A Walk in Paris -- Part 0

Paris was a city which I only heard of in the newspapers, on television, in the movies, in books and other media. It was the city of palaces, cathedrals, broad avenues, and high fashion. It seemed to exist in a different world and in a different time. It had a mystical aura about it which made me say the name "Paris" with a certain wonder and curiosity. So when I learnt that I would get a car ride to Paris and back for only fifty Euros I jumped at the opportunity without thinking twice. And I am so glad that I did!

The City and its People

I found the public transport system of Paris to be of the highest quality. The best support for this statement is my own experience with it. I drove to Paris with a Parisian named Emmanuel and we arrived late on Wednesday night. I spent Wednesday night at his apartment. On Thursday morning he told me : "Take bus 244 to Port Malliot, get into the subway station, buy your 3 day ticket and ask for a map with it. That's all you need to know." And that is indeed all I knew about the Parisian system when I left his house.

So there I was all alone in a Parisian suburb, not knowing a word of French and not knowing a thing about the city and its transport system. I was a bit apprehensive but the apprehension was mis-placed. The city's public transport is extremely thorough in its reach but also self-explanatory which is a testament to the quality of its design.

To get an appreciation of the scale of the transport network, consider this : Paris has two major railway networks the RER and the Metro. The Metro has 13 different lines and the RER has 5. These criss-cross each other throughout the city. If one applies the same criteria for what is considered a railway line to Mumbai, we find that Mumbai has only 2 railway lines : The Western line and the Central line. So Mumbaikars can now imagine the enormity of the Parisian system. Paris also has an intricate bus network, but I did not use it much so I don't know much about it.

So I arrived at Port Mailliot metro station and bought a ticket and its associated map. Without going into the details, it suffices to say that by the end of my 4 days in Paris, I never needed to refer to a rail-map at all. I didn't need to think twice about how to get from place to place. The system was so well structured that I could understand it completely within the first 2 days. And I never ever got lost and never did ask for directions. If a complete stranger can use a given transport system comfortably from the get-go without even knowing the language of the instructions, well that's the highest praise one can shower upon it. Additionally, the trains were always on time, rarely crowded, and very clean. The bus stops also displayed an expected time of arrival for the next bus. The buses were also always on time. Paris is a huge city with a population of about 10 million including the suburbs. To maintain such a high standard on such a large scale is laudable. I am very impressed, and those who know me will know that I usually do not get impressed very easily.

A word must be put in for the Parisians. They have a reputation of being rude and un-helpful to foreigners who do not know French. This has not been my experience at all. It helps if one makes an effort to speak French, which is what I did. I always approached a Parisian with the sentence "Bonjour Misseur / Madame, Parle vou Angle?" (Hello Sir / Madam, Do you speak English?"). If they knew English they were most willing to use it. If it was a shopkeeper who did not know English he would try his best to help me with sign language. The Parisians were smiling and helpful. I honestly can't understand where their bad reputation comes from.

No description of the people of a city would be complete without a word on its women. Paris was reputed to have beautiful women, and it certainly does. There is something about Parisian women. They have such delicate features, are tasteful in their makeup, dress immaculately and have carefully done hair. And when they speak French it makes them all the more attractive! The French men sure are lucky.
The Eiffel Tower

Emmanuel's apartment has a brilliant view of the Eiffel Tower. From his window you can see it arching up to the skies with no distinctly visible structures anywhere else on the horizon. All you can see is the tower in all its solitary majesty. On my first morning I was sitting in a chair in his apartment, sipping coffee, eating breakfast, and reading a programming book. I looked up ahead of me from time to time, as is my habit while reading, saw the tower, barely noticed it, and got back to my book. The morning sun was rising and its angle on the tower was changing continuously, so there was a moment when I looked up and saw the tower blazing golden in the morning sun. It was a spectacle that made me catch my breath, it was just so beautiful and caught me completely off guard. I still smile to myself when I see the tower blazing away in the sun of my mind's eye.



More Later

My journey to Paris is filled with many moments and adventures which I want to write about. Rather than writing about everything in one go, I will space it out over several days. So expect more posts in the near future.

Bye.

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Whatever happened to Hygiene?

I used to be a hygienic fellow. I bathed twice a day. I shaved often. I shampooed often. I wore fresh clothes everyday.

I started out that way in my first few weeks in Eindhoven. But since then things have gone awry. Sample my current situation. It has been three days since I bathed and therefore three days since I got out of this pair of clothes, it has been longer since I shaved, I have not done laundry for 10 days, and not vaccumed my surroundings for two weeks! The dishes pile up until I am out of clean ones and absolutely have to wash.

In my opinion I still look pretty neat and clean. Maybe the Grandmoms will disagree. I am sorry if I caused them to get a few more white hairs with this post. But they should harden up for I am going to Paris tomorrow and expect to have many stories that may cause them much greater grief.

;-)

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An evening with the Dijkstras

I think it wise, and only honest, to warn you that my goal is immodest. It is not my purpose to "transfer knowledge" to you that, subsequently, you can forget again. My purpose is no less than to effectuate in each of you a noticeable, irreversible change. I want you to see and absorb calculational arguments so effective that you will never be able to forget that exposure. I want you to gain, for the rest of your lives, the insight that beautiful proofs are not "found" by trial and error but are the result of a consciously applied design discipline. I want to inspire you to raise your quality standards. I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself "Dijkstra would not have liked this.", well, that would be enough immortality for me. Your obligation is that of active participation. You should not act as knowledge-absorbing sponges, but as whetstones on which we can all sharpen our wits. If you don't understand me, ask for clarification; if I am going too fast, slow me down. (If I am going to[o] slow, you may try to speed me up, e.g. by yawning?) Finally, don't expect me to motivate you, but during "office hours" I would like to get personally acquainted with you.
- Edsger Dijkstra in an address to his students (EWD1213)


Preface

Those who do not know much about Edsger W. Dijkstra (henceforth called EWD) will not be able to appreciate the contents of this post. So here is some information which might help you:
Dijkstra Eulogy by J Strother Moore
How can we explain Edsger W. Dijkstra to those who didn't know him? by David Gries
Remarks at the funeral of Edsger W. Dijkstra by J Strother Moore

Amongst Dijkstra's accomplishments is the 1972 ACM Turing Award (widely regarded as the Computing Science equivalent of the Nobel Prize). He was the first person to organize operating systems as a set of mutually co-operating sequential processes, a model which is used by all modern operating systems. He built the first multiprogramming operating system (The THE system), and the first implementation of a compiler for a high-level programming language (AlGOL60). He formulated many fundamental concepts in computing science like the semaphore, the notion of deadlock, the notion of mutual exclusion, the self-stabilizing systems etc. All of these spawned entire fields of research and are part of the common computing science vocabulary today. As was said in one of the above articles "In Computer Science, we are all Dijkstra's children".

I hope the foregoing will give you a flavour of the kind of person Edsger Dijkstra was. Hopefully you will be able to understand the great esteem in which I hold him. If you do, you will know why this visit and this story is so exciting for me.

The Visit

Ria Dijkstra (EWD's wife of 45 years) said she would pick Jeremy and me up from my Space box at 1430. She arrived at 1425 and was surprised that we were waiting downstairs. She was planning to come up and knock on my door. We reached the Dijkstra residence within 10 minutes. Its located in the neighbouring village of Nuenen and the drive to it was very scenic. There were farmlands and orchards on either side of the road. Mrs. Dijkstra said that it is really pretty in spring when all the trees have leaves of different colours. Right now, they are in the process of shedding their leaves. But it was very pretty nonetheless.

Those who read the manuscripts of EWD (the manuscripts are also called "EWD's") would notice that around half of them sign off with the address "Plataanstraat 5, 5671 AL Nuenen, The Netherlands". Dijkstra worked out of this house for more than 12 years while he was on the payroll of Burroughs Corporation. There was even a wooden, painted logo of the shape "B" outside the front door, which is an imitation of the Burroughs logo. EWD made it himself.

EWD's son, Rutger Dijkstra arrived just moments after we did. He works for a software company in Groningen, two and a half hours from Nuenen by car (Speaking of cars, he was driving a gorgeous black Jaguar sports coupe). According to Wim Feijen, EWD agreed that Rutger was a better mathematician than himself. This tremendous compliment, combined with the fact that he was a programmer in the software industry, meant that I was keen to know his opinion on how he used his father's methods.

It was a wonderful three storey house. Dijkstra's famous study is on the first floor. We sat in the dining room and talked for a while. Mrs. Dijkstra fed us well with coffee and two Dutch sweets she said were only available around Christmas time. I forgot their names. Afterward, we went for a walk around Nuenen. I walked side by side with Rutger while Jeremy and Mrs. Dijkstra walked behind us. It was a beautiful walk for two reasons. First, because the surrounding area was beautiful. Green fields, meadows, cattle, farm houses. All of these made for a very picturesque country scene. Second, because it was a very instructive half an hour conversation with Rutger. The details shall follow in due course, be patient!

We then sat for a long while in the dining room. Mrs. Dijkstra was always bustling in and out with food and tea. We had loads of snacks, including the very Dutch one of smoked eel on biscuits. One entire wall of the living room is lined with books from floor to ceiling. It is an impressive array. It appears that EWD liked history very much. There were numerous history books from volumes on the fall of the Roman Empire, to Dutch history, to American history (he was particularly interested in this subject). He also liked biographies. There were plenty of them. Finally his favourite novelist was Dorothy Sayers. I had never heard of her before, so I borrowed one of her novels. I also borrowed the biography of Alan Turing titled "Turing: The Enigma".

We then settled down for dinner. It was a fabulous Dutch meal of soup, boiled potatoes, boiled french beans, mushroom broth, and chicken broth. I ate a lot. I can't remember eating this much in a long while. It was accompanied with some nice wine (which Jeremy and I had taken with us). It was followed by a lavish dessert of chocolate mouse, vanilla ice cream, apple tart (which was also a contribution from Jeremy and me), and strawberries. I don't know how I managed to fit it all in. (As an aside: I must really start my jogging regime this week. Some quarters say I am already looking chubbier. But I think that has more to do with the optics of my camera.)

After this we settled down in some lovely arm chairs in the living room and listened to some music from Tom Lehrer. It is vocal, satirical music on the state of affairs in America. One song was about modern American Math education to which we all laughed heartily. Mrs. Dijkstra let me borrow the CD's and I am enjoying them as I write this.

After that Rutger said he had to leave (it was getting to around 2045). I took the opportunity to take my only picture of the day. Here are Rutger Dijkstra, Ria Dijkstra, and Jeremy in the Dijkstra living room. In the background there is a hand embroidered quilt which has a Texan theme. It was stitched for the Dijkstras by their Texan friends during their time in Austin.


After Rutger's departure, Mrs. Dijkstra took us on a tour of the house. We saw EWD's study where he wrote more than 600 of his manuscripts and also his seminal work "A Discipline of Programming" which layed the foundation for the formal derivation of programs. It was filled with books on physics, mathematics, and of course computing science. I saw books on modern languages like Haskell as well. I saw his famous Mont-Blanc Meisterstuck fountain pens with which all his handwritten manuscripts were written. He used to have six of the them, but gave many of them away toward the end of his life. It was a nice to see them.

Also in the study were the coffee mugs of the Austin Tuesday Afternoon Club. It is the sister of the ETAC and was run by EWD while he taught at UT Austin. Mrs. Dijkstra said that Jeremy and I could have one each. They have the words : "Rule 0: Don't make a mess of it" printed on them in EWD's handwriting. It was a wonderful gift. My coffee will taste better now! Here is a picture of the mug, taken once I reached home:

We saw plenty of pictures of EWD in complete cowboy attire, from the bolo tie, checked shirt, cowboy hat and glares. We saw pictures of him giving lectures, accepting awards, standing at famous landmarks etc.. Finally in the living room I saw the 1972 ACM Turing Award which, as I mentioned earlier, is the computing science equivalent of the Nobel prize. It is a simple silver bowl with an inscription on it. Mrs. Dijkstra said that the Dutch customs people wanted to charge a tax on the prize when EWD was returning to The Netherlands after receiving it in New York. He managed to avoid paying the tax. Phew!

We also saw EWD's bedroom and the bedrooms of his children. By then it was 2130 and Mrs. Dijkstra said that we could spend the night there if we wished. Jeremy and I looked at each other in a slightly stunned silence. She was extremely hospitable and motherly all through the evening, but nothing prepared us for this! We never managed to utter a word though I think Jeremy managed to shake his head. So she said she would drive us home. And that was that!

Impressions

There are many lasting impressions that I carry away from this visit. I think the most eloquent summary of the change which this visit has effected in me is thus : It drove home the point, beyond any doubt and with crystal like clarity, that the Dijkstras are perfectly normal people. I was very excited about the prospect of visiting "Dijkstra's house". I couldn't believe that I would be actually seeing a study where so much history was made. I thought I would be awed.

Nothing of the sort happened.

From the get-go it all appeared most normal. The house was a normal Dutch house. The study was a normal room. Mrs. Dijkstra was a normal old lady. Rutger Dijkstra was a normal middle-aged man. Yes, they were both very sharp, but normal nonetheless. Flesh and blood. Willing to listen to you. Most happy to talk. I was feeling "at home" within an hour of being there. It is the most comfortable as I have ever been. I was even calling EWD "Edsger" toward the end!

Mrs. Dijkstra is adorable. She is so sweet and so hospitable. She was constantly getting us things to eat but she never forced anything. She never let us clear the plates or set anything up. She insisted on doing it herself. She knew a lot about the mathematics that was discussed. She had an opinion on a lot of the topics. She related anecdotes about EWD's experiences in relation to some of the things that were being talked about.

She asked me several "motherly" questions like "Is your bed all right? Because, the night you arrived, Wim and I made it for you. But we did not remove the plastic covering on the mattress under the sheets. If it is irritating you, you can remove it". Or, "I was going to take you'll out for dinner, but then I realized that you would appreciate a home made meal, so I decided to cook for you". Or, "Are you managing your laundry properly?". Or, while we were in the car on the way to my space box, "Oh, I should have had you call your family from my house, you would have liked to talk to them". The gestures speak for themselves. She is a gem.

Rutger Dijkstra is an accomplished mathematician. His master's thesis is "One of the most beautiful works I have ever read" in Wim Feijen's words. As I mentioned earlier, we had a half an hour conversation while walking around Nuenen. I asked him about the use of formal methods in his work. He says that he does not use it directly at all, but his training enables him to be in full grip of the software he writes which cannot be said for the other programmers on his team He said that he has been employing "Extreme Programming" techniques for the last few years. When I asked him about EWD's comment that "Object Oriented methods do not live up to my standards of elegance" he replied "My father was often guilty of quickly making generalizations based on only one or two examples. There are many bad things in the object oriented methodology, but looking at them alone is dangerous". When I asked about EWD's notion of structured programming he replied "It does not scale for larger software. In my father's day, it was a huge step forward, but the world has moved on. Toward the end of his life, my father was un-willing to accept the realities of the modern software industry."

I also learned a bit about extreme programming and Rutger's explanation has inspired me to explore it further. I shared my own reasons for studying EWD's methods and how I thought they would help me as a programmer in the future. Rutger agreed that I was on the right track and that in essence EWD had the right ideas. That said, there were some places where his detractors had a point, like the examples in the preceding paragraph suggest. It was a nice talk and it served to confirm my ideas on Dijkstra's work and how it can help me. That was satisfying.

Dreams do come true

I remember that it was a year ago to the month when I said something like the following to my good friend Dhruv back in good old Mumbai: "It would be a dream come true to go to The Netherlands and work with Wim Feijen. It would be a dream to see Dijkstra's study and also his grave." To which he replied "Some dream you got, but it may happen!".

Well, sometimes dreams do come true. You just got to want them badly enough to do something about it.

I should now get back to working on "improving my quality standards". Bye!

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My Diet

(Because a suprising number of people ask me about it)

I don't know why people are so curious about what goes into my stomach, but since I have been questioned so often about my diet, I thought I should devote a space on this page to it. And, more importantly, I am in the mood of killing time right now.

My breakfast is constituted of a bowl of Muesli cereal with some "volle melk". That is basically a full-cream milk. I also have a banana with either an apple, pear, or orange. I also have a cup of coffee or two.

Lunch consists of home made sandwiches of whole grain bread, cheese and cold-cuts. Sometimes I have some vegetables. For example, today I had a ham and salami sandwich, half a stalk of a carrot and a tomato. Check it out:



Dinner is a mixed bag. Sometimes I bring home something from outside. Sometimes I eat some soup and bread at home. Today it was the soup's turn to satisfy me. Check it out:


I must mention that the wine and beer available here is stunning. I get Heineken beer for 40 cents per 330ml can. The other day I bought a bottle of Bordeuax wine at 2 Euros for 750 ml. Some evenings are spent sipping wine and nibbling the delicious variety of Dutch cheese that is available. A wonderful compliment when doing maths, let me tell you!

From what I gather, mine is a quite a Dutch diet. Except that the Dutch have plain "half volle melk" with their lunch and their dinner consists of meat and potatoes in addition to the soup.

So much for what is probably the most boring post in this blog so far. Be careful about the questions you ask, sometimes I might take the trouble of answering them!

A tale of two Macs

Here is my Apple iBook G4 sitting opposite Jeremy's Apple Powerbook at the office. Jeremy doesn't look too pleased with my disturbances, but don't worry, he is a good actor :-)
Enjoy!

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An Interesting Sunday and Other Sundries

A Musical Sunday

Sunday was a beautiful day in Eindhoven. The sun was shining brightly in the blue sky, the birds were chirping, a crisp smell hung deliciously in the air (ok, the last may not be true, but it adds good effect doesn't it? ;-) ). Looking out from my window, I gazed upon this fine spectacle at 11 AM and thought it would be nice to take a walk to Jeremy's place without a jacket. The reasoning behind this decision is defensible, the previous day was a comfortable 18 degrees Celsius and I had no reason to believe that this morning would be any different.

Well, the Dutch weather turned out to be every bit as unpredictable as I heard it was, and then some. I stepped out of my little, heated, space box and started walking. Once I was at a good distance from my space box, I started a slight shiver. And then my teeth started to chatter a little. But that did not deter me, it was a beautiful walk and I even stopped to take a picture. Here is a snap of one of the paths that connects me and Jeremy :

Don't let the warm looking scene fool you!

Anyway, I managed to make it to Jeremy's in a non-frigid state. Once I was there I learnt that it was 10 degrees Celsius. Its the coldest I have ever been in, and here I am walking through the wind in a thin cotton t-shirt! I survived, and am more thick-skinned for it. But how there can be a 8 degree difference from one sunny day to the next is beyond me.

The whole point of venturing out to Jeremy's place was not to get frozen, but to rendezvous with Tom Verhoeff ( a member of the Software Construction Group at the TU/e). He was picking us up at Jeremy's house to take us to his own home.

The occasion for our visit was that Tom's neighbourhood was holding a musical festival of sorts. As part of this festival the people of the neighbourhood play some musical pieces in their own home, and everyone is free to drop in. Jeremy and Tom played a duet of the piano and the recorder with Jeremy on the piano. They played a piece from Rhubbra together. Then Jeremy played a solo from Claude Debussy. They closed with a duet called Intermezzo, I forget the composer. They had two twenty minute performances separated by an hour, and the audience as between 7 and 10 in each case.

The first thing that struck me about the whole event was the impeccable organization and the punctuality. It started with the pickup. Tom was scheduled to pick us up at 12 noon, and he was there at 11:58 on my clock. And, since Jeremy was not ready when Tom arrived, Tom mentioned that he was a little early and not to worry. The people here are punctual to the second. For those who know me, they will know I am reveling in such a setup!

About the organization of the event. Everyone in the neighbourhood had a printed sheet which listed the time of each performance, the venue, and the pieces being performed. Each performer performed their piece twice and each performance lasted 20 minutes, with 10 minutes left to allow audiences to go from one venue to the other. All the performances were bang on schedule. The entire event moved like clockwork with each house doing their part to perfection. Coming from the every lazy and laid back Mumbai, this was a breath of fresh air which really tasted good!

I also observed that the standard of living is very high over here. This seems to be a middle-class neighbourhood, but they have beautiful houses, with backyards, parks, and the like. Each house has all the modern amenities that you could need. From the brief encounter I have had with the life-style, I think it is very good. People are free to focus on the jobs they like doing and don't get stymied in the details which seem to pre-occupy too many people back in India. The simple things remain simple. I will not go into this in more detail over here. Talk to me to find out more!

The neighbourhood was very welcoming to us foreigners. After the event there was a get-together for the entire neighbourhood in one of the houses. We were welcomed and many people made efforts to speak to us. The standard of English is impeccable and the Dutch are not shy of using it.

A final observation is in order. For the first time, I felt that the "western" things that were done, really belonged. I mean, the wine at the after-party, the drinking songs, the kind of music that was sung and played. It is part of their culture. It is their identity. It all seemed to fit in. When similar (western) things are attempted in India, it feels like it is an import, not quite the real thing, not quite the right fit. I got this impression distinctly, and so I think it is worth mentioning. I can't give a further justification as of now.

We rounded off the evening with a dinner of Dominoe's Pizza at Tom's house. His daughter Eline, an adorable child of 5 or 6, provided us with entertainment. I had fun playing with her and I even picked up a bit of Dutch in the process.

All in all it was a wonderful day and quite instructive. Experiences like these make one more comfortable in a new place, no matter how comfortable you were to begin with. I could talk normally to everybody I met (once the language was established as English!). And that is a nice feeling to have. It certainly makes one feel less "foreign".

Shopping anecdotes

While the English of the Dutch middle class is impeccable, the same can't be said of those who work at supermarket chains. Sample Jeremy's adventure. I have a shopping anecdote of my own though. On a lot of the products available in Dutch supermarkets, I find the mysterious words "Roomboter". Now since this appears on sugar, to butter, to salt, to cookies, to ... you get the idea, I began to wonder what it meant. Jeremy told me that it meant "High Quality". I was reminded of our famous marketing gimmick in India, where they plaster the qualifier "new" on to every product, no matter how old. So our good old Parle-G, which has remained the same since the age of the Neandertals, is still sold with the word "New" plastered on it. If one still finds Nirma washing powder on the store shelves, it will probably be called "new" by its manufacturer. It seems that the Dutch are as obsessed with high quality as Indians are with newness. So the concrete may have changed, but the idea hasn't. This is just one more example that some things just don't change, no matter how far you travel.

Making friends, a multicultural mix

The other day I was in the mood of getting acquainted with my neighbouring space-boxers. I decided that the best way to do so was to go up to a door and simply knock and say "Hello, I am new here and just wanted to say 'hi!' ". So I go up to a random door and knock. It was occupied by a Greek guy who is living with his German girlfriend. They had an another space-boxer over for dinner. She was a girl from Serbia and Montenegro (formerly Yugoslavia). I spent an hour and a half with them and it was a fun experience. There was no particular reason for the fun, it was a pleasant way to spend time. Four different English accents made for some pretty interesting hearing errors which made me laugh at the time, but I forget the details.

The next day I picked another random door. This time I was greeted with an Indonesian guy. I was chatting with him and while I was there an Ethiopian guy and a Kenyan girl payed him a visit. So I spent time with a wholly different set of people. Again, I enjoyed my self. Although this crowd was distinctly more reserved than the European one.

My impression from these episodes is that people my age are more or less similar. Habits may differ, outlets for recreation may differ, but in the end everyone wants similar things from their life at this age, and in that there is always an understanding. I hope to meet many more people in what seems to be a very nice melting-pot. Any numbers between 50 and 170 are appreciated. That will be the number of the next door I knock on (provided I haven't knocked there already). For reference, my number is 152.

Saving the best for last, my baby has arrived!

And now, I have some very good news to share. I finally, finally, got my Apple iBook G4 laptop. I have been running it for a day and it is really a charming system. I like what I have seen of Mac OS X so far. For my geek friends, check out these pictures and drool. For the more normal people, there is nothing of interest here.

From the outside, a sleek, fair beauty.

And it gets prettier ..

That's all

That's all for this week folks. I am glad that my readers enjoy reading this blog. I enjoy writing it as well. So expect more soon.

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My space box and office

Today I am going to treat you'll to pictures of my house (called a space box) and my office.

The Space box


The picture on the right is a view taken from back of the room. The window is behind me as I take it. You see my desk on the left with some fruits on it. On the right you see my very cozy bed. Beyond the bed you find my cupboard and beyond that you find my little bathroom / toilet. On the left of the bathroom door is my kitchen area. And the black door on the left of the picture is the main door.



This picture is taken from the front of the room, I am standing in the kitchen area when I take it. The bathroom is to my left. You see the desk and the bed. You also see some book shelves and a small patio area. The star of the room is that leather reclining chair on the patio. When you sit on it, you get a nice view of the university car park. The spaceboxes on the other side have a view of the canal and forest that I had shared in the previous post.




Here is the kitchen area. You see a stove placed against the far wall, under the napkins. There is not much to describe here. It is compact and well designed. Very nice for one person.














The office


Here is a picture of the office as seen from the front door. You see Jeremy eating his lunch at his computer. On the right wall there is a huge whiteboard. On the left are the book shelves. You see my computer and desk at the back of the room, next to the windows.







This is my desk and my superfast computer. I actually downloaded a 37 MB file in 4 seconds yesterday. You do the math!















And our lovely whiteboard.













Finally, here is the view from my desk. I am sitting at my chair as I take it. Aren't I lucky?










Thats all folks! I also took pictures of my bathroom, but decided against uploading them here.

:-)

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First week, first impressions

Hello from Eindhoven! It has been a great first week. Heres how it went.

The Particulars of the Journey

The adventure started on the drive to the Sahar international airport : The car broke down on the way! It seems that the wire connecting the car's battery to the ignition got loose on the rough roads. It was not a hard problem to solve and the ever helpful Mumbaites nearby offered their full assistance and we were up and running after a little delay. My family and I were scheduled to have a nice dinner at one of the hotels near the airport as a final send off, but because of the delays introduced by the cars misbehaviour, we had to settle for a dinner of dosa's and pav bhaji at the Air port snack centre. I didn't mind this at all, infact I positively enjoyed it.

Once I was inside the airport, I was in for another adventure. The Alitalia official told me that my baggage was overweight and I would have to shed a few kilos! So there I was in the middle of the airport unpacking my bag. I got rid of nearly all the food, and that was enough to bring the luggage down to size. Not a big problem.

The flight to Milan departed at 0135 on October 24 and was on time. I landed in Milan ahead of schedule at 0630 local time, a flight of 9 hours if you count the time zone shifts. Since my connecting flight to Amsterdam was only at 1515 local time, I had a good 8 hours to kill, so I decided to look around the city.

I took a bus from the Malpensa international airport to the Milan Central station, a drive of 50 mins. The drive is very picturesque. I walked around the Central Station area for quite a while and also had a traditional italian pizza at a road side cafe. They do not embellish it with anything. There is just a tomato sauce, mozarella cheese, and olive oil. Very tasty.

The Malpensa International airport:

The Milan Central Station, in all its grandeur:

I made my way back to Malpensa international at around 1300 local time. I had a through checkin so I went directly to my gate and waited for what I thought would be a couple of hours. Boy, was I mistaken!

Alitalia, living up their wonderful reputation of being able to screw up just about every flight, cancelled my flight to Amsterdam. Whats worse is that they took a full three hours to re-schedule us. Now this was a problem as the original plan was that my colleague Jeremy Weissmann would meet me at Amsterdam Central Station at 1700, which was my original time of arrival, and would lead me to Eindhoven where Mrs. Dijkstra and my professor Wim Feijen would take me to my accomodations. But since Alitalia took so long to reschedule, I told Jeremy to go home and that I would manage somehow on my own.

The flight was eventually re-scheduled to depart at 2020. A full 5 hour delay. The arrival time in Amsterdam was 2230 which meant it was likely that I would not get a train to Eindhoven because it was late. I did not worry about this as I was instructed to call Mrs. Dijkstra as soon as I landed in Amsterdam. She said she would arrange something for me.

From then on there were no hiccoughs. There was a hilarious episode where a Dutch family got totally incensed when Alitalia did not issue boarding passes for their children and would not allow them to board. There was alot of shouting, some of that in Dutch. Those who have heard Dutchmen speak would know that it is a really harsh language. Even in the most polite conversations Dutchmen sound like they are fighting. So when this Dutch family was actually fighting, it was a spectacle. I was thinking of taking my camera out and recording a video of it, but decided better of it -- they sounded really angry and I like my camera too much.

I landed at Amsterdam Schiphol International airport at 2245. It is a huge airport and the aeroplane has to cross a auto-highway to go from the runways to the terminal. It must be a spectacle for the cars on the highway to see the gigantic Boeing 747 rolling merilly on a flyover above them. I would not want to be in a car passing under that flyover!

Anyway, I collected my luggage and stepped out at 2315 or so. I was looking around for a phone booth to call Mrs. Dijkstra when I heard someone call out my name. Boy, was I schocked to see Mrs. Dijkstra and Wim Feijen standing there waiting for me! They actually drove all the way from Eindhoven from Amsterdam to pick me up, a drive of one and a half hours one way. I was touched by the care they showed.

And there was a whole lot more to be touched by. Mrs. Dijkstra brought a blanket and a pillow so I could sleep in the car. She said I would be tired since I had already been travelling 30 hours at that point. When I reached my room, I found that she had stocked it with with enough food to tide me over the first few days of my stay (because markets would be closed till 1300 on Monday morning and I might be hungry, you know). Wim Feijen said "She is just like a mother". She really is.

I went to sleep at 0300 October 24. I woke up at 0900. And now the really interesting stuff happens.

Impressions and thoughts

The first thing that struck me is how easily I got used to the new place. I took the organization, the cleanliness, the civility, and all these little details in my stride. I was as immune to it as I am to the chaos, dirt, roguishness ( remember the public trains), of Mumbai. I appreciate these things, but in the larger picture, they really don't matter much. Thats lesson one.

That said, the area I where I live is really beautiful. The following picture was taken just behind my space box, 40 seconds from my front door.


The thing that has really got me excited about being here is the department I am part of. Everyone here is very nice and friendly, and very experienced too. I have already found out that there is a lot to learn. The intellectual level here is far higher than what I am used to. Back in India, I considered myself a confident speaker. I could make arguments pretty smoothly and was usually satisfied with my performance. But the level of discourse here is raised so that I feel distinctly clumsy when I speak. The following epigram from Loesje has become more and more applicable to me "I think very hard before I say something stupid".

Whats most exciting is that there is so much to learn in the next eight months, so much to improve upon. Before I came to Europe, I was looking forward to the adventures that followed from the freedom I would have by living alone with only myself to answer to. In my mind, these adventures revolved around romance, travel, and things like that. Now I am of the opinion that the greatest adventures would be found within the confines of my own brain. There are so many levels to be discovered and mastered in that little space at the top of my body.

Also, having Edsger Dijkstra's cupboards just a few doors down the hall from me is really exciting. See for yourself :


Being part of the Eindhoven Tuesday Afternoon Club (ETAC) is also a priveledge. Read this for more information about it. I have attended two sessions of the ETAC and both of them have been instructive. I managed to participate more in the second one than in my first. I beginning to see that there is no silver bullet to designing elegant solutions. There are always considerations that have to be made at each stage of the design. At the ETAC, these considerations are made very explicit, making it a great forum for learning how to design elegant solutions. Here is a picture of the latest formation of the ETAC:

Standing, from left to right: Wim Feijen, R.W Bulterman, Tom Verhoeff, Arjen Mooij, Jeremy Weissmann, Apurva Mehta.
Sitting: Rob Hoogerwoord.

Finally, I have never really lent much weight to reputations. But within a week of being here, I attach even less weight to them than before. For example, Mrs. Dijkstra was one of the most normal old ladies you would find. There were no airs about "being a Dijkstra". And that is how the people are over here. There is no one "too big" or "too small". Everyone is equal and can be approached in that spirit, from the most senior professor to the most junior student. This is a sharp contrast to the setup I have observed in India, and it is wonderful.

Till next time..

So much for my first week. I plan to update this blog atleast once a week. Not all posts will be this long though.

In closing my first post from Eindhoven, I shall make a prediction about what I think my last words of my last post will be. I hope to make Dijkstra's following words about his time spent at University my own:

"We worked very hard, never slept enough, often never ate enough, but life was incredibly exciting." -- EWD1166.

A request: For all those who a reading this blog, please email me at the following address with the subject of your mail as "Dutch Adventure". This goes to all those whom I email regularly as well. The email address below contains obfuscations to avoid spam. Please remove all spaces. Also replace the DOT with '.' and the AT with '@' (without the quotes). I hope to get many emails! The address is :
amehta AT win DOT tue DOT nl

Read the rest..