Start at IRISA

I am now visiting IRISA in Rennes. Rennes is the capital city of Brittany in France. Surprisingly, even people outside the research lab are willing to speak a little bit English with me. And still surprisingly, my computer was prepared before my arrival and my laptop was connected to the network within one hour of my arrival. It is a much better experience than the last time when I worked in University Paris 13 during 2001-2002. But the French system still has its characteristics. My apartment was not connected to the electricity network for two days. The first night, I stayed in the lobby of the residence to read my paper. The second night, they offered me another apartment to stay. You can not think French has no way to work it out by just one phone call to EDF. The matter is who is responsible to make this phone call, which takes much more time. The French is the inventor of the bureaucracy system in Western. So you have to tolerate an inflexible system.