And we're back

So the last message was from a couple of days ago and a lot has happend. The actual distance between the two messages is about a 1000 km. Given that Scotland is big but not that big it means that the two have been written in two different places. So my intention with this blog is to keep people up to date with what I'm doing but also to state the things that I find remarkable. This is fully my own opinion and uninfluenced by (almost) no-one because on can never say that the opinion is influenced by no-one :).

So let's start. My first, or actually if you count it correctly my third, impression of Edinburgh. It stays a bit of a grey city. Lots of tall dark building but the niceness of the city is mainly made by its people. I heard that the Scots are a lot like the Dutch they are good bankers. Anyhow they are nice people. I've moved to Edinburgh now a couple of days ago to do my PhD in robotics. This PhD takes place at both the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt. So I will be juggling between the two universities at least in the first year and maybe also in the three years to come. I guess it will be a lot of fun but time will tell. Otherwise we'll make it a lot of fun. The Scots are just like the English driving on the wrong side of the road. We (Europeans) are driving on the right side of the road. So during the last couple of days I had to remind my self of looking to both sides of the road before I would crossing it. Ah well this get's normal at some point I guess.

One of the prejudices that many of the people I know have about Scotland is that it rains there all the time. Which thankfully isn't true. Since I arrived on Tuesday I haven't seen any rain (touch wood). It has been sunny most of the days which makes Edinburgh a nice and warm city. Like I discovered last time Edinburgh has hills and they are quite steep at some points. Especially when you have to walk up them with a heavy suitcase. It's great fun when you've finally conquered the hill and get to the descent. Apart from this I've spend the last couple of days running around arranging most of the stuff that I want to arrange. This means that I tried to skip the Royal Mile and Princess street to find most of the stuff in the streets that are away from the tourist trap. It saves a bit of money. Although the bars in or near the center are actually great. For example BrewDogs which is a small pub that makes its own beer. Yum. They had one (which they were out of otherwise I would try it) made with Scottish chilies. Which are apparently pretty hot.