Edinburgh Oh Eight

Looking Back

2009-05-18T05:22:00.009+01:00

Prior to my adventures abroad, friends, family, and co-workers unanimously recognized the importance of my opportunity to study and work in a new and interesting place. It was not until recently, however, that I had the chance to look back on my research opportunity and consider how it has impacted my life.

First, I worked with and learned from some of the brightest minds in computer science at one of the most prestigious schools in the world. Next, I represented (hopefully well) Drexel University and particularly the Department of Computer Science - which could potentially lead to future exchanges with the University of Edinburgh. Drexel and UoE offer complementary classes and have infrastructures to support distance learning, making them prime candidates for to share online curriculum.

Another factor: UoE has a very interesting take on interdisciplinary work - they put all their research labs in the same building and have mixers/presentations/etc. to promote the sharing of information between disciplines. In my opinion, this is brilliant! Many times, the problems we experience in research have been solved in other research areas - simply with different terminology. Putting researchers in close proximity and promoting interaction facilitates the sharing of ideas - which tend to greatly influence the direction of research.

Finally, I was recently asked what advice I would give to someone with the opportunity to research abroad. Here was my response:

Travel - it's a lot cheaper to go to abroad when you're already there.
Interact - avoid the overwhelming urge to hide in your flat at night or sit in the corner cubicle at work. So many things are new and different. Ask questions, make friends, and be open to new experiences.
Stay focused - don't forget the purpose of the trip: in my case, research. Don't neglect your goals for #1 and #2 above. If you are lucky enough to learn from some of the greatest minds in the world, never pass that up.
Redefine yourself - studying/working abroad is more than just a chance to go to work in a nicer building. People expect you to be different when you return - more worldly, mature, etc. Take that opportunity to redefine the way people think of you.

I truly hope that the information in this blog helps someone who has a similar opportunity in the future. Anyone interested to see my current work should visit my website:

http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~kfu22

And so ends an era...

2008-12-15T16:42:00.006Z

Today is my final day in Edinburgh, and while I'm really far behind on blogging about my adventures, I thought I'd quickly post a few highlights (of the things I haven't covered yet in my blog) before I head back to the states.

This is a picture of Edinburgh's Winter Wonderland taken from the German Market. Joe, Meg, Kevin, and I went to the lighting ceremony on Thanksgiving.

... then we ate Haggis...

I spotted Nessie in Loch Ness. And I met a guy that was convinced that plesiosaurs roamed the Loch.

My friend, Brit, came from Berlin to visit - and we spent a day in Glasgow with my friend, Jeff. That church behind us... it was retasked as a PUB. I love retasking!!

I've been enjoying a beautiful city, made even more picturesque by a plethora of Christmas decorations.

I've met some amazing friends. Without them, this trip would have not been nearly as much fun as it was.

I've also had a great experience at work - the guys in my lab (AIAI) at the University of Edinburgh are brilliant and I've learned so much in the short time I've been here.

I also got to climb at the largest rock climbing arena in the world!

...all-in-all, not a bad trip. ;-)

That's actually quite an understatement. I'm going to miss Edinburgh A LOT. This is a great place, the people are nice, and there are PLENTY of things to do.

Thanks to everyone who kept in touch while I was here - it was great to have friends/family to talk to. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone over Christmas break, so give me a call!

I'll continue to post new blogs for a bit - at least until I finish writing about all the fun stuff I summarized here. So... check back...

York

2008-12-10T20:01:00.011Z

Well... I'm leaving Edinburgh in a week and I'm still writing blog entries about mid-November. Right now, I'm trying to enjoy every last second I get to spend here. At the same time, I'm frantically trying to finish my University project and get in my Christmas shopping.

On Nov 20, my friend Kristin and I left Edinburgh on a bus to York. The bus stopped in New Castle so we got off and grabbed a bit of lunch and took a few pictures.

When we finally got to York, it was already dark, but we found our way to our B&B and scouted out some fun stuff to do the next morning. The first thing we did the next morning, after a delicious breakfast (where a nice lady made fun of my pronunciation of "tomato"), was a boat tour of York. I loved this house.

Then we took a walk on the city wall. It's amazing! It has been there since 64 A.D.

From the wall, you get some great views of the city and the famous York Minster.

Then we went to the National Train Museum - it's exactly what you would expect.

Then we took another section of the wall to explore some more of the city.

Everything was decorated for Christmas - keep in mind, this is pre-Thanksgiving, so we were pretty psyched about Christmas decorations.

We also took a tour of the York Brewery - they had some delicious samples at the end!

Later that night, Tom met up with us!

The next day we went to the Castle Museum. They had an entire full-size model of an old city in the building - pretty cool. We only saw about half the museum, but it was nice.

Outside they had an ice-skating rink. I think I've seen one in every city I visited after the beginning of November!

Then Tom and I went to the York Minster - Kristin had already seen it on a previous trip to York which she had completely forgotten about until she got there and said "I think I've been here before."

There was a market in the center of the city - it got really busy at times.

The next morning, we woke up to a thin coat of snow on the city.

York was one of my favorite places this trip. These pictures don't really do it justice. There was a ton of stuff to do and lots of great places to go/eat/drink.

London

2008-11-18T10:23:00.014Z

I remember a time when I was posting blog entries about things I did earlier in the day...

...that was a while ago!

I'm finally up to my trip to London. My friend, Tom, asked me a while back if I wanted to go to London for a weekend - of course I said "YES!" What made it even cooler was when my friend from the states, Jessie, asked if I wanted to meet her in London on the weekend I already was planning to be there!

I met up with Jessie and her Mom and Dad and cousin, Julia at her Aunt & Uncle's house. I got there pretty late - it took me a lot longer to get from London Luton to center city than I had anticipated.

The first thing we did was go to St. Paul's Cathedral (http://www.stpauls.co.uk). It was HUGE! They had one of the projected banners at the top of the dome inside. I thought the projection didn't really fit with the theme of the church and Jessie made fun of me because I said it looked like the Wachovia Center.

The views from the top of St. Paul's were fantastic. My favorite part was the whispering chamber, which is at the top of the dome where you can hear someone whisper from the other side of the dome. We couldn't really get it to work, but it's a cool idea and it's amazing that they were able to engineer something like this SO long ago.

Walking around London, we found a guy that was parked in a van that blows bubbles on the side of a road singing a ridiculously cheesy song. Needless to say... we loved him!

This is a picture of the indoor/outdoor market that we went to - it was really crowded and we got yelled at when Jessie tried to take a picture of some old-lady's display.

Outside of an art museum that we visited, there was a beautiful outdoor ice-skating rink. I got this great shot of the Lough parents!

Then we went to the London Eye - the giant Feris Wheel near Westminster!

We got tons of great night shots! This one is of Parliament and Big Ben.

This is another shot of London at night from the London Eye.

The Lough's (and Julia) were awesome - it was so great to see them and I'm looking forward to seeing them all again very soon!

The next day, I did a bit of exploring on my own. I went to Nelson's Column in Trafalgor Square...

...Westminster Abby...

...Saw a parade of Scots!!!

...Went to the Winston Churchill Cabinet War Rooms...

Winston had a quote about one of Julia's relatives!

...Then I met up with Tom. Down this path, there were like 10 of the colored statue people. I've never seen so many in the same place!

Tom and I went to the Globe Theatre and took the tour of the inside. They do plays there in the summer, but the tour was really interesting. We learned a lot about the people of Shakespeare's time.

Then we went to the Tate Modern, which is an old power plant that was converted into a modern art gallery. This was one of their largest works.

And it wouldn't be a trip to London without some Fish & Chips!!! Tom and I got some great food at this place before I had to get on the plane home.

It was a great weekend with great friends - what more can you ask for??

Fort William & Ben Nevis

2008-11-18T10:09:00.008Z

My buddy, Tom, and I took a trip up to Fort William a few weeks ago. Our hopes were to climb Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the UK. It didn't exactly work out, but we had a great weekend anyway... here's what happened:

Our train dropped us off in town. It's a cute, little place. Only a few small shops, a couple pubs, a grocery store, and a church. We asked someone how to get to our hostel, to which they replied, "Oh... that's a long way away" ("way-away" being closer to a single word... if not syllable). So we set out to find our hostel, the Ben Nevis Inn.

It turns out that the Ben Nevis Inn sits at the foot of the mountain - very convenient for climbing Ben Nevis... not so convenient for walking to/from town. After our (~2 mi) trek, we finally found the Inn and got situated in the bunkhouse.

A friendly hiker asked if we planned to climb Nevis. We told him that we were a bit hesitant about the weather - the reports had not been good. He explained that we would be fine as long as we had good rain gear (my jacket was barely water-resistant), a reliable compass (we had none), and a detailed map (we had a map!! it was the one they give you for free at the train station... probably not as detailed as he was thinking).

There were sheep EVERYWHERE in Fort William. Lots of sheep.

When we woke up the next morning, the mountains were capped with a beautiful layer of snow. Great for the views... not so great for the hike.

So after a little bit of discussion, we decided to walk into town, grab a bite to eat, and see how the weather held out...

... it didn't ...

We got hailed on coming out of the cafe where we ate breakfast, and it didn't stop hailing for a while! We took this picture by putting my camera on a wall and waiting for a large enough ball of ice to fall directly on the trigger button.

So we decided that we'd do a long hike without much elevation - It was called the Cow Hill Path. It had a bunch of great views.

The Cow Hill Path dropped us "close" to our hostel... not that anything actually was close to it...
But we decided to "keep on trucking." A guy told us about a vitrified fort, which apparently is a stone fort where they somehow melted the stones together to make a more solid edifice. It sounded cool, so we started that hike - which we were told would take us no longer than 2 hours.

The reason I don't really know what a vitrified fort is, is because there isn't one there! We got to the end of the trail and found the signs for it, but it's completely covered over with grass. Luckily, the views from the top were totally worth it. The next picture is me standing on top of the vegified vitrified fort.

We were in Fort William during the Scottish version of Memorial Day. There was a nice parade in town. What was really amazing was that all the bagpipers you see here, are women. I hadn't seen any female bagpipers yet at that point in my visit. Pretty cool!

One of the best parts of the trip were the guys we met one night at dinner. Tom and I were having a beer and a bite to eat and watching a Rugby match. Neither of us had any idea what was going on in the game. We must have looked confused enough that a couple of guys that were learning how to do commercial diving at the local uni came over to our booth, sat with us, and explained what was going on. They were pretty cool guys and we ended up staying out with them til about 1:30am.

Fort William was a really scenic place and great for hikers, but I would probably recommend visiting it during warm weather. It can get pretty ugly in hail and gale-force winds.

This is the inside of the Ben Nevis Inn restaurant. They had some pretty good food there - but more importantly, there was an awesome fireplace behind us that kept us warm for the whole meal. Had it been a little closer to town, it would have been a *really* good place, but it was a bit too far off the path (at least for people without a car).

I'm trying to catch up on my blog posts... I'm still behind. I have so many great pictures from London and York. And tonight, Joe, Meg, and Kevin come to Edinburgh for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Everyone back in the states: have a great Thanksgiving - eat some extra turkey for me!!

St. Andrews & Parents

2008-11-18T10:05:00.003Z

Hey Everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I posted, but in the next few posts, you'll see why. I've been very busy between a visit from my parents, getting sick, weekend trips all over the UK, o... and work.

My parents visited the first week in November. I got sick not long after they arrived, so I wasn't too much fun, but we went on a trip to St. Andrews one day anyway.

The weather was pretty crappy, but that didn't stop us from exploring the small city. There are a lot of picturesque areas in St. Andrews.

The most notable attraction in St. Andrews is the world-famous golf course. You can see the 18th fairway and the old clubhouse behind the golfers.

...and the most famous part of the golf course is this tiny, old bridge. The golf course is publicly-owned, so they have no problem with visitors walking right onto the course and taking pictures.

This was a cathedral that is now pretty much destroyed - still a great photo spot thought! After this, we got some food at a really neat little place in town and went back to Edinburgh.

It was great having my parents here for a bit - they got to see a lot of the sights - and they were a big help picking things up for me while I was sick. Also I got to go to a lot of places that I probably wouldn't have been to on my own. On their last night, they took me for a "Hot Tottie" a drink with cinnamon, lemon, cloves, honey, and of course: whiskey. It was pretty terrible, but they enjoyed them!

I'll have more posts later this week about my adventures in Fort William and my trip to London this past weekend.

Halloween

2008-11-04T22:01:00.003Z

Hey All! I've been extremely busy so I haven't posted for quite a while. My parents are here this week, so I'm spending a lot of time with them. We've had some great meals, and we're going to St. Andrew's tomorrow and Sterling Castle and Rosslyn Chapel on Friday.

I also managed to pick up a virus from someone - everyone here is sick so it really could have been anyone - but I feel pretty awful. Despite that, I'm having some new friends, Tom and Kristin, over tonight to watch some of the US Election coverage.

Since I wrote last, one of the coolest nights I had was on Halloween. I took a video of a parade from my window - it was pretty crazy.

Hopefully I'll have some stories from my tours with my parents, but I'm having trouble trying to find time to write. I'll be hiking all over Scotland this weekend, in London next weekend (and should be meeting Jessie there!), and in York the weekend after. Then Joe, Meg, and Kev will be here for Thanksgiving and my trip will be almost over. Long-story-short, it's quite a crazy time - wish me luck!

From Pivo to Bier and Back

2008-10-25T14:08:00.011+01:00

Hi All! I'm back in lovely (but windy/rainy) Edinburgh after a fantastic week in Prague. In my last post, I promised I'd write a bit about our day-trip to Dresden. For those of you who don't know where Dresden is (it's OK, I had to look on a map too), it's almost directly south of Berlin, but right on Germany's border with the Czech Republic. More importantly, it's only about 400km from the best place in Germany: Usbeckstraße, Niederzwehren (that's Usbeck St.)!

It was about a 2-hour train ride from Prague to Dresden with Cody and Chris. We shared a cabin with a really nice (and very pretty) Czech girl, Petra, who was on her way to the Dominican Republic.

On the train, I took a bunch of pictures of the towns we passed through. There are some really nice houses buried out in the middle-of-nowhere, CZ. The leaves are changing color now too, so there weren't a shortage of nice views.

Quick history lesson: Dresden was almost completely destroyed in WWII and has since been rebuilt. The architecture there seems very similar to that of Prague (to the untrained eye). The buildings are all very elaborate and the landscaping is really nice.

A river, whose German name I won't even attempt, runs through the North part of the city. We saw a lot of the attractions to the South of the river, but I'll admit, we definitely were lost for a decently long time.

After getting our bearings, we found the old city and went around to each of the buildings in the square. We also saw a group of old German guys singing in the middle of the square - they were pretty great.

We took a break from all our strenuous sight-seeing at a beer garden (you can see it in the above picture with the yellow umbrellas). The local beer-of-choice in Dresden is Feldschlösschen Pilsner which I enjoyed even more than the Pilsner Urquelle of Prague, but it's not quite as good as Kozel (from Prague).

I suppose I should explain the title of this post (via a 3-part analogy):

Pivo : Czech :: Bier : German :: Beer : English

One of my favorite places in Dresden was the Zwinger. The name 'zwinger' means 'interspace' and originates from its location between the city forts. It's now a museum and the large courtyard is really nice to walk around.

The Zwinger courtyard has some very elaborate patterns in the ground, and some really cool passages between the buildings that compose the walls of the courtyard.

All-in-all, it was a really great day-trip and I highly recommend it. The food was delicious - the beer was fantastic - the people were nice - the city was interesting. We were able to use credit cards everywhere, so we didn't have to worry about getting euro, and my mastery of the German language came in very handy (I successfully communicated with a German via pointing and shrieking "CITY??").

My academic advisor, Bill Regli, is in Edinburgh this weekend, so I've been spending some time with him. Maybe my next post will be about Drexel CS overseas. I'm open for suggestions... is there anything you guys would like to know about?

Czech Please

2008-10-21T20:15:00.012+01:00

Hey Everyone! I'm in Prague this week to visit my friends Chris & Cody and do some work at Czech Tech University (CTU). I got here on Saturday Oct 18 at 10:50am (meaning I woke up at 4:30am to catch the plane), and the guys took me around the city.

The architecture is so amazingly elaborate and everything is so well maintained. But what I found out is that Prague is really a "commuter city." On the weekends, a lot of the locals go elsewhere because it gets packed with tourists and all the shops and restaurants hike up their prices. That means fewer struggles trying to communicate with sole-Czech speakers, but also fewer authentic Czech experiences.

Still, we managed to find a few good local spots and snag a few pictures. We also took frequent breaks to try the local beers - and it's true, they're actually cheaper than water here. My favorite so far is a Czech lager, Kozel, which is very sweet. For the rest of the day, I caught up with Chris and Cody and heard about some of their foreign language/culture antics.

Sunday, we went to Dresden, but I'll save that for another post ;-)

Monday, the guys went to work and left me to explore the city on my own. I bee-lined right to the Prague Castle (along with every other tourist that was in the city on Monday). The castle sits on a hill, so the walk up was incredibly scenic. But it didn't end there... I went to the Cathedral and walked around for almost an hour. It reminded me a lot of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York but much larger and much more elaborate. Despite the construction that prevented me from going up to the very top and ruined a lot of otherwise-great pictures, it was a fantastic place to go.

The views from the castle show you just how similar (but great) some of the buildings in the city look. It makes it a really cool place to walk around, and a very easy place to get lost!

Then I walked into Old Town in the city center and went to the top of the clock tower. There were a lot of great views from it, and the 70 CZK (about $3) was worth just the ride up.

The food has been spectacular - it's all basically meat & potatoes, but everything is prepared so well! Also, it's considerably cheaper than the UK. $1 = about 18 CZK. Lunch everyday costs 90 CZK (about $5) and I had a pretty expensive dinner out tonight, it was 209 CZK (about $11.50).

Communication has been fun... I've gotten flustered a few times when people started talking to me in Czech and I responded in broken Spanish. I'm an idiot. But Chris & Cody & I have been managing pretty well by pointing.

...and this was way too funny for me not to post. I got a coffee from Starbucks (I know - Starbucks - I could get it anywhere, but it's really hard to say "to go" in Czech), and the girl working there spent some time in Boston and knew that the Sox blew it. Long story short, I thought it was so cool that someone here watched (or at least cared about) baseball. So I got my coffee back and this was how she spelled my name:

KCHAJL

...not bad

Prague Prep

2008-10-15T17:13:00.008+01:00

At Pat's request, I recorded a cover of Matt Nathanson's "Church Clothes" on my new 12-string. It's a lot of fun to play, but as you'll soon see, it's different enough that I still need a lot of practice.

I gave a presentation about the work we do at Drexel yesterday. It went pretty well. People seemed interesting, and it was cool to have a group of the AI research people at University of Edinburgh in one room. These are some of the best Computer Science students/professors in the *world*. I was hoping to get some photos of the Informatics Forum (where I presented) today, but I got to walk home with one of my co-workers instead (it turns out my flat is on his way home), so it didn't happen. I will take some pictures another time - it's a really cool building, and brand new - so nice and shiny!

The weekend before last, there was a crazy random parade that went down the Royal Mile. It was basically a barrage of bagpipes and drums, but there were some creepy floats (mostly animal heads). I only caught the tail-end on video, but the volume gives you a pretty good idea of the shear number of bagpipes that actually exist in this country.

I leave for Prague this Saturday. Now that I'm finally getting settled in, I'm going to miss Edinburgh.

Climbing the Crags part Deux

2008-10-14T23:11:00.003+01:00

Sorry you haven't heard from me in the past few days, but it's because I had a great weekend. I finally did some outdoor rock climbing on Saturday at the Salisbury Crags.

The scouting I did last week paid off, because I was able to find a place to meet my friend, Tom, for a hike. Tom is also visiting the University from the states. At the end of the hike, we ended up at a rock that was perfect for bouldering.

This was the first time I ever climbed outdoors. It's remarkably similar to climbing at the gym - maybe a little easier since your not restricted to only grabbing holds with a certain color. All I know is... it felt GREAT!

...it felt so great, in fact, that I went back again on Sunday and climbed the entire south-face of one rock.

After having climbed outdoors, I now can more fully understand some of the moves at the gym - and why people need to practice them. In the picture above, I got to employ one of my favorite techniques - and I made an *awesome* face too.

I plan on going climbing again very soon - but I'm spending next weekend in Prague with Chris and Cody (some buddies from work). I'm really looking forward to it, and my advisor, Dr. Regli, is coming to Edinburgh for a few days when I get back next week. So, rest assured, there will be some great blog posts after next week.

I gave a talk to some of the people doing similar research at University of Edinburgh today. I'll have a post later this week with some photos from the building, and possibly even a video of a parade that went down the royal mile this weekend past.

Miss you all!

Climbing the Crags

2008-10-07T12:51:00.014+01:00

Hey Guys! On Sunday, the weather was great so I took a walk down the Royal Mile to Parliament and Arthur's Seat.

The parliament building is amazing. It's built to look like twigs and leaves from above, and to go with that theme, the sides are adorned with bamboo and leaf-shaped things. It sits right in front of Arthur's Seat.

Other sides of the parliament have a very modern feel. Opinions about this building are mixed 1) because such a modern building in a VERY old city looks slightly out-of-place, and 2) because it apparently went drastically over-budget.

There's a pretty neat little sitting area with a reflecting pond that seems to be a local hang-out (wow I sound old) for high-school kids.

I tried to do some exploration around Salisbury Crags, just west of Arthur's Seat, but for some reason, I couldn't really find any of the spots that I heard of online. It turns out that I was on the wrong side of the mountain. Apparently I'm not the only that has made this mistake because the website where I looked today is titled "What do you mean you're lost?!?! They're big enough, aren't they?"

I took a walk completely around the north-west face and back down to the south-east side. I took this photo towards the end of the walk hoping to give you some perspective about how massive this rock actually is, but it's so far in the distance here that it seems kind of small relative to the cars... o well, I tried.

Here's a video of some of the bouldering that's available on the crags. You apparently have to be careful here though, because some of the spots are "off-limits" as you'll see from the sign in the movie.

Link to video (it was trying to load it even if people didn't play it)

Tour de 'burgh

2008-10-06T23:44:00.007+01:00

When I got home from buying my guitar, there was a guided tour right outside my door. It was a little embarrassing because I needed to excuse myself to get into the building they were talking about. But, apparently they give tours of this place pretty often and I can hear some of the guides when the flat is quiet. I learned that Scotland is home of the heart attack - it's the country where heart disease is the most prominent. not so good for me

On that same note... it may not be the case *everywhere* in Scotland, but most of the toilet seats that I've encountered here are noticeably larger than those in the US. This poses quite a problem for the... let's call them (since I'm in the UK)... bum-deficient. Should I disappear for a few days, may I suggest first searching the men's restrooms.

...and now for a virtual tour of my flat from yours truly...

My New Brunswick

2008-10-06T22:56:00.008+01:00

Hey all! I had a very busy weekend so I have to split it up over a couple posts. The first will center around my Saturday - pretty much a trip to the guitar store...

First of all, I bought a guitar!!! I got a Brunswick 12-string. It's got a very bright timbre and it was a lot of guitar for the money. And since I'm already out of my comfort zone here, I did a little haggling too and got a small discount. I was proud of myself.

This is the place where I found the guitar - Mev Taylor's Music - it was a nice little shop - the owner helped me find exactly what I was looking for.

I got to see the Edinburgh Castle from a different angle on the way to the guitar shop. It's easy to see how this thing would be pretty much impenetrable back in the 15-16 century. The rock facade is beautiful, partially covered in moss. In contrast, the cannons point in every direction - really cool. I can't wait for friends/family to get here so I can give my world-famous (to Pat & Ursula) fake-tour of the castle. There's no factual information on my tour, but if you miss the real tour, and you have a plane to catch - it's the best you can get!

In other news, my dryer is still on a rampage... This time, it only burnt a few of my shirts, but the rest came out so wrinkly that after 15-minutes of ironing, they're still bad. Does that even look like a shirt?!?!

Dryer 1 - Kyle 0

2008-10-03T11:06:00.012+01:00

So, I moved into my new flat on the Royal Mile! This is a picture I took from out my front window yesterday. It's a great location and has a beautiful view. However, I'll continue my trend of revealing far too much embarrassing insight into my life with a somewhat humorous anecdote about my struggle with European appliances. Has anyone else ever seen a true washer/dryer combination? I'm not talking a washing machine next-to/on-top-of a dryer... I mean 1-machine, 2-functions, washer/dryer. Well, I certainly never have. After reading some instructions provided by my landlord (I swear I actually read the instructions - first time in my life - but I did), I fired the thing up with about 1/2 of a load. Well, I neglected to change the dryer-time setting dial and a few of my shirts are actually singed and a few pairs of boxers have lost all elasticity in their waste-band. O well... win some, lose some!

Also, on Wednesday, I went to a lunchtime talk in the "School of Informatics Forum" - a new building for a lot of science-related majors. The inside is awesome, I'll get a picture eventually... but there is a roof-top courtyard that is absolutely amazing - it has a great view and is apparently really good for lunch in the summertime.

One of the buildings I pass on my way to work is simply breathtaking... It's a brown-marble exterior that almost looks like wood if you are far away. There are also some neat cat-walks that connect upper-levels to different parts of the building - you can kind of see some in this photo. I poked my head in on the way to work this morning and found out that it's the National Museum of Scotland, so I'm going to try to go back at some point and check it out. Sorry for the bus in the photo, it drove right in front of me as I was shooting the picture. But if you look closely, some of the tourist in the back are waiving - so that's nice!

I hope that everyone back home is doing well - and rooting for the Phillies for me! I'm doing another load of laundry today so hopefully the dryer and Phils won't have the same record. Also, since my favorite Flyer, Sami Kapanen, retired at the end of last year, I need a new favorite - I'm ready for suggestions.

12-strings Are Better Than Six

2008-09-29T22:46:00.009+01:00

I'd like to start this post by wishing my sincerest apologies to any Mets fans that might be reading this... 2 years in a row, you fell apart at the end of the season... So here's a little something to ease the pain:

Onto the events from this past weekend...
On Saturday, I scoped out some local music shops to find a guitar. I ran into this fantastic sounding acoustic 12-string. It's a Simon & Patrick (a Canadian make) with a bright tone and it plays really easily, but it's a bit too expensive. I played a few other 12-strings at some other stores, but none of them really compared. One of the more reasonably-priced guitars was an acoustic-electric, so I'll probably go back to that store (Scayles) and ask to hear the electronics.

On Sunday, I went to the Meadows to play some pick-up football. It was a lot of fun!! I played for about 3 hours - and I'm paying for it now - I'm SOOOO SORE!! I also met a few nice guys who told me about some good places nearby - music venues, pubs, etc. I plan on meeting them for a game again soon. Also, I was told that the arch at one end of the Meadows is made from a whale's jawbone. I found this picture of it online - it's really cool, I'll try to get one of my own later!

I wanted to thank everyone again for keeping up with me... I was amazed to see this in my e-mail:

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	9	29	14	14	19	10	9	104	15
Unique Visitors	7	20	12	13	17	9	8	86	12
First Time Visitors	3	9	5	4	3	1	0	25	4
Returning Visitors	4	11	7	9	14	8	8	61	9

...which basically means that more-than 80 people read my blog last week! I'm amazed! Thanks so much - I'll try to keep stuff coming (and keep it interesting). But I love hearing from everyone - so keep in touch! Miss you all!!

The Royal Mile

2008-09-26T23:12:00.008+01:00

It's been an exciting few days. I've been frantically searching Scotland for "For Rent" signs (or their online equivalent) for just about 2 weeks now. But, I think that all my searching has paid off - I just closed a deal with a real-estate agent today for Oct 1 - Dec 16 on an amazing flat on The Royal Mile! I know what you're thinking... "how did they know to name it that before I got there?" Well, it had to be fate, because they even put the Edinburgh Castle right on the same street!! Now the King won't have very far to walk to watch football at my flat.

View Larger Map

Over the course of all my house searching, I also ran into a wedding at a nearby cathedral. It was beautiful, but I had to laugh at the groomsmen wearing kilts.

You might (but probably won't) recognize the cathedral as the one with the heart-shaped bricks directly outside. I recall spitting in the heart bringing luck (or something like that) - maybe one of the other EuroTripOhSeven'ers can explain in a comment. I didn't spit in it again this time - for gosh sakes there was a wedding, people!

I also took a walk through the Meadows - a fairly large park system where there are a bunch of football / frisbee games to be played. I'm looking forward to playing some pick-up when I go back this weekend.

In other news, I started class this past week. I don't think there is a single Scot in the entire class of approx. 20 masters students. I met people from France, Poland, and Germany. Also, in my guest house, I met people from Japan and Kazakhstan (funny story, the guy from Kazakhstan asked if I had ever heard of his country before and I couldn't lie - needless to say, he didn't like Borat, and he wanted to make sure I knew it was a joke).

In the meantime, I hope everyone back home manages to stay dry and cheer a little extra for the Phil's the Eagles and the Flyers for me!! Miss you all.

Loser of the Trip

2008-09-23T21:36:00.006+01:00

Well... today was a rough one. I finally got a hold of the landlord of the apartment that I was supposed to move into tomorrow morning - he decided that he was going to rent the place to someone else and neglected to get back to any of my e-mails or voicemails. So... I'd like to introduce my "Loser of the Trip" to the world:

Loser of the Trip:
Brian Wotherspoon
e-mail: narodnost@yahoo.co.uk
mobile: +44 0773 981 7363

He's a complete jerk - don't rent from him! He completely screwed me over, I was very clear about my situation - I was fairly certain we had an understanding - and he showed no remorse in leaving me homeless in Scotland.

Don't get me wrong, everyone else that I've met here has been extremely nice. My Strathallan Guest House manager, Eamonn (pronounced A-maan) was very sorry to hear how I was treated and made my room available to me for another week. He has been great! Also, my new lab mates and acquaintances have recommended numerous places for me to continue my search. So thanks to all of them - and especially my friends and family for being so supportive and helpful during this process. My cousin, Rachael, cheered me up with a funny story and this John Mayer video from his new DVD:

As soon as I find a flat, I'll be back out exploring and reporting my findings! Until then... anyone have a flat in Edinburgh??

EuroTrip Oh Seven

2008-09-21T16:36:00.009+01:00

Yesterday, along my walk, I had a lot of fond remembrances of Edinburgh from my EuroTrip Oh Seven with Pat, Ang, Ursula, and Kristin. This picture is of "The World's End." It was one of the first pubs we went to in Edinburgh. They have great food - I ate dinner there yesterday (I had the Scottish Salmon). It's right on eastern side of the Royal Mile - it's a nice place.

Next, I walked back to the hotel where we stayed (Jury's Inn) and I took a picture of the bridge from the street in front of it. This was essentially the view from our hotel rooms during our stay.

Next I walked over to one of our of our favorite pubs from last time... actually, I'm not sure we really liked it, but it's namesake was really cool. This is Deacon Brodies - named after the real life Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. It's also right on the Royal Mile and the outside is beautiful.

I'd be really impressed if anyone could guess what this is... it's the tree where we roped-up our bikes for the break during our awesome bike tour. We had the tourguide take a picture of us last time... this time, it was just me, but I now know that the tree resides in Grassmarket - supposedly that's the place where a lot of the Uni students go for drinks after class.

This is a poster outside Frakenstein's - a theme pub after the British author Mary Shelley's heart. Last time we did Kareoke there and met a bunch of spanish people... As I recall, the DJ told us that Pennsylvania was "the boring state." Apparently he hasn't been to very many places in the US.

Last, but certainly not least, I went back to the Royal Mile to find the Radisson where Joe (of the famous www.joepenrice.com), Meg, & Kevin will be staying when they come to visit me in November. I'm really excited, guys - it will be a blast!! I'm finding fun stuff for us to do every day.

Also, my parents will be visiting early in November, for which I am also really excited.

I did a bit more exploring today - I'll write about that sometime during the week, but work & class are starting this week so blog entries will probably become less-frequent. I love hearing back from you guys - I do miss home and friends, so it's great to hear what's going on.

Cheers!!

Almost a done deal

2008-09-20T20:28:00.007+01:00

After all my housing struggles, I might have finally found one! I went to the view the flat this morning. It's very close, a 3-minute walk from the guest house I'm currently in. I took a picture of the street its on: Duncan St. The architecture here is amazing!

The next picture is the front door of the flat-complex. Inside, it opens into a small "car park" for about 15 cars and an entry door/call box. I looked at Flat 14. It's pretty nice - it has a small bedroom (with a double bed), a sitting room (with couch and table), a kitchen/laundry room, and a bathroom. It's probably a little bit larger than I need for my stay, but I'm running out of options and I'll just be glad to have internet in my room at this point.

The location of the flat is pretty good. It's only a bit further from campus/center-city, but it's got 2 nice pubs right on the corner and a grocery store (Tesco) about a block away.

I did a little exploring after my flat viewing to ensure that the neighborhood was sufficiently Scottish. Luckily, this kilt store was right next to the bagpipe store, so I think it will be OK.

I did a little more exploring - a lot more actually - but I'll save some of those pictures for another post. I will, however, leave you with this picture - I was walking down the street and saw King Arthur's Seat, a mountain that we hiked the last time I was here, poking over some houses and thought it was pretty amazing. Hope you enjoy it too - I really miss everyone back home. Bye for now!

MFEO

2008-09-18T22:39:00.007+01:00

You need to know a few things to understand this picture:

1) This is a picture of the Uni's School of Informatics directly across the street from the Neuroscience building,

2) My girlfriend, Mary, is studying Neuroscience at Haaaaaarvard, and

3) MFEO = Made For Each Other (its a song by Jack's Mannequin)

In this case, the school was kinda made for us... but who's fact checking this anyway?

Anyway, I thought this was too cool. It's a miserable, rainy night here - apparently it's been one of the rainiest years in the past 25. Hopefully that improves so I can make use of all the beautiful athletic fields - I saw some frisbee going on and there's always a game of football to be played. But don't get duped like me... I went in a pub to watch "American Football" thinking they might replay the monday night Eagles game... it was an American soccer game - which is just crappier than European soccer. :-\

I'm still looking for housing. I viewed a house very close to campus (less-than 10 mins walking) today. I'd be living there with 2 Danish girls. They were really nice so I hope to hear back from them soon. I also have a viewing on Saturday for a place close to where I am staying now (slightly more than 10 mins walking to campus). If both of those fail... then... well... I'm screwed. But there has been a very nice Asian man (or woman - not sure from the name) trying to show me his/her place. Something is getting lost in the translation, though. I know you are all on the edge of your seats... I'll keep you posted, anyway.

I leave you now with a few pictures of my current room in the Strathallan Guest House. It's pretty nice. I wish I got internet in my room and the ceilings were a bit higher, but other than that - I like it.

Getting acquainted

2008-09-18T00:07:00.005+01:00

I started today with breakfast in my B&B and then walked to campus. It was a nice walk, only about 0.8 miles (which I was surprised google maps UK used instead of km). I decided to just make it a full-mile so I walked the long way around the block (by accident).

When I got into the building, Appleton Tower, I was pleased to find that a researcher was there and even happier that they had set up a desk for me. So happy, in fact, I took a picture. I didn't get any work done today, however, because I spent most of the time getting oriented by Stephen, a lab-mate, and searching for housing.

Around 13:00, I went down to George's Square (the Uni Quad). It's a really nice area and they are having "Fresher's" Week - which is basically Freshman Orientation. So I decided that I'd pretend I was a fresher and pick up all the campus info that people were handing out. Unfortunately, most of it was about clubs and restaurants rather than housing, but I did manage to collect a few housing pamphlets along the way.

After that, I had my first trip to the grocery store, ate some food and commenced exploring. I found A TON of stuff all along the street on which I'm living (it changes names a few times but is mostly Nicolson St. by the Uni). I walked the whole thing and found:
* A concert venue - Queen's Hall - looks like it has some good indie rock
* 2 interesting looking pubs - and probably some others that I'll try
* An Open Mic Night - on Tuesday the Blind Poet does open mic
* 3 music stores - so I can find a guitar and potentially curb my desire for percussion

It's late here so I'm going to bed, posts won't come nearly as frequently later, but sharing this with everyone (and hearing from some of you) is making me feel closer to home.

Still miss you all! Here's another shot of the lab I'm working in.

I'm Here!

2008-09-17T10:27:00.004+01:00

Hi Everyone! I made it to Edinburgh successfully. The plane ride was long and I didn't get much sleep (thanks to the guy that sat next to me on the plane), but I got to the Amsterdam airport without much trouble. There, I made friends with an ex-University of Edinburgh immunization PhD student, Katie. She told me some great places to go (Edinburgh Leisure for indoor rock climbing, Student Union to find housing, etc.). Also, someone heard me asking about guitar shops and recommended one for me (Guitar Guitar) to find my axe for the trip. I was originally thinking about getting a cheap new 6-string but now I'm thinking that a used 12-string might be more fun. Anyway, it turns out that Katie lived just down the street from where I'm staying, so we shared a cab - it was good because I had someone to follow out of the airport and she new the best ways to get around all of the construction - apparently Edinburgh is installing a new Tram for public transportation. She made the trip much easier.

My biggest concern now is finding housing. I'm currently in a nice Bed & Breakfast, the Strathallan Guest House (44 Minto St.) that is less-than a mile from my workplace (Appleton Tower), but it's expensive and I can't get internet in my room. Thus, I'm looking for "permanent" housing elsewhere. I have an appointment on Saturday to view a flat that is right on the same block, but for now, that's my only lead - all my other contacts have stopped responding for some reason... maybe they saw my picture and they're afraid of how devilishly handsome I am ;-) jk.

My other concern is getting my bank account setup. The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is the parent company to Citizens Bank. There's an RBS on my block, but they had never heard of the International Account that I'd filled out - so they're sending it to their head office, something that could take up-to 10 days. The problem is that I'm almost impossible for people in the UK to contact since all my contact numbers are for the USA. I inquired about some other accounts that I could open faster (on location), but I need a "permanent" UK address (and proof) before they'll allow me to sign up for such an account. So it looks like I'm stuck paying some exorbitant ATM fees for now until I can resolve these issues. I'm open to any ideas. Until my next post...

One last thing - I really miss you all!!

Contact Info

2008-09-09T02:23:00.003+01:00

While abroad, you can contact me in several different ways:

Phone Number:	610.572.4430
(note: this is a Reading number that gets re-routed, so you will not incur international call rates)
Skype (Video/Audio/Text Chat):	radarku
Free Skype Download www.skype.com
AOL Instant Messenger (AIM):	radarku
Free AIM Download www.aim.com
GoogleChat:	radarku@gmail.com
Free Google Talk Download gChat
E-mail:	radarku@gmail.com
You can also chat with me from my website:	Online Chat

Keep in mind that Edinburgh is typically 5 hours AHEAD of the EST. A comparison chart can be found at TimeZones .

If you need any other info, you can usually find it on my homepage: http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~kfu22.

Keep in touch!

Housing

2008-08-15T02:31:00.003+01:00

I'm working on finding housing around the University of Edinburgh.... and this is hard! With only a month until I'm on a plane to Europe, I'm starting to get a bit nervous. I'm going to be maintaining a Google Map of all of my points of interest in Edinburgh.

You can interact with it at the following link Edinburgh Points of Interest.

It's Starting...

2008-08-10T00:57:00.002+01:00

It's really happening. There are only a few more weeks until I'm in Edinburgh working and taking classes. I'm getting really excited, but I'll try to keep this short.

This is the best way for me to keep in touch with everyone, so I intend to keep notes on everything I do in Edinburgh.

I'm still looking for housing and figuring out the details of the project on which I'll be working. I'll keep you updated as I find out more!