Day 10 - Metro to visit Marcio at the PUC university

On Thursday, we didn't go into work because both my parents were visiting another astronomer, Marcio Catelan, at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago and both giving talks there. The university is too far away to walk so we decided to use the metro. To uses the metro you need something called a BIP! (pronounced "beep") card, which you scan at the entrance to the metro. Next you you have to find the right place to wait for the metro or you will end up in the wrong place.

Then you have to wait a few minutes for the train to arrive. The train always seems really full, so we were squeezed against the sides. You have to pay close attention to the map so you know when to get off, otherwise you will get lost.

Once we got off at the university, we needed to find our way to the right building. We passed some sculptures, other buildings, a statue of Jesus and lots of trees. When we got to the building we had about an hour of free time before we went out to get lunch.

I had spaghetti, but there were other things like rice and corn fritters. After lunch my parents gave their talks. My mum's was on stellar pulsation and my dad's was on microlensing. Then we had a walk round the grounds with Marcio.

We looked at a building made out of copper that was filled with information about copper (Chile has lots of big copper mines and produces lots of copper). Outside the building is a pathway with different types of rocks, including rocks filled with copper. After that we went home on the metro.