Ohio, Canton, Akron USA Days 6 to 7

Day 6 (Oct 17)
Spent most of the day at the university again, but not before having lunch which was at Chipotle. I had some kind of Mexican burrito bowl.

Later in the evening we attended this event held at one of the university halls.  The topic of discussion was about the rise of China, that was interesting but I disagreed with some of the points they made.  For one China was a closed society until George Bush visited them in the 1970s, and that opened up China's borders.  That event led to their rise.  China was made and designed to rise, it is all part of a plan.  One of the speakers also said that Africa was a country (haha) and that the US were never good at industry!  That alone was enough to give me a heart attack.  She needs a history lesson because after World War 2 the US were the only country left in the world with manufacturing capability.  Every other country was decimated.  The US manufactured real things and sold to the rest of the world, the US had the world reserve currency because it was backed by something that represents money, gold.  Those two things represent why the US became an economic superpower.  Today the US dollar is backed by nothing and most of the world's manufacturing has been off-shored to China due to "cheap labour costs" (aka currency manipulation) or today's new word replacement for "slavery".  A service industry never works and never will work which is what the US has become.  By the way did you also know that if you open up a company in China you have to provide them with your patents?  Yes, so the Chinese are literally getting US technology for free.  And you wonder why they are rising?  Better start learning Chinese.

After the event we hung out back at K's parents place.  I also picked up my Back to the Future shoes.  They're sitting now in my room.  Will update this post later to include those photos.

Day 7 (Oct 18)
Had lunch in Chinatown at Superior Pho, and that was really good.  After that I went to the airport and caught the 11 hour flight back to Oslo.

Ohio, Canton, Akron USA Days 1 to 5

So I'm typing this in my hotel room and I've been in Ohio for 5 days now.  This week's been well, reflective in many ways and plain-crazy-wtf-am-I-doing-here, feel like I've jumped-back-in-a-time-machine in others.  To say a lot has been spinning around in my head is an understatement.  I'll try to summarise what's been happening.  I haven't been taking a lot of photos so this post will most likely be mostly words.

Day 1 (Oct 12)
Arrived in Cleveland at 5:45pm after flying for 12 hours from Oslo to Newark then Newark to Ohio.  Amazing how I could just tell it wasn't Norway that I was going to just the air stewardess was so much friendlier than what I would encounter normally.  The customer service is so much better.  Maybe I've been living in Norway for too long and am becoming to accustomed to just silent people.  My experience at customs was interesting.. while I was queueing up in the customs line the police officer asked me a bunch of questions about my shirt (Liberty or Death that's what my shirt says) and she had no idea who Alex Jones is, so I told her.  She asked why I was in the US and when I told her she told me she was freaking out for me haha!  Anyway it was fine.  The customs officer who attended to me wanted to look at my crazy blue hair (I have received lots of comments with regards to my hair, people love it including little kids) and said she thought I was a teenager and asked if this was the first time I was in the US (because I had a new passport, my 3rd to be precise).  Which is so far from what I am.

Arriving in Cleveland, K picked me up and on time so that was nice.  I was expecting an arrival hall but there wasn't any, so it was a nice surprise when I felt someone's hand against mine and it was her.  It was really good to see a real person behind a camera.  I don't know how to describe it but there you go.  Seeing someone in the flesh is far better than just videoing.  Our first stop was China town where we had some Chinese food for dinner.  I had a smash burger earlier at the Newark airport but I can always have more food. :)  The food was really cheap but that's because every single thing is cheap compared to Norway!  After that we went to Walmart, because it's my biggest dream in life to visit Walmart (no not really) and I had to get some food and bathroom supplies.  Also stopped off at Giant Eagle which is another big chain that sold food.  I bought non fluoridated water there, some bananas and pistachios.  Then it was hotel check in time, I also picked up other things at the hotel that I had bought online and had them shipped to.  If I had them shipped to Norway it would've cost me a lot more and I would've had to pay a lot more in taxes as well.  They had self serve check outs here in the shops, which is like in Australia, probably built by the same company too.  But those do not exist in Norway.

My hotel room is rather big, I was put on the 3rd floor where you need a keypass to access.  It's nice actually.  I wasn't expecting something this big, but there you go.  It's probably as big if not bigger than my apartment in Norway.  That summed up Day 1 in general.  I have no idea what time I fell asleep, but I had no jet lag whatsoever.  The first day felt so unreal.

Another Made In China mart located somewhere in Canton

Day 2 (Oct 13)
We had lunch at an indian place near us, and that was good.  Buffett. :)  Nom nom.  I miss eating out.  It's cheaper for me to eat out here than cooking meals at home in Norway, so win win.  However what irks me is the tipping which I feel should just be included in the final bill.  Where else on Earth in the world does tipping exist?  Also it's great to find toilets where you do not have to pay.  Unlike in Europe!

After lunch we visited the Akron Zoo.  That was good, would've been better if more exhibits were open!  There was an entire tiger section but that wasn't open.

High on Starbucks?

This bear kept pawing the glass like a windshield wiper.  I think he/she has OCD.

Jellyfish with enoki like tentacles and cauliflower attachments.

After the zoo we went to the university, parked the car and K had to attend to some university things (I am so glad I left university years ago), we printed some restaurant coupons as well and then we walked to the Art Museum.  That was interesting.  It showcased work done by people who lived in that area.  It rained for a short time after that and we tried to wait it out but eventually just bit the bullet, used some plastic bags as makeshift umbrellas and caught the university roo bus (Why is a kangaroo?  Roos aren't native here!  But anyway...) back to campus and then drove back to the hotel.

Polymer science building at the University of Akron.

Dinner was at Loby's Bar and Grille.  We had a late dinner.  Two pizzas and a greek salad for a price of $3.  Can't even get a 250ml bottle of coke for that price in Norway!

Day 3 (Oct 14)
I spent the day at University of Akron, it was China week.  K sang a Chinese song, which she loves to do, sing that is.  We also played pool at the Student Union.

Day 4 (Oct 15)
Had sushi lunch and that was good.  Still not as good as the sushi in Norway but it's cheaper at least.  We went to a gluten free thing after that followed by shopping at a nearby mall.  I went to Macy's and bought some things there.  There's so much variety here.  Things I never knew existed and yet wanted!!  At 5:45pm we left and drove to a diner where K's parents and family were waiting.  That was funny.  Haha!  It was just an interesting time.  One of her relatives works in Cisco Ohio, actually.  Small world.  After dinner we went to Target to shop, or rather her mum's sister wanted to so we kinda tagged along.  I went to their house afterwards and saw the shoes that I bought a month ago.  And went through heaps of K's old high school photos.  And watched two episodes of Dharma and Greg.

Day 5 (Oct 16)
This was a short day.  Lunch at Red Robin, then shopping at Best Buy.  Dinner was at a Chinese takeaway where K worked over summer.

I'll write more later as I'm going to go off soon.  It's a warm, sunny day in Akron!

Prelude to the USA

So I'm flying to Ohio today (12th Oct) and that should be good.  I'm going to meet a friend who I met off a rather well known video website, which is just completely unexpected and random.  It feels so surreal.  A year ago if you asked me if all of this was going to happen I would've said not in a million years.  Crazy exciting times lie ahead, and that's how life should be.  Flying to New York Newark Airport from Gardemoen then catching a flight to Cleveland.  I've got to try to catch some sleep now even though I probably won't be sleeping much if at all!

Techzone 2011 - Oslofjord convention centre

Techzone is a technical conference organised by Cisco Norway (formerly Tandberg).  Every year the entire company goes on a short escape to somewhere fun, which have included venues outside of Norway such as Barcelona.  This year it was held in Oslo from the 12th to 13th of September (Yes, I'm just a few weeks late in blogging this. :)) at the Oslofjord convention centre (which is apparently owned by a Christian cult group called "Smiths Venner").

Lanyard with program attached.  Notice the Norglish. ;)

Program for Days one and two

Day one

Work arranged shuttle buses to take us to Tønsberg at 10am.  I almost missed the bus because I woke up late due to the alarm not going off but I made it in the nick of time.  I sat next to a taiwanese work colleague on board the bus, she studied in Sweden then came to Norway to work.  Apparently I'm a topic of discussion at work amongst the Asian girls who wonder where I'm from.  She didn't give herself an English name even though she is living here and in fact she tells everyone her hanyu pinyin name so everyone calls her by her actual Chinese name.

Anyway, we arrived at 12pm according to plan and checked in.  The weather was not very good on Monday, it was grey, cold and frankly, just bloody awful.

Giant chess board outside the entrance.

I was allocated house 211.  Here's photos of our accomodation.  Ground floor.

Upper floor.  8 beds!  There's also another bedroom on the ground floor but I took the upper floor.

If you get drunk good luck going up and down these steps without breaking your neck.

Shirt and other misc. The design looks like a rip off of the Wall-e robot.

Also took photos of the surrounding area.

We were supposed to be sharing the house with a house mate, but I had no idea who my house mate is or even if I was going to have one at that point, but anyway after that I went off to the conference centre and had lunch with the rest of the team.  Also attended three technical sessions.  A hardware one, one related to testing and the other related to C which I found the most interesting.  All speakers were internal since this is a Cisco only event.

We had dinner at 830pm but not before a welcome session kicked off by one of the SVPs in the company.  The other VP was in San Jose.

To the left, Norway.  To the right, USA.  The magic of technology.

Dinner.  It wasn't very filling but it was tasty.  Meat was a bit salty though.  Also no vegetarian option.  I heard some poor Indian woman only had asparagus for dinner.  Eek.

I thought this was a starter.  It wasn't.

Dinner was followed by "So You Think You Can Invent".  Several teams presented their idea, and the judges (Two judges were in Norway and the other two were in the US.) decide on the top three and then the audience decides on who is the winner by cheering the loudest, which was measured.  The winner walks away with $1000 US.  That was cool, hopefully some ideas will actually be implemented rather than just remain as ideas!

The party started at 10pm, the most important part of Techzone. ;)  Just check out the photos!

Angry birds, run, jump and don't break any body parts

Shuffle board, little doughnuts on sand

This proved to be my undoing.. sprained my wrist from hitting it too many times.  Ouch.

We were trying to get two player mode to work and eventually we figured it out.

Foosball!

Cisco band

At 230am we had an after party held at some other houses.  I tagged along and eventually went back with my house mate (someone from the other team that I know, which is good!) to crash at 330am or something like that.

Day two

Day two was literally a pain from my sprained wrist which had become huge and swollen but I tried to make the best use of it.  I didn't sleep at all because of my wrist, woke up and spend a large amount of time icing it.

Breakfast was served at our door.

Food!!  Energy!!

There were morning sessions but I didn't attend any.  Instead I waited for the BBQ lunch at the beach which was burgers.  And ice cream.

Of course we also had fun and games.

Jenga

Human foosball!

Connect Four

More Angry Birds

There was also some climbing activities at Himalaya Park which is about a 10 minute walk away.  So we went to check that out.

You attach a climbing harnass to yourself and go on various obstacles set up between the trees.

Before the last remaining technical sessions at 5pm I walked back and snapped some more photos of the area.

Mushroom mushroom...

Near the beach area.  Apparently the night before some guys who couldn't swim went skinny dipping and there was a life guard who had to keep watch.

Dinner was tacos, which was rather average.  We attended the last few sessions then I caught the 1030pm bus back to the office.  Didn't get home till after midnight.  It was a fun two days.