Newcastle

I guess I have to give you all an update. I'm now a resident of Newcastle upon Tyne. I moved in on Wednesday night, after a coach ride from London. I had barely missed my 9.30am coach from London so I had to get the 12.30pm which arrived in Newcastle at 20.40.

After arriving, I duly went to the accommodation office and I was handed my keys and directed to my new room.

The new room was much bigger than I imagined, it is en-suite which means I don't have to abide by anybody else's showering schedule. The room is almost twice the size of my Panns Bank room, one can do a full cartwheel in this room.

My main qualm is that there is no wireless internet, so my laptop has to be pretty much stuck to the desk near the Ethernet port. The internet system at Newcastle University is also very complex and one has to be an IT expert to fully comprehend it. I still have trouble setting the proxy settings to enable iTunes store to access the internet.

I have been on Google maps a lot, trying to explore the area and identifying landmarks. It's not easy to get lost in Newcastle, there is very good street signage, and if you can get yourself to the massive Grey's Monument column in the centre of town then you can pretty much navigate your way home (providing you're not a complete idiot)

So I'm pretty aware of my surroundings, all that is left is to put names to the university buildings, but that will be done with the campus tour tomorrow.

On another note, I got myself an iPod touch, a brilliant device, great music quality, great for viewing pictures and great for the internet too. As you probably know, the main selling point with the iPod touch and iPhone is the applications you can add. I had downloaded some apps (French tutor- where you learn French words and phrases, The complete works of Shakespeare, Food recipes, etc) and these applications worked fine for the first few hours....then they stopped functioning, it was then I realised that what had befallen so many iPod touch users had befallen me. Downloaded apps refusing to work, the iPod works perfectly fine, internet browsing is fast when in the range of a good WiFi network, music plays well, the device is fast, but Apple still hasn't found out a cause of this very common problem.

Anyway, yesterday, Marta and I went to explore a very beautiful part of Newcastle; Jesmond Dene, enjoy the pictures: