Heh. Did you, dear reader, notice the change on the date-stamp for the previous entry? It was posted in British Standard Time. Yes, I am now taking a position in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics over at University of Cambridge. This blog may or may not follow suit.

Quick summary of what happened in the past few days.

Saturday afternoon I was back in New Jersey, packing furiously. By the evening, I stuffed all I wanted into the gigantic suitcase that my mother lent me, and found out that it weighs around 60 lbs. So I did some furious unpacking and repacking (making my backpack slightly heavier), and leaving some things behind. By the time I finished, the suitcase was visibly less full (it was bulging originally) and was estimated at around 48 or 49 lbs. (We did this on a bathroom scale. I stand on it, the needle bounces to around 160. I then lift up the the bag, the needle goes about 2 lbs shy of 210.) My backpack, however, was bulging. Originally I planned to bring a neck pillow for the flight. Then I had no space left.

Sunday I spent with wife, trying to make most of the hours left. My flight left late in the evening, and I arrived at Newark airport at about 8pm. At the check-in counter, the digital scale registered 49.5 lbs for my suitcase. I grinned at the wide-eyed counter agent.

There was a gate-change for my flight. Somehow it was not announced at the PA until boarding time. I found out earlier because an inquisitive eight year old.

"Pa pa, we are at the wrong gate."
"No dear, see this ticket, it says Gate C113. And here we are."
"But Pa pa, it says C110."
"No dear, that's the flight number. See? It is written right under the line flight number."
"Not on the ticket, Pa pa. On the television."

The father got up to prove his daughter wrong once and for all. The kid came back lording over a sheepish father. I gathered my stuff and moved over to gate C110.

I had a nice sized dinner before leaving. What was surprising was that there was dinner service on an east-bound flight leaving at 10pm. They served a dinner at midnight EDT, which probably makes it about 1am local, wherever we were. The flight was delayed slightly at departure, but the line was short on the taxiway, so we took off not too late. With a tailwind, we landed at UK on time.

As Monday snuck up on a bleary-eyed Willie, I contemplated on how hard it is to get a good rest on a flight. The flight was completely full. Several families were scattered. The flight attendants played a huge round of musical chairs to get as many youngsters near their guardians. I didn't have to move, but my neighbord on the aisle did. It was kind of awkward in the beginning when this young woman sat down, asked if she can store a small item under the seat in front of me, as her backpack took up the space in front of her, and then somehow she struck up a conversation with the guy in the window seat because they were both Australian.

As Murphy's law would have it, twenty seconds after I got my cup of tea after breakfast service was when we hit a spot of turbulence. It was hard to prevent the seiche from escaping the cup. I looked up and admired how the flight attendants were able to walk down the aisle with a tray (on their hands) full of cups of tea, and not sloshing a single drop on the passengers. I wondered if they teach that in flight attendant school.

Anyway, I was tired when I arrived at the UK. Weariness does strange things to my hearing. I had a really, really hard time hearing the border agent. Of course, she took me for a dumb American who cannot understand proper British way of talking, and just slowed right down. Unfortunately, she forgot the other half of talking-to-dumb-American which is to raise her voice. After saying "pardon me" for more than 5 times, I just leant all the way forward over the podium and finally...

Luggage took a while to come. In the meantime I called my landlord to let him know my flight was not delayed. Public telephones in the airport are expensive (dunno about the phone boxes elsewhere). I put in 70 pence, and that got me a good 45 seconds of talk time. It refuse to accept additional coinage in 5 pence increments. So in the end I put in another pound to finish talking to the landlord, using only about 30 seconds of my time. No refund.

I had 30 some odd pounds on me when I left the US.

Dragged my luggage over to the Heathrow tube station. Recharged my Oyster with my ten-pound note. Took the tube over to King's Cross (3 pounds). Looked around for a Barclay's ATM. None in sight. Looked up the fare table: same-day unlimited single to Cambridge: 19 lbs 10p. Looked at the automatic ticket machines: they take cards online. Looked at the relatively long line. Sighed. Dragged my foot (and my luggage) over to the line to the ticket counter.

I asked for a ticket to Cambridge. And handed him the twenty-pound note. He looked at me funny, and said,

"Canadian dollar, sir?"

When I left I just grabbed the British currency from the desk drawer. I didn't realize that the bill with a big number 20 on it and a picture of Queen Elizabeth was, in fact, from one of the commonwealths. I looked back at the long line, and accepted the foreign transaction fee on my credit card.

Despite the long line, I still managed to make the Cambridge express departing at 12:45. The first stop, after I bobbled over and under the line of consciousness for 50 minutes, was Cambridge. I hobbled down and really didn't feel like walking to my new flat. But what can I do? I was flat broke... or was I? Right at the corner of the station was a Barclay's ATM, and I was saved. I then took a cab (10 pounds) to the vicinity of my new flat, and there greeted my landlord.

Turns out my landlord wanted to help me "hit the ground running" (his words), so he bought me some basic grocery supplies. I now have instant coffee, tea, a loaf of sliced bread, some jam, some butter, some milk, some OJ, a bag of crisps (actually, since this bag was American, it was still called chips), some salt, and some olive oil. Oh, and a bottle of cheap white wine. Quite thoughtful of him. The flat came fully furnished: dishes, table cloth, silverware, cups, mugs, etc... It even had a down comforter (I already need it now; I can't imagine how cold it will get in the winter) with a duvet, and bed sheets. What it did not come with were a dish towel (which wifey stuck into my bag) a bath towel (which I packed) and pillowcases (which... well, I wasn't even expecting pillows actually. And there turned out to be 6 on the bed). I'll go buy some pillowcases today. And an umbrella.

I decided to try to stay awake by exploring Cambridge. But I forgot to bring my guidebook when I left the flat at around 3pm. Somehow I managed to stumble my way to the Center of Mathematical Sciences (my current work place) based on some half-remembered maps of the area courtesey of google maps. There was no one there. The building was open, but no receptionist.

So I headed back homewards, and sure enough there were plenty of tourists, and stores looked open. But then I tried to go into a pharmacy to buy some shampoo: the door was locked. The Co-op supermarket right next door was thankfully open, so I purchased some additional supplies like laundry detergent and paper towels, and some vegetables, as well as toothpaste, soap, etc.

I found out yesterday that Monday was a bank holiday. Ha.

Did some math after returning to the flat (to help me stay awake), took a shower (to help me stay awake), ate a small dinner (to help me stay awake), and I crashed.

Tuesday morning I woke up 45 minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off. I felt refreshed. Took some breakfast and did more math to waste time. I planned to leave the house at around 8:30 so I can head over to The Old Schools (kind of like New South at Princeton) and have my passport and visa inspected. The "compliance team" starts work at 9am. The process was surprisingly painless. All they needed was to photocopy my passport.

And finally, around 10 in the morning, I made it to the department.

Term in Cambridge starts in October. So they have to just stuff me away somewhere until Office Assignment time comes around. So now I am in a temporary office on the ground floor of pavillion C. The Center for Mathematical Sciences is a sprawling place consisting of several pavillions, some are linked together by underground structures. Reminds me more of a science park than Fine Hall. It is terribly modern in design, which, from what I hear, is a good thing. The old buildings on campus dates to the middle ages, and modern facilities are just added wherever convenient, so they have pipes and conduits running everywhere. The center is to the north west of Cambridge proper. Going even further will take you to the Cavendish labs and other physics related stuff. My walk from the flat to the department takes about 25 minutes.

After taking care of some paperwork and getting introduce to the area by LC, one of the secretaries (funny story, I was introduced to her by first name. So it was only when we stopped by her office the third time that I noticed the name tag on the door and realized that when she mentioned in passing that her brother is a mathematicians, she meant her brother JC who is quite a big name in dispersive equations.), I was told to go get my ID card on Campus and to setup a bank account (they don't give out paycheques here. Everything is directly depostied. No bank account = no pay).

I trotted down Burrell's walk (the closest way to town is through St. John's playing field and through St. John's college; but I was advised against going that way until I get my permanent ID, lest I get challenged and thrown out) to go to town, and I heard a Russian voice calling my name. I turned and was surprised.

Boris Bukh, who entered Princeton the same time I did for graduate school, and who defended a short while before I did, was on a bicycle. He is also on appointment here, and he is affiliated with Churchill college. He showed me around briefly in downtown, and we had lunch together.

For academics going to other countries, there is often a big chicken-and-egg problem between getting an apartment, getting a bank account, and getting certain services setup. I had not too much trouble looking for the flat. But on the first day of arrivale, I tried to call the telephone company to setup an account. I had to do so in a box since, well, I didn't have telephone service. The service rep at Virgin media asked for a contact phone number.

"I don't have one, which is why I am calling to set up an account."

"But we will need to contact you to be able to do the installation. Don't you even have a mobile?"

This got nowhere rather quickly. So I canceled my request, thanked him for his time, and was determined to try again later. After running into Boris, I found out that there would've been a second layer of complications even if I had a mobile phone. I would need a bank account for them to debit. And banks sometimes require proof of address (being a current utilities bill) to open an account, and you can't pay the bill unless you have an account...

And somehow I was lucky.

After lunch, I headed first to get my picture taken and ID made (after I got back to the department, I needed to have the ID card programmed. The secretaries looked at it funny. I found out that I was one of the first persons in the University to receive an ID card with the new design). Then I headed to a bank. And I opened an account. It was all relatively painless, which may have something to do with my American passport. This surpassed my expectations by quite a bit.

By the time I decided to leave the department, it had started thunderstorming. That was when I realized I don't have an umbrella. I hung around for a bit longer, the rain slowed a bit, and so I braved the elements and went to a pub. (It felt fitting...)

The Waterman at 32 Chesterton now has my approval.