Honor... Courage... Commitment: A great day for a barbque!

Yesterday the Geophysics Department hosted its end-of-year retreat at a local retreat/park (about 30 mins drive west/northwest of Santiago ... in the comuna of Maipu). The department rented out the park for our party, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Most of the professors and post-docs were there, along with a few of the MS students. Recall that in Chile, the school year runs March-December, with a few summer courses in Dec-Jan, and a full-on closure of the university in February. I still plan to work during most of Feb., but I don't guess that the trash will be taken out or the cafeteria will be open. I will probably take one week off and go somewhere in a bus.

We left Santiago around 10 a.m., and I played frisbee with Mark and Rodrigo in the morning. We ate a very nice lunch of bar-b-que chicken and beef, salad, and potatoes, and after lunch, we divided into teams and played soccer (the other team won, 8-6. If you know anything about soccer, 14 goals in less than 1 hr is far too many ... I guess our defense was lacking!) We went swimming in the pool to cool down (playing a kind-of keep-away), and then enjoyed grilled hot-dogs for a small dinner. I returned to my apartment about 8:30 pm.

Highlights of the day?
-- tossing the frisbee with Mark & Rodrigo. I really LOVE frisbee!
-- testing my abysmal soccer skills with the locals. My play was on-par with the middle-aged profs (actually I think they played much better than me!) But at least I could run around and pretend to have fun.
-- meeting the masters students. Because I arrived in Dec., I have not really met any of the dept's students (I guess most of them don't take summer classes and/or are not around in summer).

Here are a few photos!

Getting things ready for lunch. A Chilean bar-b-que would not be complete without plentiful drinks, including the local beers Escudo and Cristal, and wine.