Wind chill!

There might be a risk of me sounding slightly obnoxious in this entry, so for all residents of Winnipeg - no offence! (at least not so very much ;)

The concept of what temperature is, seems to be getting a bit distorted in cold places like Winnipeg, since people tend to refer to wind chill number as the actual temperature. So, let us look at a few case studies:

- It's -20 outside, and no wind. You stand in the shadow, dressed in a parka, feeling comfortable. Why? Well, the heat of the body warms up a layer of air closest to your skin, and you're thus slightly insulated by this. Thus it actually feels warmer than it is and you don't feel the full -20.

- it's -20 outside, and a stern wind from the north is blowing. You complain, and pull the scarf tighter over your face, since you feel colder. Why? The wind is removing the layer of air closest to your skin, which makes the skin lose heat at a quicker rate, and thus you experience the cold stronger.

- You're submerged into a liquid that's chilled to -20 (obviously not water). Byebye.

All cases have a difference in pressure of the medium around you towards your skin. What changes is the rate in which you lose heat, not the actual temperature. You'll never get colder than -20 in any of these cases (which in all cases is pretty bad for the health, because -20 is pretty yuckily cold...)

- Common winnipeg misconception: It's -20 tonight but the wind chill is -40, I REALLY need to plug in my car! Well, yes, probably, because it's -20. It won't get chilled down to -40 though. It will however lose heat at a slightly quicker rate than if it wasn't windy, i.e. it might take 1 hour instead of 2 hours for the car to get cold after it was driven (never below -20 though!). Since you're probably staying in bed for longer than that during the night, it won't make a difference at all to you.
Thus, if it's -10, and a really nasty wind, your car will most likely start in the morning anyways, regardless of if it's plugged in or not (but you will still be complaining as you fight your way through the wind to the car, struggling with the keys to unlock it and rightly so, because it's MARCH and should be SPRING ugh...)

I had an interesting experience a few weeks ago, waiting for the train in Sydney. It was +41 outside. Sitting still, my body kept me chilled, but when the wind blew at me, it got really hot. the "wind heat" dried up my chilling sweat layer, and made me feel the real temperature (+41 is really hot...), but it didn't make it any hotter than +41, just as the wind chill doesn't make it colder. It's just your perception that changes due to the rate with which your body is being affected to the surrounding temperature.

(Then we have the extra wind chill you can add on someone who's spent 5 weeks in Australia, and comes back to Winnipeg - take off at least anouther 10 degrees! It took me about a week to get used to the cold again, and the time inbetween was terrrrible, I've never had so much pain walking to the bus in my life!!)

I can understand that it is important to know how quickly you will chill off in the wind, and I can agree that using an "equivalent temperature" gives a pretty good idea. What I don't like is how easy it is for people to misunderstand it, and think that it actually is colder than it is. The meteorological sites purposely don't use units on their wind chill estimates, to emphasize that it's not a real temperature.

Bring it on...

Feeling fresh in an airport

YES! That would be the most luxurious feeling - and something I rarely encounter, since most my flights are longhaul things with eternities spent between flights. I don't complain about that too much, since I really love airports. However, following the 14 hours flights from Sydney, including complete inability to sleep, with a 12 hours layover in Vancouver, wasn't my idea of having a good time. An amazing Air Canada lady took pity upon me when I enquired about possibilities to catch an earlier flight to Winnipeg (impossible when bags are already checked in, and in most cases rather hard anyways, if dealing with anyone else but this awesoem person, unless you open up the wallet..), and came by my carefully selected resting area to give me a voucher to enter the maple leaf lounge with the "elite". YES! Free food! Comfy chairs! Feeling VIP! YVR already has free internet, which is a trademark for agreeable airport, so that part was already taken care of. And in the end of my long wait, in an awesomely comfy chair, feeling the layer of muck on my outer appearance getting thicker and thicker (why is that? what is it about flying and airports that makes a person feel yuckier than going on a 3-day hike?) my eye caught the word "shower" on a sign. In Sydney, they have showers at the airport for the "common" people as well, but I suspect they might not have towels and all conveniences. So, while writing this I feel like born-again. I feel like I match the luxurious interiour of this lounge. Yeeha! 

Siding Spring Observatory

The above photo is taken just after sunset from the walkway around the 3.9 m AAT (the Anglo-Australian Telescope). I arrived here yesterday to observe observations in the purpose of learning alittle about optical observing. The location is beautiful. It's close to Coonabarabran, and I didn't realise the nature would look like a tahitian island. To get here, I took a train from Canberra, to Sydney, spent a night in a hostel, and then took a train and bus (in total about 7 hours) to Coonabarabran. 

The AAT is located in a huge dome - the biggest one I've seen, I think - it is very high above the ground, and thus the distance up to the walkway is equivalent to a 9-storey building. Walking on this metal-grid that constitutes the "floor" is thus an experience, at least for people with vertigo, like myself. It has to be done though, in order to experience beauty of unexpected magnitude (I'll post more photos in an album). The mountains and hills are green, but seem blue in the haze and due to all the eucalypts. I have no pictures of the night-time beauty, since my tripod would just fall through the mesh. I can try to describe it though: The Milky way stretches up in a band from the south, and the southern cross is very distinct. Just beneath it, is the Coalsack, a dark area that constitutes the head of the Emu. As the night progresses, more of the emu is visible, and is, albeit a rather thin emu, distinguished by the dark parts of the Milky Way. It's interesting that the aboriginals used the lack of stars (or hidden, I should say), to depict pictures, that actually look like what they say. I can't even try to describe how beautiful it is to see the nightsky from the southern hemsiphere, with such low amounts of light pollution so it's almost hard to see Orion due to all the weaker stars appearing everywhere around it. We went out several times during the night, and I'm sure we managed to stay out at least half an hour each time, just admiring this, the greatest piece of art I've ever seen. 

40 degrees and Madama Butterfly

Seeing an opera in the Sydney opera house seemed like a thing I needed to do. 

Puccini's Madama Butterfly was playing, and I've never heard or seen it, just heard good things about it, so I got tickets with my Italian flatmate Marta, who was keen on the idea as well. And WOW! The story seems simplistic at a glance, but the experience was amazing. I was in tears several times. The singers were great, and their acting extraordinary, the acoustics awesome, and the setting of the scene was extremely beautiful. I'm running out of adjectives. All this pulled me in, and I was spellbound. Wow. It didn't hurt either, that despite our "cheap" tickets for seats where the surtitles were covered by the seats on the floor above, I was able to see the text by sitting on the floor, because the seat in front of me was empty. This might not sound so glamorous, but it was an amazing view of the entire scene, and I was very happy about the arrangement, and that the people next to the empty seat didn't move in (which I would have done). Marta of course didn't really need any subtitles since they were singing in her mother tongue... 

It was so good, that afterwards I even had trouble speaking. Then we left the opera house, and had to do some photography: 

It was a fairly warm day, especially in Epping (where I stay), which is west of the city and thus not cooled down by the Pacific as much. It was 39.9 at the time I walked to the bus, and waited for the train to head downtown, which is a new record for me. The wind was hot! (winnipeggers would probably claim that it was at least 60 due to the "windheat" :P) To me, it was exotic and wonderful, and I had my water bottle, so it didn't bother me, but apparently I have an excellent built-in cooling system compared to most people, so it probably just didn't affect me as much. As predicted, downtown was cooler, and I got a quick cockatoo sighting before heading to the opera house, which in itself would have made my day. 

Flexibility

Some days you need to accept things and learn flexibility more than others. For instance: There is a person in my life I cherish more than most. He had managed to get 8 days off in a row, and was going to try to hop on a southbound plane. But so tried many others (about 30 or so), and he didn't even manage to leave Winnipeg. Thus my weekend looked very different than I had planned. It's weird to think I won't see him for yet another 3 weeks, but I know people who have it much worse in that respect. This is a case when heartache is a good sign, and something to be very happy about. 

Of course, my location makes it easy to deal with it. For instance: I planned to go to the temple, since I knew that would make me happy and widen my horizon a few loops, and connect stronger with that cute person so far away. How about booking an opera at the Sydney opera house? The Magic Flute is playing right now. Cockatoo watching is great as well. All this would of course be even greater if shared, but on its own, it adds so much essence to my life, that I can't stop smiling. Now, I ended up visiting a synagogue for the first time in my life (very cool!), and spend 2 hours in the Apple store instead (how's that for flexibility?) (see this link for photos), but I intend to get all the rest done as well. 

Update: I did finally visit the temple, and go to the opera house, but for another opera. More on that in the next note. 

On a completely different note, I wish this didn't feel so accurate: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1129