Applying for US visa in Germany

I got a paper accepted in one of the two biggest robotics conferences. This conference is supposed to be held in the US. So I had to apply for the visa. I asked the conference chair to send me an invitation letter to present my paper there. Then I checked the US embassy website in Germany. The nearest embassies are in Munich and Frankfurt. Frankfurt has a one week waiting list for appointments, whereas Munich has two weeks time. So I chose Frankfurt. Their website lists the requirements. There is a $10 application fee for filling the online application. Then there is €112 visa fee to be submitted to another agency. This agency sends an email confirmation of fee payment within 3 days. Then I got the sponsor letter from my prof. I reserved a time slot on a Monday at 9 am. I went to Frankfurt on Sunday and stayed at a friend's. 

On Monday morning I got up early and went out. I had seen the route plan on the Internet and so we went about to search for the tram station to take the tram. This tram station had two platforms on two different streets for two different line runs. We got to one platform, but found out that the relevant tram doesn't run from here. So we searched for the other platform, and asked a lady about it. She told us the location of this platform but said there is a transport strike today. Great!!! Like the transport strikes in my city weren't annoying enough, that they follow me here as well. Good thing a few buses were running. So we got on a bus. I called the embassy to tell them that I would be late because of the strike, and the guy there said ok in a careless manner, which surprised me. Anyways, the bus took us to a station about one km from embassy and we walked towards the embassy. 

The embassy is a big structure with a lot of space. There was a small queue outside the embassy for the initial counter. There were some sheds with benches along the queues with heaters in them. The heater did feel good as it was a little cold. When I reached the counter, the lady told me that there is a form missing in my documents. She gave me a map of the local area with addresses of local copy shops. The nearest one is an imbiss with a south asian owner. She told me that it is the nearest but most expensive. He had a laptop and color printer. It took me a long while to find the form, fill it and print it. Many people were coming there to do this, so it was a common thing. I also helped a couple of ppl there in finding the info they needed. One family hadn't submitted their fee, so they needed much more to do. Anyways, I got back to the embassy where they checked my documents and let me in, while giving my friend a map of the local cafes to roam around and come back after about 1.5 hours.

Inside, the process was pretty simple. The visa officer was a young guy who asked some simple questions, and then asked whether I can leave my passport with them. I got my passport back within 3 weeks with the visa.

Transport strike in Germany

This Monday was a strike by the transport union drivers in my area. They are being paid on a different tariff than the standard tariff, but want to be shifted on the standard tariff. The strike was announced last week in some newspapers, but still many people didn't knew about it, especially the people not reading German newspapers. I also got to the bus stop next to my home and discovered that the electronic displays showing the next arriving buses was blank and only displaying the text that there is a strike from the drivers and buses are running according to an emergency schedule. I checked the website of the bus company and it said that they are trying to run some buses and that many bus-stops downtown have been occupied by the drivers, so it was not possible to service those bus-stops. We waited for the next bus for some time, but then they told on their website that they cannot serve the route towards my campus, so I decided to walk to office. Good thing that it is just a 10 minute walk downhill. Some of the colleagues decided to work from home. Many people were angry with the strike. Later I saw some pictures on the Internet of the people doing the strike. This was a very peaceful strike. I don't know if their demands were met. Earlier there have been frequent announced strikes from the transport drivers in Stuttgart, which had been going on for months (although the strike was always one day long every time). I just hope that these strike don't occur so frequently here.

Myth of Population of Pakistan

We are often told by our rulers that all of our problems are due to a huge population. And the worse
thing is that many of us believe them, and thus their own corruption goes in the background. In fact it is their corruption that is the main problem. Let's analyze statistically what is our population situation.

Wikipedia: List of countries by population density

Pakistan has 55th largest population density in the world. There are many countries which are richer and yet have more population density. These include  UK (53), Japan (41), Belgium (37), India (33), Israel (34), Netherlands(31), South Korea (23), Taiwan (16), Hong Kong (4), Singapore (3). Even Germany(62), Italy (73) and Switzerland (71) are not too far behind. So it is a myth that we are poor because we have too many people.

Lately, countries with huge populations are becoming stronger. For example, China and India are the new booming economies because of making good use of their population. US also has a big population. Brazil is also getting stronger and opting for a permanent seat in UN SC.

Lastly, advanced economies of Europe are facing an acute shortage of young workers. Because of their decreasing population and better health system, their populations are getting old and they have to import workers. Similarly, China is also going down this path and is about to face this problem. We should use our population effectively before we also face this problem.

International Conference on "Home-grown Terrorism Threat" in Germany

I was forwarded a link to the mentioned conference to be held in my city. It was a pleasant surprise that the conference was taking place here and that the entrance was free. So I booked a place in it and waited for it. Sadly, the conference coincided with Eid-ul-Fitr festival and so I couldn't attend all of the sessions, but those I did attend were very interesting and informative. Conference was in English and attracted speakers from all of Europe, USA and Australia. There were some lectures, debates, panel discussions and workshops.

Travelling business class with Qatar Air

I took membership of the Qatar Air Frequent Flyer program. I flew with Qatar last time. So I had gathered points. This time when I flew to Lahore, I had gathered the required 10,000 points to upgrade half of my return flight to business class (from Lahore to Doha), although this cost an extra 25 Euros. Well, the upgrade was worth it. First up, I was spared the check-in queues at Lahore airport and was checked-in at business counter. Then I was given a voucher, with which I discovered that there is a VIP Lounge at Lahore airport with free snacks, drinks and tea. There were PCs with Internet and a large TV. They informed the guests when their boarding started. I was also boarded prior to the queue. The seat in the plane was very large and had a multi-function remote control which provided a massage and could be fully to a bed. The meal was served in clay crockery and there was a large variety of drinks. The personal TV screen was also big. The blankets were thicker and they also provided eye-cover etc. There were disposable tooth-brushes and tooth-pastes in the washroom, though the wash-room size was same as Economy :)

Towards the end of flight, the head-hostess went to all the guests individually and asked about the journey. Then the pilot went to each passenger and chatted about their destination and invited to travel with them again. To me he informed of the Berlin Film Festival. From Doha to Munich, I traveled in the usual Economy class. However, only this time, the Economy cabin seemed too small and the meal too less presentable :)

I then realized, how just a few hours of travel in a different class made me very uncomfortable in the regular class people; what kind of mind-set would it be producing in the people who regularly enjoy that upper-class facilities, and some of them claim to represent us.

First snowfall of Winter in Germany - too much snow

Last Thursday, it started snowing for the first time in this winter. Overnight there fell a lot of snow. On Friday morning, everything was covered in snow. The city's snow cleaning services were working and clearing snow from roads and footpaths.

But Friday afternoon, it started to snow again. Till the evening it got very bad, so that the city had to restrict its bus system. All buses going on hills were stopped. My city lies on hills, that means many destinations were not reachable through public transport. My university has many campuses around the city. The campus where I work is on a hill. So no bus was coming to my campus as well. A colleague was nice enough to give me a ride home in his car, otherwise I would have to walk down the hill and up another hill to my home.

It has been snowing almost everyday since then and the little snow that melts during the day is replaced by new snow overnight.

Won a robotic competition in Germany

On 2nd October, one day before the national day of Germany when East and West Germany got united, we participated in a robotics competition for which we were preparing since last year. The competition was organized by a renowned German company building laser sensors and other stuff, called SICK. The competition is thus called SICK Robot Day. It comprised of a circular area with numbers drawn on big posters and hanged along the boundary of the arena. Within the arena, multiple obstacles are placed at different places on the ground. Each robot has to recognize the numbers and drive to them in sequence while avoiding the obstacles.

There were 12 German and 4 European teams. Our robot (called "Attempto") completed the whole task in 3 minutes. Our robot hit some obstacles, so including the penalties, our task time was 3:18 minutes. Each robot was given a time of 10 minutes to complete the task. The robot at second position completed the task in over 6 minutes. No other robot was able to correctly complete the task. One other robot completed the task, but it misjudged one of the numbers. Here is the video of the successful run of our robot: