IAUC 198 Near-Field Cosmology with Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies

My Travel Account

Sunday 13 MAR 2005

I woke up at 04:26. On Saturday I had made a reservation for a taxi to get me from home at 05:00. It did and I got to Turku Airport in about 20 minutes. The cost: 26.90 Euros! Later I asked some of my friends and relatives to remember the most expensive taxi ride before Finnish Markka was replaced by Euro. Estimates ranged between 10 and 15 Euros. So, there has been a raise of about 100% in taxi fares in about 10 years - while the price of petrol has risen about 20%. (Those blood-suckers - I shall never use a Finnish taxi again unless in desperate need of one.)

Dressed in my usual manner in black trousers, formal shirt (white this time), a neat, black sweater and a silk necktie, under my black leather coat, I once again convinced the flight attendent I was somebody semi-special. I had tickets for economy class, but was given best possible seats therein. The brief hop from Turku to Helsinki didn't even have boarding passes, but on flights from Helsinki to Zurich and further to Genève I was sitting in the first row behind the business class. On the long flight from Helsinki to Zurich my aisle seat was extra-wide with an unoccupied half-seat between mine and the window seat. :-)

The flight from Turku left at 06:32 and arrived to Helsinki at 07:05. There I had to run through the terminal to be the last to board the Zurich plane, which took off at 07:40, ten minutes late of the schedule. Eventually, close to Zurich, ground control made us go around in landing pattern due to crowded skies. Therefore we landed at 09:30 (10:30 Finnish time).

As soon as I got off the plane I met a flight attendant, who gave me the gate number to go to. The Genève plane was scheduled to take off at 10:00! I ran, I ran and I ran through corridors, into a train, off the train, through many more corridors and finally I saw the gate number through the window of a glass corridor. Phew, I still had fifteen minutes. I ascended an escalator and saw... GOOD GRIEF: security control with a queue of approximately 200 people in front of it. With heavily descended morale I joined the queue. Ten minutes later I finally got through and ran to the gate. There sat a flight attendant in a uniform, looking quite casual. I asked her of the situation. She told me that the plane was late due to a technical inspection.

Later I learned that the pilot stopped the flight preparations because of something fishy in one of the two engines. It was being inspected and no estimate, of when the inspection would be over, was given. Finally the plane was determined to be all right (sure, a flight with one engine, the other one being on fire, over the Alps, would be just an interesting episode in our lives) and we were ushered into the plane, which then took off at 10:30. We landed in Genève at 11:20.

For once my suitcase was one of the first ones (fifth to be precise) to come off the plane. And for once it did not matter. I searched the Genève Airport train station and bought a ticket to the next train to Les Diablerets, scheduled to leave at 12:27. So, I had to wait for an hour. At 12:12 I descended to the platforms, found number 3 and passed a rather suspicious looking group of youngsters as far as I could. I got into the train, to a carriage with a large number 2 in its side; a sign of class I presumed. I sat into the second seating space from the door, viewing the door. A moment later the first space was occupied by an elderly couple with a large suitcase and the space next to them by a smartly dressed youngish man (who took the train only to the centre of Genève).

A few minutes before the train left (on time) a pretty girl arrived to the side of the train with a trolley full of bags and a suitcase. She boarded the train with all the smaller bags and left them to the seating space next to mine across the corridor. She went out to get her suitcase. In the mean while some other people came in and passed me. In the rush the girl boarded slowly with her suitcase. A couple of the people who had just passed me, two youngsters, came back towards the front of the train. When the girl entered the carriage with her suitcase, she began immediately screaming that her handbag had been stolen (from the first pile of bags). She looked for it everywhere, but could not see it. Next she began to cry that all her money, credit cards, passport, and mobile phone (she called it a cell phone - strange and nondescriptive name - so she was most likely American) were in the handbag. She asked if I or the elderly couple had seen anything, asked us to see after her remaining possessions and ran to the back of the train in case she could catch the thieves or at least find the emptied handbag. To nobody's surprise she found nothing. She came back just when the train left. For a while she seemed uncertain whether to stay in Genève and contact police, but decided to continue her journey.

The girl left for another futile search trip in the back of the train. After a while a conductor came by and seemed a bit reluctant to do anything. After another while a train stewardess came by, with the girl, and actually made an effort to help the girl look for the handbag and probably gave her advice on what to do next. When the girl paused enough to ask us again what we had seen, I had put together everything about the youngsters passing back and forth and adviced her to check also the front of the train (although I was most certain the thieves had left the train on the Airport station). The girl found nothing from the front either and made another trip to the back. Next she came back from there with an older English gentleman, who said the girl could travel to her destination with him and his wife. They took the bags and suitcase back, she thanked us for watching them, and I never saw her again.

For a man it is devastating to see a damsel in distress, especially in tears (a hint to all women wishing to manipulate men), so naturally I was extremely unhappy not being able to help the poor girl. I also remembered how I felt when my wallet was stolen in Santiago-de-Chile. Therefore I knew exactly how bad the girl felt (yes, I am able to multiply the feeling according to how much more she lost than what I had lost). However, it was only earthly possessions and she will eventually get over it. I hope she could enjoy her trip to Switzerland at least a little bit.

My train trip continued through Lausanne, Vevey and Montreux to Aigle. Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) was visible for most of the time. Aigle was quite a small station and I was perplexed where the train to Les Diablerets would leave. At least none of the signs had the name on them. Eventually I went (again) around the station building to the back where there were some museum carriages. It appeared that these museum carriabes were the small trains that operated from the main valley up to mountain villages. One of them, with Les Diablerets painted to its side, was just leaving and running to the door, waving, I could stop the train long enough to board it. It was half full and I found easily a seat. I noticed a girl who was most likely also going to the conference (as she was).

The miniature train gained slowly altitude and we passed through a forest growing on steep slopes. On the way we stopped at Le Rosex and Vers l'Eglise before reaching Les Diablerets. We were expected at the station. A minivan from Hotel Eurotel offered us a ride through the village - there was also a couple of other people on the train coming to the conference. I was the only one taking the ride, although the others gave their baggage to be carried in the minivan. The hotel was about a kilometre away, but I was too tired to walk.

At the hotel I got a key to room 115. Andrea Marcolini, from Bologna, had already brought his baggage in but was out sightseeing. It was a two-room suite with four beds and two lavatories. I selected my bed and fell instantly asleep on it only to be awakened by Andrea arriving just before five o'clock. I got up, went down to the entrance lobby to register and collect my IAU grant. Helmut Jerjen was there so I chatted a while with him (background: we know each other from years back and have collaborated on measurements of Surface Brightness Fluctuation distances).

I returned to the room and was soon joined by another of my room-mates, Alan McConnaghie from Cambridge. In the evening there was a welcome reception in the entrance lobby with beverages and snacks at our disposal. My long-time collaborator, professor Marshall McCall from Toronto, had sent one of his Ph.D. students, Ovidiu Vaduvescu, to the conference. He brought me Marshall's greetings. I also met professor Igor Karachetsev, whom I had met at Small Galaxy Groups conference in Turku several years ago. Another old acquaintance was professor Evan Skillman, whom I had met on my first trip as an astronomer student, at an IAC winter school on Tenerife in 1996. To my surprise he still remembered me (I guess one has to have a good memory of faces to become a professor).

After a couple of hours we moved into the restaurant of the hotel to enjoy a long and good dinner. I was so tired I retired to the comfort of sleep after the dinner. Just as I was about to go to bed our last room-mate arrived, Igor Chilingarian from Moscow. I did not sleep too well as I was getting a flu - or, as I soon discovered, an allergic reaction.

Monday 14 MAR 2005

I woke up rather tired but felt quite a bit better after a shower - at least I did not look like a zombie any more. After breakfast we all walked down to the conference centre - some three or four hundred metres away. I opened my poster roll and put the poster up on the boards reserved for that purpose. Altogether there were about or a bit less than twenty posters. In the conference hall I chose a seat close to the back in the middle (that way I disturbed speakers less with my sneezing and blowing the nose). The conference began and proceeded well, with some delays, which seem to be unavoidable in conferences.

During the lunch break I found the village pharmacy, but it was closed for the duration of the break. Oh well, I thought and continued to supermarket Denners, which was supposed to be open all day. It was closed for siesta. I just spent the time in the hotel room. During the afternoon tea and coffee break I went to the pharmacy again and was able to make my order of allergy medicine in French. However, I failed to understand the instructions (which I knew very well, thank you, after 30 years of experience) and was instructed in English instead.

Sky had been totally clear in the morning, but it had gotten cloudy during the day and in the evening it was even drizzling. We were a bit worried for the Wednesday trip to the glacier but could only wait and see what the weather was about to do. During the dinner I noticed another old acquaintance - Andreea Font from Wesleyan University, whom I had met in NATO summer school in Scotland five years ago. After dinner I noticed my pillow was a feather pillow and went to the reception to ask for an allergy pillow (a synthetic plastic fiber pillow). It could not be delivered until in the morning so I slept with a towel as a pillow.

Tuesday 15 MAR 2005

It certainly was allergy - possibly induced by the feather pillow. With allergy medicine and avoiding the feathers I felt significantly better in the morning. Some other people had, however, a genuine flu and were sneezing and blowing their noses during the rest of the conference.

The day passed well with interesting talks and conversations. In the evening I met professor Brent Tully from Hawaii - and thanked him for information he provided for my thesis last year. In the evening I found a synthetic pillow on my bed and consequently slept very well.

Wednesday 16 MAR 2005

Conference programme began half an hour earlier than normally so that we could finish as early as possible. Just after high noon we returned to the hotel and prepared for the trip to glacier. Perhaps a third of the conference participants left to the glacier while most others went downhill skiing. I put on some warm clothes, and took my gloves and hat with me. After all, we were heading for 3000 metres (from the 1150 at which Les Diablerets lies).

We took a bus to the cable-car station, where our trip would begin. There Bruno Binggeli (one of the main organizers of the conference) tried to get us a significantly cheaper group ticket. That would have required that we collected the money amongst ourselves and paid in one go. Impossible, we decided and were just unhappily crowding in front of the ticket office until the officer decided to let us pay each the recuded price (to get rid of us blocking the ticket sales). We entered the next cable-car and began the climb to mid-station. The capacity of one car was 125 people or 10080 kilograms!

From the mid-station, at 2545 metres, we changed to another cable-car and continued to the top of the mountain, at almost 3000 metres. Then we took ski-lifts down to the glacier. I had had a nasty fear of heights but sitting in the ski-lift - at an altitude of tens of metres and practically nothing holding me there - did not feel that bad. Ha, another phobia conquered.

We walked through the glacier in small groups. At the other edge there was a small hut with beverages and snacks for sale. Next to the hut stands a huge rock formation on which we spotted an eagle's nest. I did not catch the eagle with my camera, but took lots of photos of the scenery. All the famous Alpine mountains were visible, from Mont Blanc to Matterhorn, and the glacier itself was quite a sight. As a Finn I have seen plenty of ice and snow, but a proper glacier at an altitude of 3000 metres is something you just do not see in Finland. As a curiosity I phoned my parents (back in Finland) with my mobile phone to tell them greetings from the middle of a glacier at 3000 metres.

On the way back we saw a yellow airplane standing next to the track. I had seen it flying around a while earlier, but did not realize it had landed. We had our photos taken in front of it and finally Ovidiu took a group photo with a bunch of us standing by the plane. Soon we were back at the ski-lift, which took us up to the cable-car station. After a while of viewing the scenery we returned down to the "ground-level" station and with a bus to Les Diablerets.

Thursday 16 MAR 2005

The conference group photo was taken in the beginning of morning tea and coffee break. We were ushered outside to the conference centre parking place. There, facing the glaring Sun and a million reflections from snow all over the place, we squinted at the camera until a few photos were taken. The Sun was so bright I had to keep my eyes shut almost all the time.

In the evening we were treated with the conference dinner. We dined in the hotel restaurant as we did every night. This time we had live music in the form of two Swiss players, who produced a wide range of Swiss music for our enjoinment. For dinner we had Swiss specialty: raclette - a meal of grilled cheese, potatos, and other vegetables. We were served one piece of cheese after another until we declined of more. In my table I and Ben Moore processed four portions until we decided to stop, in courtesy for others who had settled with one or two portions.

After dessert Evan jumped up and grabbed a microphone. He had some programme planned, mainly to answer our neighbours who were likely to ask what problems we solved in the conference. His first suggestion was enthusiastically received. He suggested that instead of using a multitude of different kinds of names for companion galaxies of the Andromenda Galaxy, we could simply extend the existing And I to And XI series by giving all the others And names as well; e.g. M32 could be And XII and NGC 205 And XIII, etc.

Another problem Evan wanted to solve involved gathering together everybody who had done or even planned on doing N-body simulations. Evan asked the dozen or so people who came forward to sort themselves. As nothing happened he suggested they could stand in the order of height. When they did Evan assigned the tallest two to be the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy, the next three M33, LMC and SMC, and the others to be unnamed dwarf galaxies. Then the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy grabbed a hold on each other's right hand and the companion galaxies grabbed a hold on belts of these two. To simulate gravity and dynamical interactions the whole ensemble was asked to walk around as if they rotated each other. As a conclusion Evan noted that no dark matter was required to explain dynamics of the Local Group of galaxies.

Friday 18 MAR 2005

Morning session concluded the conference programme. At least I was happy with the conference and I guess my view was shared by many judging by the enthusiastic applause at the end of the conference.

I spent the afternoon walking aroung the village finding nice spots to take photos of and from, and sending a couple of post cards. Igor left the hotel in the afternoon so the room was one person short. Andrea Kayser brought somebody new in, though, and the balance remained.

Saturday 19 MAR 2005

After breakfast I packed my bags and paid my hotel bill at the reception. I was joined by Ovidiu, with whom I had plans of discussing an observing time proposal to European Southern Observatory in the train. Some others left at the same 9:44 train down to Aigle. From there we continued either to Zurich or to Genève.

In Genève I walked to my hotel, Manotel Jade, the most expensive hotel I have ever spent a night in (for modest 130 euros a night). The theme of the hotel, surprisingly, was oriental and everything was supposed to be feng shui (for which reason I kept the toilet bowl lid open - just to aggravate the superstitious fools, sorry, I mean the easily gullible people who are ready to believe anything anybody tells them if he has nerve to claim it is ancient knowledge and boast that works).

I made a few hour walk to the old town taking a lot of photos in random. Usually I would like to compile comprehensive collections of photos from different places, but I had so little time to spend in Genève that I just had to photograph anything I saw. In front of the cathedral there was a group of people setting up a hot air balloon for a ride. The setting up proceeded so slowly that I did not even wait for that but dashed off for other things to see. On the way back to the hotel I found a couple of nice department stores, but had no luggage space to get many interesting things to take with me (I had my eyes on French literature and music). According to an age-old custom I bought some chocolate to take to the observatory (as everybody does coming back from a work trip).

I rested a while at the hotel and left for another tour outside. This time I headed to the United Nations buildings. The Sun was about to set and I had to hurry to get photos in daylight. I found the UNICEF and UN buildings and was really impressed by the alley of flags leading from gate to the building entrance. About two hundred flags all gently shifting in dying breeze was such a tangible presentation of the unity of nations that I felt the human race does have some hope as long as all major decisions are subjected to discussion and co-operation of nations at the UN.

I turned around and headed towards the city centre looking for a restaurant to dine in. It seemed surprisingly difficult until I remembered one advertised at my hotel. I found Hotel/Restaurant Edelweiss where I ordered a five-cheese fondue as the main course. The amount of cheese was over-powering and in the end I had to give up, while I still had cheese left for perhaps ten bread pieces. The mood was high due to a two-manned Swiss band playing Swiss themes and a couple of Japanese ones to honour mr. Arimoto, who was there celebrating his birthday. A Japanese couple got their photograph taken with the band, then another Japanese couple, and when a third one got there the more talkative band player laughed that are all these young couples there for a honeymoon. The place, decoration, menu, and music were all very Swiss. Therefore it was only natural that my waitress was a cute Vietnamese girl.

Sunday 20 MAR 2005

I woke up early and had a breakfast in the hotel breakfast room, which was actually quite nice. The breakfast was very good. I had the 12th croissant of the trip (yes, I love croissants). I packed my bags and had the reception call me a taxi. It came soon enough and I got a ride to the Genève Airport. The taxi fare took all my remaining Swiss money with the exception of one ten Swiss franc banknote. I kept the note as a souvenir.

I flew to Brussels, changed to another plane and continued to Helsinki. There I had to wait for a couple of hours before the flight to Turku left. In Turku I took a taxi (I had no reasonable alternative) and arrived home at 21:46.

Created by Rami T. F. Rekola (copyright notice)