Day 6 – Vienna

Bob Has won a seat on Microsoft’s Get On The Bus tour of Europe, ending at Tech Ed in Europe

Thursday 5^th November

 

Please to remember

The fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot

 

No fireworks on the bus, but plenty of explosive noise.  I awoke in the small hours.  The bus had rumbled to Vienna, so the engine was silent.  However, somebody somewhere had started a major construction project in their bunk.  It involved an awful lot of sawing.  It wasn’t just that it was loud, but that it was loud and irregular.  I would name the culprit, but I like Stephen and I wouldn’t want to embarrass him.  I tried to sleep, but was unable to.

Finally I could take no more.  I rolled out of my bunk and made my way towards the back of the bus.  The rear lounge had a door.  I opened it, and Liberty sat up from her temporary repose on the couch.  I whispered an apology and crept downstairs.  The heating downstairs was broken, but we had rigged a fan heater.  I lay on the couch, blindfold on and tried to sleep.

Around six someone crept downstairs.  I raised my blindfold.  It was Tjeerd and Liberty, always the first up.  The hotel where we could shower was just around the corner.  I slipped a pair of jeans over my pyjamas and stepped out into the gloom of the pre-dawn light.  We were parked in a school, where we were due to present our first event.  We walked to the hotel where we’d booked a couple of rooms.  I went into the restaurant for breakfast as the real workers went up to shower and change.

Breakfast was meagre at best.  No hot food, so I settled for a fruit cocktail and a croissant. As I ate so the others from the bus sneaked in, leaving me last into the bedroom.  It was a tiny room with a miniscule shower, with ancient paintwork and grubby grouting.  After my shower I felt as if I needed another one.  I wondered whether they rented rooms by the hour.

Enterprise Training Center was our host for the day.  They’d laid on two translators for us, who’d set up a UN-style booth with headsets inside the school hall.  The audience filed in.  We’d expected people from fifteen to twenty.  In fact, most of them looked to be thirteen to seventeen.  The presenters had to hurriedly adjust their approach.  Ken delivered an ad hoc presentation that seemed to work, and once they realised they got T-shirts and hats for asking questions they started to interact.

And what questions!

“Why should I buy Windows 7 when I can download a pirate copy for free?”

“Why should I use Windows when Linux is more secure?”

“How much money do you make?”

Adults skirt around what they really want to know, or simply don’t ask through manners or peer pressure.  Not so kids, and the team had to deal with the some of the most challenging questions of the tour.

Afterwards we had a crowd gathered around the bus as Dave the Driver counted down until he could legally drive again.  Melissa stood at the doorway and played to the crowd.  If some of them weren’t that keen on IT, the bus and the free giveaways seemed to do the trick.

From there we went to the Microsoft offices in Vienna.  Before we performed we had time to nip across the road and have lunch.  I went for the poacher’s special, which turned out to be kangaroo.  No, really.  It seemed a bit exotic, so I just had to check.

“Um, guys.  Just checking, but it is Austria we’re in, yes?  You do know Australia is an entirely different continent, right?  Okay, okay, just making sure.”

The same translators with an identical booth were stationed at the back of the hall where the rest of the team were giving their presentations.  Having nothing else to do, I sat at the back by the booth.  I had to laugh when Steve Rose was talking about interactive screens and Windows 7, where, just using your finger and thumb, you can ‘enbiggen’ and ‘ensmallen’ windows.  I saw the translator throw her hands up in despair.  He also distinguished himself talking about how Microsoft was working with local companies, then listed a few German companies.  Um, Steve, we’re not in Germany anymore.

Afterwards they threw a Kris Kringle fair outside, with various mulled alcoholic drinks, roasted chestnuts and hot potato slices.  It was around then that someone noticed that the bus door, which opened on hydraulics and slid to one side, changed the logo on the bus.  Instead of saying ‘Get On The Bus’, with the door open it became ‘Get On Us’.  Oh, the giggles and photographs.  Yes, we had an average age of thirteen.

Then our host took us out for a meal.  We jumped into taxis and rode through Vienna to – an American Diner.  He wanted to make us feel at home, which was really sweet.  The Americans, though, had been looking forward to Austrian cooking.  Liberty in particular was on the rampage for apfelstrudel.  But, no, it was really nice of our host, and Ken insisted on paying for the meal from the budget.  Which was just as well as, during a conversation about bomb damage to Vienna during World War II, I made a Basil Fawlty reference.  Too soon, too soon.

It was getting late by the time we left.  Rather than organise another fleet of taxis we decided to catch the bus.  We called Dave and he agreed to meet us on the main road by the river.  Some time later we spotted the bus.  Ten of us jumped up and down, waving to attract his attention, eager to get out of the cold wind.  A taxi in front of the bus pulled over, and we waved him on.  I suspect I could have learnt some new German words as the taxi driver pulled away.

I was tired, so I collapsed into my bunk (well, lay down and sidled in) at the earliest opportunity.