The Travelling Physicist: Paradise Valley

Hope everyone had a nice long Easter weekend. I feel a bit cheated as Monday wasn't a public holiday in Chile, I even had to teach a class. Anyway a 3 day weekend is better than nothing. Friday was a day of recovery, a long lie in and a few hours reading in my local Starbucks. In the evening I was invited to a very nice barbecue for our medical physics group which was fun. Saturday I had decided to go to Valparaiso for the weekend. I had been before when I was in Santiago last July and really loved the place. Valparaiso is about one and a half hours by bus from Santiago, on the coast. The bus station is in a rather unattractive flat part of the city. Valparaiso is Chile's second largest city and famous for the colourful houses that cling to the sides of its many hills or Cerros. The city was quite badly hit by the sunami that followed the large earthquake in February 2010. Valparaiso is a busy port and the narrow streets of the cerros are a welcome escape from the craziness of the port. Its easy to spend hours wandering the streets aimlessly never quite sure what you will find around the next corner. Many of the cerro's have a trendy bohemian air to them with some nice restaurants bars and cafe's. Some pictures are below. Moving around the city is helped by a network of old rickety funicular railways that can take you quickly up the to the streets above. The old port area still has a rough seediness to it that I liked. I spent a while in one of the squares on Sunday morning and just watched the world go by. There was a real community feel to the place with men standing in groups on street corners talking animatedly together, someone would leave and go about there business and someone new would join in. People would greet each other as they went about their business. This sense of community with a focal point of a square is something I think we have lost in today's modern fast paced world that most of us live in. I am sure these people didn't make plans a week or longer in advance to fit a brunch or a coffee with a friend into their schedule.

After my people watching session I took a funicular up to the Chilean national maritime museum. This was actually extremely interesting, I had no idea for example that a British sailor, Lord Cochrane was the first Vice Admiral of the Chilean Navy in the war of independence against the Spanish. He left the Chilean Navy only to become the commander of the Brazilian Navy in their own war of independence against the Portugese. Following this he returned to Europe, taking a role in the Greek navy in their war against the Ottoman empire. I was also surprised to find the escape capsule used to rescue the 33 chilean miners at the museum, apparently the Chilean navy were heavily involved in the rescue.
Tomorrow, I will attending a workshop on biomedical engineering. The aim of the meeting is to promote cross-discipline research collaboration so it should be quite interesting. I am giving a short talk on the lung cancer project we are trying to get up and going.
Congratulations to Bubba Watson on winning the US masters golf at the weekend, unfortunately I didn't get to watch it, the final round is always fascinating and apparently Watson pulled off some amazing shots to win the play-off. Always good to see a player of the 'grip it and rip it' kind winning.

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