report on the European OpenVMS Technical Update Days this
> is Part one (Germany, Italy, Switzerland)
>
> Some things that may interest you. There is now an Italian and French
> openvms.org and a German one is coming. This is all being done on a
> volunteer basis. Every location the agenda was changed and the team
> was of course flexible as they always are. We had one on one meetings
> and one on many customer visits.
>
> Team was Guy Peleg, Andy Goldstein, Richard Bishop, Doug Gordon, Norm
> Lastovica (Oracle Rdb), Brad McCusker, Sunil Kumaran, Philippe Vigier
> (Oracle Rdb), Yanick Pouffary. And for the first time we had VMS
> management representation Paul LaCombe, Jim Lancianni, Jim Janetos,
> MaryJane Vazquez.
>
> We started in Germany (Sept 26-27 Mon-Tues)We stay at the Steineberger
> hotel, it is a lovely location with a park across the street and this
> year for some reason there is a Mazda in the lobby. When Andy G.
> arrived the first thing he did was get under the car and say "now I
> feel at home". This is the third or fourth year in this location and
> you know how there is a sterotype that Germans are reserved and not
> friendly. Its just not true, they are warm, kind with a great sense of
> humor. The room was packed and on the second day one of the customers
> said that he was sorry the his friend could not be there but they
> needed to sign a PO for over 4M (VMS of course). I was ok with that.
> The room that we use is right above a micro brew place and our hosts
> were Guenter Krieble (VMS Ambassadover) and Thomas Siebold (VMS
> Ambassador). Every time we visit we meet new folks and they are so
> excited about VMS, its a buzz.
>
> Tuesday (27th) night after reviewing the feedback forms we flew to Rome
> Italy. Wed (28) was supposed to be the travel day but I have never
> been to Italy before and wanted to see Rome. If you have never been to
> Italy it is a not to be missed experience. The taxi ride from the
> airport to the hotel with a driver and Guy Peleg was an experience in
> itself, the entire goal was to keep two tires on the road at one time
> while traveling at 100 miles an hour, any more than that is not
> permitted. Arrive Holiday Inn somewhere 50 or so Euro's from the
> Airport.
>
> Wednesday (28th) The hotel has a free shuttle to down town Rome. On
> the way we notice a lot of soldiers with automatic weapons (this comes
> into play later). The bus drops us (Doug, Norm, Guy and myself) off in
> front of a café. They need coffee and I need a diet coke (bad, its an
> addiction). So we walk around the block, its beautiful little alleys
> with sculptures. We find a place, I have no idea what to order so I
> get a coffee (I hate coffee) its in a little cup and looks like 10w40
> motor oil then one of them mention that there is a cooler with coke
> lite and I am gone. We walk out the door and see groups of people
> walking up this huge staircase so we follow them. At the top a
> panorama unfolds, acres of ancient ruins, it's the Pantheon, there is
> the Arch of Constine, I even saw where Julius Caesar was buried. We
> walked around the outside of the Coliseum. Then we are off to see the
> Trevi Fountain with lunch on the way. We do not want to eat at some
> tourist trap the problem with that is that none of us speak any Italian
> except Guido Pelago knows a few words (that would be Guy). So we end
> up in a small very crowded resturant and I still do not know what we
> had but it was good, and there were two very nice men and the table
> next to us that helped me order. The Trevi Fountain is huge and is
> built on the site of the earliest fountian in Rome, the water travels
> 20KM there were probably 2 thousand people here half of them selling
> something. Next stop is the Spanish steps of all the sights this was
> the least exciting, they are a set of stairs surrounded by designer
> shops. The truth is I do not know the story behind them so there is
> probably something very cool about them. Its time to head back for the
> bus and dinner at the hotel and get ready for the TUD.
>
> Thursday (29th) Rome TUD HP office in Rome, the team hosting us here is
> so wonderful Emanualla (half of the marketing team coordinating the
> event) is here she is very competent very nice and beautiful too. We
> have the Ambassadors as well and they have arranged to show a mixed
> architecture cluster which the customer love. Now you remember I
> mentioned about the soldiers with the automatic weapons, well it seems
> that there is some sort of terrorist activity in Rome and they have
> shut down the subway so most of the audience can not get to the event.
> This is sad for us but some folks make it and we do the event for them.
> When the day is done, we leave for the airport and head to Milan for
> the Friday TUD.
>
> Friday (30th) Milan Italy HP Office. Now all the Ambassadors Emanualla
> and Leila the Marketing team and a large audience are here. And Mauro
> who has volunteered to do the Italian vms.org is there as well as our
> friends from the Polytechnic who were also speaking I have a great
> picture of this group at the end of the day. This evening I went out to
> dinner with Doug, Andy and Margie Goldstein to a wonderful restaurant
> probably one of the best on the entire trip. No one spoke English
> which was a good start, the hostess maybe owner was wonderful and kind
> and I had what ever she recommended.. This was the first time we had
> done the Tad's in Italy and I hope it will not be the last.
>
> Weekend: Oct1-2
> When we knew we were going to be in Milan on Friday Guy and I had
> talked about driving to Zurich our next stop. This is one of the
> highlights of the entire 3 weeks.
>
> Saturday Oct 1
>
> Guy and Norm pick up the rental car from the airport, we were not sure
> of the size and if it would fit four people so the plan b was to take a
> train. Fortunately the car was a station wagon so we could all go
> together. We start our road trip and it is a beautiful warm sunny day.
> Our first stop is the very lovely village called Sirmone which is on
> Lake Garda. It is a walled village and the lake is beautiful and
> obviously very wealthy, we stay about an hour and all go our separate
> ways and I take about 50 photographs. The air has changed from city air
> to mountain air since the lake is surrounded by mountains. I should
> probably add here that the guys are great to travel with, and did not
> mind when I had to stop to take pictures which I have hundreds of.
> After Simrione we travel for another hour or so before we stop for
> lunch at yet another perfect place on the lake with the mountains on
> the other side. Our goal for the day is to make the town of Araba for
> a hotel that night which is in the Dolamites. As we drive the
> mountains get steeper and above the tree line it so amazing it takes
> your breath away, we stop at this lake where there are so many greens
> and blues you can not count them and the air is like champagne. The
> sky is a dark clear blue and we get to share it with friends. This is
> pretty fortunate and the day gets even better. Probably the best
> picture I took was on a portion of road where that are 36 hairpin turns
> the sun is going down and I ask Guy to stop and the sun is shining on
> one snow covered mountain. It is getting dark as we roll into the town
> of Araba. We find out that the hotel (SportHotel in Araba) is closing
> the next day for the season and that they will give us a room but has
> to charge us for breakfast and for 55 Euros we get the best room of the
> entire trip. Barbara speaks English and is a sweetheart. Her mother
> is turning 60 the next day and I get to meet this very nice man who
> owns a restaurant just down the road. Guy and his wife have stayed in
> this hotel before, my room was a girl room and had a whirlpool tub with
> a window that could look out the bedroom out the balcony, king-size
> bed, couch, table pretty much everything. Very much a ski lodge place.
> Anyway we go out to dinner and everyone was so nice one of the waiters
> Kiki has been working there for 32 years and Marie Theresa was actually
> born on Staten Island NY but moved back to Italy when she was 2.
> Anyway the owner came over with some Grappa (liquor made from the skin
> of grapes, normally is horrible but this was good) then I got a tour of
> the kitchen and took pictures, I also got a job offer to work at the
> restaurant. But I told them I love what I do.
>
> Sunday Oct 2
>
> After a wonderful nights sleep it's a rainy day and we have to make it
> to Zurich today because we have customer visits on Monday. What we did
> not know is that there was construction on the roads. I have a
> beautiful picture of a castle ruin on the side of the road. We also
> had to go through part of Austria before we got to Switzerland. We
> also got behind some sort of parade. It is amazing how little border
> control there is now between countries. We dropped the car at the
> Zurich Airport with about 500 miles on it, and then took a cab to the
> hotel, we had been on the road for about 10 hours and it was good to
> not be moving.
>
> Monday Oct 3
>
> 8am Raymond Frepple OpenVMS Ambassador meeting Norm, Guy and myself in
> the hotel lobby we have two customer visits today, we take a bus and
> two trains at one of the train stations we get a wireless PCMCIA card
> for my laptop I am having some problems (I am the problem) Guy and Norm
> do an excellent job with the customer its very different to be at a
> site where you are the stranger, what I also noticed was the security,
> its nice to have customers that you know in the room. At about noon we
> leave that customer site and catch the train for an hour trip to Bern
> for another customer visit and we have lunch on the train with Raymond.
> The customer visit goes excellent and is very interactive. We need to
> get back to the hotel where I have to meet the TUD host for a group
> dinner at 8 we actually make it back to the hotel as they are walking
> out. Rene Hanselmann our host for the event took us to this casual
> place where we had cheese fondue, wine and lots of laughter.
>
> Tuesday Oct 4
>
> The technical update in Switzerland is excellent, the room is full
> there are walk-ins and there is even a new person (hobbyiest)who is
> very young. One thing that always amazes me is how many interesting
> places where VMS is being used, just when I think that I have heard all
> the possible places where we are at, then I find another interesting
> customer, that happened in Switzerland. The team did an excellent job
> coordinating the event and the TUD team did a great job delivering.
> Three countries done three to go.