KDevelop meeting: Transylvania

Thu Apr 5 08:41:59 UTC 2007

Hi,

 as I wrote here is my proposal. 

The location would be my birth town, called Sfintu Gheorghe (in 
Romanian), or Sepsiszentgyörgy (In Hungarian), or Saint Georghe. ;)
Here is a link: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepsiszentgyorgy .

The meeting itself could take place in the building of Covasna County 
Library (http://www.cosys.ro/haromszek/biblio/engl/about.htm). I 
maintain their computers and network, and I'm pretty sure they will 
rent it for free or for a nominal price. Two rooms could be used, one 
is a larger auditorium, the other is a normal room, probably the second 
is enough for hacking.

The internet connection is a 1Mbps guaranteed optical line, but with 
fair use policy (after some GB of traffic the speed drops down to 
half). As I know the ISP, it might be possible to remove any such 
limitation for the period of conference. It must be noted that the line 
is used also by visitors and the employees, but from my experience it 
still works quite well.
Its a 100Mbps network in the building, at this moment wireless is not 
available.

Renting computers (in case of there is no laptop for everyone) is 
probably little bit harder, but I probably can get some PCs (from the 
library) to be used, even if they are not quite fast (Celeron, Pentium 
IV or Athlon XPs). Some computers already run Linux and might be set up 
for a build farm.

Accommodation: this could be done either in the city or near it in the 
village I currently live. Some prices:
- 3 stars hotel in the center of the city: ~50 euro/night in a double 
room, breakfast included (http://www.sugaskert.ro/)
- pension in the city: 21,5 euro/person in single room, 26 euro/2 
persons double room, 32 euro/3 persons in room with 3 beds. Breakfast 
included. http://www.romanianaccommodation.ro/Sfantugheorghe3.html
- pension in the village: 9,5 euro/person with breakfast, 14euro/person 
with half board (breakfast and dinner). 
http://www.romanianaccommodation.ro/Arcus2.html (there are two 
pensions). Transportation from the village to the city can be done by 
bus (~1euro/person), cab (~3 euro/route), foot (5 km) or with me (free 
for 4 persons ;) ).

Food: 
- at the accommodation place (see price where it is included)
- at restaurants (5-10 euro is more than enough for a big meal)
- fast foods (from 1-2 euro)
- by just buying something (1kg bread=0,5 euro, 1l milk=0,75 euro, 
vegetables are very cheap during the autumn)

Altough most people eat meat here and all traditional meals contain 
meat, it is not uncommon to see vegetarian dishes at restaurants or 
fast foods, but probably they are not so varied like in other countries 
(salats, cheese, egg or fish is commonly offered as vegetarian 
food...).

Transportation:

This is the most problematic point. There are no airports near, the 
closest ones are from Bucharest (Otopeni or Baneasa, both ~200km) and 
Targu Mures (~170 km), but the latter has flight only from Budapest if 
I'm not mistaken. Both can be reached with some low cost airliners as 
well (for example WizzAir flies to both places), but they just entered 
the Romanian market, so they are not too many. Their number is rapidly 
increasing though.
Due to the distance, pickup from the airport could be organized well 
only if most/all persons arrive around the same time, or at least on 
the same day. This also depends on the number of persons, as if there 
are more than 4, a small bus would probably be rented. An alternative 
is to fly to Bucharest and from there come by train, but this depends 
on how well one can find his place around in a foreign country.

It is easier to reach the place by train through the Brasov (Kronstadt 
in German) city, one of the largest cities in the country which is 30 
km from here, so a pickup from the train station can be easily 
organized. Travelers from Germany would probably need to change trains 
in Vienna or Budapest though. As I see Jens Herden last year payed less 
than 100 euro for the train ticket (both ways) from Frankfurt to Brasov 
with a change in Budapest.
Traveling by train can take some time though and even if you travel in a 
sleeping car you will be awaken at the border in the middle of the 
night for passport control.

There are also buses from different part of the continent coming here, 
but as I never traveled with them, I don't know much about it. 
www.eurolines.ro is one company, Berlin-Brasov both ways is 195 euro.

By car: there are motorways until close to the Romanian border (on the 
Hungarian side), but from there on the road has usually only one lane 
per direction and it could take 5-7 hours to drive from the border to 
this city. Probably driving from Germany cannot be done without 
spending a night somewhere for resting, except if there are more 
drivers in the car. Also the local driving style well, might stress 
some drivers.

Safety: the city and the village is very safe, the area is one of the 
safest places in the country. Of course incidents can happen, like 
anywhere. Care must be taken on the trains and in bigger cities, 
especially because of pocket thieves (and bad taxi drivers...).

Language: Romanian is the official one in the country (a latin based 
language), while in this area Hungarian is the one spoken by most of 
the persons. Probably nobody knows either of these. ;) German was also 
widespread in some parts, but unfortunately most of the German speaking 
persons left the country in the past decades (but from town and village 
names you can still see which one was German). Elder people probably 
don't speak foreign languages (maybe except some French), while younger 
one usually do speak some kind of English (and maybe Italian/Spanish in 
case of those whose native language is Romanian). Inscriptions are 
usually only in Romanian (and Hungarian where there is significant 
Hungarian majority), there are only a few English or German texts that 
you can see.

Currency: the official currency is the (new) Romanian Lei (1 euro ~= 3.4 
RON). Credit cards are accepted in more and more places. They usually 
ask to type the PIN code as well on purchase, and there is no problem 
if you just by goods for 1-2 euro and pay by card. There are also 
plenty of cash machines around. Exchanging money is no problem, banks 
(and most, but not all) of exchange houses will do the exchange without 
taking any commission. There are also a few automatic exchange 
machines . Euro is mostly not excepted, maybe the exception aresome 
touristic places (pension and restaurants), but the recommended way is 
to pay in the local currency.

Visas: as Romania is a member of the European Union, for many persons 
there is no need for a visa, not even for a passport if you are from 
the EU. AFAIK Ukrainian citizens need a visa though. :( There was some 
agreement between the two countries to make traveling easier starting 
from the summer, but I don't know the details.

Other programs:

Aside of hacking, it is possible to organize other "recreating" 
programs, like visiting castles 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bran_Castle), hiking mountains (max. 
altitude is 2505m in the nearby  ones - 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucegi ), interesting mineral springs, or 
just cities (eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sighisoara) and 
villages/the nature (sulphurate cave, volcanic lake). 
Again, depending on the number of participants, this needs more 
organization (bus renting) or just a simple get in the car and go 
there. :)

Timeframe:

From my point of view this could be done anytime when I'm home, which is 
probably all summer except the aKademy period and 2 weeks during 
August. Unfortunately I don't know yet which two weeks I won't be at 
home. It can be done earlier as well (like in May), but I assume that 
is too close for most people. My suggestion would be end of 
August/beginning of September, mostly because the wether. Even if this 
year we practically didn't have winter, you never know, and in October 
it could already snow, especially in higher areas.

Well, this is what comes to my mind. :)

Andras

-- 
Quanta Plus developer - http://quanta.kdewebdev.org
K Desktop Environment - http://www.kde.org
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