Unexpected Discovery

I finally got around to seeing the Star Trek movie the other day, making the thirty-minute trip to a neighboring city to get my Trekkie fix. After the movie ended, a friend and I walked to the metro station, where I tried to swipe my card to go through the turnstile, but it beeped at me and said "bloqueado" on the little LCD screen.

Perplexed, I took my card over to the attendant to find out why it had been blocked. Turns out, the other day it had read an entrance twice, but it had only read one exit—sometimes the cards don't like to read on first swipe, so you have to swipe the card twice before it lets you go through the turnstile. It was easily fixed by swiping the card on the other side of the turnstile and paying for a trip I didn't take.

But I did make it through, and we walked up the stairs to the platform. I took a few steps alongside the tracks when I stopped, astounded.

"Do you hear that?" I asked, disbelievingly.

"Yeah, I do. Where is it coming from?" responded my friend with the same look of disbelief.

We both ran to the railing and peered out into the darkness at the plaza across the street, where we could just barely make out the silhouette of a bagpiper.

Looking at each other with goofy grins, we decided we had to go say hi, and off we ran. I paid for another trip to nowhere before running across the street.

Now, let me explain why we found this discovery so exciting. I own bagpipes and at one point could play reasonably well. As of now, I am very out of practice (read can't play period), and I didn’t bring them here to Chile. My friend plays the Scottish snare. Bagpipe bands consist of Scottish snares, tenors, and bases, as well as the pipers.

It’s odd enough that two kids from opposite ends of the United States manage to meet in Chile and happen to play Scottish instruments, but what's more, we found a Chilean bagpiper, which we thought was about as rare as winning the lottery. However, Daniel, the piper, told us there are a number of them in Santiago.

He had taught himself using YouTube and a practice chanter, before deciding to buy bagpipes, the same brand as mine, actually. He didn't play perfectly, but for someone who learned a very difficult instrument without a teacher, he played extremely well.

After a few minutes of excited bagpipe babble, a failed attempt, on my part, to play something, and a photo or two, we made our way, more slowly this time, back to the train station. I think we both glowed with delight for the next two days because of our unexpected discovery.

June 16, 2009