Slovak Camp 2026 Blog
We were invited by the Slovakian Olympiad in Informatics to join their IOI selection from 29th of April until 6th of May. The Swiss delegation consisted of Albert Kovacs, Benoît Schmit, Máté Makai, and Laetitia Sophia Orglmeister, accompanied by Cheng Zhong and Ursus Wigger.
Wednesday, 28th April
We took the night train in the evening from Zurich to Vienna. The train ride can be broken down to:
- Culinary Water from both Austria and St. Gallen!
- Molotow, Tichu
- We managed to lock the door.
- No smartphones have been stolen (yet).
- A semi-successful attempt of sleeping
What will await the delegation this week? Will the phones be stolen? How many tasks will they solve? What has gambling to do with this camp? And most importantly, will they finally go to the beach?
Well, seems you need to stay read the blog posts to find out!
Thursday, 29th April (Albert)
After having slept surprisingly good but also bad because the bed was about 30cm shorter than my body, we were woken up at 6 am on the train with breakfast. The bread was pretty good for train food, the coffee on the other side was basically just some water with some brown color and a bit bitter. Until 7:51, when we arrived in Vienna, we ate and played Tichu with Ursus being Jesus that literally sees all the cards from above (we had bunk beds).
The train ride from Vienna to Bratislava wasn’t anything surprising, except that the announcements always sounded as if the next halt would be hell because of some nice sound effects like feedback and what not.
In Bratislava we didn’t need much time to figure out, that Slovak people like to be vague. For example, sometimes they don’t tell you, from exactly which platform a train will be leaving. They only tell you, that 6 > platform number.
The buses took this to a next level though. Our bus was arriving in ~<6min . I still find it hard to understand what exactly it means, especially because later it switched to ~1 min, than to ~<1 min than to <1 min and about 8 minutes later, the bus eventually arrived.
Before the first contest we went on a walk and found many beaches! (fountains) And also learned the hard way that poles don’t move out of the way just because you’re looking at your phone.
In the evening we wanted to play some games, but the hostel has quiet hours between 22:00 and 6:00. We thought, that we could just play quietly but wanted to test, how soundproof the walls are. I thought, that I would leave the room and just listen, if I hear the others talking inside. Instead, I heard a loud WHOOOOOAAAAAA!!!!! The others understood the situation pretty quickly when I was laughing while entering the room…
To be continued…