Around the Country House. The first two are essentially what I see when I open the door to my apartment. The third one is a building on the estate that is being renovated, the last is our dining room.
Tuesday 30 October 2012
The Country House
Some pictures
Around the Country House. The first two are essentially what I see when I open the door to my apartment. The third one is a building on the estate that is being renovated, the last is our dining room.
Around the Country House. The first two are essentially what I see when I open the door to my apartment. The third one is a building on the estate that is being renovated, the last is our dining room.
Toy Park!
Come on kids! Let's go to TOY PARK!
Cheer up, I said let's go to TOY PARK!
Why are you crying?
Cheer up, I said let's go to TOY PARK!
Why are you crying?
After 2 Days of Training
On arrival at Koenig Dehradun, the first thing you notice is that it is only half built. It does have an upper floor but it is only a concrete shell. It is in an IT park with similarly grand designs. But there are some enormous buildings there that are not occupied, or at best sparsely so. The ground floor of Koenig has 32 labs. I think I have counted, at most, 14 students there. Variously from: Nigeria, Kenya, India, Belgium, Switzerland, Papua New Guinea and USA. Many people are staying for 3, 4, 5 months to take as many Microsoft & Cisco qualifications that exist. To be honest they seem to be treating it as an extended holiday with a bit of added value thrown in. I am the only person here studying Red Hat, which means I get 1-1 tuition. This makes the course even better value, all my queries and problems answered at once.
The first surprise for me was that my trainer was quite a bit younger than me & female. You don't get many women in UNIX. Her name is Shikha, and speaks very good English and generally understands my questions. We have flown through the first course in 2 days. The plan is for course 2 to take up Wed, Thur & Fri. On Saturday we start course 3, which we will finish the following Wednesday with Sunday off for sightseeing.
My last three full days in Dehradun will be exam practice, then exam practice, then more exam practice.
I go back to Delhi by the evening train on Sunday 11th November. Exam on Monday. Then madness descends as Diwali takes over for a day or two. I might try & sneak down to Agra if the exam results are good.
On several recommendations I have booked the Deluxe Inn for my return. I've seen photos and it looks like £13 per night well spent.
Anyway, hugely enjoyable so far if hard work. There is a lot to pack in.
The Journey To Dehradun
The day started with a 05:30 taxi ride to Delhi train station. As in all other parts of Delhi it was teeming with people and general brouhaha. I was in first class, which on first sight didn't look much like first class but actually was very comfortable.
There was masses of room, and waiters kept giving me stuff: a newspaper, bottle of water, tea & biscuits, cornflakes & hot milk, spiced potato cakes with green beans, fruit juice, more tea, bananas.. I slept for a some of it and read the genuinely "laugh out loud" Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman. I figured Red Hat could wait.
In typically efficient Koenig style I was met on the platform by another taxi driver who took me to the Country House. What the Country House is not: warm, luxurious, blessed with superfast wifi. What the Country House is: quiet, relatively secluded, big rooms, nice staff and decent Indian food. Its a relief after Delhi.
The House is around 10km from the centre of Dehradun, and a 25 minute stroll to a village called Rajpur. I took a walk up there to see the monkeys and buy some beers for the fridge.
internet is restricted in the House to a 3G dongle, so I cannot post pictures. They can wait. Right now I'm off to take pictures of massive spiders.
Saturday 27 October 2012
Koenig Inn
Koenig Inn is on Saraswati Marg in Karol Barg. Home to what must be the largest collection of market shops in the world. It is an absolute assault on your senses.
I got loads more like these...loads. Early night tonight as my taxi arrives at 05:30 to take me to Dehradun.
I got loads more like these...loads. Early night tonight as my taxi arrives at 05:30 to take me to Dehradun.
Arrived
The flight, with BA, was OK. I had a French woman sat next to me who'd lost her travelling companions at the airport. They missed a flight connection. So a lot of hullaballoo from her. The food was quite good - Indian vegetarian curries. I watched Prometheus (which was rubbish) and some Steve Carroll/Keira Knightley movie about the end of the world that was bad enough to turn off. The landing seemed to be on one wheel. I thought we were going to roll over and judging by the faces around me I wasn't alone.
The pick up from Koenig was efficient. Met at arrivals with info about my stay & train tickets for tomorrow (and 1000 Rupees). The car journey from airport to hotel passed such sites as:
Then suddenly we were here. Karol Barg. It is really congested part of town. No air. There is a tiny park outside (like a London suburb garden) which has mini-squirrels in it.
Koenig Inn is very basic. It is clean, and breakfast is OK, and the bed is big, and the TV shows US/UK movies & BBC sport so am happy about that.
So far just napped. Will go and explore in a minute.
The pick up from Koenig was efficient. Met at arrivals with info about my stay & train tickets for tomorrow (and 1000 Rupees). The car journey from airport to hotel passed such sites as:
- men having full body washes at the side of the road
- monkeys
- more monkeys
- big red bottomed monkeys
- cows everywhere
- people living in containers
- loads of jungle
Then suddenly we were here. Karol Barg. It is really congested part of town. No air. There is a tiny park outside (like a London suburb garden) which has mini-squirrels in it.
Koenig Inn is very basic. It is clean, and breakfast is OK, and the bed is big, and the TV shows US/UK movies & BBC sport so am happy about that.
So far just napped. Will go and explore in a minute.
Thursday 25 October 2012
The Night Before
The Country House will be closed for renovation soon so is off the website. I am still in it. I guess that is good news.
I have checked in my flight, packed & repacked. I am taking way too much.
We had our final family meal tonight at Pizza Express, partly to say goodbye, partly to congratulate the kids on excellent teacher reports. You have never seen pepperoni pizzas disappear so fast. They are like locusts.
I hope to start photo-blogging when I get to Delhi. I would have started already but West Wickham isn't that exotic.
Here goes.......
Friday 19 October 2012
One Week To Go
My preparations are nearly complete. I've been playing with RHEL 6.2 on VMM virtual machines on a Fedora 17 partition on my laptop. Oddly I installed VirtualBox on my Windows 7 partition and it cannot run RHEL at all, just crashes. 64-bit, 32-bit, doesn't matter.
So Fedora it is.
I've done a trial pack, and realised I need a bigger suitcase. So that is on its way.
I just went on to the Koenig website and my accommodation of choice: The Country House, has disappeared. I do hope it hasn't really. I don't fancy/can't afford the alternatives. If it is definitely not an option I may try and rearrange to Shimla.
So Fedora it is.
I've done a trial pack, and realised I need a bigger suitcase. So that is on its way.
I just went on to the Koenig website and my accommodation of choice: The Country House, has disappeared. I do hope it hasn't really. I don't fancy/can't afford the alternatives. If it is definitely not an option I may try and rearrange to Shimla.
Wednesday 3 October 2012
The Handover Lunch
I bought JG lunch at Pizza Express in Canary Wharf last Friday to pick over his experience. It was good to see him again and pick up some tips.
1. I shouldn't worry too much about my Centos installs, as they will let me install RHEL v6 in India.
2. I must remember to make the man pages (makewhatis) during the exam.
3. Continuously tail /var/adm/messages during the exam
4. Go over the practice questions 4 or 5 times.
He thinks I should pass, which is a bit of a leap of faith.
As to the town of Dehradun, and the location of the Country House. I gather that everything is on the Rajpur Road. Starting in Dehradun, a little further out is the training centre and beyond that the Country House which is my chosen base. I just looked on Google Maps and there is a Pizza Hut on the road. Surely not!
Beyond the Country House, at the end of the bus route, is a little village. About 20 mins walk, where beer and snacks can be purchased to fill up the fridge. There is also a ruined temple near here overrun by monkeys. Think Jungle Book. My camera will be coming with me I think.
JG ate curry at least twice a day. Which sounds like heaven. The Country House cook is apparently pretty good, but I think I'll head into Dehradun a couple of times for the restaurant experience.
Essentially on this course you train & practice questions for 12 days. Monday - Saturday, Monday - Saturday. On the third Monday you travel back down to Delhi on the train (First Class - 6 hours £15). Tuesday is exam day. The Tuesday I'll be there for the exam is DIWALI. That's quite a big deal. It's like doing an exam on Christmas Day. Surely that won't actually happen will it??
The Delhi accommodation is basic, with small rooms but really near a massive street market. This sounds good. JG located a veggie restaurant nearby that did fill meals for 60Rs. That's a bit less than 1GBP. I will stay here on my first night too - and have been advised to find a multi-plug socket thing as there are only one or two wall sockets per room in the Country House in Dehradun.
After the exam - 3 days for a bit of shopping & sightseeing. Unless I need a retake. This could be a bit tricky to arrange and the advice is: go for the one-take and revise like mad.
JG got 82 & 86 on the two exams: pass mark is 70 he thinks. The exam day was supposed to start at 10, but was delayed for 3 or 4 hours as the test equipment needed to be rebuilt. Although JG was a bit cross about this he used the time to teach himself postscript. Honestly he sounds a lot more resourceful than me.
This reads a bit like a brain dump, which is partly due to me being hungover from last nights leaving drinks in Canary Wharf. Our team has pretty much finished a project and we are now all going our own separate ways. It was a tough project with lots of weekends worked. I now look forward to my training & a new speciality. Well at least that's what I thought. However I have been tapped up by another bank and it looks like I am going straight from one contract to the next. They don't seem to mind I will be away for 3 weeks.
My two weeks off playing golf has disappeared. Sad face.
1. I shouldn't worry too much about my Centos installs, as they will let me install RHEL v6 in India.
2. I must remember to make the man pages (makewhatis) during the exam.
3. Continuously tail /var/adm/messages during the exam
4. Go over the practice questions 4 or 5 times.
He thinks I should pass, which is a bit of a leap of faith.
As to the town of Dehradun, and the location of the Country House. I gather that everything is on the Rajpur Road. Starting in Dehradun, a little further out is the training centre and beyond that the Country House which is my chosen base. I just looked on Google Maps and there is a Pizza Hut on the road. Surely not!
Beyond the Country House, at the end of the bus route, is a little village. About 20 mins walk, where beer and snacks can be purchased to fill up the fridge. There is also a ruined temple near here overrun by monkeys. Think Jungle Book. My camera will be coming with me I think.
JG ate curry at least twice a day. Which sounds like heaven. The Country House cook is apparently pretty good, but I think I'll head into Dehradun a couple of times for the restaurant experience.
Essentially on this course you train & practice questions for 12 days. Monday - Saturday, Monday - Saturday. On the third Monday you travel back down to Delhi on the train (First Class - 6 hours £15). Tuesday is exam day. The Tuesday I'll be there for the exam is DIWALI. That's quite a big deal. It's like doing an exam on Christmas Day. Surely that won't actually happen will it??
The Delhi accommodation is basic, with small rooms but really near a massive street market. This sounds good. JG located a veggie restaurant nearby that did fill meals for 60Rs. That's a bit less than 1GBP. I will stay here on my first night too - and have been advised to find a multi-plug socket thing as there are only one or two wall sockets per room in the Country House in Dehradun.
After the exam - 3 days for a bit of shopping & sightseeing. Unless I need a retake. This could be a bit tricky to arrange and the advice is: go for the one-take and revise like mad.
JG got 82 & 86 on the two exams: pass mark is 70 he thinks. The exam day was supposed to start at 10, but was delayed for 3 or 4 hours as the test equipment needed to be rebuilt. Although JG was a bit cross about this he used the time to teach himself postscript. Honestly he sounds a lot more resourceful than me.
This reads a bit like a brain dump, which is partly due to me being hungover from last nights leaving drinks in Canary Wharf. Our team has pretty much finished a project and we are now all going our own separate ways. It was a tough project with lots of weekends worked. I now look forward to my training & a new speciality. Well at least that's what I thought. However I have been tapped up by another bank and it looks like I am going straight from one contract to the next. They don't seem to mind I will be away for 3 weeks.
My two weeks off playing golf has disappeared. Sad face.
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