Tour of my temporary home

Well, this is the little place I call home for the moment, the Leigh Marine Laboratory. It is a relatively small campus in the middle of no where. Leigh is a very small place and there is not much around. Ignoring the mess, as I am still living out of my suitcases till I get a more permanent address, this is my room; 3 walls and a glass sliding door. Today at least, I finally got a pillow to call my own!

 My bunk room is located in the bunk house, an odd building, more like a beach house, but the outlying veranda/hall way is pretty open, which today has proven to be troublesome with the rain blowing in all over the place. This makes going the bathroom at night difficult, since my room and the bathrooms are on opposite ends.

The main lab area is a beautiful new building with some very up to date labs for measuring and microscopy. There are some nice office spaces but the area is a little crowded and very warm as of late, so I haven't spent much time in there.

Much like the Huntsman in Saint Andrews, they have a very nice discovery center which I toured through on my second day in Leigh. Interestingly enough, they both have a very windy road leading to them with an almost hairpin turn.

Where I spend most of my time is in the kitchen/eating area. The large tables are better to work with and when it was very sunny, it was much cooler there, so it was easier while I am acclimatizing. I usually spread out on one of these tables and work most of the day into the evening, grabbing food from the kitchen when I feel hungry.

But inevitably, Leigh is much to far out with few amenities and much of my work is to be done in Auckland, so I needed a bit more than a bike. So I got one step up, a Honda Civic. She has been a reliable car for a previous Canadian graduate student and although there may be some minor work to do over the next couple months, it should be a good little reliable car for getting to Warkworth (only place with a grocery store) while I am in Leigh, get me too Leigh when I move to Auckland, and get me to a few exotic new frontiers. I have been driving her for about 5 days, made a few trips around and frankly haven't had too much trouble on the other side of the road. Mary-Ellen has instinctively named the car Rosey.

Well, the weather has been miserable the last couple days, little sunshine, lots of wind, and lots of rain. Hopefully things will turn around again soon so I can go explore some more of the coast. I did catch a movie (Ironman 3) and as exciting as the movie was, the theatre I was in was almost as exciting. They have a set of 3 theatres in Matakana, outside of Warkworth, which seat around 50 people, but they are all big cushy suits, and the front row consists of lazy-boyz. The ceiling of the particular theatre I was in was covered in yellow and orange paper flowers with fake birds along the edge and up the wall. The others have their own designs apparently and I look forward to hopefully seeing one of those when I go catch Star Trek next weekend. Well, not much else has progressed, still working on a project outline, but will fill you all in when I have something concrete. I miss you all and hope everything is well. Feel free to send me an email or facebook message.