When I was a child, growing up in South America, I often went camping
in the wild and hence had direct access to the wondrous Southern sky;
the Southern Cross was all mine at the time. Little did I know then that
the study of the sky would take such a huge importance in my life, and
that in the end astronomy and astrophysics would in many ways become
my country and my religion. I have lived in several different countries, and
when asked my nationality, I am always very tempted to reply: astronomer.
I started as a theorist, and my only dream in my youth was to spend
nights thinking and calculating, with paper and pencil, and to have the
impression by dawn that I had understood something new. So at the time
astronomy was seen or dreamt by me as a solitary endeavour, with periodic
encounters with my wise adviser and professors; it is this model that I
adopted when doing my PhD work