Tuesday, 12th May

Train travel day. Blogpost to be added.

Wednesday, 13th of May (Laetitia O.)

After definitely not going to bed late the night before we were of course able to wake up on time once more and went to eat breakfast (the breakfast room is significantly smaller than the lunch and dinner room, which made finding a free table quite the endeavour).

Afterwards we made our way to the contest hall (which incidentially is right next to the beach 🏖️) in order to prepare for the practise contest and submit all the items we wished to have present on the first contest day. This of course included Myriam’s ducks and Rösti aswell as snacks such as Swiss chocolate packaged in a chemical container (needless to say, they did not trust the white polyethylene container with a giant red cap and multiple warning labels). The practise contest went well, with the exception of the last task which was 😈 (is this a sign for contest day 2?).

Subsequently we ate lunch, which consisted of pasta and other food. The pasta part turned out to be a repeat event for all subsequent meals.

In the afternoon there was an opening ceremony (after playing games like Mao and a failed attempt at Hanabi). Due to the wind the location had to be changed and they had to transport a super dangerous LED-screen to the other side of the building. Shortly before the ceremony a water fountain erupted from the ground below, but that issue was resolved rather quickly.

During the ceremony the Mayor of Cesenatico gave a short talk and there also was an acrobatics show aswell as another story. Then it was time for the presentation of the teams. The leaders somehow forgot to bring flag and chocolate, but there was a bit of chocolate left in the dangerous chemical container. Now in what order are the countries going to be called? Surely Switzerland would be called right after Sweden… Maybe you can guess the order?

After a seemingly random order of countries the closing ceremony came to an end and we went back to eat dinner (once again pasta) and play games. Now as is customary this blog entry will end off with a game. The game should be self-explanatory. (Click the large operator to apply it)

Lutins Joyeux

Thursday, 14th of May (Myriam)

After a long night of sleep, the first contest day had arrived. We ate breakfast and then went to the contest hall, where we did Nandor’s motivational speech with other teams and also some guides Yaël. As we were among the first teams to arrive at the contest hall, there wasn’t a big queue to enter so we had to wait inside instead. At some point I started counting my ducks, but it didn’t add up! I had one too many! The Swedish team added one on my desk! Surely that means good contest luck, right? Well, I was about to figure it out. In the first task, you want to find a permutation, but you have a constraint for each number that the next number needs to be either smaller or larger. In the second task, you had tables and pizza bakers arriving in a specific order and, depending on what was on the tables, the pizza bakers left their pizza or went away frustrated if all the pizza on the table tasted poorly. You had the boxes of pizza on the tables, and you needed to find the order in which the pizza bakers came. The third task was a game where two players wanted to eat as much amaretti as possible, while respecting some specific rules, and while the amaretti had different weights. In the last task, which was interactive, you had members of a secret society who want to do a census to know how many they are, without meeting each other. Each member has a unique ID, but the used IDs might not be consecutive and each day, each member can either write a number at a location, but two members should not write at the same place at the same time, they can read a number at a location, or they can quit the census but then they must know the number of member of the secret society. You had to have a strategy for each member that minimizes the number of days of the census. But, plot twist, you can only write ones and zeroes!

After the contest, we went to eat lunch at the hotel Pasta, yummy! and then there was the appeal session, but none of us had anything to appeal for. Outside of the contest hall, there were mocktails and goodies from sponsors. Who would think hand spinners still exist? Well, we could get one but I’m pretty sure there were leftovers from the time they were popular. You could also send postcards for free with an interesting picture of rainbow pasta that were used to write EGOI 2026. Then there was dinner and, in the evening, the cultural exchange! Teams were giving stickers (AC, WA and TLE for the Hong Kong team, but do you really want to put a TLE sticker on your laptop?), magnets, keychains, candys, other kind of food (instant noodles from the Indonesian team!), … Also, I found the Singaporean team (that had sent earlier a picture of a parallelogram drawn in the sand at the beach), they explained me that I am a parallelogram is actually famous in Singaporean Informatics Olympiad and we sung it together. I had to admit they knew it very well. After the cultural exchange we went to sleep in order to be ready for the excursion the following day.

Friday, 15th of May (Myriam)

Friday was the excursion day. Did we visit Italy? Why would we, if we could visit another country that doesn’t participate in EGOI, not even in IOI? San Marino, we’re coming!

So, this day started with us getting packed lunch, and then we took the bus. Once in San Marino, we realized that it was actually really touristic! It wasn’t even holidays, but there where multiple other coaches with different groups of each age range going to San Marino! In the morning, we had a guided tour with a guide who explained us that he wanted to be elected president because then his friend would have to call him His excellence if they didn’t want to go to jail for three months! Because, you see, San Marino is a really old republic that has a really old constitution that dates from the Middle Ages. And they have two presidents at all times, which are doing a 6-month presidency, and they are only ~30’000 inhabitants, so anyone could be president. Also, our guide told us about how sport is important for Sammarinese: football, but they’re really bad, and crossbows, which they’re good at, but they’re the only ones doing the kind they do. We also learned about San Marino’s history, but the guide didn’t tell us anything about San Marino’s most important building! Can you guess what it was? The duck store! San Marino has its own duck store! And they have San Marino ducks! Several ones were submitted for the second contest day by the leaders that evening. Several ones were Swiss.

After the excursion, we ate lunch (not pasta, but two small, really small sandwiches, a biscuit, an apple, and a bottle of water), and then we went to the second tower (out of three, they’re on the San Marino flag) of San Marino, that we could visit. Inside, they were a lot of ancient weapons like rusty swords, crossbows, also some armors, … Unfortunately, it was raining in the afternoon, and with the wind it was really cold, so we didn’t do much, but at least we were in a group that had the guided tour in the morning! We still decided to go eat crepes to warm up a bit. (Our guide decided to eat an ice cream instead. Why???) During that time, Karolina had to deal with the return trip, because guess what? Even if it’s Italy and not France, strikes exist! But you’ll probably learn more about that in Monday’s blogpost. After the crepes we joined the other teams for official group picture, and then we went back to Cesenatico, were we ate dinner (pasta again of course)

Saturday, 16th May (Ela)

This was the second contest day. For me it was alright since I’m happy with full-scoring just one task, however for some of us it was quite disappointing since it hadn’t gone as well as the first contest day. Afterwards we had some time to recover over lunch by having pasta and fish once again.

After some free time, the afternoon program went on with the Jane Street Hub. Laetitia and I didn’t make it onto the first buses, so we had to wait around forty minutes for the last one to arrive. Fortunately, the wait was worth it because we ended up at a very fancy hotel which made me very excited for the event. I can’t help but be impressed by such things. Inside, we were met with an open buffet with lots of options (a meal other than pasta with fish!!) , mocktail bars and various stands/tables for solving puzzles and playing games.

I think a crowd favorite was one where we had to solve puzzles for different Jane Street locations and collect passport stamps to earn a hat and go on the leaderboard, although I wasn’t very high up. In addition, there was a karaoke box which I would’ve loved to try but it was unfortunately always occupied. My favorite part was definitely the bracelet making station, which was a perfect opportunity to meet people from other countries while being occupied with a fun activity (the bead options could’ve been better though).

Sunday, 17th May (Laetitia J.)

On Sunday, we went to the closing event at Mirabilandia, an amusement park near Cesenatico. Unfortunately, we had the early bus shift and had to wait outside the amusement park for almost an hour. After a long presentation on bioinformatics by a professor from Pisa, Myriam, Laetitia, and I received our medals. Once the closing ceremony was over, we were able to stay in the park for several more hours. First, we visited a replica of SpongeBob’s house. We then rode a few smaller roller coasters to warm up for the bigger ones. The large roller coaster was decorated as a racing track, had a big loop and several rotations around its own axis. Hannah managed to convince Myriam to join. Unfortunately, she didn’t enjoy the roller coaster very much and afterwards lost her appetite for them. On the way back to the hotel, we played a round of Hanabi. Since it was the first time for Ela and me, we unfortunately lost. In the evening, all participants went to a restaurant in a park. We ate outside. Luckily, the weather was nice. After dinner, there was a party with a DJ at the same venue. We didn’t stay too long, as we still had to pack for our departure.

Monday 18th May (Karolina)

The alarm went off at 06:15. I have rarely wanted to snooze more in my life.

We shuttled to Cesenatico train station and caught a train to Bologna, where a substantial layover awaited us, as we were waiting on an evening FlixBus. Why FlixBus and not train? See footnote [1].

We sat down at a hotel bar/restaurant near the station and made the most of the time, stretching breakfast into lunch under pleasant sunshine. The food was proper fancy! My black tea arrived with a sand timer, butter cookies, and a sugar wand for dipping.

As I was trying to get caffeine into my system, Hannah used the downtime productively, recording participants’ reflections on the contest. The German delegation kept us company for a while before saying their goodbyes around 1pm, and by 2pm we were moving toward the bus station.

Snacks and hydration secured for the 6+ hour haul ahead. One small mystery at the departure board: the FlixBus was listed as arriving at “platform 2-8”. Was that -6 or a range, and if a range would it be inclusive on both ends?

As if to shed some clarity on this question, the bus eventually arrived at platform 2. We boarded, and set off for Milan. The route took us straight through the city before reaching the Milano Lampugnano bus station, then onward through the rainier streets of Northern Italy. Four and a half hours in, we hit the Swiss border (and won the customs lottery with a check). The participants spent the ride writing postcards to SOI leaders and playing Stoflsweeper. We breezed through the Gotthard tunnel and rolled into Zurich just before 11pm, roughly an hour late. Goodbyes were quick with everyone weary and looking forward to sleep. As Myriam said of the travel back: “It could’ve been worse!”

[1] Italian trains were on strike that day (partially, at least). We traded the uncertainty of rail travel for the certainty of FlixBus (certain, that is, that it would get us all back to Zurich. Eventually.)