Travel Log: Don't Worry, It's a Tourist Town

La Serena, Chile

August 2004

It was the summer of 2004: I had graduated college, was on my way to graduate school in New York City, and feeling pretty good. Seemingly out of the blue, I received an email from a sort of advisor in my astrophysics career. He was the PI (principle investigator) on a project that included my own advisor and me. As a chance to get more telescope observing experience, he wanted to send me on a two-week telescope run at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. And a pretty great summer had just gotten even better.

CTIO, as it is more commonly known, sits in the Andes mountains in the north of Chile. There are a number of increasingly growing observatories in the area as it is perhaps the single best place on the planet to put a telescope. Tall mountains, dry climate--it really doesn't get much better than that. The nearest town, where the base operations for the telescopes are located, is the coastal town of La Serena. I would stay there a few days, and spend most of my time up on the mountain at the telescope.

There was the problem of timing, however. I was due to fly to Chile on the same day I was scheduled to move into my new graduate student apartment at Columbia University, and I had only a couple of weeks to prepare for the telescope, and I didn't speak a word of Spanish, and I didn't have a passport (in those days, I could travel to Canada and Mexico with only a driver's license). So it was a busy couple of weeks quickly preparing, rushing the passport, and, well, not learning any Spanish.

"Don't worry," some other astronomers who had been to CTIO told me, "La Serena is a tourist town. You'll have no problems finding people who speak English." I bought a phrase book, you know, just in case. (I later learned that La Serena is in fact a very popular tourist town--lots of Argentinians travel there for vacation. If I'd known that in advance, I'd have probably cracked open that phrase book a little earlier.)

So on the first day of August I drove across to New York City, dumped all of my earthly possessions into my new bedroom, and grabbed a few hours of sleep by nesting in the pile of all my clothes. Then it was off to the airport.

The next day I arrived in La Serena, Chile--my first trip to a country that required a passport for entry, my first trip to the Southern Hemisphere, and my first trip to a foreign land completely alone. I had been told that a taxi driver familiar with the observatory would pick me up from the airport, as he's apparently the one who always handles the American astronomers on account of his excellent English skills.

He was the nicest man I met in all of Chile, and to this day I don't know a single word he spoke to me.

Quickly realizing that words weren't going to be of much use, we devised a set of gestures, symbols, cognates, and grunting in the car as we left the airport and headed into town. He would take me to the observatory's base of operations, where I'd find a room to stay in, and he'd come back to pick me up for dinner.

Sure enough, just as I was getting hungry after settling into my room, the nicest taxi driver in all of Chile came knocking. His friend had a restaurant, we'd go there. But it was only 7pm, and there's so much to do first! (Chilenos eat dinner around 10pm, I later learned, though it was of little consolation to my stomach that first night.)

First up, he assumed I'd need some provisions. So he took me to the grocery store. Not just drove me to the grocery store, like a taxi driver might, but actually took me into the grocery store. He showed me what was good, helped me find things and check out, and even bought me a bottle of wine by way of welcoming me to his town. Did I mention he's the nicest man in Chile? Oh, good.

Fully stocked for my two weeks on the mountain top, we jumped back in the car. Oh, but it was so early, and I hadn't met his mother yet! So we drove round to his mother's house for introductions and freshly-squeezed lemonade. We--by which I mean they--chatted for a while while we--by which I mean they--discussed something very interesting and fairly amusing, too. Then it was time for dinner, and we were back in the car.

The restaurant was right on the ocean, and my driver-friend couldn't recommend it highly enough. Upon arriving, I learned that he had to go pick up some other people, so he'd come back for me after I'd eaten. I'd be in good hands, he seemed to say, his friend owned the place. Introductions were made, and  I was shown to a table by the windows overlooking the ocean. The menu, my phrasebook being still in my suitcase back in my room, meant very little to me. So I sort of shrugged at my waiter, he and the owner conferred briefly and asked me if they could just bring me things. Sounded good to me, I smiled back.

I wish I could say what it was that I ate, but I'm sure I couldn't do it justice. It was delicious, all three courses and the personal bottle of local wine. The owner also brought me my very first pisco sour--and I will always be eternally grateful for that. After dinner, the owner cheerily showed me around his restaurant and introduced me to everyone else dining there. I shook a lot of hands, smiled and laughed along with the locals....and had no idea any of it was about.

Then the driver came back, and couldn't be more happy that I enjoyed the meal. I thanked him the entire ride back to the observatory base, where I promptly collapsed into my bed. The next day I'd be heading up the mountain to the telescope. It was an incredible two weeks, and I'll never forget it, but the memory that stands out the most is of my best friend in Chile, who took care of a stranger as if I were his oldest friend.

Travel Log: On a Train Platform in Germany

October, 2011

It was a brisk but wholly sunny day in October in Germany, and Lynn and I are standing on a train platform in Nuremburg. We were traveling between Munich and Frankfurt, at the end of a 10-day trip across much of southern Germany, on our way to the airport to head home. We're standing on the platform because the super-fast, super-fancy high-speed train that shoots between the capitol of Bavaria and the capitol of the Euro is quite expensive. The local trains, that connect all the smaller towns and cities in between, are slow but much more affordable. We're switching from one local train to another.

When I was in high school, I took classes in the German language. My school offered four languages: Spanish, French, German, and Russian. Many of my friends took Spanish. One in particular tried in vain to get me to take Spanish as well. It's the most widely-spoken language on the planet, she would say, it will certainly be the most useful to you in the future. Ah, but German, I would invariably reply, is so much more fun--and then proceed to shout something in the language just to demonstrate how intimidating it could sound.

When I finally did travel abroad for the first time (Canada doesn't count), it was to Mexico. Then another trip to Mexico. Then my first inter-continental jaunt took me to Chile. In more recent trips, I've gone back to Mexico, then Peru and Bolivia. My next big trip takes me through Argentina. Seeing a pattern? My friend was right about Spanish being more useful.

Nonetheless, I took German in school, and loved it. It was a language that made sense to me; every sentence part had its place. There are rules, and those rules are not broken. The German language is so very...well, German. It was great. I thoroughly enjoyed learning and speaking the language, and my few friends who ventured into those classes with me kept me practicing often.

For a while, at least. In college I was too wrapped up in classes for my major to play with languages. And though I did have a close friend who also spoke German, we found that we did so less and less. So it was nearly eleven years after my last German class that I finally made it to Germany. I found that the rules still made sense, and I could still build basic sentences. My vocabulary, however, left much to be desired. Perhaps not too surprisingly, I met an alarmingly small number of Germans who sounded like my teacher, or my high-school native-English-speaking classmates. I struggled through the trip, being able to make simple sentences, and to understand more than I could speak--but not able to have very meaningful conversations. Sure, I got my general point across, but the person I was speaking with tended to mercifully switched to English when, if not before, I exhausted my abilities.

But on this beautiful, sunny, and only a little chilly in the shade day, my need for German language skills was nearly at an end. In 24 hours' time I'd be back on a plane home. I was standing on the platform, luggage in hand, with all the other people who were waiting for the next train.

Then, the train pulled up the platform, and we all shuffled with our luggage and families over toward the doors. "Sorry," said a middle-aged woman near me who must have bumped into me or my bag, though I didn't feel it. "No problem," I replied. Germans are so polite, I love that too. The doors of the train cars didn't open. Instead, the train started to back up slowly. "Strange!" the woman next to me remarked, as we all started chasing the doors down the platform a ways. The train stopped, we arranged ourselves in front of the doors, and I said to her, "This spot is better anyway!" Then the train pulled forward again, just a little. "Here we go again," she said to me, laughing. "We must go back and forth a few times so they know we really want it," I joked, and we both laughed and boarded the train.

It was about this time that Lynn asked me what we were talking about. I realized, only then, that our entire exchange had not been in English. I had a little conversation,  shared a joke and laughter with someone in their language, and she never felt the need to switch to mine. And I couldn't have been happier for this simple, light-hearted exchange. I could have hugged that woman right in doorway of the train car. Ah, but that would not have been very German at all.

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(Note: This isn't current, but I find I'm just not writing as much as I used to--and I'd like to change that. So while I often sit with a blank page and ponder what to write about only to give up and go surf Facebook, I am instead going to try and get myself to recount past stories. Just to, as they say, get the juices flowing.)