Temperature is relative

Temperature and weather, I've decided - are psychological tricks our mind plays on us. Melburnians, as a whole, are weather obsessed - they talk about it, listen to it, debate it, love the weather channel, complain about it. There is a saying that if you don't like the weather here, wait five minutes and it will change. Having been here nearly 10 years, I can be honest and say there is a lot of truth in that! What interests me today, though, is temperature. Why is it that 10C in Melbourne is "bloody freezing" while 10C in Denver is "a nice balmy day?" Is it the elusive Coloradoan "wind chill factor" which makes the difference? Is it just that we have an expectation that the weather in Colorado will be damn cold, so anything above damn cold is suddenly a heat wave? Do we expect Melbourne weather to be warmer, so that 10C feels like the Arctic? What is it about temperatures, and mental expectations of place and temperature, which makes the same weather in one place lovely, and in another, freezing? While I'm on the topic, why are the Solstices, etc in the US in the middle of the months, while in Australia the start of the seasons are on the first of the month? Surely one should not be messing about with solstices and equinoxes. (Are they equinoxi?!) I considered all of this as I had a perfect, wintery morning. I took the train one extra stop, bringing me to the middle of the CBD. I got off the train and started walking towards school. I strolled my way down Elizabeth St, stopping for a 'marble mocha' (read: all white chocolate with a scrap of that awful coffee stuff thrown in. Trust me, more sugar and milk and fat than coffee.), stopping in various book and magazine stores...I was all rugged up in the brown squishy Banana Republic sweater I stole from my brother. I felt - well, just GREAT. Of course, it was about 10C or so...fabulously cold enough to be cozy but warm enough not to be freezing. Winter (well, Melbourne winters) - for me alternate between 'it's so damn cold in this city' to 'ahhhh...brown squishy sweater bliss.' One major bonus to 10C in Melbourne as opposed to 10C Denver? The lack of that infamous 'wind chill factor'....