11-06-10 - Day 2

So for day two I had 3 main goals. 1) To go into the lab and meet with my boss and fellow researchers 2) Look at an apartment 3) Fix my internet connection.

1) Went fine, I got a bus pass and rode the bus to the university instead of walking all the way there. But I still had to walk across the university to get to the lab, and the campus is huge. Maybe a kilometer wide and about 1.5 km long. When I got to the lab the meeting went fine, and I got a quick tour of the facilities. Their robots are huge, the have air, ground, and underwater vehicles there, and there is a much larger facility out in the desert. The lab has over 200 people, and they have a whole staff of engineers who build the robotic vehicles so the grad students and researchers can focus on the algorithms and theory.
2) Was a waste of time, I went to the real estate office and the guy who was supposed to show me the place had left early, and because of the weekend and holiday and my orientation next week they couldn't show me anything till next Thursday.
3) There are many cellular internet services in Australia. I tried one and it didn't work, I tried another and it works ok so thats what I'm using for now. Fine for browsing but it disconnects sometimes and is a bit unreliable for skype. Everything is pay per GB usage. So 4 GB is like $50.

My room:
It has a bunk bed for no reason.