Getting settled

 My new flatmates are really, really nice! They are

1. TJ, PhD student in theoretical particle physics at SCIPP
2. Carina, his girlfriend, PhD student on solar cells
3. Tia, first year grad student, who just moved here from the east coast 6 weeks ago. She plays the violin and is also a vegetarian.

When I moved in, TJ and Carina had just come back from hiking over the weekend, too. Tonight the four of us went out together to an icecream parlor.
The apartment is quite big. TJ and Carina share a large room, but Tia and I have our own smaller rooms. We have a rather huge living room with several sofas and a well-equipped kitchen. My room luckily contains a little bit of furniture.

Today I went on campus by bus with Tia. The administrative coordinator of SCIPP welcomed me, showed me the office I am sharing with other visitors, among them an exchange student from Poland and introduced me to many people. My supervisor will only arrive next week, though.

I found the "Bike Co-Op" (cooperatively owned, non-profit bike shop and help to repair your bike, run by volunteers) on campus and was lucky enough to rent a bike for only 25$ for the entire period of my stay.

The campus is very large, steep and green, basically in a forest and from some places with a view on the Pacific! Even mule deers live here. Cycling downhill downtown was a pleasure (but through the hills which are even a mountain lion habitat!), however, uphill will be a challenge with my single-speed bike...
I found the music center with practice rooms! Maybe I will take my viola to the institute to practice there. But today I could play a bit in my room.

In total, I must say that all people I have met here so far are really friendly, open and willing to help, e.g. my flatmates, people in the institute and the bike co-op. I guess I will not fully feel "at home" here by the end of the 5 weeks, but I am pretty confident that the next month will be nice and interesting!