which I associate with family, Italy, with old lost friends; which is beat by  melancholy and a lot of laughs.

Holiday time, represented by  sleeping until late, thinking randomly about work, sitting few minutes in front of your pc and then going out. And thinking again about work late in the evening: “crap! I did nothing today, again..”

Winter time, when the cold outside makes you desiring warm feelings and friends hugs. When it snows and you only want to sit with a soft blanket. And keeping your friends hands, you like chatting about life and wishes and  video-games and trips and the latest stupid thing you have done; and you need to (re)discover that people far in space and in time share the same fear and braveness and joy and confusion and excitement.

Christmas time, when you have to deal with the year just gone and the one approaching, just because a date on the calendar decides something is gonna change.

So, to all of you who recognizes in something above,

Enjoy these days, and Christmas and New Year

and let’s come: a new year is going to start, and to be honest  I should admit the premises are not so bad this time.
What the plot will be, that’s up to me, and blind Chance, and Luck, and you, and most likely me again.

.

By the way, I am not the only one who feels every other days to have the world in my hands, and the next that the world is squashing me, right?!

saying by to the mountains.. with this intense look at…

It’s impressive how fast you get used to one place, how fast you stop thinking to new acts but just feel comfortable with new people in new situations. If you like something, it’s easy to get “addicted” and search for repeating it ; I would say that’s nice… but maybe I am wander too much now!

We are at the telescope from Tuesday, and we are leaving tomorrow, and seems a long nice time has been passed… Life here is beat by the observations.
Lunch is at 13:30 and dinner at 20:30. The food is amazing, kind of traditional Spanish cousin, muy rica and really strong..maybe the cook thinks that high in the mountain you need energy, even if you are an astronomer sitting all the day in front of a computer! And without even using the brain so much..
Today we had  paella, yesterday sword-fish and empanadillas for lunch ..ahh, soo good!

Besides eating, you have to observed, of course! We are six people here to run observations, which are supposed to be 24h/day…supposed to, because we had pretty bad weather the first day, and tonight up to lunch time..usually the sky clears when we all decide to go to bed! let’s see what is going to happen today..

Ah, right, Montgomery  itself helps now to schedule the time at the observatory. It comes right after lunch time, and waits patient and with experienced touching eyes.. someone is going to feed it soon. (for who hasn’t get yet, Montgomery is the fox on the left).

And then of course other things happen, like going outside for a walk at sunset right after the snow has stopped. You enjoy the sun, take amazing pictures, and you can even manage to fell on the only squared meter with cement in the whole mountain!
Or you can organize on the spot a “bi-lingual scrubble match” to keep you away while observing at 3 in the morning. And to make it easier, you play against a German, with the Spanish alphabet… and you poor italian are allowed to use only german words and vice versa..
[We didn't go very far..]

Oh! As I said, we have routines, and since it’s almost half past eight, good food smell is coming up from the kitchen.. see you!

FIRST PICTURES HERE! CLiCK Here, I Mean!

Here we are. High on a mountain in the Sierra Nevada.
Few things to say about the trip, I’ll try to post pictures and let them explain.
But here few words, just to be unnecessarily rhetorical

We left early this morning, with a mini van; ten people among astronomers and telescope operators, three rows of seats in the car and three conversations in three different languages!
Spanish in the front,  where the driver tried to kill us (here another similarity with my trip in Mexico! – others next time. Observatory drivers seem to like overtaken other cars at high velocity, just on bends along steep mountains roads… mam, do not read this, I am fine!)
An english conversation about work in the second row.
And something in German in the third, the wrong one I choose! Or was that the right one, just to practice my Deutsch? There is no way out, i am surrounded by Germans here too, actually more than in Munich!
(yep, the telescope is operated half by the Max Plank Society, so…)

So we started driving up and up, first by car.
We are in the middle of Sierra Nevada Mountains, declared National Park; sometimes I imagine that the need of having a telescope at high altitude, far from civilization, in an amazing landscape is just an excuse astronomers have found to make these trips something .. metaphysical besides physical. You see the land changing, the snow starts to appear; you have the full overview on the valley below, and you start smelling the cold pure icy air, mixed with the  smell of just-backed bread …

- C’mon, it’s not my fault if the driver stopped at a bakery to fill a bag with bread. I didn’t ask for that just to make this story better  -

And you see the antenna up there, you are suddenly arrived. You take a cable-car, and in few minutes you are climbing with your I-come-from-a-city trolley luggage over a Snowcat. You compress with the others inside, and while bouncing one against the other you start smiling.. you try to behave, not to look too childish, with that increasing smile over your face. But when you are almost succeeded in going back serious, yo turn and see The Telescope.. and there is no way again!