Finally Started Work...

Well I officially started work yesterday, but today is the first day I have been able to access a computer and do a brain dump. We are still not sure what exactly I am going to do, as there are many opportunities around to do some fun stuff. I am currently trying to write some papers left over from my PhD, starting to look at some new data, and planning a longer study.

We spent our first night in our new flat last night. It looks great, but as we didn't buy a base with our matress it was a bit cold on the floor last night, even with the heating. It gets down to about 18F (-8C) at night, but it is currently a nice 27F (-3C) outside. We get cable and internet tomorrow, so look forward to more regular posts and pictures from Gemma (the lady of leisure for the time being).

I am driving to Indianapolis airport this afternoon with another faculty member, as he has kindly offered us the use of his car while he is out of town. We are also going our for dinner tonight with a friend from Stanford (originally at the University of Washington) who is interviewing at the moment for a faculty position here at Purdue.

Pictures of the unit and my new office in a few days, so stay posted!

Robin took us on a road trip up to northern Indiana, right up to Michigan City on Lake Michigan. The road on the way, was just as expected: corn fields. Of course it is still winter, and there is no corn growing and still a fair bit of snow around. Real heartland America!


In a town called La Crosse, we found some interesting meat products, but we didn't buy any. Might go back sometime! Anyone got any problems with that?


Finally, we got to Lake Michigan and walked out onto the beach. At the edge of the beach and the water was all snow! That white stuff is snow! It was SO cold and windy. It was about 1 degree C and yes, we were wandering around on the beach.


This is the beach near the peir still with lots of snow. It was an experience to remember.


Of course, everyone around the area has a boat so when they come on holidays they can take it out fishing. In winter, the boats are dry docked and there are many of these storage docks around. The thing we couldn't believe is that all the boats were shrink wrapped. Yes, real plastic wrap sealed around the boat!

On the way back, we stopped at Chesterton and found Molly Bea's Ingredients shop which has bulk spices and organic and kosha foods and Llew went absolutely mad and bought 3 shopping bags full. She also had lots of lollies and chocolates, so I bought a few. One new experience will be trying chocolate covered cookie dough. Interesting! It turned out that it was really cheap! We'll certainly go back there.

It is still hard to believe that even in the middle of the day, and it was a beautiful sunny, blue sky day, that it was only 2 degrees C! It doesn't seem like that because the car is warm, the house is warm and the shops are warm. Incomprehendible.

We have also signed the lease on our flat so I'll upload pictures etc., once we move in (tomorrow) and get internet (who knows when) or I'll come back to Robin's and update the blog from there.