I know I am a bit too late to write this post, but better late than never. (For those who don't know: ACM ICPC is a very prestigious programming competition for college students. It is usually conducted in two stages. The first being the regionals (where we went). The second stage is the World Finals, where only the top 1-2 teams from each regional site are invited. More than 3000 teams take part in the regionals every year.)
We (Mahsheed, Anil and I) participated in the Amrita University's online prelim round for the regional contest on 13th September (and I had an all too important exam on the 15th :) ). But, nevertheless, we performed decently and qualified for the finals.
Soon we got our tickets booked. Our college was kind enough to sponsor our entire trip, thanks to our coach. :) (Since the college sponsored only sleeper class tickets, we quite foolishly, as we later realized, booked sleeper class tickets for travel to and from the place). The place we were travelling to was Kayamkulam in Kollam district of Kerala. :D
The train journey to Kayamkulam was quite eventful. The food was horrible and it seemed like they hadn't cleaned the coach in quite some time (and the train is supposed to be one of the best in that region). But anyways, we survived and somehow reached Kayankulam after 32 hours in the train :)
There was a bus waiting for us at the station to take us to Amritapuri. Once at Amriatpuri, we were bedazzled by the breathtaking view. The mighty backwaters separate the college campus and the hostel, and the Amrita Setu connects them. Our boarding arrangements were made at the Amrita Ashram (not a typical Ashram, a 16-story apartment block for foreign visitors). All the teams were assigned a volunteer whom we can contact in case of any problem.
After we were assigned our room on the 8th floor, we took some time to clean up all the dirt we accumulated en route. Washed and polished, we proceeded towards the college campus for some gastronomical pleasure. But just as we were about to leave the Ashram, a lady asked us which city we were from, and we replied 'Bombay' ( :P ). 'Which college, DJ Sanghvi?' she asked next. First our faces twitched for obvious reasons and then we replied, 'TSEC'. To this her face lit up. It turned out, she(Lata Ma'am) was a '94-batch passout from my college and was now teaching here :). Later, we made our way to the campus canteen where we were served one of the best spreads of Indian cuisine I have ever had outside home :) .
The next day was reserved for two practice sessions. Went quite decently and awesome food again. There was a small excursion planned that day, but we stayed back since we were still tired from the long journey. But the excursion was later cancelled since it started raining really heavily. Later that day we met Lata Ma'am and she was kind enough to show us around and take us on a boat ride through the back waters. The rower of the boat, 'Bhargavan Accha' was a really nice man and was quite eager to show us around, but we were running out of time, so we bid our goodbyes to relax for the next day.
The final round was on the next day... (To be contd.)
0 comments:
Post a Comment