TravelBanter - View Single Post

**[email protected]** · February 8th, 2009, 06:17 AM posted to rec.travel.australia+nz

[Default] On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 05:38:40 +0000 (UTC),
(Dick Adams) offered the following words of wisdom:

wrote:

...
And here we are, complaining about 30°C heat on the east coast of New
Zealand. Guess it's all relative. I remember having to wear a sweater
in Hawaii when I lived there because it felt cold at around 82°F.

Heat is bearable if you have AC of fans. But you ain't never felt
cold until you live in the land of the damnyankee snow. Places
like Chicago and Minneapolis have temperatures around -30C at least
a few days every year or so and temperatures between -10C and -20C
are very common. Plus shovelling snow and chipping ice sucks.

Extremes in weather can be difficult to handle whatever direction the
temperature - at least for me. I'm just relieved that we've just got a
change of wind that's cooled things down a bit and blown away the
dreadful humidity (something with which Chicago and Minneapolis would
be familiar!). We don't have AC, but we do have floor fans that cool
things down.

I remember being in the mid-west when you had to make sure you dried
your hands perfectly before you went outside because, otherwise, the
moisture would cause your skin to split. Later that day I slid into
another car when I hit a patch of "black ice" at an intersection.
There was not a damn thing I could do but just sit there and watch it
happen ;-)

Last time we were in Chicago - in early January - we flew out to LAX
in the last United flight allowed to leave that day. Frankly, I would
have been happy for it to have been cancelled. We had to wait twice,
may three times, for the wings to be de-iced and took off in a
blizzard. I'm sure I wasn't the only one on board saying non-stop Hail
Mary's and genuflecting madly on take-off.