XWiki at Infoeducation

A couple of weeks ago took place the Infoeducatie computer science camp, and XWiki was there, to do a teaser presentation about our platform. I went there with Jerome and Thomas, who was visiting the Iasi office at that time. Although it's been happening for a while and it is the place to be for computer highschool students, I didn't go to the Infoeducation camp ever as a student, but fortunately I grew up to get there as a 'lecturer'.



Our "host" all through the days was Vlad Giurcanu, my computer science teacher from highschool who was there with his (successful) team of students.

We spent two days at the camp, its last two days (it's something around 6 days) and got the strong taste of the computer science at Galaciuc during the Infoeducation camp (in the very nice romanian mountains). We met a lot of interesting people and some of the smart kids there -- it is a very nice place to find out things, to have IT discussions and the crowd there is a very nice gang to hang around. I only wish I did this kind of things earlier...

Then, after the camp, we took a very detoured way home: we crossed the mountains towards Brasov to have lunch with my sister there (who was on holidays from Bucuresti), and to there, we went through Tg Secuiesc and to the Sf. Ana lake. After meeting my sister (I resaw her for the first time after returning from France therefore somehing around 6 months) we took the road back to Barlad through Oituz and Onesti. Vlad drove all this time, in his own very particular way of doing it, yet safe (I did live to write this post).



From Barlad, we, the Iasi guys, took the train to get to work next day, after a tiring weekend but very, very, very nice. And since the pictures (and maps) are worth another 1000 words, here you go: Thomas's and Vlad's (1 and 2) pictures from the camp, and a map I've created.

XWiki Iaşi team @ Durău

The last weekend we gathered 'all' the XWiki Iaşi team to go to the mountains, as some sort of goodbye party for JV who left Iaşi this week. Well, 'all' the XWiki team meant, after all, without Marius (who had some school assignments he had to finish until monday) and without Evelina & Cristi who also had some school deadline changed to monday without notice. Finally, the XWiki team was: me, Raluca, Jerome and Jean-Vincent (JV for short) and Petru (who is a xwikier only 'by association').
Friday afternoon was shopping afternoon ('Let's go to the mall, today!'): after a tough negotiation for boots (J and JV wanted the same shoes and are the same size but there weren't 2 pairs available in the shop), and a 'girlie-girl' shopping style from me (3-4-5-6 shops but no boots for me to like :D) we deviced the next day's wake-up plan and went home.
Saturday morning we left Iaşi at 6:00 am and, after a 'niiiiice' 3 hours trip and some sleep (only for some of us) we arrived in Durău: nice fresh air smell and some snow here-and-there. We checked in at the hotel, grabbed something fast to eat and then left for the trip to Fântânele.

From XWiki @ Durău

Once we got there, we had a cup of hot wine, took some pictures with the nice view and, despite the original plan to get to Fântânele, drink, and then return to Durău, decided to go further until we can see the "Izvorul Muntelui" lake and then return.

From XWiki @ Durau

A kind caban dog lead the way towards Dochia caban: he went on and, when we stopped it stopped and returned to see if we all are OK. At 'La morminte' (around 1300m altitude), the path started to be snowy: it was not dangerous (yet) but still, it was a sign that we cannot go further without proper equipment. We went a little further to see the lake, took pictures (to testify that we indeed were there), Raluca gave her share of food to the dog (who was clearly planning to continue the path to Dochia) and then returned to 'La Morminte'. There we had a nice picnic below 0 degrees Celsius with bread and french camembert. We continued our trip back to Durău through Fântânele and then through 'Poiana Viezuri'. In Durău, we had a romanian dinner with 'Tochitura Moldoveneasca' and red wine at the hotel and a very 'personal' interpretation of some famous international songs from the guy at the keyboard in the hotel restaurant.
Although some of us were very sleepy, the night continued with a delightful cards game, romanian Whist and, upon Raluca's request -- who was tempted by the music she heard from outside, with a visit to the 'disco'. And when I say visit, I mean visit, i.e. 30 minutes. The 'disco' was actually a lame 'village club' (you know the kind of club I'm talking about), which made the visit 2 times more fun!

From XWiki @ Durau

The next day, we were supposed to wake up at 6 o'clock so that we can go to 'Duruitoarea' waterfall too. Of course, I only woke up to make a couple of calls to the others and agree that it is better to sleep on and see more about it later, when everybody was up. At 10, we talked about staying some more and leaving Durău in the evening but the unavailability of the bus seats in the evening ruined our plans. The trip ended with a walk around Durău, a visit to the monastery and some more pictures of the surroundings.

From XWiki @ Durau

The trip back was 'spectacular', as usual in Romanian buses (I really need to buy a car!): a lot of people going in and out of the bus, the driver's stops for each one of them, loud conversations, people crushing into each other to fit the size of the bus, and the eternal travelers that know that the bus might be too crowded but never, ever make reservations, etc, etc.
All in all it was a successful outing, and until the next one, we will enjoy the pictures:

The Bicaz Gorge

As I mentioned in the previous post, the past weekend we took a trip to Sighişoara. We left Iaşi Friday evening at about 18:15, all happy and joyful (except for Cati who was a little nervous). According to Cati's calculae, it was a 345 km trip, which meant about 5-6 hours and yes, we were supposed to do the last part of it in complete darkness but we all fully trusted the superdriver Cati, although she had never been to Sighişoara before and didn't know the places. We equipped ourselves with all the things necessary for camping (because we didn't expect to find any rooms in a hotel on Friday night, at the end of the first day of the festival).

The main attraction of the trip towards Sighişoara was the Bicaz Gorge, at the midpoint, which we would reach somewhere around 21:00 (maybe I forgot to mention that I love mountains :) ).

From Trip to Sighişoara

We divided the tasks: Cati drove and watched the road, Edy was the guy with the map and, together with us, watched the side of road for signs to guide us: since we had never been there before, we were cautious not to get lost, especially inside the towns where we had to watch out for the right turn.
In Roman, Edy was the guide since he grew up there;

From Trip to Sighişoara

in Piatra Neamţ, although we missed the road we had the chance to realize it in time and turned around,

From Trip to Sighişoara

and in Bicaz the road was properly marked (you could not miss the signs even if you tried).

Suddenly, as we were approaching the gorge, Cati noticed that her car makes a strange noise... She lowered her window and we all heard well the concerning noise... We had no idea what it was, but we realized that it wouldn't be wise to continue the trip, as it was getting darker and darker... We returned in Bicaz (when this happened we had only passed it for 3 km or such) looking for a car service. We found one as we (re)entered Bicaz, but it was closed and we had to call the guy and finally go at his house for him to take a look at the car. Unfortunately, he couldn't tell what it was and his suspicions were not restful. Since it got very late (22:00), the smartest thing to do was to spend the night in Bicaz and contact the official car service in Piatra Neamţ the next day. We found some sort of pension there where we ate the sandwiches we brought from home, played some cards, saw the medieval festival on TV (some piece of news showed how happy was everybody visiting Sighişoara) and took a nice sleep.

From Trip to Sighisoara

For the next day, we planned to split: me and Petru would stay in Bicaz and somehow visit the gorge we were so anxious to see and the rest would join Cati to the service, and if the car was fixed in the right time, they would continue the trip and pick us on their way (no, this wasn't the case).

The next day, we found some bus to take us to the entrance in the gorge and then took a 7 km walk to Lacul Roşu, in the middle of the gorge, and back. I'll shut up now, because the pictures are worth a thousand words (each):

From Trip to Sighişoara

All in all, I can declare this a successful weekend: even if we didn't get to the festival we saw some very beautiful places – if you ever get the chance to go to the Bicaz Gorge, don't use a car to pass it, it's not even a long walk and it's really impressive.