New Dorm on Cerro Pachon

Woohoo, there's finally a new dorm on Cerro Pachon. We used to have to drive back and forth each day from the telescope on Pachon to the dorm on Cerro Tololo, half an hour away. And it's not an easy half hour drive. No, it was a stunningly beautiful and spectacularly scary half hour drive, after having stayed up and worked all night long, and trying to remain awake for that windy cliff-edged drive back to bed.

Now we have a three minute drop from the telescope to the new dorm. Much, much better and safer too. I slept there today, and while I'm still not able to get eight hours of continuous sleep up here, it was much quieter and more comfortable than the old Tololo dorms. So, Yey!

The architectural styling is kind of interesting too. The west face of the building has a bunch of windows on a long, wide hallway. It reminds me of an airport terminal. It also heats up something wicked in the afternoon (and it's late fall down here), but the rooms stay well insulated and cool despite the hallway temperature.

The windows cast interested shadows on the carpet, I was noticing during our daily 4pm coordination meeting. I want to take a picture of the shadows, but was busy with the meeting today. Tomorrow I'll bring the camera with me.

The other quirky thing about the building is the front entrance. It reminds me of the old space invader characters...