ACM

It’s been some time since my last post. I have been busy with my studies and didn’t have time to blog in the last couple of months. I drafted this post just after we came back from Kanpur but didn’t have time to finish it off.

Me, Chethiya, Nuwan and our leader Prasad went for the ACM regional competition held in Kanpur in the last week of October (yeah, it was sometime back). This was Nuwan’s second time at the competition, but was the first time for rest of us.

We had some trouble finding (and booking) a place to stay while we were in Delhi (we had a couple of extra days) and booking the trains from New Delhi to Kanpur; however Prasad managed to get this done and we had a hotel booked in New Delhi close to the railway station and 2nd class train tickets were also booked, over the internet.

Day 1

Our flight was in the evening of 25th of October, so we had to be at the Katunayaka Airport by 1:00 pm. Nuwan and Me went with Prasad to the Airport and Chethiya came straight there. Everything went fine until Prasad was stopped by the Sri Lankan immigration saying that his passport was not activated. We thought it would be a big problem but it turned out that it was a mistake in the system; they couldn’t correct it there, but they said he could continue the trip and get it corrected once he returns.

Then we walked around the shops at the airport and we ate some sandwiches brought by Prasad – I was very hungry because I didn’t have anything for lunch.  Me, Nuwan and Chethiya got seats on the same row in the plane with myself at the window and Chethiya at the isle. The fight didn’t turn out a very good one for us as I didn’t get any food (they said vegetarian food was finished) and Chethiya spilled a wine all over his shirt, but I got to enjoy some nice scenary through the window (I have rarely been at a windows seat in day times).

We arrived at New Delhi airport around 7.00 am and a driver from the hotel we booked came to pick us. A friend of Prasad, who he met at the Katunayaka Airport, also came with us. We could see the New Delhi city covered by smog.

There was a lot of traffic and it took a while for us to get to the hotel. We thought of going out for dinner since we also had to drop Prasad’s friend at New Delhi Buddhist Pilgrim Rest. We took a three-wheeler (Indians call it auto-rickshaw or simply auto) and had dinner. On our way back we couldn’t find any auto’s, may be because it was around 11:30 pm, so we had to walk.

Day 2 – To Kanpur by train

We had to get up early in the morning (4:30 am) to get the train to Kanpur, so we only managed to have a very short sleep that night.  We got into the train after walking all around the train station to find our platform. It was a long trip to Kanpur – may be my longest train journey – so we slept for a couple of hours in the train.

We arrived at Kanpur around 11:00 am. Nuwan and Prasad went to find a taxi while me and Chethiya waited with the bags at the station. The taxi wasn’t going very fast and it took a while for us to get to the IIT Kanpur University (or campus). We had to register ourselves and get the t-shirts and bags; after that, we had our lunch at the canteen. While we were registering, we met Ayan, who had made friends with Nuwan in the previous year.

In the evening me and Chethiya played some games in his laptop while Nuwan was working with a template which we had prepared to use at the competition. Prasad wanted to get some sleep as he wasn’t feeling well.

We had our dinner around 7:30 pm at the campus. Food was good for me, because there were many kinds of vegetarian food. Most of the teams were present at the dinner except for the few teams which were to come on 27th.

Day 3 – Opening ceremony and practice session

The competition officially began with a opening ceremony, which included two lectures on super computers and multi-core processing. There was a session to discuss about the competition environment and there were many questions on the C++ STL documentation and IDE’s by the contestants and their leaders. They served us tea during the opening ceremony with snacks – it was a good opportunity to test some unique Indian food.

After the opening ceremony we went back to the dormitory and had lunch in the canteen there. Then we went to the computer labs for the practice session.

Our computer crashed within the first five minutes, when Chethiya tried to start kate. Since we weren’t very familiar with linux we called the technical support staff for help. After trying some fixes they restarted the PC. After that Chethiya and I programmed the solution to the sample problem and did some debugging to familiarize ourselves with the IDE and the OS. We used the time left to get familiar with the submission system.

We had dinner outdoor and it was specially arranged for the ACM competitors. Food was great, but it was very cold out there.

Day 4 – Competition day

It was the big day. We woke up a little early to make sure we go to the competition by time. We had to wear the t-shirt given by the organizers to the competition.

This time the competition had one problem more than in previous years and the duration was also increases by one hour. We could hear everybody hammering at the keyboards once they announced start. We had a slow start but managed to solve all the problems. However we were way behind the top three teams in time. This year’s problems were pretty straight forward, but some of them were hard to code.

At the end of the contest we met our team leader. He had booked a train to New Delhi which was supposed to leave at 3:00 am on 29th. We ate the lunch packets given, outside the computer labs. After hanging out there for a while, we went back to our rooms. The award ceremony was in the evening at the same venue as the opening ceremony.

We left to the Kanpur railway station in the midnight. The taxi drove pretty fast and we got there by 1:30 am.

Day 5 – Back to New Delhi

We had to wait at the station for a couple of hours, so we went to our platform and started playing cards. There were no benches, so we sat on the ground with some news papers laid. Then we heard the announcement that our train has been delayed by 4 hours , so we decided to take naps in turns, with atleast one guy staying up to watch the bags.

Then there was another announcement saying that the train has been further delayed by an hour, and it finally arrived at 8:30 am. We had a long train journey because it was not an express train, and it was almost getting dark when we got to the hotel in New Delhi.

We wanted to visit some places of interest close to Delhi the next day; therefore, we went to some travel organizers to get details. However it appeared that we had to leave early in the morning if we were to go on any of those trips. Because we were very tired we decided to stay in Delhi and get some sleep – perhaps do some shopping as well.

We had the dinner at an Indian restaurant which Nuwan recommended (a place he had been in last year), and the food was quite good.

Day 6 – Shopping

We slept till 10:00 am and went to Palika bazaar for shopping.  Nuwan and I went together and Chethiya went with Prasad. We were supposed to meet at the entrance at 2:00 pm, but we missed them because they had stayed outside the entrance while we waited inside the entrance.

After shopping for sometime more two of us walked to the hotel only to find out that Prasad and Chethiya haven’t come there and they have taken the keys with them. So we had to go back for dinner – it was a little early for dinner (around 6:00 pm), but we were hungry because we didn’t have anything for lunch. Finally we met Prasad and Chethiya at a restaurant.

Day 7 – Back to Sri Lanka

It was 31st October and our flight was in the evening. Nuwan wanted to do some shopping and Prasad wanted to buy some books. I didn’t have anything special to buy.  Chethiya and I went with Prasad while Nuwan went to the Palika bazaar. Four of us met for lunch as planned at a restaurant after shopping.

We took a taxi to the airport in the evening. We had to wait some time at the air port and I played some games in Chethiya’s computer while waiting.

We arrived at Katunayaka airport in early morning on the 1st of November, after having a wonderful and unique experience in India with the hope of going back again in 2008 – if we get selected to the team, of course.