snow!

I mentioned something a few days ago about winter maybe having come--it has. Most of the southern part of the country got lots of wind and snow including us, but we were on the northern edge so half the time it was freezing rain and not as much wind. I've learned two new words through all this: viscol and lapovita, blizzard and sleet.

It's wonderful, though. I can hear the Colombian teasing me, saying the Southern in me has converted. Never ever! Just a handful of other cultures (and climates?) mixed in these days. An observation about a place that's used to snow: first, regarding life going on as usual, nothing closes. Back home, if it flurried even, all the schools closed and there were about two gallons of milk left in the whole grocery store. Here, if you ask whether X activity will still be taking place due to the weather, they laugh. In our defense, in my beautiful Wilmington we have hurricanes and other epic weather, and our campus floods pretty often. So what do we do? We paddle to class on surfboards, in kayaks/canoes and otherwise wade and swim our way about.

This snow-as-something-commonplace is still new enough to me to wonder in it, however. I like the smell of it, can remember it from the few times it's snowed back home. Something metallic. Like the way a penny tastes. Part of me wants to use the word tangy, but it's all wrong--but think the sharpness of citrus without all the tropical imagery.

And it's still there, still outside, hardly any of it melted away. I don't expect it will in the next few days, either, as the forecast says the high sometime next week will be -14C (that's -6.8F, friends--that is polar). But I've found when you finally learn how to dress for the cold (and the wind's not blowing) it's much more enjoyable. And speaking of, two more weeks and I will be on the mountain!

It's been a good month, a good start to the year. I am thankful for this, and so going to Rasnov is no longer appealing primarily because it's not Pitesti. There are lots of reasons I love being in Rasnov and I'm looking forward to going with those reasons in mind. Speaking of, I've got a lot more responsibility this go around and it's going to put me in front a lot more than I usually like (in Romanian, of course). So if you think about it, pray for me?

Now, off to attend to other things related to the snow... like figuring out what to do with my clothes hanging in the (sort-of enclosed) balcony which are currently frozen.