As I wrote, I the very first night here I slept in the Westwood's Bed & Breakfast. Well, indeed I slept just in the <Bed> part of it, and then in the morning, I got the <Breakfast> part. Those full-English breakfasts are always nice openings of the day, especially if the radio in the meantime plays songs from bands like Black Sabbath or Cream. I do not thing that this nice lady, who runs this place together with her husband, are/were big fans of rock music, which would have to be the case in Czech, I guess it was rather just the thing that this is a typical music for a typical British radio. Well, probably it wouldn't be so bad staying in England for a while :-). We'll see.
After this beautiful kick-off to the day 2, I went to Zeeman building and told the secretary for grad-students at the maths department I'm here. Then it was just boring administration, the only thing that I remember now is that at some point, I had to go the University house to pick up my universal card, that can unlock the building, unlock the office, give an access to the sport center, pay for a lunch if it is charged, provide a teleportation to the moon, give an access to a party on Friday if you have a birthday, and many other things I haven't figured out yet :-). But the thing is, if you want to enter the University house, then, no matter whether it is in office hours or not, you *need* to use your card, otherwise the doors will not open. Ok, that is probably a part of some bigger culture thing here. For example, if you want to open a bank account in England, you need to have an address in UK. Of course, they would not send me letters to Prague, I understand. But this cannot be an address in your office, it *has to* be a residential address (I'm not sure how the rule is exactly stated, but an address of an office cannot be used). But, most likely, if you want to rent a room/flat/house, you need to pay some deposit, and maybe also the first rent, and, you can guess what, typically you should send the money from *your* personal bank account in UK. I've heard about various strategies how to cope with this egg vs. hen problem, I was actually really lucky in my case, as you will read later. Anyways, I got in together with somebody else, found the right lady, got a card from her, the first problem of the day was solved.
I guess I haven't mentioned yet, but actually I have one friend, who's also at Warwick, and was in UK even the day before, but unfortunately he lives a bit far from the campus (around 45mins by train). So I was in touch also with him and he said, although I can't stay at his place, he can lend me a key from his office at Warwick together with a sleeping bag (well, I actually had a one with me, so that was not necessary), and I could sleep in the office if I want. I was not thinking for more than a minute, that's definitely something I want to post on the blog, something like from the second day at Warwick, even before the actual term began, I started living in an office ;-). The grad students office I'm in is, at least virtually, full of students (there are 20 occupied desks in total, although, at least so far, I haven't seen here more than 10 people at the same time). Nevertheless, it was a bit safer to sleep in his office rather than in the postgrad-pool I'm part of. Actually I'm not sure what would be the reaction of an English gentleman who are in charge of the university / math department, when he learns that this new east-European grad student is sleeping in an office (so let's cross the fingers and hope none of the gentlemen follows this blog :-) ). Well, for the case - it was just for one night, sir!
For the weekend, I was actually in touch also with another friend of mine, Matt, who I met in Montreal during the summer. He actually moved to Warwick from Montreal in October, and he bought a flat in Coventry, and he has a guest room in the flat, and he said he wouldn't mind if I stay for a couple of days, but he's out of the town for Friday. However, on Saturday he was back, so I spent Saturday and Sunday at his place. I have to say it was a really great time, thank you, Matt, once again, because besides the room and bed and everything, Matt also made a dinner on both days, and despite of all the rumors / legends / stories about English cuisine (Matt is originally from England), the food was simply excellent! Oh, by the way, the very first thing that I saw in a TV here (and also the very first thing that Matt's new TV displayed) was
Rimmer shouting "Gazpacho Soup" in Me² (if you haven't spend your childhood watching a TV series Red Dwarf, don't try to find some hidden secret meaning in this; in the case you did, here is one picture from the airport for you :-) ). Ok, for some time, I really wouldn't (and so far I don't) mind staying in England :-).
Back to the first weekend. In the meantime I was also exploring the web pages of clubs and societies at Warwick. There are really a lot of them! First of all, it turned out, not surprisingly, that quite a lot of people here are playing 5-a-side / futsal (outdoor / indoor version of "small" soccer, eh, football). Indeed, there is a 5-a-side sport club for such a people. I got in touch with them, and this was a bit surprising to me, turned out they are quite short of goalkeepers! Okey, so if I won't become a big combinatorist, I can try to make my career here in football :-). From Monday, I started my infiltrating mission and already on Tuesday I went to play with people from Warwick's futsal team, who is also playing against teams from the other universities. They have another goalkeeper (btw really good one, young, quick, guess he's an undergrad; have to say I was almost feeling like a retiree when we were playing :-) ), but being a second goalkeeper at the team, that's also not bad :-). After the game, one of the guys said that their 5-a-side team is looking for any players that could come to play, at least sometimes, and a goalkeeper is definitely welcomed. There is some league in 5-a-side at Warwick; basically you and your friends make a team and play against other such teams, that's exactly what I'm looking for. My first match in their team was on Friday night. Cool! There are also bunch of other societies I got interested in, e.g., a hiking group Warwick Mountains, Warwick Student Cinema with a screening almost every day, Warwick Improvised Theatre Society, and so on. Maybe I shouldn't forget I'm here mainly to do some research and not just have fun! :-D
On Monday night I was supposed to meet Terka and finally get a key from Dan's place that works. It took me some time to find the place, but I managed at the end, and I got the key, Terka also invited me for a dinner, we discussed positives and negatives of living here and around 11pm, I went to Dan's place. I'd love to write here something like "the key didn't work, the doors disappeared, the whole room switched on the auto-destruction mode", but (un)fortunately, everything worked out this time :-). On Tuesday night, Dan was supposed to arrive, and since, though it was not the original plan, I had both of his keys and furthermore, he brought me my second bag, so I was supposed to meet him at the airport around 10pm. On the way from the office to the train station in Canley, where I haven't been before, I asked one girl on the way if I'm not going wrong. Ok, that wouldn't be interesting if she wouldn't ask me where I am originally from and to my proud answer "Czech Republic" replied "Ahoj, já jsom ze Slovenska" (something like "hey, I'm from Slovakia"). She was just walking from the campus home to Coventry, which means, that (not only) Czech guys are much more picky about Coventry downtown than tough Slovak girls! :-) Anyways, I met Dan at the airport, we went back to the campus, the key to Dan's flat haven't expired, and then, I got my Christmas / welcome to Warwick / whatever gift from him; a picture is better than 1000 words, so… check this out!
Well, basically everything :-). First, though the bike has a front light, it wasn't really designed for night biking let's say. Especially not inside the forest at the campus, so if I arrived after 5 minutes of biking in the forest back to the math department, I realized that, most likely, it won't be as easy as I thought. Ok, let's check the STT - Seagal Team' Toolbox. One quite good flashlight, a tape and a swiss knife => a MacGyver' style upgrade in 3 minutes :-). Ok, now I'm going through the forest in the right way, but, where is actually the beginning of the biking route? I was biking around the campus for a while, but, without any success. Get back to the reality, it's super-naive to think I'll find at midnight :-). Ok, I'll take the main road to get to the town and then let's see what next. Another thing is that I smartly kept any kind of gloves at home and, though the winter here is much warmer than the ones I'm used to from Czech, it's still a winter. But, already from the high school times I remember an advise of Lieutenant Dan (and, more importantly, from Viták III. alias citrónek - my metal twin from the class), always have an extra pair of socks with you! Most likely they both haven't meant it as gloves, but, it actually works pretty good. Okey, I really do hope nobody saw that strange night-rider on a super-small bike, with an ad-hoc taped flashlight on the handlebar and with socks on his hands going down the main road between Coventry and Kenilworth. If one would, I guess he/she would decide to stop the car and go the rest of the journey by foot :-D. Anyways, I got home around half past midnight I think.
On Friday morning, I could use also a daylight for finding that route. It was, who would guess that, quite easy job, up to a tiny detail that google maps are suggesting that the best way how to get to the route is turning right on the bridge. That's right, like 10m downstairs, there is the right path! But that was just a tiny issue (if you don't count 10 signs like "BIKES ARE NOT ALLOWED HERE" on the way), I figured out where is the other end of the route, I got to the university, spent the whole day there, then went to play 5-a-side at 8pm, and, after that, I went to this <interesting event> I got a free ticket for from the student union…
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