Seriously strong

Apparently the proposal was accepted and this is why I am currently relocated to Scotland. Not too much has happened so far, just the usual annoyances you run into when changing the workstation – here should follow a long rant about the incapacity of Windows to support a reasonable work-flow, but I'll spare you that; it is probably anyways something that is in the eye of the beholder – and the machines you run your stuff on. Turns out that SunOS 2.9 is slightly painful: no reasonable C99 support, weird termcap (or equivalent, haven't figured that out yet), old Vim... But okay, stuff I can work around and actually managed to work around.

Because of being busy and actually getting some serious work done I haven't yet had the time to explore Edinburgh. My flat is in the South of the city and the EPCC is even more south, so I don't pass through the center on my daily walk to the office. But I see the castle twice per day, once in the morning sun and once in the dark, see the picture further up.

So, just let us do a quick tour!

That is a nice park behind which the inner city part is located. If you would turn to the left here you would see the castle. But I have to turn right. After thirty minutes of walking – I am still not used to the switched traffic, though no dangerous situation while crossing the road occured yet – I arrive at The King's Buildings, one part of the University of Edinburgh. I then have to wiggle through the buildings to reach the James Clerk Maxwell Building.

Okay I am cheating here a bit, the picture was taken in the evening, when I left, but believe me, it looks nicer in the dark. Here the really tricky part begins: Finding the office. After ten days I think I finally have an approximate grasp of the layout of those 5 corridors I regularly have to pass through. But it is extremely confusing to navigate in that building! Everything looks like this:

Well, the posters on the wall change slightly. But still, really complicated. That the entrance is on level two doesn't make it easier. Eventually I arrive at my office:

I use the computer at the window on the left.

Ah, even though I have not yet explored the city I of course did explore the nearest grocery shop, finding this interesting piece of cheese:

Not really 'strong' though...