Finding the Right Place

It has been a bit over two weeks since I got here to Princeton and so far I’ve had a lot of fun. Something I enjoy about getting to know new towns is finding those places that are really unique and valuable. And by this in no way I am telling about tourist attraction. Actually, quite the opposite. I want to know the places of any kind that have quality – places were locals spend their time and enjoy it. It’s all about getting the real scoop out of the town. I mean to be honest I really doubt that locals in, say, Paris spend their spare time in the Eiffel tower.

In any case, not long ago with the help of my iPhone I found a place that definitely falla in this category. Its a sandwich joint close to the Princeton campus called “Hoagie Haven”. It’s nothing fancy, they just do what a sandwich joint is supposed to: they make great sandwiches. And they do it simple and with style. They are just a family run bussiness and they dedicate to make their customers happy. The best of all are the prices – when my friend Manuel and I discovered it we got two huge sandwiches, fries and a drink for each and the whole thing was ten bucks. That’s what I’m talking about. That day made regret every opportunity Ive had a subway. For sure the place is always full with customers.

And that’s what I mean, those are the places Iike to discover. In every city there are places a – not necessarily food places – that are really valuable. It’s just about finding them.

Filed under: Life

The Life Outside the Neards Realm (a.k.a. MIT)

Believe it or not I have once more been left out without internet here at Princeton. For some random reason the network administrator blocked me again because according to him my computer was behaving “maliciously” – whatever that means. He even suggested that the easiest way to solve my connectivity problems was to wipe out my eystem and reinstall it from scratch!! I couldn’t believe that the person in charge of maintaining the network said such thing. In all I’m really dissapointed at Princeton’s infratructure and the way is managed. In any case I’m tired already of complaining about this as therenis really no point to it, I just have to face the reality: I miss being at MIT where real nerds can take care of a network the way it should be done. I am only one week full of crazy math away from getting back. For now I’m off.

Filed under: Internet, Life

Lost & Found

Today my friend Manuel and I finally got around taking some time aside to go jogging. We used Google earth to find a loop that would fit our running skills – none of us has run in the last couple of months so we are both out of shape.

We started from the door of our dorm and went mostly through parts of Princeton that we somehow knew. However after a while we left all that familiar zones behind and were now trying to remember the street names of the route we designed. After a while of running we started to get the feeling that we were in the wrong place. Regardless, we kept going in the same direction as we thought that there might be an easy way to patch our route and get back to somewhere familiar. That thought didn’t last too much longer so I stopped and decided it was better to follow our steps back. However in that moment my friend Manuel yelled “Hey look at that!” I couodn’t really read the sign he was pointing to due to my bad sight but after getting a bit closer I made sense out of the blurr, it read “Institute of Advanced Studies”.

Although we might have thought that we were lost, this by far one of the places I really wanted to get to see now that I am here in Princeton. The place were Albert Einstein, Emil Artin and JAnd if I would have tried to find it o purpose it probably would have taken me way longer Thant what it actually did.

Filed under: Life

No Internet, no fun

Once again, for some random reason, I have been disconnected from Princeton’s wireless network. It feels as if part of me was missing. I mean half my life happens one way or the other through the internet: from reading the news and working to keeping in contact with my friends and family it all happens on the cloud. In any case, regardless of what it means for me to have Internet (or not) is not that relevant. What shocks me though is the way Princeton manages it’s network. I mean, to begin with in order to get connected a paper application must be filled out giving a bunch of data (some of which could actually be accessed automatically if this was done by a computer program – like the MAC address). Not only that, but it takes the university an average of 4 days to process each application! I mean really?! I am tempted to think that I’m spoiled with MIT Internet services, but still a paper application??!! I had never seen such an inefficient system in the era od information and I even less expected it from a tier 1 university in the US.

Besides that, not much has changed. I’m still studying like crazy to learn some of the contents tought at the seminar I’m at and in general enjoying the summer in this afkwardly technological place. Hopefully tomorrow (or in four days) it will get fixed. Until then (hopefuly soon).

Filed under: Computers, Internet, Life