The difference was 30 degrees in Celsius, of course, oh yeah, the temperature differences weren't as a big shock as the units what people use here. Fahrenheit, pound, inch, but the inch is going to be an other story.
The difference was 30 degrees in Celsius, of course, oh yeah, the temperature differences weren't as a big shock as the units what people use here. Fahrenheit, pound, inch, but the inch is going to be an other story.
The city is completely different from European cities. You have to imagine in Tucson there live maybe 500 thousand people on the are of Budapest, so if you didn't figure it out by now the inhabitant number is the quarter of that of Budapest. Everything is huge here, the streets, the cars, the shopping malls, the people, everything.
So after 20 hours of traveling I finally arrived at the airport. one of my roommates was waiting for me, and brought me to my new housing. It is an ordinary Tucson house not far from the university, I live here with two roommates, Kevin and Steve, really nice guys, I will show you them later.
At the first day when I went to the university, the first I recognized, that the drivers were even more polite than in Germany, and believe me, that is not so easy, so when I go back to Budapest, I now by now, that in the first week I have to be really careful not to get hit, I think the first taxi will hit me at the airport, but we will see.
In the first week a lot of paperwork had to be done, by now I am a member of a huge system called University of Arizona with 35 thousand students. I even have my catcard now, see?
his is US version of our TIRIS card from Budapest. And I'm proud of it, because I had to wait 3 weeks for it. The staff at the gym wanted to throw me out of the building twice because I hadn't a cat card, but that is going to be an other story. Oh, and why catcard? Because the mascot of the university is a wildcat named Wilbur, and this is not the end of the story, look at wikipedia, he even has a wife:).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Arizona#Mascot
The area of the university is huge, they even have a football stadium, it is bigger than all of the stadiums in Budapest.
My theses work is about measurements of vibrations on a milling machine. The department has a well equipped lab. The first I noticed was a granite table, it wasn't difficult to see, because it is enormous, huge, gigantic. I will show you the table one day, sure the civils won't get excited, but for the geeks it will be fun, I see their faces, they will look at it like at a photo in playboy:).
I think this the price of the table is more than the salary of my parents in one Year. During my theses work I have to create an optical setup, what what is able to measure the vibrations of a milling bit, I will show you the setup one day.
The city itself is big, the area at least, but it is something like a small town. There are some shopping malls, and some entertainment possibilities, but correlated to American conditions it is small. There are a lot of houses, they are quite similar, like this:
Oh and there are only few flowers, but there are dozens of cactus kinds, like these:
and I made this photos in one garden, about 3 square meters. Oh ok, and back to work a little bit. I had to draw a plate, for the laser, and I had to let it made in the machine shop of the department. I put all of the sizes in mm, that's how I have learned it at the university for Years, and when I showed my drawing to my victim, Dale (he had to make the plate), he looked at me like I would be an alien:), inches, bounds, feet, and so on, this scaling thing, I don't know, I think this is going to be one of the most difficult things to get used to.
Have I already showed you, where I live. So this is my room:
It is small, but, it is ok. I try to show you the house with a video, I try to make it like in MTV cribs (as you already realized I hope I'm in world MTV). Sorry for the quality, it is a low budget production:
So that's it, these where my first impressions in the last three or four weeks so far.
And now, what happened on the weekends. Ok I had a few parties, but I didn't make photos. I have to do some, because I saw a lot of funny people.You can feel, that they don't care, and that they have no fears, or doubts, and this attitude affects on me too:).
So at the firs weekend, hiking in the mountains, near Tucson. Hm I thought after Switzerland, no more mountains in the next few month, but there you go:
The desert, not like in Africa probably but still. It was an amazing view for me. My teacher thought that I can't sand the tempo, but the reason I was so slow, because I was hypnotized of the view. And how does it look like during the sunset?
Sure for the people who live here, this isn't nearly as interesting as for me. Like when they come to Budapest and sit on the tram line 49:
they would say, "...wow what a retro style..." and they couldn't handle to stamp the ticket inside the tram, because it is mechanic, and not automatic and no descriptions :). And they would laugh all the time. But for me a journey whit this tram, well... you can imagine, try to sit on this seats every day for half an hour:). So hiking was fun.
The last weekend we went skying, I have never tried it. But I snowboarded, because this is cool, and not for seniors haaa. We were eight people from the department. I enjoyed it really much. Josh (one of the guys) and his girlfriend made lunch and we played taboo in the evening, it was really calm. But during the day, no jokes. The first day was really painful. I am quite stubborn. So I couldn't understand, why it doesn't work with snowboarding immediately, I'm the cool guy, so...?! But still it was fun. And on the second day, really no jokes any more. I caught the feeling, and the black diamond was mine. The cool guys:
So I hope I found an other sport to practice every Year. Now my parents can worry even in the winter time how I gonna hurt myself:), well to be a parent should be a full time job, not just a question of the seasons, don't you mean? And there we are, the fearless eight:
First I was skeptic, because I didn't see to much snow, during the journey,but after I saw this:
I was completely relaxed:). So the weekend was fun too.
And this weekend I went to Los Angeles. I asked a girl at the swimming pool if she would say that I'm an American, or if it is obvious that I'm from Europe. She said that she would say I'm from California. So I had to check this by myself. Actually we went to buy a car, but we made a little sightseeing tour too. First of all. The city is more than 100 km-s long (I don't know hoe many miles, don't ask, count it out), I was speechless a little bit. From the motel we had to drive almost an hour to get to the ocean. But lets start from the beginning. We slept in a motel, again, like in the films, next to the highway, a gas station, and two burger diners in front of it, half Mexican half Portuguese, half Spanish cleaning staff:
I learned a few things this weekend. One If you drop something in a burger king don't pick it p, or don't make your bed when leaving the motel, because then you steal the work of somebody and he or she is going to be angry:). When we arrived at the motel, we wanted to see the ocean, so one hour drive. And I wouldn't believe it if I wouldn't have seen it with my eyes. Traffic jam at two pm. on a five lane speedway, pfff. Oh and most of the people are completely incapable to drive. No rules no behavior. The cars came form left, from right, from everywhere, so if you want to drive here, be careful. You have to warn people with signs for everything:
When we arrived at the ocean, it was dark but though the view, or the sound was amazing, you don't see the ocean, but you see the coast:
nice:). We only missed Pamela Anderson. The next day we went to take look at the car. Well an m3 BMW, it was a really fun car, but the air conditioning didn't work, and that is not ok in Tucson. So at the and unfortunately we came home without a present. But before we started our journey home, we went to Santa Monica Boulevard, and again MTV was greeting, Like in Beverly Hills cop:)
The walk of fame was not a big deal, I couldn't find Britney Spears, ooo, neither Chuck Norris. And the end of the street was really crappy, but I found here:
I have to see her movie, or listen her songs, I'm curious if I find her. And we saw the ocean again. And during the day It was even more amazing than during the night. On the Santa Monica pear there was a huge crowd. And I saw the sunset. Call me sentimental, but it was beautiful. And there aren't a lot of Hungarian who could say that: ".. oh oh yes, today I saw the sunset at Santa Monica pear...". So I was glad to see these things. unfortunately we couldn't buy the car, but maybe the next time, and then maybe we go to the east coast, but this is going to be an other adventure.
So for now that's it. I try to post regularly, so you can see a little bit from what I see, and you can read a few of my thoughts, about my experiences, I hope you enjoy, if not, look at this and try again:)
