diff --git a/content/blog/wk11day1.md b/content/blog/wk11day1.md index 7341220..1b73b1e 100644 --- a/content/blog/wk11day1.md +++ b/content/blog/wk11day1.md @@ -1,7 +1,67 @@ --- -title: "Week 11, Monday:" +title: "Week 11, Monday: Zurich to Piacenza" date: 2024-10-07T21:55:00+02:00 -draft: true --- -{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/todo.png" alt="Credit: " >}} +{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/cyberlopod.png" alt="Credit: CYBERLOPOD, YouTube" >}} + +Today we drive from Zurich to Piacenza, Italy. Marina has her Monday drawing course in Oerlikon, and +I promise to pick her up at the Oerlikon station at noon. In the morning, I pack up the car and grab +our belongings. I have to say, NOGs are a very social phenomenon. How I got to Piacenza is perhaps a +typical route: on FOSDEM 2024 I presented on VPP and MPLS. In the audience there was one Kostas from +Athens, who organizes the GRNOG series of conferences. He asked if I would be interested to come +present my work there. I was more than happy to join GRNOG'16 and it would be a good chance for me +to re-record the talk, as at FOSDEM unfortunately the microphone battery died shortly after I +started presenting, which made the recording unusable. + +So off to Greece we went, and it was a truly wonderful time. At GRNOG, I met one Alessandro from +Italy. As we were having dinner with the folks from LANCOM (a datacenter operator and telco from +Thessaloniki), Marina sat at the _Italian_ side with Livio and Alessandro, and when I came over to +chat, they both said it'd be fun to have me in the upcoming ITNOG _On The Road_ edition, which would +be in the home town of Alessandro and his company [[Naquadria](https://naquadria.it)]. Well, since +Zurich - Piacenza is only 4.5hrs or so by car, I thought: why not? + +Fast forward to today, I picked up Marina in Oerlikon after a brief runaround due to roadworks at +the train station, and we made our way down South. I consider myself truly blessed to be able to +humblebrag that just two weeks ago, I was all the way up North in Oslo, and now I'm finding myself +driving all the way South to Piacenza. + +The drive down is leisurely and calm. Somewhere along the line I drive past Luzern, where IP-Max has +a new point of presence at the Stollen datacenter; and then I drive past Altdorf, where IP-Max used +to have a really cool Point of Presence at Deltalis DK2 in a former military bunker (sadly, Deltalis +went out of business so we all moved out); and then I drive past Manno, where IP-Max has a point of +presence at the Bancadati datacenter. It's so cool to be always only a few kilometers away from an +AS25091 PoP! Maybe we'll pull a wire over the Alps at some point and go to Italy as well. + +Lucky us - the Gottard tunnel is completely free of traffic. This is a looooong tunnel! I put the +cruise control to 80km/h (50mph) and .. wait. It takes a good fifteen minutes to drive through this +tunnel, which is truly a magificent work of civil engineering. I think my appreciation of the +engineering quality definitely goes up if there are no traffic jams :) + +We make our way to Milan, drive past it on the motor way to Bologna and about one third of the way, +we see the offramp for Piacenza, which is our $dest for the first half of the week. We make our way +to the hotel, Marina is glad that I'm driving - you must know: compared to the german and swiss +driving style, italian drivers are a fair bit more _artisanale_ and things like blinkers and full +lines are all optional, and actually in several places there simply _are no_ road markings at all. + +But, when in Italy, drive like an Italian. And I am happy to oblige, to great amusement of my +copilot. Piacenza is a nice town, and (luckily for us) parking in the city center is pretty easy. We +take dinner in a small restaurant called Antonietta. We enjoy some starters with (italian) tapas, +and then both go for fish: Marina takes spaghetti Vongole (English: clams), and I take a Branzino +filet (Ebglish: seabass). + +After dinner we walked back to the car, and then the hotel, where we turn in for the night. + +## Pictures of the Day + +{{< gallery-category >}} + {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-07/IMG_1864.JPG" caption="on the way down south, we passed Altdorf in Uri. In this mountain, Deltalis DK2 was situated." >}} + {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-07/IMG_1870.JPG" caption="Rolling down the Alps on the south side, is a very efficient use of energy. Ticino is at lower elevation than Zurich, so in general, we gained energy :-)" >}} + {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-07/IMG_1871.JPG" caption="Rolling past Manno near Lugano, Italy. Here, Bancadati has an IP-Max point of presence." >}} + {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-07/IMG_1872.JPG" caption="A church in Piazenca, Italy." >}} + {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-07/IMG_1875.JPG" caption="A selfie of Marina and I are at Antonietta in Piacenza, Italy" >}} + {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-07/IMG_1880.JPG" caption="The Tiramisu was served in a coffeecup, and tasted very nice" >}} +{{< /gallery-category >}} + +{{< gallery-modal >}} +{{< gallery-script >}}