What is cold?

December 9, 2009 - Today it’s -31….. (just let that sink in for a moment).

How does that feel you might think. Well, it’s not that bad. Of course you need good clothing, else you wouldn’t last 5 minutes. Without a cap for instance your ears will start to hurt after about 2 minutes. But it’s a bearable cold, probably because of the low humidity. The snow is very dry, a type of powdersnow, so it doesn’t stick to your clothes if you fall/play/run. Your clothes don’t get dirty and wet either and you don’t have to scrape your windows. And the weather is sunny and clear, so taking nice pictures is easy and the views are breathtaking.

But it’s a lot of trouble. Every time you go outside, you have to dress up warm. If you get to the store and you want to take Buck out of the car, it means you have to put his cap on, then his mittens, close his jacket and then out of the car. And if you’re back from the store, the same thing in reverse order. The furnace runs at full speed at home. This makes the air very dry and you need moisturizer and lipcream to prevent your skin from dehydrating. And at night, you must not forget to “plug in” your car or it simply won’t start in the morning (the cold effects the battery). And the fuel consumption is astonishing, you barely make 10 km to 1 liter (because of the cold air).

Another simple lesson: we went to fill gas and I pick up the nozzle barehanded. Well, I really had to wait for several seconds before I could get my right hand back. If you can get used to these kind of things and you take your time to get around, the cold is not difficult to handle. And it’s good to know that you will get 5 months of summer in return with temperatures between 25 and 30 degrees Celsius above zero. At least a white Christmas is guaranteed this year