Parisian adventures, without astronomy!

The morning after the conference finished, I picked my sister up at the airport. On the way there, the train stopped. It was supposed to be a direct train from Paris to the airport. The stop was obviously then unscheduled...and lasted at least fifteen minutes. I was relieved when we started moving again, but we just kept stopping for varying periods of time. I finally arrived (an hour late) to find my sister (frustrated and upset). I begged for her forgiveness and offered the raspberry macaroon I'd purchased for her the night before. I was forgiven.

Together, we've seen Notre Dame (with an organ concert), Place des Vosges, a tasty bakery with delicious bread and pastries, many souvenirs shops, Jardin du Luxembourg (with an orchestra), Panthéon, Sorbonne, Roman ruins, sweaty metro riders, cafés, memorials, etc.

Tomorrow shall be a busy day: Château de Chantilly and (climbing) the Eiffel Tower. Surely, I will include pictures tomorrow. I just feel like I've already put pictures up on here of the places we've seen so far. I'm excited we're going somewhere new to both of us tomorrow.

Paris, encore.

It turns out that I hate playing tour guide for a small group of people. I'd much rather disseminate my information to one person. This has been a major annoyance of this trip. Thankfully, the end of being used solely for directions and constantly repeating the same interesting bit of information is near.

Before I start sharing pictures, I must say that my attendance at this conference has been quite beneficial having met people who have told me to let them know when I am in or near their respective countries so I can come and give a talk. No, they don't say that to everyone. I've also gotten some insightful comments on my research, so my time has been well-spent.

First we have Notre Dame with the moon, in black and white.

I'm aware that you can't really tell this is Notre Dame, but it has the moon in it so I couldn't resist the temptation. Perhaps I'll put up a different view another day.

I had two days of sightseeing, and then the conference began.

The first night, there was a cocktail reception (where water was sadly scarce and the temperature was disturbingly high, but the tiny desserts were wonderful) in the Paris Observatory. I got some lovely views of Paris from the roof as the sun set. I also ate a ton of macaroons and tiny tarts, perhaps far more important than the views from the roof.

Yesterday after the conference, I walked from the Louvre to the Arc d'Triumphe. It's always a lovely walk until you get about five blocks form the end where it is absolutely overrun by tourists.

Other highlights include catching up with an old friend from OWU, obtaining lunch from the market in the Bastille, and riding on the metro with sweaty people.

No more jokes. It's just cold.

If I could only see the distant mountains to assert that with more snow they look even more picturesque. Sigh.

It's rare for me to update two days in a row, or maybe this is still the same day? It's two days to me.

Anyway, the point of this is to show why I can't be taking data. I love snow, but I would prefer not to have it when I'm trying to get data for my research project.

The dome on the left is the silver one seen here and here (fox pictures!).

On being really chilly in Chile...

After making my way back to Chile, La Serena was overcast and cold on Tuesday. Wednesday was a pleasant, sunny day. It was glorious and gave me much hope for the observing run. That was until we saw there was snow on the mountain and heard that some of the domes were frozen shut.

First, we see the sunny streets of La Serena. I spent Wednesday walking around this area and seeing Chilean pride for their team having won their first match in the World Cup. I also saw a young man with a rather bloody face walk by followed by his friends. They were in close pursuit by another group of young men. This is the only violence I've ever seen in La Serena.

Now, I'm on the mountain. A lot of the surrounding mountains had snow on them, but Cerro Tololo is not one of the highest peaks, so there was hope that it wouldn't have accumulated too much. You can see some snow in the background of this requisite fox photograph. The shaded areas have several inches of snow.

Apparently there isn't enough snow on the mountain because we had to close the dome after the humidity shot up and the temperature plummeted. We only had about two and a half hours of observable sky, and that wasn't even quality.

To finish things off, here is a picture of the surrounding mountains with bits of snow. The Andes were picturesque, as always. With just a little more snow, I feel like they could make a nice new logo for Andes Mints.

Touring Austria and Hungary

Apparently there was some concern because I was out of contact. I assure you that I'm fine. Someone just had the brilliant idea of booking hotels without free internet.

Since I haven't commented at all on anything beyond Prague, I must start with Vienna. Highlights of seeing all of the places where Beethoven and Mozart lived, as well as eating a whole lot of Austrian food. We went to a beer garden type of restaurant and heard some accordion and guitar musicians play folk music. Naturally, there was a lot of walking and church-visiting.

Our second concert was not in Vienna, but rather Eisenstadt. The Esterházy palace we played in has fallen into some disrepair, except for the hall in which we played: Haydn Hall. The stage was obnoxiously small because of the ridiculous amount of area the choir had to take up. As a direct result the trumpets were behind me. I couldn't hear out of my right ear after rehearsal. Some cotton was useful.

After spending the day and night in that small town we headed toward Budapest, first stopping in Sopron. It was a nifty little Hungarian town important because it was the first place that border guards started turning the other way when eastern Europeans were trying to escape in the late 1980s. We wandered around and stumbled upon some interesting things, such as how buildings have changed over time. I quite enjoyed all of the different layers found on the building façades.

Another stop on that trip was another Esterházy palace, which was far more fantastic than the previous one. Then there was Budapest. We arrived late because it seems that most of the area is flooded by the massive amount of rain that plagued our trip.

We went on yet another tour. My problem with the tours is that there is next to no time to explore on one's own or enough time to see things at all. We spent a whole half an hour on the top of a hill on the Buda side. It was lame because you had to pay for everything (not that there was any time to see anything...), but the view was nice. That's just one example of how ridiculous bus tours are and why I am vehemently against them. Today was just ridiculous: we got up really early to see Parliament. Their fire alarm was being tested for an hour...we were there during all of it. Our Hungarian tour guide was extremely frustrated by it, too. The picture is of Parliament. I took it last night on our boat cruise of the Danube. After the morning's tour some people went to a museum describing the history of communism. I couldn't go. I've seen the concentration camps in person; I still get nightmares.

We have our last concert tonight. Tomorrow we return. There is much more of Prague and Budapest that I'd like to see, but I don't feel like we missed too much of Vienna, other than some museums. Most of Vienna was destroyed in WWII bombings, so a lot of history is gone.

Prague: You should totally Czech it out.

I'm just going to state that I will never willingly fly British Airways again. I don't know if it's just because they're on the verge of strike or what, but those flights were awful. It was ridiculously hot and uncomfortable. They (probably both BA and the staff) were also severely unwilling to give out beverages.

The one good thing about the transatlantic flight was the fact that I saw a full circle rainbow. The picture doesn't do it justice, but you get it anyway.

Yesterday, I can't remember most of the events because I was so tired. We walked around a lot and heard about the history of Prague. I learned quite a bit: Prague is bumpy, both the roads and history. It's a pretty city with a ton of palaces.

We got a lovely view of Prague from a garden near St. Vitus Cathedral. It's a very pretty city.

I bet you can't guess what we did today! That's right, we Czeched out Prague. You know it's funny. It doesn't seem to get old for me.

Anyway, there was a lot of walking in the rain today. We also saw where we're playing tomorrow. Yes, it is that building to the left. I'm not kidding. We rehearsed with the Czech singers this evening. I hope tomorrow goes well.

Something else I should mention: apparently, LU Phil is quite the big deal. We had a champagne reception with Deputy Lord Mayor of Prague this afternoon. Weird.

The Life of an Astronomer

Not too much has occurred since my previous update. I sleep all day, take pictures at sunset, and play with a telescope that is far bigger than I am.

Here are some samples of the pictures I take...

Obviously, this is a telescope dome. It is not the one that houses the telescope that I use, but it looked prettier than mine at sunset the other day. I apparently have just claimed possession of a telescope. That's the stuff of dreams!

I insist that there really isn't much else to do up here when not observing other than take pictures of the domes and the mountains. This point brings me to the next picture.

This is the moon rising over the (Andes) mountains as the sun was setting. A bit more obvious than the first obvious picture I decided to describe in detail?

If the bored-astronomer-turned-photographer is really quite fortunate, the animals of the mountain will emerge (this does not include the spiders, imitation elderberry bugs, or the several dozen ants that I have found in my room).

For good measure, I include a picture of a fox with the view from the area of the cafeteria and the rooms. When asked, the fox did not desire to join us in the control room. We should have lured him with cookies.

He did desire to scare us by howling incessantly the other night.

At the observatory!

Once again, I'm on the top of a mountain staying up all night. Things got off to a rough start last night, but everything seems to be working properly now.

To start, on the left is a picture of the view of La Serena from the AURA (Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy) compound where we stay before coming up to the mountain. Off in the distance and across the water is a statue on the top of a hill. It's La Serena's version of Corcovado, which you may remember from this post.

We walked around La Serena for a day and found out that every restaurant recommended to us by other astronomers or that we had been to previously is closed. It was a bit disappointing, but there were plenty of other places to eat.

We came up the mountain yesterday and had a very long night. As I said above, things weren't going smoothly at first, so I had to stay at the telescope until almost 9 a.m. I then had to walk down to the rooms because my observing partner wasn't feeling well and left with the car an hour or so earlier. I note this so I can show the picture of the rooms as seen from the telescopes, to the right. Please note that the rooms are in the white building on the left that looks like it's going to fall off of the cliff.

I got to sleep around 9:30 a.m. only to wake up about an hour and a half later by the fact that I was uncontrollably rolling back and forth in my bed. I was apparently the only thing in my room moving, but it was undeniably an earthquake. It lasted about a minute or two and was not intense enough that I realized that I should get out of bed. I hadn't slept for over a day, and I was half awake and barely aware of what was going on. I imagine if it were more violent, I would have gone outside. When I realized what it was, my initial reaction was how displeased I was to be in a building so close to a ledge. I got over that and fell asleep again.

After dinner (which involved papas duquesas!) and before observations started, I watched the sun set and took this pretty picture. The big dome in the foreground houses the 0.9m telescope that we're using.

Edit: The earthquake occurred in northern Chile and was a 6.2 magnitude event. The epicenter was less than 150 miles north of the observatory.

The Return to Chile!

I made it to Chile after several flight delays, but nothing major. The curious thing is that all of the Chileans agree that it's an hour ahead of EST, but the clocks on the planes did not. Luckily, we had a long enough layover in Santiago that losing an hour was not a problem.

Speaking of the Santiago airport...
I wish I would have realized I should be taking pictures, but I was too tired this morning (perhaps when I get there next week). The airport is a bit of shambles from the recent earthquakes. We got off the plane in the normal jet-bridge, but we passed some rooms that just looked like they were under construction. The ceiling was missing tiles in some places. Then we tried to get to departures to get the flight to La Serena. I had read earlier this month that the airport was utilizing outdoor spaces to avoid the unstable structures. This is true. The national flights were kept entirely outside in tents. There were desks for check-in, security screenings, ticket sales...everything. Vendors even moved stalls outside. It was impressively efficient, but it makes me wonder what the rest of Santiago looks like since the airport is northeast of the city.

La Serena looks completely unaffected. We got here, showered, and napped. We went out for dinner and I had my beloved papas duquesas. I could have just eaten those (fried mashed potato balls) and had strawberry juice for dinner. Tomorrow we will be wandering around the city.

We head up to the mountain on Thursday. I'm looking forward to observing.

Off to Chile again!

Yesterday I booked my flights and a hotel in Chile for next month. Today I need to e-mail the observatory all of the details of my trip (instrumental setup, travel details, etc.).

This time I'll be spending an extra day in La Serena (given the weather is good enough to land; the La Serena airport has no radar) before heading up the mountain. I'll spend a day in Santiago after coming down the mountain before returning home.

More details to come after I arrive!