Morning Quickie

Don't have long, because, well, I think you know what's coming - the bus was 15 mins late this morning, so I have a little less time before our group meeting at 10.  We're just presenting preliminary findings from each of our topics.  The goal is to narrow down some focus areas for the directions we want to go in our designs.

Yesterday was good, the weather was decent in the morning so I wound up going out for a long bike ride.  Was heading north towards some lakes I'd seen on the map, but never got there as I got a little turned around looking for a path.  So I accidentally wound up in Newport, probably between 4-5 miles one way, and then about the same back home is my guess.

For lunch I had a coupon for 2 P off an Indian buffet, so I did that.  It was good, the chicken Jalfrezhi and vegetable curry were the best, and both were actually spicy, which is harder to find around here.  Lots of milder, sweeter sauces.  The rest of the day I spent doing more reading for the most part while watching some of the rugby on TV.  I also watched some spring training with my new MLB.tv subscription.  Video quality was pretty good, and no real buffering or streaming issues either.  I think I will really get my money's worth out of it this summer.  And I can finally watch Orioles and Nationals games, if they are worth watching this year!

Well I should get going, don't wanna be late for our meeting.

Help Me Out

I've put a poll up on the right side of the blog. I'm racking my brain trying to decide where I'd be happier for the next 6 months of my time over here. I'll list what I see as pros/cons for each place. If you want to help me out, vote in the poll for the choice which you think I'd be happiest with

Stay in Fishermead
Pros
1. Larger room
2. Desk in room
3. Outdoor balcony area in room
4. Gym is pretty good, fairly convenient, but often crowded
5. Can ride bike to Sainsbury's/Asda, other shopping
6. Can ride bike to train station for trips to London

Cons
1. 35-40 minute bus ride to campus + 10 min bike ride to bus stop
2. Crappy kitchen, utensils etc.
3. Noise in room from roommates, neighbors, dogs outside
4. Smelling like fried food when roommate cooks
5. Other roommate oddities and frustrations
6. Not many unique restaurants/too many chains

Move to Newport
Pros
1. Cuts bus ride more than in half, to 16 mins by time schedule
2. Bus stop is much closer to house
3. People just seem friendlier in Newport to me
4. Cheaper by 70 Pounds/month
5. Has a dryer and dishwasher, and much nicer kitchen
6. Much better living room with a big flatscreen TV too
7. Still has a nice outdoor covered veranda area
8. From my experiences, the restaurants are better and more varied and more of them are locally owned and not chains
9. Don't have 3 other people to steal internet bandwidth which limits my ability to watch ESPN3 and Hulu

Cons
1. Slightly limited grocery shopping in town, but can do online delivery from Sainsbury's/Asda/Waitrose too
2. Gym is much smaller with less equipment, but should be much less crowded
3. Pubs are slightly more expensive (but better atmosphere) due to no Wetherspoons chain options
4. 20ish minute bus ride to train station to get into London


The biggest debate I've got is if I can be happy with the gym situation.  The room is not big enough for a room workout, though I guess I could probably use the veranda area.  I'm not as concerned about the size of the room because I'll be much closer to campus, so more likely to go there to work.  I would also have more space in the living room, so less time in my room to begin with.  I'd be living with a middle aged guy and his 12-13 year old son.  From what he said his son spends most of his time in his room.  Obviously they might have habits that annoy me just like my roommates do now, I do realize that.


So anyway, I had a productive morning, did a round of laundry, got to the gym and the grocery store and just finished with lunch.  Gonna put some more reading time in this afternoon while watching rugby on the computer.


Oh, and next time you're in London, check this out Baby Gaga Ice Cream.

Taking a Break

To write up a quick post.  The last few days have been filled with lots of research, meaning lots of library searches and downloading of various papers related to "green" cars for our project.  We've split up the subjects we need to look into, and will discuss our findings on Monday as a group.

Yesterday we did finally get to meet the Caterham driver, Jamie, and see the truck/transporter that he has purchased.  The first test day will be March 23rd at Snetterton, and we're going to set up a day or night to come over and do some routine things on the car as practice to make sure nothing is too big of a surprise on the first test day.  There is still a very real possibility for a second car, but he wants to make sure his car has adequate support before committing to it.  Sounds like it's going to be a great experience, and I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm slowly having the realization that moving might be best for me.  I'm finding that being here, I just have no motivation for the long ride to campus.  I think it would be beneficial if I was a little more apt to go to campus to work during the day.

Not too much planned for the weekend, some writing I need to do for a couple various things, and a few workouts of course.  I do need to go buy a helmet and lights for the bike too.  Also planning to find a recipe to do something with a swede (rutabaga) and leeks that I have from the produce box.  

Group Project!

We have been given the task of designing a sustainable rally car and event or series.  Now obviously we won't be actually designing the entire car, it's more like developing some very specific targets and specifications for it.  So we're not designing all the parts or anything like that, which would take way too long for our time frame.  The event can be a once a year thing, or an international series, but we have to actually plan and specify one event in that case.

It's quite a daunting project, though one that could actually become reality in the near future.  Gonna be a busy few months no doubt though!

Of course the bus was 20 minutes late tonight too.  So an hour long ride home wasn't exactly the best finish to the day on campus.  I did go get a workout in before coming back here which was pretty good.  Did some Chimay cheese, Spanish charcuterie and some vegetables and hummus for dinner.  Was not in the mood to cook or clean up, but resisted going out and spending money.

Gonna go brainstorm some about our project now.

Belgium - Day 2

We were only out till about midnight on day 1, which was a plenty long day, and it did lead to a slightly later start for day 2.  I did sneak in a quick but good workout, which was better than expected due the most complete hotel gym I've ever encountered.  A pleasant surprise for sure.

First up was finding breakfast, which was easiest back towards the city center, so that is where we headed.  As you can see from the picture below, we got very lucky with the weather, it was nice and sunny, about 45 degrees.  The building below we saw a lot of, as we walked past it every time we went to or returned from the center of town.  We eventually settled on an admittedly touristy looking spot (they were kind of hard to avoid where we were) for waffles.  Adam tried a ginger tea that turned out to be pretty good.  Both of us ordered Liege waffles, which were chewier and breadier than the Brussels style, and very good as well.  Their pricing on eggs and bacon was a bit off though, a huge plate of bacon was 2.50 Euro, which was the same price as one egg!

Next up we'd decided to take the Metro (which was running again) north to the Atomium, which had been built for the World Fair in 1958.  As we approached it, we both thought it was smaller than anticipated, but it did look more appropriate as we got closer and closer.  The exhibits were only mildly interesting, some things about the Worlds Fair, and about space and the universe, but the views were better.  It was a bit hazy, so you couldn't see as far as they advertised.  It could've been much worse though had it been cloudy or rainy of course.  There's plenty of other pictures of the views in the album linked at the end of this post.  We did figure out that we took the long way around the Metro, as the map didn't seem to show a connection at one place.

The Metro took us back into town to the Cantillon Brewery, a traditional lambic, family run brewery, and I think the only brewing operation still truly in Brussels.  The tour consisted of a short information session with basic information, then they handed you a guide book and let you walk around the completely operating brewery.  Being towards the end of the work day, they were crushing grain for the next morning's boil.  The grain room was so dusty that pictures came out cloudy because the flash was picking up all the particles in the air!  You definitely come away from this tour with a much greater appreciation for what they do and the reputation that they have built on their beer.  Oh, and the smell was intoxicating in a good way.  We tried their base lambic, their oude gueze (a blend of 3 different years of lambic), their kriek and their rose gambrinus (lambic aged with cherries and raspberries respectively).

Walked back towards the center again to stop at a couple of the big beer stores, where I picked up some bottles to bring back.  Adam finally found the beer stein he was looking for too, and I also picked up some chocolates.  The walk wound up taking us by the Mannekin Pis, which no matter what you think, is smaller than you expected!  Oh, and another waffle from a street front store window as well :)  After the walking around looking for our various purchases, we were both a little hungry and thirsty.  Luckily, right by the little statue is a well known bar that we stopped in for drinks and a small bite.  We split a large plate of Belgian cheeses, paired of course with some great Belgian beer.  The bar's atmosphere was great, very old school feel that was definitely helped by the music selection.  Just a very cool ambience to it for sure.  By this time the camera's charge had run out, so no pictures, sorry...

We continued walking back to the hotel to check emails, drop off purchases, charge the camera some, and a little rest from all the walking.  Then more walking back to the center for dinner and a night of beer.  So around the center, there are a few rows of restaurants (by rows I really mean streets) and the people stand outside and try to convince you why you should come eat at theirs.  Touristy obviously, but convenient and the food can't be terrible right?  Well we wound up convinced by one of the places, and ordered a mixed seafood grill and a bucket of mussels again.  It wasn't as good as the night before, but still tasty, and plenty, plenty of food to soak up the beer we knew was coming.  

We then wound up going through a good number of beers at Delirium again, basically closing it down sometime around 3:45 before walking back home.  Good times, good conversation, and even met another pilot who works for Express Jet like Will does.  The picture below I just thought was really neat.  I forget exactly what church it was, and don't feel like looking it up right now.  Let me know if you're really curious for some reason.  If you go to Brussels, it's pretty impossible to miss though.

One final picture on the way to the train station

So it was a rushed but packed few days.  The late night at Delirium meant we did nothing on Thursday morning, but that was ok.  I guess I never mentioned we had some delegation from Sierra Leone staying at our hotel, which pulled up with a police escort as we were getting back one time.  The next time I'd really like to rent a car so that we can explore some of the country side and see some of the smaller towns, though I could spend plenty more time in Brussels too!!

PS - Nicole - Adam's French was spot-on all trip long, just thought you might want to know ;)

02-11 Belgium

Belgium - Day 1

My trip started with a 3:15 wake up call.  Yes, that's correct, not a typo.  Had to be at the train station by 4:20 for the train to London.  No quick trains that early, so that was a touch over an hour ride.  Then I walked over to the St. Pancras station where the Eurostar leaves from.  It was probably quicker to walk (less than 10 minutes) than wait for the Tube train to come.  Eurostar says specifically that check-in is minimum of 30 minutes before departure, and I'd read online some stories about people not being allowed to check-in after that.  So I was pushing the 30 min deadline a little, but it turned out not being an issue at all, and you can't even board the train until 20 minutes before departure.  The train was pretty darn comfortable, plenty of leg room, power outlet for the laptop, and no one in the seat next to me.  We were delayed about 30 minutes due to a power supply issue in one section of the Chunnel, so that was too bad, but overall not a big deal at all.

As I was a little late, Adam was waiting for me, and we wound up walking to our hotel.  We tried to find a free map, but were unsuccessful in the train station.  The GPS took way too long to find satellites, and so we probably walked a little more than we should have.  But we found the hotel, got a good map there, and dropped our bags off in our room.

Then we walked towards the city centre, with the intention of finding some food (I had been up for something like 7 hours at this point).  After Adam practicing his French trying to get a locals recommendation for waffles we wound up in a place along the Royal Gallery where we both ordered Brussels style waffles.  I got cherries on mine, and Adam had banana and chocolate or Nutella, can't remember.  The Brussels style is crispier and less bread like than the other Belgian waffle, the Liege style, which we also tasted on Wednesday morning.

From there we continued to find the Grand Place, which was absolutely stunning. I'm not sure pictures really do it justice.

Then we wound up noticing a small alleyway and exploring down it to find a small old bar, and decided it was worthy of having a beer.  First bar I'd been in in a loooong time that allowed smoking, and you could tell.  The historic feel and appearance of the space made up for it I think.  

 Next up was Autoworld, a collection of historic cars.  It was ok, plenty of pictures that I took, but to some extent I don't really know enough historically to appreciate a lot of these kinds of museums.  The cars are definitely interesting to look at though.  We continued the night by getting away from the touristy city center some to find a restaurant for some moules frites.  We got them cooked in white wine, but the mustard sauce that was brought on the side stole the show.  The place we found wound up being very good, though we did notice that 3 of the 4 other tables were all English speaking!  Our nightcap was a few beers at the rather infamous Delirium Cafe. The bottle list is basically a catalog, and was honestly very hard to use.  Though honestly you can't go too wrong with most of the list!

The beer that stood out the most from the first day was Adam's Rochefort 8 from the bar we just happened to stumble upon (Au Bon Vieux Tiemps).  It might've just been the atmosphere and mood we were both in, but something about it was just absolutely perfect and wonderful.

I was trying to write one post, but I'm not gonna make it through the second day at this point, so I'll just split the post and finish up tomorrow.

Feeling Better

Thankfully whatever had me feeling so bad yesterday I seem to have gotten rid of.  Still took it pretty easy today and skipped the gym.  Probably better to recover than force myself back early.  Caught up on some laundry, played some PS3, made some fajitas (that came out pretty good IMO) for dinner and now I'm actually watching the Daytona 500.

Probably wouldn't be if there were better basketball on, but there's not, so there you go.  I think this push drafting that they can do now with the new pavement is too ridiculous (though apparently they do it at Talledega too).

We do finally get to know what our group project is on Tuesday, so I'm looking forward to that big time.  Then Thursday we're going over to meet the Caterham driver and take a look at the car.  He's still finalizing some testing dates, but there should be at least one coming up in March.

I am looking at possibly moving to a new place.  I can leave here on March 29th.  I found one place in Newport that seems pretty good, though the room is much smaller.  But its a much shorter bus ride, has an actual living room, and a dryer and dishwasher.  It's also cheaper than what I'm paying now.  I just don't know yet.  Haven't found much else available in my price range either.

Not quite sure how I'll fill up tomorrow.  I'd like to get in a morning workout, the gym is much less crowded then.  And getting up will make Tuesday's wake up call a little easier to deal with.  I wish our professors would be more responsive on my thesis stuff.  I know they're busy, but they have to be involved, and it's just been very slow developing and frustrating to me.

So that's the update for now, I might get a post up about Belgium tonight too.