A Greek in Edinburgh – PART 1

It’s been 2 weeks now and still i can’t believe i’m here!I survived through the training week – although i did learn a lot of about OpenMP and MPI – and now the time has come for me to actually get used to the life here. Thankfully I am sharing a flat with three great guys! “A Belgian, a Serbian,an Italian and a Greek are in bus stop” could be the beginning of a joke but in this case is the beginning of our day! Here is a brief description of the syndicate: (to be honest, I spent a significant amount of time deciding in which order to present the guys, so they are presented from the tallest to the shortest, ME!)

First, there is Antoine. He is a really tall guy. (around 6ft) He is so tall compared to me that it makes it impossible to take a proper picture of us two! He is from Belgium, so he has a strong accent. Oh well… Antoine is the first of the syndicate (sic) that managed to get a bicycle! He’s very glad about it but I think he struggles a bit going around the city because of the hilly landscape of the city! At the moment, the weather is amazing, and cycling around seems to be a great pleasure, I am interested in seeing him cycling in a rainy day (I assume they are going to be plenty!).

Then, there is Marko. He is the most outgoing from all of us! He started going around the city from day one! Luckily he is very independent; he can go for a walk or running at the park or he may hit the gym and in all these we can get as involved as we want! Marko really knows his stuff; I had the opportunity to work with him in a lab session during the training week. I was really worried about it however he was so sure about what he was doing! And i think the photo says it all!

Stamatia & Marko

And last (but not least), Simone. He is cheerful, energetic and he speaks really fast; he is an Italian male edition of me! Well, he’s a great cook, he makes great Italian dishes although he complains about the poor quality of the Italian products in the market, probably he’s having high standards on the cooking ingredients he’s using. At the moment, he is back to Italy to support his thesis and the flat is sooo quiet. He will be away for 2 weeks  but we miss him already!

Everything has been great so far. The apartment is great; my flatmates are great; even the weather is great! I can’t believe there is a heatwave this week; I was expecting much lower temperatures! I guess the summer is here! It is hard for me to call this a “summer” because in Greece at this time the weather is so mush hotter! What really surprised me though,was the fact that once the sun is out, everyone -literally everyone- goes outside! Last weekend the Meadows was so packed we couldn’t even find a place to sunbathe on the grass!

The Meadows

This week we also settled in our office.I had the chance to meet with my mentor and discuss about my project and how it should proceed. As I’ve been informed, I will be working on Hydra and Hector; there aren’t a lot of people who are having the opportunity to work on these supercomputers! (amazed!) The  EPCC staff is really friendly and welcoming (phew!)

My workspace

I am also preparing a post for the following week commenting about my project; what I am working on, how things are going on and what are my expectations form it. Until then, have a nice week everyone and enjoy the summer!!

PS: I think that now is also the time to thank the Summer of HPC (SoHPC) and PRACE for the opportunity they gave us! Especially the coordinators, the mentors  and the academic staff!