During my almost three years in Budapest I did not do any cycling. The traffic was too hectic and there were no bike lanes near me. But I decided to do some biking later on.

Today I went to the bike station which is Edinburgh's bicycle recycling and cycling promotion charity. It opened at 10:30 AM but I was there a bit later and I had to queue to get in the shop. After checking options I spotted one bike with decent part sets (mix of Deore, LX and XT where it matters). I took it out for a test ride and it felt ok so I bought it and pedaled away.

My problem is now to regain my bicycling muscles and learn how to ride on the left side. Bicycling on the pavement among pedestrians is forbidden here so cyclists should stay on the street. There are good amount of bike lane paintings on the streets but those are often shared with busses. Left hand side traffic is also a bit tricky for me still, while turning left I managed to end up on the wrong side of the divider and finding myself on the wrong side of the road. I was happy that there was no heavy traffic around me. Roundabouts and turning right over many lanes are such maneuvers which are pretty much mystery for me at the moment.

In early January I was sitting in the office in Budapest in front of my workstation. I was scratching my head with some tricky business logic and thinking how to transfer my knowledge to other team members. Luckily there were some bright minds to take over my tasks on the team so it was not that big change for the project schedule (I hope!) when I packed and left.

After handing over my keys in Budapest many things have changed. Edinburgh is much smaller than Budapest and many central locations are within walking distance. But traffic is still pretty insane during rush hours and ongoing tram line construction is causing delays. It will be interesting to see whether Budapest Metro 4 is completed before Edinburgh tram line.

Population in Edinburgh is much more diverse than in Budapest. So, in addition to various Scottish dialects I hear Polish and many other languages while traveling to work. While sitting I usually check local free newspaper and I learn about violence, celebrities and football. Maybe the news are the reason why I consider Scotland a bit unsafe. In 2005 Scotland had second highest murder rate in Europe. The first position on that list went to Finland but for some strange reason I would not consider streets in Finnish cities unsafe.

Back to the office. In Budapest I was working in a new office premise with high spec workstation and proper coffee while following well defined procedures. In my new job surroundings are a bit different as the office building is most likely over 100 years old. Also the way of working is something that got a moment to get used to. My new colleagues have very different backgrounds compared to my colleagues in my previous job where almost everyone was a Java developer. Oh, and I do not have access to Csocsó table anymore which makes me a bit sad. That one would go to hygiene part in Herzberg's two factor theory.

My social life outside work is still developing but it seems to be quite easy to get to know new people simply by joining some Mac or Java user group meetings. It is also possible to learn something new while drinking beer with fellow geeks. For example the last Mac meeting covered potential downsides of HD video with adult content.

I think I have had quite good time here so far. But it will take some several months to get bigger and better picture about life quality here.

Couple weeks ago I visited art supplies shop with Dóra. I bought a sketch book and some pencils with different hardness. After the shopping I have been filling my new sketch book with various drawings.

I used to draw quite a lot during high school but after that I only filled my lecture notes with some nonsense. But now I had intention to do some serious drawing again. I also knew that Internet is full of tutorials for all kind of pencil techniques. After couple tries my confidence grew and I decided to do something more challenging.

I took a photo of a 73 Corvette from Internet and I divided it to squares in order to get proportions correctly. But that Corvette has plenty of curves which turned out to be pretty difficult to get right despite the grid. Also the photo has nasty shadows and highlights - at least for my skills. This exercise dropped me back to earth. But I try again - maybe something boxy from 80s...

My current internet connection is Vodafone's mobile broadband and it seems to work better than Three's. Unfortunately it is also more expensive. However, there are some technical issues.

I noticed many forums missing photos from their posting. It turned out that Vodafone uses content control which blocks access to the websites. For example flickr.com and imageshack.us are blocked. It is possible to remove this block but the web interface for this tries to send SMS containing password to the client settings. And Mac mobile connect software does not support SMS. So, switch SIM card from the dongle to mobile and back, visit Vodafone store or call their customer service.

Another problem is with those images which are actually visible. Vodafone uses a transparent proxy to downsize image files. The result is rather ugly as the compression is set to maximum. But this case is easier to solve. The latest Windows software has a feature for this so some smart Mac programmers observed what is happening with the network traffic and created a small application to disable compression. It is available at http://aitne.com/, it is donation ware and it works fine.

I have been following GBP-EUR exchange rate for a while and things do not look good for a person who receives his income in GBP. Just half a year ago the rate was 0.7 but now it is only 0.8. And it seems it keeps closing euro because economical downturn is just starting.

But because I am not about to buy brand new Mercedes this affects me only in two ways. One is my visits to Finland as prices are higher there for me. Another is grocery shopping in Edinburgh because price of imported cheese will go up as well among other articles.

After my previous experiments with the forex trade I am a bit reluctant to try that again. Maybe I should get a remote work from euro area as an extra...

Article in Telegraph:Sterling weakens further creating both winners and losers in UK

This flat is a bit closer to work and I am sharing it only with Dóra. So things are good but naturally there are minor problems. For some reason leaks seem to follow me and now I found leaking radiator. Because the leak is not catastrophic the repair is scheduled on Thursday. It will be interesting to see if Scottish repairmen are any more punctual than Hungarian.

Edit: For my surprise the repairman came within agreed time and fixed everything in one visit.