Wednesday, July 10, 2002

Sydney Observatory and other things





We went to the Sydney Observatory Tuesday night. They had a nice little evening program. It wasn't nearly as nice as the one at Kitt Peak, but it did provide the opportunity to look at Alpha Centauri through a telescope, something you can't do up north.

By the way, if you're ever in Australia, it appears that you can't buy cold medicine from a convenience store; you have to buy it from a "chemist" (pharmacy). You can, however, buy "Panadol", a pain reliever. I thought I was doing well by looking at the generic name, "paracetamol," to figure out the US equivalent, but I've never heard of paracetamol. Turns out it's also known as acetaminophen -- Tylenol. So don't go asking for Tylenol, look for Panadol.

Last night, we took the ferry to Manly for dinner. We ended up there at around 9:30, but we found a place that was still serving food (Australia seems to roll up its sidewalks early) and had some reasonably good food and an absolutely great passionfruit tart.

There's much much more, but I'm a little bit overwhelmed at describing it all, and I have a cold (see above). Certainly more to follow from me and also from Christina.