Day 3 - Settling in

First, the important news: yesterday the UK was hit by one of those most destructive tornadoes in the past few decades. It hit Birminghman, the second largest city, about 80 miles NW of here. It was a T3 or T4 on the tornado scale, which corresponds to a weak F1 on the Fujita scale. A T0 tornado here has wind speeds as low as 39 mph. In other words, a typical dust devil has strong enough winds to make it on the tornado scale here. However, even an F1 tornado in a city of over a million people is big news, especially in an area where tornadoes are relatively rare.

As for me, today I unpacked all of my stuff, and that made a big difference. This place doesn't feel so much like a hotel anymore. I also set up an account with an internet-based phone service. It's great! Now I can call anyone in the U.S. for only 2 cents/minute. I still don't have a phone number yet, but I will get one soon. When I do, I'll probably post it here.

I also got a bike today! It makes it SO much easier to get around. Reading is a good place for bikes.. not quite as good as Boulder or San Jose, but definitely A LOT better than Norman. Now it is much more convenient to get things. I can get almost anywhere in Reading within 10 or 15 minutes (except for the western part, which i hear is better to stay away from anyway).

I discovered a Mega Safeway and a PC World nearby. I'm sure I'll be returning to those. Unfortunately, the Lasagna I got at Safeway was nasty! However, I also found a fish & chips place nearby called "Mr. Cod". It was VERY good. So now I have at least one good/close place to eat. Hopefully I'll find more soon.

Tomorrow I'm planning to go to London to take pictures, look at the old Bible manuscripts that I missed last time I was there, and just explore a little. Reading has been awesome so far, but London is more than 50x bigger, so I can only imagine what neat places can be found there. Maybe I will post some pictures tomorrow.

posted by Matt @ 9:52 PM