Keeping posted

It has finally come, my last day of internship. It has being a great experience, which I will never forget. This will probably not be the last post in the blog, but the last one from India anyway.

I have not updated my blog as often as I would have liked to do it these last weeks. Unfortunately, I do not have many more topics for the tutorials. I could bring some stuff about Data Migration like LSMW or BDC, or even about SMARTFORMS, but doing that would require much more time. Instead I will post some links which I found during my internship that have helped me a lot. And I also have a post about SQL queries in SAP, which I would very much like to share with you, but it still needs some revision.

This last month we have gotten into a routine, and apart from the ones who took the opportunity to visit more of India, we have only been wandering around Bangalore, getting presents for the people back at home, and enjoying as much of the city as we could.

I will see many of you readers very soon. To all the others, thanks for your support and until next time!

Finally Mysore

Last weekend we went to Mysore. After having heard from so many people we should go there, it was almost an obligation. The weather was not so good, but it did not stop us from enjoying the beautiful landmarks of the city.

We first visited the Mysore Palace. It was very nice from the outside, as well as the gardens in the front. In the inside cameras are not allowed, which is a shame, as the various decorated rooms can be very impressive with colorful stained glass and big paintings on their walls.

After that we went for something to eat to the Royal Orchid. The buffet there was very good and with a good variety. Most impressive was its price, only 250 Ruppies or 4 Euros!

In the afternoon we visited the musical fountains by the Brindavan Gardens. It was a very nice spectacle, and beautiful illuminated.

We stayed at the Ginger Mysore for the night. It was comfortable and it had all the necessary for sleeping for a night there. Some of us could not sleep too well because of all the noise in the halls, but for me it was not a problem. There is also a Cafe Coffee Day inside the hotel, and you can have breakfast for 100 Ruppies, which is mostly Indian.

The next day we visited the Chamundi Hills. There is a Temple and a statue of Nandi, the bull ridden by Shiva, which you can visit after walking the thousand steps up the hill. While walking there we saw many women walking up the stairs and applying colorful powder to each step of the way. Many Indians were also interested in taking pictures with us, specially with David. It was a nice place but we were not allowed to take pictures inside the temples, although you will probably take more pictures of the landscape than of the temples.

The rest of the day we visited the market in the middle of the city, where we bought some eatables and gifts, and then went to the Zoo of Mysore. It was very big and had some interesting animals, some of them in interesting situations. On the way to Bangalore we also stopped at the Summer Palace of Mysore.

All in all it was a very interesting experience, and a must for everyone coming to Bangalore for more than two weeks. The city is not as stressful as Bangalore and the food is good. The road Bangalore-Mysore is also in good conditions and you will probably take 3 hours from the center of Bangalore to the center of Mysore.

Hope you enjoy my trip report, until next time!

Temples of Southern Karnataka

Yesterday we did a small trip of 13 hours to three different temples west from Bangalore.

We first went to Shravanabelagola (yeah, try to say that three times fast) and visited a temple on one of the hills near the city. The walk to the top was very enjoyable, watching other tourists go by, running to the top or taking pictures of the beautiful landscape. On the top there is an at least 60 meters high Gomatheswar Statue, which has became the landmark of this city.

Then we headed north to the Hoysaleswara Temple. On the road we got the opportunity to enjoy the indian country side and shoot some pictures. The temple, even if not as big as the first one, was also very interesting. I liked the gardens in front of it, where many indians seem to enjoy a quiet afternoon, and the sculptures, done with amazing detail. The only downside to this temple was the many people waiting outside, trying to get you to buy anything, from a small sculpture made by themselves (or so they said, because there were more than three people selling exactly the same one) to postcards and Kamasutra books.

Finally we went to Chennakeshava Temple in Belur. The sculptures inside the temple were very special, illuminated by a big search light that only guides are allowed to use.

All in all it was a nice experience. The ride was stressful, because of all the lorries transporting goods in this region and the cars trying to overpass them. But I would recommend it to anyone coming to Bangalore to visit these places, specially Shravanabelagola.

Where is the energy?

The blasts in India are not the only topics written about in the newspapers these last days. There are other important things, like the death or a pop star or that last Bollywood movie. But just before the terrorist attacks began, and even if many have already forgotten about it, there was a power shortage problem.

Apparently the government did not make the predictions right and they now have less power than necessary. Everyday, and often more than 5 times a day, there is blackout. At our apartment, the green light near the door goes on and if you keep the AC or the water heater on, after 10 min the power will run out.

At the office half the lights go out, the AC stop buzzing and nobody could care less. Everyone keeps working, and using their computers, may it be desktops or laptops. Internet connection and servers continue to work. You can only hear the generators starting, and after less than a minute everything is back to normal.

Elevators are the only thing which are affected by it. They stop and go to the bottom floor. For somebody inexperienced like me, it can be quite a scary experience. For the Bangaloreans, nothing more than a reminder of why they cannot only rely on the generators.

This also influences the oil problem. People queuing at the petrol stations is the everyday scenario here. They are trying to get diesel for their cars or for the power generator at the office or home. Luckily enough, we have not yet had very hot days. The weather continues to be very comfortable, and even sometimes a bit chilly.

They are now saying we will experience more than 8 hours of power shortage daily in the cities, and even up to 18 hours in the country side. Time will tell how Bangalore manage the power supply for so many servers and people. Time and politics.

The Blasts

Today between 14 and 15 o’clock there were 7 bomb blasts in Bangalore. One of them was very near to the place where our apartments are. Two people died and more than 20 were injured. People at the office were not too worried about it, actually took it with a lot of humor.
We were all at the office during the attacks, and were not affected by it. Well we received and sent lots of emails and sms, and were maybe not as efficient as any other workday, but we survived and lived to blog about it. :-)

TPS Report

It has already been a bit more than 2 weeks of Internship so far, and I actually wanted to write something about my work. I even had something almost written. Well, here is the thing: I am not allowed to do it. Everything is confidential, everything is top secret.

The only facts I MAY be able to tell you, because I have already told everyone about it anyway, are:

• I work with SAP technology (is pronounced S.A.P. for those of you who have never heard about it before)
• I will probably learn some ABAP, the programming language which SAP is programmed in (this is called abap and not A.B.A.P.)

I guess now that you know that, I can tell you what SAP is all about.

SAP is a system used in companies to plan and organize the business process, and specially at the same time manage the financial aspect of the company. There are different areas of the system which can be implemented for a company, and inside this areas many different modules. These modules are already implemented in the original SAP version, but of course no two companies are the same. So that is when you have to call the consultants. They come and see how your business process works, write the requirements for the implementation and send the job to India to be done, what is called outsourcing.

Here in India, the modules get implemented, and sent to the client. To implement these modules you use ABAP (Allgemeiner Berichts-Aufbereitungs-Prozessor) which is an object oriented programming language, with SQL queries in it, which is nothing more than the use of tables and information from these.

Well, this much I can tell you right now. I will come back later with some more information, just understand that things do not go as fast here as at university, and we specially do not get to normalize databases. Well at least I don’t :-)

Expenses

I have received a comment asking about my expenses here in Bangalore in one of the other posts, and thought maybe I would just post which prices you would expect to find in bangalore when shopping, going to eat or going out. So here it is:

Food

McDonalds combo (don’t expect any beef, it’s all chicken at Mc D here)	115 INR	1.70 Euro
Pizza at dominos/pizza hut	100-220 INR	1.45 – 3.25 Euro
Eating at the company’s cafeteria (Indian food, meal with pharata or chapati bread, rice and 2-5 different sauces)	20 – 40 INR	0.30 – 0.60 Euro
Coffee at the cafeteria	4 INR	0.06 Euro
Coffee at something similar to Sturbucks	30-60 INR	0.45 – 0.90 Euro
Bottle of water 500 ml	10 INR	0.15 Euro

Supermarket

1 kg of Apples	120 INR	1.75 Euro
Toast bread	20 – 30 INR	0.30 – 0.45 Euro
4 frozen chicken burgers	100 INR	1.45 Euro
Jam or peanut butter	150 INR	2.21 Euro
50 gr Chocolate Bar	100 INR	1.45 Euro

Very Good Restaurant

Glass of Wine	400 – 600 INR	5.90 – 8.85 Euro
Entrée	250 INR	3.70 Euro
Main dish	400 – 750 INR	5.90 – 11.00 Euro
Hamburger at Hard Rock Café	350 – 400 INR	5.20 – 5.90 Euro
Dessert	250 INR	3.70 Euro

Hope this helps you get a good idea of what life costs here.

Of Indian Temples and Palaces

As our first week of work ended, we decided we should get to know a bit more of Bangalore. Romain organized a tour with the most important places, got it checked by some colleges at work, and we went out Saturday morning at 9:30.

We visited the Bangalore Palace. It was very nice, though nothing very especial if you have visited other places like Alhambra in Granada or the Windsor Castle, but in the same style as the latest. This Palace was constructed for the Maharaja of Mysore, in 1884. Every piece of glass has been imported from Belgium, and every painting on its walls has been painted by Raja Ravi Varma, a very well known Indian painter. The fotographs on the walls (which are hand painted and do not have any wallpaper) remind you of the different Maharajas (High Kings) of Mysore and their lifes.

After this, we visited the different goverment’s buildings in Cubbon Park. They were impressive, and even more impressive the security, which did not allow us to enter the gardens to take pictures. On another note, the sentences written on the facade of the buildings were all very peculiar.

We ate something for lunch at the Lido Restaurant, located at the Ista Hotel, which I found amazing and enjoyed very much.

And finally we visited the Bull Tempel, with its huge Bull sculpture, and got some pretty weird blessing :-)

Log of my first day of internship

8:00 I have just woke up, will take a shower and get ready

9:00 preparing my breakfast and ironing my shirt (the one I wanted to use did not look too good)

9:35 shenji, matthias and me are waiting for the taxis to go to work which should have come at 9:30

9:50 david and romain joined us in our waiting

10:00 shenji is officially too late

10:30 I am officially too late and the taxis have not arrived yet. We have called them more than 4 times, we have called our respective bosses and said we are too late, and we have heard matthias has to go somewhere else first.

10:45 the taxis are here! Romain, david and I take one to Bang 4

11:30 wow, 45 min for 8 km, that’s a new record. I meet my boss, who gives me my access card and I follow him to the bay, where all the desks are.

14:00 going for something to eat. There is a McDonalds, a Subway, Pizza Domino’s and many more :-) but we choose indian, and it is very good. Best I’ve had so far!

17:30 well, I’m going home. The car should be waiting for us outside.

I’ve got an indian number!!

Before coming here many people said everything takes much longer to be processed and you need to be patient. I did believe it, but somehow I though I would be lucky enough not to have to cope with it. Well, Vodafone did not let me down. Here is the story.

On Friday morning we went to 3 or 4 different mobile phones stores. All of them told us to get the necesary papers. Passport, photos and a residence proof. So, we went to the Apartment manager and asked her for the residence proof.

Saturday morning we did not get the residence proof. In the afternoon we asked again, and they told us in the evening it would be in our apartment.

Sunday afternoon we found the proofs on the kitchen table.

So up to then, it did not look too bad. I mean who does not need a day to make a copy of a paper? So, Sunday evening we went to the shop and got our SIM cards. They were all working. Well, all but mine and Shenji’s. Shenji’s was not working because his telephone is locked for Swisscom. Mine was not activated.

So Sunday evening I went to the shop. They told me it would be working the day after.

It did not work!

So I went on Monday there, and told them it was not working. After 30 min of waiting, and just writing the SIM card number on a Post-it, he just told me on Tuesday evening it would be working.

It did not work!

At this moment I was just angry with the people from Vodafone, did not want to have anything to do with them anymore, and decided on Wednesday evening I would go to Airtel (Vodafone’s rival). But wait, I had to get another residence proof. Well, this was starting to get very annoying.

So, I call the people from the apartment, but they say they can give me a proof tomorrow. I just took my telephone, put Vodafone’s SIM card inside, and wanted to get going to Vodafone for the fourth time, when I realize my telephone was working!!!

It worked!

After 4 days and a lot of hassle. Indian Style!