Friday, December 15, 2006

Hook turns and bush fires

Greetings from Melbourne, famous for "four seasons in one day". They aren't kidding: when Meghan and I arrived, it was 42C (a blazing hot 107F) and the smoke from the surrounding bush fires was thick enough to sting the eyes. The same afternoon, the temperature plunged to 22C (72F) as a cold front moved in over the next hour. Everyone we talked to thought that was only to be expected - four seasons in one day, don't you know?

More Melbourne stories and pics will come later - for now, I'm at the Texas symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, which is keeping me on my toes - but I just have to mention the "hook turn". Melbourne has trams running on city streets, and when cars turn right at some intersections (they drive on the left, remember), they are required to queue on the left side to wait for the signal so that they don't block the tram lines. Hence the "hook turn"... notice the sign hanging above the classic tram below. I've never seen that before.

Hook turn

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