Sunday, April 11, 2010

Getting around Stanford

I had mixed feelings about going to Stanford and about how the university will appeal to me. The "Farm", e.g. the big green campus of Stanford, that looks indeed like a farm, would surely mean something very different from the MIT (tall, rather ugly/communist buildings) or Harvard (nice and classy, rather small) campus and I wasn't sure what to expect. Bikeless in Stanford is indeed terrifying, the distances are fairly long and no matter how much of a walker I am (and I truly am), I still ended up paniching after a couple of days to get my hands on a second hand pair of wheels to move me around. Other than that I really loved it there. The Farm gives you a sense of freedom and biking back and forth to my home in Menlo Park was a blessing in disguise that I have enjoyed. A lot of fields (soccer, football, baseball) and gyms all over the place, Californian style buildings with lighter colors and odd shapes (to my standards) give a special charm to the place, but the green and trees just took the cake. I just loved it!! Moreover, my hosting institution, SIEPR, just got the newest and coolest building on campus, and that just addedd thrills to my everyday commuting to work routine.