On Saturday we visited North Berwick and nearby national musem of flight. Some photos were taken but 55mm is really not enough for photographing flying planes. So these photos are rather cropped and bad quality.

www.flickr.com

After the airshow we spent nice time in the harbor of North Berwick. Weather was surprisingly good and the town is lovely.

On Saturday the whole day was spent at a wedding party. The day started at the bride's home, followed by the official part and the church ceremony. Then it was time for the party which was following Hungarian traditions. We had to leave quite early (1 am) in order to be ready and fresh for the next activity.

The three day trip to Slovakia began on Sunday and we headed to the Slovenský raj where we did some trekking. Most of the route was just usual forest path but there were some interesting climbs with ladders. On the last day we visited Slobody cave with great looking stalagmites and stalactites.

Yesterday we made a day trip to Budapest. I visited my previous work place and I chatted with people. Naturally I played couple rounds of csocsó (table football). Too bad I did not win but I don't blame you, Dani. Before evening we checked out the 'Soul and Body' exhibition at Szépművészeti Múzeum - Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition was pretty good and with our new interest towards photography it was definitely worth a visit.

The last event of the day was the rock opera - István, a király. I have seen the 1983 version and Dóra explained the story while we watched it from TV. Therefore I was able to follow it and it did not become a boring event. The only and usual problem was the loudness of the music. I assume the levels were set for culture consumers closer to 60 years old because the high sounds were disturbingly loud.

Today we have only some shopping to do and then we meet Dóra's relatives. Almost a boring day.

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.

Finding a reasonably priced 1-2 bedroom flat in central Edinburgh seems to be as easy as finding a white elephant. So far I visited two flats through agencies and two directly from owner. Rather disappointing... The person from agency does not know jack shit about the property she is showing, building's ground floor looks like it is overrun by addicts lately, bathroom and windows grow mould enough to declare property as a biohazard or the flat is snatched just before you.

Time to bite the bullet...

Quite soon after arriving I went to local mobile shop and I bought a cheap mobile with a pre paid SIM card. The phone is a simple Nokia whatever with a radio. This is my first FM radio for almost three years. Which then leads to the topic.

Previously I have listened music from MP3/CD and Finnish radio stations do not censor songs - at least as far as I know. But here I started to wonder what is strange with Nickelback's Rockstar song. It was lacking some words from its lyrics and it turned out that BBC Radio 1 plays censored version. This time the bad word poisoning little minds was 'drug'. You did not see that word here, right?

Because if you do not see or hear the word '    ' you will have happy and healthy life. You wont ever think about using '        ', '       ' or '   '.

'    ' that.

There is now a nice addition to kebab and Chinese food. Well, there is also a fast food Mexican restaurant but I found it disappointing. This new restaurant is about pasta and it is called 'I PRIMI'. I have no clue why it is written with capitals - maybe it has something to do with Italian mentality.

It is located in the Blaha Lujza's Kaiser super market and it is nothing too fancy. But at least cheese filled tortellini was ok and with 849 forint it was not too expensive. The restaurant has also a web page but it is plain horrible and I feel sorry for the one who paid for that.

Finnish technical university students in Tampere did something special. They installed bunch of light projectors to flats with some control logic. The result was then a huge 9x11 display.

Mikontalolights

And some videos:
Fireworks
Star star Bang bang

I am going to travel to UK on Thursday and my flight takes off from Ferihegy 1. Because I read some time ago that there is a train connection from Nyugati Pályaudvar I decided to check how it would work. Today I did some shopping in WestEnd and then I went to check the station.

But I could not find any information which train would go to the airport direction. After wandering around I spotted a small printed timetable where I could see some trains stopping at Ferihegy. But that timetable did not have track number and on the other hand the electronic timetable did not have train number or any hint about an airport connection. To find out the right track I would need know train's destination. If I would be an average tourist I would have to run around a lot to find the right train. After this research trip I decided to take a taxi or the usual metro+bus connection.

So, MÁV (Might ArriVe) has still a long way to go with customer service...

I almost dropped from my chair while watching movie (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story) from Hungarian TV. During commercials I noticed that Ievan Polkka is playing. It is used by Hungarian McCáfe... it definitely got my attention.

Finnish formula one driver just won championship and it was sort of interesting race as Kimi Räikkönen was several points behind others. But also interesting was that most Finns did not watch it live. MTV3 channel has rights for F1 broadcasts in Finland and they decided to place live F1 races on the pay channel. And people have not subscribed such.

Solving a Rubik's cube is tricky enough for most but these guys make it in a flash.

Today Dóra went to visit her mother in Miskolc for couple days. So I am alone in here which is not that nice. Actually I had some plans for the day but I ended up doing totally different things. I was planning to visit office to finish some search criteria implementation in my current work project but I postponed it for Sunday.

Instead working I spent plenty of time in our bean chair with laptop. I got strange idea to find out how text files could be compared in order to see how well they much. But I found plenty of information about near duplicate algorithms but I did not do any coding. The reason was that I started to think the usability and sort of a business case of my idea and I did not see it feasible. So, I put that idea on hold with other great ideas. I have already a big folder in my laptop under "Developing" containing ideas and mind maps of various software projects of my own. Unfortunately they haven't had enough rocket fuel in them to get going and really make me implementing them.

Well, as my day was not that productive I did not feel like getting up from the bean chair. Eventually I ended up checking many Finnish comic blogs. These are blogs about various topics but instead of written text they have a small comic strip there. Norpatti, Kuvatuksia, Henry and many more. I really like the idea of a comic blog. It can be funny or serious but I think it gives much more personal view to the author than this kind of written blog.

This actually gave me idea to find some empty paper and pencils. I have been scribbling some strange things on the paper but at the moment I have no intention to publish them. Maybe one day...

Dóra's aunt invited us to their 25th wedding anniversary celebration and it took place yesterday. First there was a church event of some kind in the famous Mátyás-templom (Matthias Church). There the couple was blessed again.



After that we moved to nearby Hilton hotel for a dinner. In the Anjou room we enjoyed various dishes during the evening and I have to say they were pretty tasty. Well, it is a five star hotel so I suppose that they know how to cook.

Reuters published an article about weapon ownership in different countries. I was a little bit surprised to see Finland on the third position on a per-capita basis. In Finland there are 56 weapons per 100 citizens. That would mean almost 3 million weapons.

Many of those are hunting weapons as hunting is popular hobby in Finland (around 300 000 hunters). It is common that a hunter has both a shotgun and a rifle. But even if every hunter had three hunting weapons it would make the total amount only 900 000.

So, then there are plenty of people having a pistol or similar for sport shooting. Maybe another million there. But there are still one million weapons somewhere. Apparently some individuals have plenty of firepower...

Oh, just for your information. Buying a firearm is not a simple process in Finland. First you need a buying license for certain type of a weapon and usually membership of a shooting club or a hunting club is needed. Then you buy the weapon and after that you get a license to own posses it. This is valid for one year and after that you have to proof that you have used it for the reason you announced in the first step. After that you get a long term license.

I had a chat with my Finnish friend who was visiting Budapest and Sziget. We were naturally comparing it to Finnish rock festivals. I used to visit Ilosaarirock couple times, Provinssirock once and then some smaller ones.

And there are differences. The first one is alcohol policy. You are not allowed to bring your own bottles in the Finnish festival area. Inside area there are fenced places to buy and consume beer and cider. You can imagine farmer's pig pen to get the idea. No strong alcohol sold usually and there is a mighty gatekeeper checking that you do not smuggle your drink outside restricted area.

In Sziget you are not allowed to bring your own palinka from your uncle's garage but once you are inside you are not controlled like cattle. You can get your drink from numerous places inside festival area. They sell those in plastic cups so they are not considered to be lethal so you can carry your beer everywhere. Apparently Hungarian adults are responsible enough not to pass beer onto kids.

Then another difference is the amount of clashes between people. Even though Sziget is huge, the security was not really visible. Maybe because of lack of those alcohol selling zones there was no need for controlling them either. Also, people seemed to have good mood instead of arguing and fighting while being totally wasted. Finnish festivals can be very nice as well - especially when they are a little bit alternative festivals.