(Long) My arrival and first days in US

After a loooong trip by plane, search of accommodation, and a continuous fight to find things to do, I am starting to settle down in Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.

I arrived to my new town 31 hours after I left Aalborg. The trip was long, but everything went fine. The Computer Science department was built only 2 years ago and everything is very new. My supervisor is a nice italian woman, but she is also very strict, so I think I will need to work a lot. Right now I am still enjoying, but my work will be related to privacy on location-based services. For example, how to use your mobile phone to get some services, but keeping your location private so that the service providers cannot infer information such as where you live or where you work (that would be very easy to do if they can track your mobile phone for a few days).

Finding accommodations was more difficult than it seemed. Although it is a university town, I arrived at the middle of the semester, so most of the places were already occupied. After seeing 3 houses in ruins, I liked the fourth one, and I am there now. The other people living in the house are two girls and a guy, but unfortunately we have different schedules and we do not see each other so often... So that I had to look for some people and things to do!

I have met people from many places: the less exotic (for us): Italy, Belgium, Germany, Croatia, Colombia or US, and the more exotic ones: Israel, Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, India and China. Despite the political conflicts, people here are tolerant and open minded, so meeting people was relatively easy. And unlike the european universities, where you can mostly find people from Europe, here the big sources are Asia and the Middle East. Just have a look at the people studying master or PhD in my department!
http://www.cs.purdue.edu/people/graduate_students/

And about the culture difference, one week ago I was in the Iranian New Year's celebration (but the real day is 21th March), invited by an iranian friend. It was amazing. We had one formal dinner, with musical performances and poetry, see example here:
http://drop.io/hidden/4b7hcgtcsamrrw/asset/cDMwOTM1OTcteHZpZC1hdmk=
It was followed by an informal dance, where we listened to pub-like music that sounded like the music you can find in any pub in the world, but the lyrics were in persian. We also enjoyed some more traditional folk songs. My conclusion was that the iranians are happy people, good dancers, and they love music!

Every friday there is a bar organized by the International Student Center. It is not a real bar, but people gather in one of the center's facilities and every week we have a presentation about a different country by some natives, with some food from that country. People there are really welcoming, they want you to have a good impression from the country so they offer you food, tea and everything. That bar was my first opportunity to meet people, and I have gone there every week after that. I was enjoying arabic coffee and dates in Saudi Arabia, great turkish food, and plenty of different dishes made with iranian rice.

There are many things that are different here. Some of them may be specific from this city or state, but here they are:
- Supermarkets and shops are in the outskirts, so that you need to catch a bus or go by car. People usually go once a week, but they are open 24 hours.
- When you go to a bar or restaurant, the price you see on the menu is not the final price: they will add taxes, and you need to leave 15-20% of tip. It is mandatory here! If you pay with credit card, you will need to write in the ticket how much tip you want to give. You also need to give tip in the taxis and buses if they help you with luggage.
- People are very kind, which is very surprising in people working in administration, for example. In shops or restaurants they greet you saying: "Good afternoon, how are you doing today?" and when you leave they will ask you if you found everything ok. That is probably because they want to get more tips, but it is a good system to make people behave kindly.
- When you use the mobile phone, you pay the same when you make a call or send a message than when you receive it. And it is not cheap! So people spend a lot in their phone bills.
- University students are very proud of their university and they wear t-shirts, trousers, caps, sweatshirts... with the name of the university. But there might be another reason for that: those are they only shops you can find near campus!
- Roads are quite bad, but that probably depends on the state.
- There are doormen in every bar, and you need to show your ID to enter, it doesn't matter how old you are. The minimum age to enter is 21, and also to drink alcohol.

Specific things from West Lafayette:
- Weather! In less than 3 weeks I have seen sun and 20ºC, snow and -11ºC, heavy rain, storm (even an alarm of a distant tornado), everything changing from one day to the other. These last days, it has been very sunny and 5-15ºC.
- Buses are free for students and university staff/faculty. When you get off the but it is very common to thank the driver, who will reply with "bye, have a nice day". But they are not punctual, nor they have a rich schedule. Also, some stops are not signaled, so you need to know the route. Although there is a signals in some stops, you will not find the schedule there. No comparison to buses in Aalborg!

More news, with pictures from my house and my office, coming soon!