Memos From the Cube

Time for an update. It’s my third day here (counting the first half day I had after the plane) and my first day working at Atmel. It’s also the first day that I haven’t felt like near-death due to the jet lag and extreme time-zone difference (despite only getting two or three hours sleep). Here goes.

Part One: The Trip

Getting to Norway was half the battle. I’ve traveled a few times before by plane for holidays with my family, but this was a first for me – a long international trip of multiple stopovers, completely alone. All said and done, the total flight time was around 25 hours, not including the multi-hour breaks at each stopover point.

The first stopover was at Kuala Lumpur, after a nine hour flight. While many seasoned travelers will have much to say on the subject, I can firmly place KL airport in the “worst airports of all time” category. The actual airport is quite modern – I believe bits of it are brand new, or at least look that way – but there’s no bloody place to sit. Anywhere. Supposedly there was a free lounge for cheapskate economy passengers such as myself, but I gave up after half an hour of searching in vain and just sat on the floor until my flight was called. I suppose one could sit in one of the several dozen restaurants in the terminal, but that would require buying something with a currency (Malaysian Ringgit, according to Google) I didn’t have.

The next leg was much, much more pleasant. I lucked out, and the 12 hour flight to Amsterdam was nearly empty, so I was afforded a luxurious three seats all to myself which I turned into a makeshift bed. The other passengers where equally happy with their own 3-5 seat zones of comfort, which made the journey pretty damn awesome by anyone’s standards. At the end of the long leg I was able to jump through border control (seriously – in Australia this is a multi-hour long ordeal, in Amsterdam they just stamp your passport and wave you through) and meet my friend Nard for an early morning coffee:

Turns out that Nard was every bit as affable as he seemed in my previous conversations with him over the internet, and I look forward to meeting up with him again in the future. Score one for the internet!

My final leg was next, with a short ride in what appeared to be the Boeng equivalent of a Vespa Scooter over to my final destination of Trondheim, Norway. Nothing quite says “you’re in for something really, really different” quite like two guys in a truck spraying the plane with antifreeze before being allowed to take off. Landing was every bit as interesting, as we had to make several attempted landings which were aborted due to the weather. This is what it looked like just after I got off the plane – it was the first time I’ve ever seen it snow, which was an interesting welcome to the country.

Part Two: The First Day

I’ve never lived by myself before – I’ve always lived with my parents back at home. Being thrown solo into a foreign country is certainly something I wasn’t truly prepared for, but it turns out the IAESTE organization who got me here was right on the ball, and arranged for students to meet me in the city to take me to my dorm room on the first day, and to Atmel on my third.

Meeting my new housemates for the next few months was a bit scary (for me, I’m a geek remember) but they all turned out to be the regular one-head-and-two-arms-each variety, and really nice. After being shown around, I managed to grab the bare essentials from the local supermarket and homewares stores so I wouldn’t starve or freeze during my stay. My room in Norway is pretty much exactly how I expected it to be – a typical dorm room seen the world over.

On day two, I had to go to the police station and tax department to get the appropriate tax cards and work permits I’ll need during my stay. That was an ordeal in itself; I managed to keep asking visitors rather than seasoned locals how to get to each of the places, so I got what turned out to be fairly random directions. Eventually I half froze, half walked my way around a good portion of the city and found the places I needed. The view from the city bridge is nothing short of breath-taking (both due to the extreme cold, and the sheer beauty) and I got a kick out of watching the unusually plump local pidgeons forage in the snow for whatever presumably edible bits and pieces they can find over here.

I was warned ahead of time about the high costs of living in Norway, and so far it’s living up to its reputation; practically everything is measured in multiple tens of Kroner. There’s plenty of local restaurants, however I don’t think I’ll be partaking any time soon; a big local burger costs around 100Kr, or around AU$17. Foreign food is a novelty here, but thankfully as a true blue Aussie with no real national cuisine, I’m happy to dive in and eat the local food.

Part Three: My first Atmel day

This is the last bit of news to report – this morning I took the bus down to the Studentersamfundet (Student Center – see, I’m learning Norwegian already!) to meet an IAESTE member who would escort me to Atmel. That he did, although after getting off the bus at Veste Rosten, we ended up circling the block for a good 20 minutes to find the correct building. It turns out that the Atmel building is rather nondescript, and not the signed behemoth I thought it would be.

Now that I’m back home, I can happily say that Atmel is the greatest place to be in all space and all time. My day was freaking magical – it’s like the Willy Wonka factory of happiness, if he created fantastical microprocessors instead of boring, volatile confectionery. It’s both exciting to get such an in-depth peek behind the curtain (and find everything to be even cooler than I expected) but also soul-wrenching, as my signed NDA doesn’t allow me to reveal anything much about the place. I got the grand tour of the building, and saw all the different departments, from the applications group (where I’ll be working over the next few months) to the chip design and testing areas. I really, really wish the marketing group would produce some (sanitized of proprietary information) photos and videos of the place, as it was possibly the most fascinating building tour I’ve ever been on – the equipment is both impressive and plentiful.

One highlight of the tour; I got to meet the venerable Eivind, who is the spiritual guardian of AVRFreaks – he’s now working in the marketing department, and I was able to say hello and get a peek into the room where the Atmel marketing videos are made. All the other engineers at Atmel have turned out to be some of the nicest, diverse and interesting people I’ve ever met (mostly because I can talk about AVRs all day long and not have them fall asleep). In an hours time I’ll be visiting my first Norwegian pub with the whole group for a drink or two. Heaven.

More to come – there’s simply too much to write about right now. On the weekend I’ll have to grab my camera and take some more pictures of the local countryside and attractions.