Julien's fuzzy blog

After 3 days of hot and sunny weather, we got some rain this morning ...

Yes he did! After 19 days without a single post on his blog (previous one dated 01/03/2005), Thibault finally decided to show us something. Instead of the traditional "Home renovation" you will now find an article entitled "Panoramic round 2" heading the blog. Very nice panoramic views from UK and Paris.

The permalink to this article might be useful in case of sudden blog-posting spree ...

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Seen on a banner hanging in front the "Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle" (French high school) on Cromwell Road - in the middle of many other slogans . I'm quite impressed, because this high school is supposed to be very strict.

Note to the non-French readers: I won't translate the title, let you imagine... . François Fillon is the current French Minister for National Education, Higher Education and Research. And tries to pass a very unpopular law. A bit more information on the BBC web site.

It reminds me the students marchs I've done a couple of years ago. By the way, I was wondering if the French students here in London can and will demonstrate in UK. It would be great to show to the French government that even from overseas people strongly disagree. Come on guys !

Is that already summer ?

I went to the department in T-shirt this morning (yes, I know, last year I did that even in the middle of winter). But it's already 14°C, and 19°C are expected this afternoon !

I now share my room with a lovely mouse which climbs ontop of my curtains at night and doesn't seem very frightened by me... Keep looking at what I'm doing.

Yeah, I've done it ! Former record was 2 words, with "Mornin' - Mornin'". It's now 7 words ! Amazing, isn't it ? The transcript shows you the intensity of the action:

Julien: Good evening
Housemate: Hi !
I opened the door for her.
Housemate: Thank you ! (French accent maybe detected)
Julien: Your' welcome.

Yes I know, some of you will tell me that 'your' is actually 'you are' in proper English. And therefore should count for 2. But this is supposed to be a happy occasion! Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who!

(Directed by martin Scorsese, starring DiCaprio, ...) Don't go to watch this crap movie. I wanted to left the room after half-an-hour. Even Mommas said it was not as good as expected. So you've been warned...

An aerial picture of Thurloe Square where I'm living. You can see the railway of Circle and District lines appearing just beside (Piccadilly line is underground).


Picture assembly based on streetmap.co.uk photographs.

This morning when I went to the laundry, I met 58-year-old reformist protestant Scottish 16-times grand-father. In less that one hour, a steady speech stream learnt me that:

• I should go to church everyday, "because it's good for [me]"
• I should shave, because a good visual aspect is important in life
• I should do weights in order to get harder muscles to run the marathon
• I should remove my small items from the dryer before the end of the program
• Chelsea is a good football team
• Paris will get the 2012 Olympics, London won't
• French are nice and friends of Scottish, because both of them hate English
  (author's note: what the hell are we doing here then ?)
• "I'm a virgo" and "I'm a virgin" have different meanings
• I can get a massage for free after running
• Dartmoor is a dangerous place at night

On Sunday evening, the whole group was invited to a Chinese restaurant at Cockfosters to celebrate the Chinese New Year. That was great ! Good food, nice fellows, Dragon dancing and stuff like that.

Guang-Zhong introduced me to the group exactly when I was in the bathroom ...

I hope to get pictures soon.

Well it's obvious, in London there are many many French. Of course, some of them go to Imperial College, I'm not the only one... But I've just met Pam, a good friend from high school that I've not seen till then (7 years ago) ! He's doing a MSc in computer science here. That kind of coincidence is just amazing.

By the way (© Dhowaihi) this reminds me that last year in a youth hostel of Edinburgh, I was sleeping in the same room than a guy that used to live in the French village beside mine 10 years ago ...

After years and years saying 'no', it's not good for socializing and stuff like that, I finally surrendered. I think I didn't know anybody anymore that didn't have one ...
Yes, from now I own one of these small boxes with a keypad and a screen, containing a wave emitter/recepter, and that basically allows to talk to somebody from virtually anywhere. Gloups !

I had lunches with many people from the lab these days, and started to know who is who. Everybody seems very kind here. On the evenning we went to a Korean restaurant and that was great. I met more and more people, including runners, hikers... I've already been invited to go hiking in Dartmoor.

I finally found a room to rent very close to Imperial. The landlord lives here and seems a bit strict. The room is quite grey, but I'll change that with posters. Anyway that's fine, I've found in just 3 days !

Wow ! It's a pain in the neck to find a room to rent in London. I get fed up with that. The private accomodation office staff is really kind (I must admit it's often the case in UK), but their list of flats is not up-to-date at all. Everything has already gone !
While prospecting I had some nice people on the phone, but also some that asked me to phone back, so not to pay the call when they rent a single room in a family house for £542pcm (around 780¤/month). The same told me to speak slower (usually, I'm told to speak very slowly) because she couldn't understand me due to my "very strong accent"... Nevermind.

Tomorrow I should leave the hotel for a guest house at the opposite side of Hyde Park. If I can't find anything till next week, I think I will have to go to the university hall that is located 50min away (tube+foot). And buy a bike to avoid strikes, tubes failures, crowd, expensive tube cards and maybe to save some time.