awareness

just when i start settling into a satisfying comfort level in la serena, life decides to stick out its foot and trip me up... in the form of my purse being stolen last night!! it was not fun to reach for my camera at 4am* and realize my purse was no longer hanging from the back of my chair! of course, hindsight is 20/20, and i should have kept a tighter grip on my purse, but we were sitting at a table in the back of a not-too-crowded bar.

items lost: house keys, camera (sniff), wallet, chapstick, favorite pen.

the most hassle will be getting my chilean ID re-issued i think. i wanted to take a trip to argentina early next month, so i'll have to wait to get the ID before i leave the country. the house keys worried me for a minute, but it turns out that it's not very difficult to break into my house! i'm so ridiculously happy that i did not have my passport on me!

i was out with two chileans who helped me out with talking to a policeman we found downtown. the cop wrote down all the details on a blank piece of paper and assured me that i didnt need to visit the police station until next week when the official report would be filed....? it felt strange to walk away without any sort of documentation or a number or anything, but i was too exhausted to do question any further.

looks like i wont be able to publish new pictures for a while, but that means that i can sift thru the archive and finally display old shots! the good news is that i get to shop for a new camera. yippee! any suggestions on fabulous digi-cams? i had a tiny little canon powershot SD200 that i liked. no complaints really. it was perfect as a small quick click camera. but i'll definitely shop around to find something worthwhile!


*you might say, "wow, 4 am!? that's a pretty late night on the town!" that's true, but us astronomers enjoy a good night out! haha! and so do chileans as it turns out. plus, i needed to stay up late to get myself on a night schedule for the observing run that started tonight. new moon. it's unbelievably dark outside. perfect for exploring all the unfamiliar southern constellations. i'll never tire of seeing a galaxy (large magellanic cloud) extended in the sky with my naked eyes.