From Metz: Signals

23 March 2010

Week two day two

Lab

Spent most of the day in the lab coding, seems like I managed to get work done, a considerable amount, or it could just be that I'm only scratching the surface of the iceberg. Good thing that I didn't declare myself an unsinkable ship before leaving, or I might have people making a movie after me, before I know it.

Since the matlab CD I was supposed to be given got misplaced, I ended up doing my thing on an open source programming language. I'm rather proud of myself since I used free tools to do the work of expensive software almost equally good. Course I lack the fancy features, but this project doesn't need any so It's all good.

I saw a sign

Then I kept walking

College grounds

The whole island the college buildings are on could easily fit inside the campus of my college back home with room to spare, though there are probably 10 times more students roaming it. Everyone seems laid back, relaxed, though it could just be my rose tinted glasses. I'm rather curious if I'll think the same in a couple of months.

Small town

Metz isn't a large town, it doesn't have huge buildings, there's a lot of water and a lot of green, a lot of birds, few cars and an annoyingly high number of joggers. I can't help but compare this to grey streets, grey buildings, grey walls, grey skies, the whole dystopian menu I'm used to back home. All it needs is the thunderdome, but then again I don't go out much so it may already be there*.

One thing I liked was the St Jaques shopping center. It's rather big, 3 stories, but the thing is that it goes underground and doesn't ruin any of the nearby architectural balance.