The move to Boston has been interesting to me in one way in particular: gobs of people commented to me before we moved about how they hoped I'd be able to survive New England winters. My mom and I laughed about this just today, actually. Some people who worried about the Alabamian v. New England Winters didn't know I had lived in Ukraine, and some people just forgot, I guess. That being a part of my personal history, I came to Boston fully stocked in the wardrobe department (although that needed a little tweaking after we found out about Claire Bear) and was pretty mentally prepared for what winter would be like.
While in Ukraine, I blogged on more than a few occasions about the weather. The winter in Ukraine lasts for a loooooooong time. It's miserably cold (like, the negative 20's on the regular). And gray (one January, I literally counted one (1) day out of thirty (30) that the sun shone...and it was the coldest day of the month). And icy. And ridiculously inconvenient. I had people comment on blogs and leave me messages on Facebook about how it sounded like I was rather bitter about the winter weather and about how much they like snow and thought it would be neat to have so much. I remember thinking, "well, you would be a tiny bit bitter, too, if you lived here in this severity of winter for months on end."
Now that I've experienced this weekend in the U.S., I have a new perspective on others' perspectives of my Ukrainian winter experience. It boils down to this: media. This storm in Boston was definitely not a regular day in the neighborhood, but it was also not terribly different from weather that I lived with in Ukraine. The difference in all my Southern connections' responses was that the media covered this Boston weather. People saw pictures and video and heard commentary about it, so they were concerned and impressed. Nobody here really pays that much attention to Ukrainian weather (seriously, Ukrainians don't pay that much attention to it), so my dwelling on it through my blog in Ukraine baffled folks, I guess. So enlightening this weekend has been.
Being in Boston for this kind of weather, though, has been much nicer than in Ukraine. Here are a few reasons:
1. There are plows that run regularly.
2. The government makes decisions like the travel ban (cuts down on accidents and stranded travelers), public transportation shut down, and parking bans were instituted (again, to cut down on vehicle-related issues).
3. The sidewalks get shoveled and salted.
4. Businesses shut down early so that everyone would have time to get home before things got serious.
These are not things that happen in Ukraine. Snow just keeps getting packed down over and over so that everything is super icy all the time, and nothing shuts down for snow. Like, ever. I trudged many a kilometer in deep snow or on super slick surfaces to get to classes or church or other events. No one even batted an eyelash.
So, overall, this weekend's weather has been far more enjoyable for me than I expected. Brad thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. He's never been in weather like this before, so it was really exciting for him to watch the progress. We watched a movie Friday night, and about every 20 minutes, Brad would pause it so he could go watch the snow. We did our best to document things photographically. I think the most impressive part of the storm was how quickly so much snow collected. We had two feet in 24 hours, which is rather staggering.
Mom reminded me that I should be taking pictures, so Friday afternoon, I grabbed this one. It had been snowing for a few hours. I took this while standing inside our front door. Note: our car is not out here. We had to park her around the corner.
This is the same shot as the one above...probably four or so hours later. Maybe less.
Around 10:00 pm-ish, we decided to bundle up and venture out for a few minutes. Excuse the blurry shot. We were in a hurry.
Look how bundle-y Brad is.
That's my rainboot-clad leg. The snow came *almost* to the top of my boot.
Here's my car. She was parked on more of a main thoroughfare.
This is the back end; we were really entertained at what the wind did to the snow on the back.
This is the same shot out of our front door...the next morning. Remember how we used to be able to see the tires on this black car in the foreground?
The window above our kitchen sink is ground-level, so we had snow all piled up against it.
Our street (that red brick building in the foreground on the right is our building).
My car, Saturday morning.
This is the reservoir that's near our house. It was frozen over and snowy.
More reservoir.
And then, we ended up in Narnia.
Later Saturday night, I discovered that Brad had never had snow cream. Obviously, we had to make some. Here are our supplies.
Brad's excitement about snow cream.
Finished product. Tasted a lot better than it looks. Promise.
That's a little taste of our snowy weekend. We had some friends over during the day on Saturday; they trekked through all the snow just to eat homemade pizza and play games with us. Good folks. Sunday, church was canceled. What with the parking ban still in effect and public transportation shut down, there wasn't really a way for any of the congregation to get there. Today, Brad dug the car out of her snowy coat. We didn't take her anywhere, but he thought he might as well get on it. The snow is starting to melt, get slushy, and turn browny-gray, so it's not as nice anymore. I guess we're back to real life.
We are just so very thankful that the baby didn't decide that she wanted to come about a month early; not entirely sure how we would have gotten to the hospital... Good girl, Claire! Now, let's all pray that we don't have anymore crazy snow storms between now and then, ok?
No comments:
Post a Comment