Settling

The Bike Acquisition Project

Alas! The Bike Rescue Project, housed picturesquely under a bridge near the station, had very little to offer, certainly not in a price/quality range that convinced me that I would be better off this way than by getting a new bicycle after all. So after half an hour's bus ride to get there (a bike will be so much faster!) I caught the same bus (with the same driver) back, getting off a little early to do business at Halfords.

Much to my regret, it turns out that in England, Halfords is the Ikea of bicycles, meaning that you can take your bike home with you in a box and assemble it yourself. Fortunately they will do it for you at no extra cost, but at extra time. A bike bought in the morning will be ready for use in the evening. On the positive side, it has to be said that York evenings last pretty long, so I arranged to be back at 19:30.

Unfortunately this meant that I once more had to take the bus: a bike would be so much faster! Especially this time, when after 15 minutes waiting for the bus to arrive and deciding to sit upstairs for a change (what good is a doubledecker if no one uses the second deck?), below me I heard the driver starting to get very upset and shouting, first at his ticket dispenser and then at his phone, for not dispensing the right tickets respectively being picked up by a colleague who could tell him how to get the damn thing to dispense the right tickets. It took another 15 minutes before we got underway. Even walking would have been faster.

Finally, the university

All this took place in the morning of what should have been my first working day. When I finally arrived at the university it was lunch time; and who did I meet when walking up to the Hub (the building that I will be working in) but +Detlef Plump, a colleague from another group who helped me get the apartment I'm renting. He was at that moment going for lunch, and though it further delayed my arrival at the group that is actually hosting me I fell in with them.

At this occasion it became clear that what I had suspected is true: this is actually the first lecturing day of the term. I knew that the first semester starts late in Germany (in fact even later than this) but I was not aware that after we have already been going at it for five weeks and are halfway the first quarter in Twente, the York students are still waiting for the first drops of wisdom to be sprinkled upon them. (Poor them.)

When I arrived at the Hub after lunch, it lived up to its name, with students frantically looking for the lecture rooms where these drops were to be had; and +Louis Rose was on his way towards one of those selfsame rooms. Fortunately he had asked for a PhD student, James (I yet have to learn his last name), to help me with some essentials: a pass for the building and the office, and even more importantly, access to the internet. (Why does eduroam work everywhere in Europe, even in my apartment at Wentworth College, but not at the Computer Science department in York?)

Richard has a thing with rubber ducks

Well, when at long last I was installed in Richard's office, which he graciously allows me to use during his own sabbatical, I really felt it was time for a good afternoon nap.

Later in the afternoon Louis talked me through some of the projects running in the group - an impressive list really, as I knew it would be. Plenty of interesting stuff to get to know better, but I learn by doing not by (only) listening, so I'm setting myself the task I already mentioned in an earlier post, to use Epsilon on a small case provided by +Jaco van de Pol. Let's see what comes out of that.

The day ended as it began: with another episode in the Bike Acquisiton Project - in fact, the final act. Indeed a shiny bike is now chained to a sturdy pole in the bicycle shed, a few metres below me. It may be no Gazelle or Batavus, but it will serve for the four upcoming months. Who knows, afterwards the Rescue Project may still come in useful. I know where to find them!