Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Oh, snow in December? No way...

Leoprint - the king of patterns.

   Imagine yourself in the middle of hissing sounds. Those sounds come closer and die out, they tell you about the rest, the neverending rest in the white, soft, impeccable bed of sparkle. Everything around seems as if taken from a fairy tale. There are many different fairy tales, this one is made of the hissing void. The wind on your face comes as if mountains breathed into you. The strong, primordial breath of the caves and halls deep inside, where the dark corners are even darker because they never knew of the light. You can almost hear the whisper, the voice, husky and sharp, yet barely audible. The voice tells you about frozen clouds where no bird dares to fly.
And the hissing sounds are accompanied by snowflakes that burn your skin in their final flight. The wind makes the air smells of ammonia and blood... The whole air sparkles, the fireflies of snow fall from the sky and you have this eerie feeling you are treading on diamonds in the middle of some maelstrom of cutting needles...

I hate it.


Yes, snow. You see how delighted I am...
   
No, not a snow, actually... a Siberia falling down here!! It all started on Sunday, but looked like some pansy coat of no more than 2 cm. So I thought to myself: "Ah well, this will melt in no time". And I guess this "no time" will last till March. Monday started all white with 30 cm deep cover of snow. The city was paralysed, yet I somehow I managed to not to be that much late for work, and even half of my students came. Not bad. Yesterday, apart from being cold, was not much of a new snow and I hoped I can melt all this sh*t away with my burning love. Nope. It's some kind of sarang-proof snow, dammit!
Today, no, 12* below zero is not much in the morning, so I was secretly cursing all snow here while trying to get somehow to the bus stop. Imagine the cover of loose, powdery snow and just under this - a hard coat of glassy ice. Oh, I wasn't aware I could make such a graceful figure skater. I saw, during my classes, that heavens may want to punish me for drooling too much lately, but I couldn't even imagine the whole perfidy of the cold, grey skies. I finished all my classes around 4 pm, and was pushed back inside the big, old hall of the building by the wind when I tried to leave. I braced myself and winded myself with my 2-metres scarf and bravely stepped outside.
A blizzard.
   Usually it takes me 10 minutes to go to the bus stop. After half an hour I finally reached my point looking like a happy snowman. Around 100 of other snowmen were waiting for a bus that was already 20 minutes late. And mind you, this is the very starting point of this bus. Meaning - not a one returned from the route. When one finally came, I was so happy to have the standing place inside it, so I couldn't think about the snow from someone's jacket melting and dropping on my head. The next stop for this bus is maybe 500 metres away. And we finally get there after 40 minutes. Don't ask me how.
We left this stop and after 80 metres, or maybe even a full 100, the bus stopped in the middle of the road. The road was slightly upwards. The bus stopped and said in bus-language: "F*ck you all, I'm not going". It took 15 minutes of trying to move the frozen (I guess) engine, but after this heroic yet futile try, the driver opened the middle door and let those who wanted out. I couldn't get fast enough (ahahahaha!!) to the door, they closed, and we waited another long, endless 15 minutes. This time door were open for a bit longer, so I manged to escape. Oh, air! No matter how prickling! Somehow I got to the next stop seeing only my boots and people when they were 2 meters from me. And this time I was hesitant about taking another bus, but I checked the special line for buses, and I thought inside my freezing mind: "Fine, at least I will not freeze to death". And the distance that usually takes 10 minutes to go, now it took over 40 minutes.
To sum up: it takes me 10 minutes to go from one stop to the last one when I go to work. Now the same distance took 2 hours.
Complete chaos.
And some pictures of a beautiful snow and winter. Beautiful for those who can drink from coconuts I guess.
Three first pics were taken on my way back on Monday. The last one today, while waiting for the second bus.




The loong, looong lines of cars made me laugh, I bet they are there even now, 2 hours since I'm back. But at least the blizzard silenced a bit then.

If anyone wants it, please don't hesitate, but take it. Take it all!